In my classes, I jump on almost any excuse to highlight a particular word and force my students to take it back to its point of origin. I’ve done this for a zillion years, and I’m still doing this.

It is , of course, the high point of their day something they’re used to now, and have even come to expect. Well, today it might have been a high point.

Today, we were discussing grammar via a selection in the text that highlighted legal precedures. The words ‘testimony,’ ‘testify,’ and ‘testimonial’ kept coming up.

Coming up. Mwahahahahahaha. . . . .

Although there are some who do not agree, many scholars, theologians, and historians DO agree that the word in all its aspects hearkens back to. . . . testicles.

Some of the ancients swore in court by holding on to their testicles. In the Old Testament, Abraham’s servant swore an oath by placing his hand “under the thigh” of his master. (This is a euphemism for ‘penis.’ The ancients seldom used the word itself because it was considered sacred.) (See laughter above.)

Jacob tricked his brother out of his inheritance, but he didn’t get blessed until after he wrestled with the angel -  when an oath was made for a blessing – by putting his hands on the angel’s testicles. And many scholars believe that the “sinew that shrank” was actually. . . .well, you know. And we are advised not to eat it.

Hey, no problem here.

Well, actually, there is a problem here. The problem is that now I have this stupid Twisted Christmas song running through my head:

Grahbe Yahbalz like Michael Jackson,
Fa la la la la, la la la la. . . .

Well, you get the picture. Now try to remove the picture. Not so easy, is it.

I am really not a crude person, at least not most of the time. I am really a gentle person. But life can be so darn funny, it would be inconsiderate not to laugh.

P.S. Do not confuse ‘testicles’ with any of his brothers, such as Pericles, Sophocles, or Heracles.

P.P.S. Yes, I said Heracles. Hercules is just. . . . wrong. I’d blame Disney, because even though I love Disney I like to blame Disney for plotlines gone perverted, but people were saying and spelling it wrong long before Disney stepped in. The word is “Heracles.” Not “Hercules.” He was named for Hera. Heracles.   Hera hated him, as she hated all her husband’s children by other women, but he was her namesake, nevertheless.

This is how I lecture.  Come on over.

You may now go back to your usual programming.

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 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.”

Mamacita says:  I’m guessing that many most bloggers will be posting tributes this weekend, and telling the blogosphere ‘where we were’ when the planes hit the World Trade Center. Here is mine. This is actually the second third fourth fifth sixth seventh time I’ve posted this on 9/11, so if it seems familiar, you’re not crazy. Well, not on this issue, anyway.

==

The morning began like any other; we stood for the Pledge of Allegiance, and sat back down to watch Channel One News, which had been taped at 3:00 that morning in the school library, thanks to the timer. But Channel One News didn’t come on.

Instead, the secretary’s voice, over the intercom, told the teachers to “please check your email immediately.” We did. And we found out what had happened.

I scrolled down the monitor and read the end of the message. The superintendent had ordered all teachers to be absolutely mum all day about the tragedy. We were not to answer any questions from students, and we were especially not to offer any information to them.

The day went by in a blur. Many parents drove to the school, took their kids out, and brought them home. Between classes, frightened groups of students gathered in front of their lockers and whispered, gossiped, and cried, and begged us for information. By that time, the superintendent’s order had been seconded by the principals, and we were unable to give these terrified kids any information. In the computer labs, the MSN screens told the 8th graders the truth, but they, too, were instructed NOT to talk about it to the other students. Right, like THAT happened. The story was being repeated by 8th graders, and it was being told bloody-killing-deathtrap-you’re next-video-game-style.

At noon, many of the students were picked up by parents and taken home or out for lunch. Those few who returned had a big tale to tell. The problem was, the tale was being told by children, and few if any of the facts were straight. The tale was being told scary-style, and the atmosphere in the building got more and more strained. We are only a few miles away from an immensely large Navy base, where ammunition and bombs are made, and we’ve always known it was a prime target, which means, of course, that we are, too. Many of my children’s parents worked there. The base was locked down and those parents did not come home that night.

Reasonable questions were answered with silence, or the statement: “You’ll find out when you get home.”

This, added to all the rumors and gossip spread by children, turned my little sixth graders into terrified toddlers.

As teachers, we were furious and disgusted with the superintendent’s edict. We wanted to call all the students into the gym and calmly tell them the truth in words and ways that would be age-appropriate. We wanted to hug them and assure them that it was far away and they were safe. We asked for permission to do this, and it was denied. Our orders were ‘silence.’ We hadn’t been allowed to hug them for years, of course, but there are times and places when hugs ARE appropriate. No matter, the superintendent stood firm: no information whatsoever.

The day went by, more slowly than ever a day before. The students grew more and more pale and frightened. We asked again, and again he stood firm that no information whatsoever was to be given out.

By the end of the day, the children were as brittle as Jolly Rancher Watermelon Sticks.

A few minutes before the bell rang to send them home, a little girl raised her hand and in a trembling voice that I will never forget, asked me a question. “Please, is it true that our parents are dead and our houses are burned down?”

That was it. I gathered my students close and in a calm voice explained to them exactly what had happened. I told them their parents were alive and safe, and that they all still had homes to go to.

The relief was incredible. I could feel it cascading all through the room.

I was, of course, written up for insubordination the next day, but I didn’t care. My phone had rung off the hook that night with parents thanking me for being honest with their children. That was far more important than a piece of paper that said I’d defied a stupid inappropriate order meted out by a man who belonged in the office of a used car lot, not in a position of power over children’s lives.

The next day at school, in my room, we listened to some of the music that had been ‘specially made about the tragedy. I still have those cd’s and I’ve shared them with many people over the past few years.  It is true that kids cried again, but it was good to cry. It was an appropriate time to cry. We didn’t do spelling or grammar that day. There are times when the “business as usual” mindset simply is not appropriate.

I wish administrators would realize that kids are a lot tougher than we might think. Kids are also a lot more sensitive that we might realize. It’s an odd combination, and we as educators must try our best to bring the two ends of the emotional spectrum together and help these kids learn to deal with horrible happenings and still manage to get through the day as well as possible.

Ignoring an issue will not help. Morbidly focusing on an issue will not help. Our children are not stupid, and to treat them as such is not something that builds trust. Our children deserve answers to their questions.

How can we expect our children to learn to find a happy medium if we don’t show them ourselves, when opportunities arise?

September 11, 2001 – September 11, 2011. God bless us, every one.

Mamacita says:  I first saw this cartoon a few years ago when I was thin and I thought it was funny.

Of course, I didn’t know then that it wasn’t a cartoon at all, but an actual documented photo of evil recurring entities, plotting to destroy the self-esteem of a lady who looks a lot like me and who is really very nice unless you piss her off.

Years ago, I gave in to them then out of pain and frustration and nasty medications that invited these entities to take up residence without even feeding them, but this time? I’m going to win.

Example: There were doughnuts in the lounge today at the college, but I didn’t touch them. Of course, I am not all that fond of doughnuts but even so.

Thank goodness there wasn’t a big bowl of M&M’s in the lounge. I’d be defeated instantly.

Plain or peanut: I’m not particular in my obsession for them. Obsession, I’m telling you.

It’s not my fault. I should be getting government money, in fact.  It’s nothing that can be controlled by any normal means.  It’s a disability.

I have OCM&MD.*

I’d stop if I could. Don’t let them near me. It’s not my fault. Pay me.

*Obsessive/Compulsive M&M Disorder

Someone asked me what I really wanted to do in my classroom.

What do I really want to do in my classroom?  What have I ALWAYS wanted to do in my classroom?

I want to take each student, individually and collectively, by the shoulders and give them a shake and lift them up in the air and tell them to REACH.  I want to yell in their faces that life is short and the universe is amazing.  I want to point to the night sky and tell them that if they need perspective, it’s all up there.  I want to tell them that a book is a little universe full of awesome people doing cool things.  I want to tell them to play.  I want them to laugh at a lot of things that make dull people turn up their noses.  I want them to comprehend that each of them is blazingly beautiful, inside and out.  I want them to realize that each of them has a story to tell that nobody else in the world knows, and that we all want to hear it.  I want them to understand that mature adults aren’t really mature according to normal standards, and that we must be mature to realize that.  I want them to never, ever, lose their sense of “play.”  I want to tell them to turn off the TV and go outside; that’s where the cool stuff is.

I want them to hang out with people who don’t look like them.

I want them to try new things and go new places.  I want them to economize on necessities and splurge on creativity and imagination.

I want them to soar, higher and higher, in their heads if nowhere else.  I want them to not be afraid to venture forth and make fools of themselves.

I want them to sing in public and climb on the monkey bars no matter how old they might be.

I want to tell them not to let anyone tell them something can’t be done, because a lot of the time, it just needed a different perspective.

I want to help them comprehend that most awesome things are not comprehensible, just appreciable, and I want them to appreciate awesome things.

I want them to understand that, except for childbirth and insemination and peeing standing up, both sexes can do pretty much anything they want and should be able to do those things without any kind of put-down from others.

I want to show them that it is our differences that make us who we are, that nothing can be truly beautiful without a flaw, and that following the crowd didn’t work out all that well for lemmings.

I want them to stand up for what is right and to speak out when speaking out is needed.  I want them to understand that bad politicians are elected by people who choose not to vote.  I want them to volunteer, and share, and take good care of their own and other people’s possessions, and ask before touching.

I want them to understand that everything is connected to everything else, that nothing really stands alone, not even the cheese.

And, of course, learn the 8 parts of speech and the basic spelling rules, so they won’t look like tools when they express themselves in any and all ways.  :)

And world peace.

Now, how do I get all that on a departmental syllabus?

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.)

The students who don’t seem to do as well at this level are those fresh out of high school. Not all of them, of course, but of those who have and give the most problems, most are right out of high school.

This semester, every student who has asked for special privileges or exceptions, or who has excessive unexcused absences, or who has behaved poorly or inappropriately in any way, or who has plagiarized, or who has expected paper and pens handed out like Halloween candy, has been a younger student, a year or less out of high school.

I wonder sometimes if it would be better for us as a society to require at least a year of full-time employment before a student is allowed to go on to college. Would it help these young people develop a sense of pride in workmanship, in rules, in discipline, in a paycheck? If even one student learned – and probably the hard way – that a sense of entitlement and a fierce, protective mommy are actually detrimental to the personal advancement and growth of an adult student/citizen/worker, it would be worth it.

A year of full-time employment might also help a student to decide if college is really the route he/she should follow. Hopefully, it would be, but maybe not right away.

Then again, for many students, a year in a factory, or in construction, or on a farm, or in retail or foods, might well be the deciding factor in a kid’s decision to go back to school and get the kind of education that would mean never having to do such work again.

Before all non-athletic field trips were prohibited here, our high school used to take all the juniors to the local General Motors plant. Back then, probably half of the kids would end up working there in a few years anyway, and of the remaining students, some recoiled in horror at the very thought (after seeing vats of molten metal and hearing the ’scared straight’ anecdotes of the workers) and applied themselves anew to preparing for college, while others listened, fascinated, and changed their track to a Rose Hulman/Purdue engineering mode.

But oh well, no more field trips except for the athletes. Those buses were needed to transport the teams a hundred miles to a game, anyway, which is of course more important than some life-changing field trip that might help a student make a decision that would put his life on a career track. Go, team, go.

One of the problems is, most of the big factories, those places where the non-college people were pretty much guaranteed a good job with benefits, are gone now, farmed out to other countries, outsourced, so the Mothership can pay the workers less and therefore make more money for themselves. But who do they think is going to buy all those cheaply-made cars and other merchandise? Their laid-off workers? This is not a very good way to promote brand loyalty, or any other kind of loyalty. People who have no job are not in the market to buy very many things, hello, CEO dimwads.

My student population is motivated in many different ways. It’s not like a high school classroom, where the goal is (sadly) to make a high score on a standardized test. That’s no motivation for a student. Or for anybody else except big government and clueless administration. No, my students’ motivations are important, and life-changing. If they had been allowed to tour the General Motors plant, some of the decisions they are making might have been made earlier, but that’s a moot point. My students are back in school and they want very much to do well. Most of them are. A few of them aren’t, but I haven’t given up hope yet. School takes some getting used to. As their instructor, I don’t have to worry about prepping my students to do well on one big stupid poorly-written standardized test. I just have to worry about helping them find success, and NOT the kind where I diddle about with the statistics so students who are doing poorly will think they’re doing well and have fake high self esteem. I mean, REAL success. Genuine self-esteem.  The earned kind. There is no other.  Anything not personally earned is a joke.

At this level, they get what they get, and they know that; therefore, what they get is a source of pride. Or shame, as the case may be. Both are earned results, and every kid in the universe knows the difference, and why some kids get one and some the other. The only people who don’t seem to understand are those fierce protective mothers, administrators, and the PC cops.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fierce protective mother. But a parent who consistently stands between his/her child and the results of that child’s actions, is doing the kid no favors. Let the consequences fall, and let the kid deal with them. He/she earned them, after all. And not all consequences are bad, remember. Let the kid reap the good stuff, too, IF it was earned. Not actually and truly and equally earned? It means less than nothing, and is worse than a bad joke.

Oh, and in case there’s a sentient person out there somewhere who didn’t know: those gift-grades, given so a slacker can “graduate” with his/her classmates, are BAD, BAD THINGS. A student who chooses to earn a zero should get that zero, not the 65% that another student might have worked hard for. Whoever thought up that 65% minimum should be dragged out into the streets and shot. We all get what we earn, and if we don’t earn it, we shouldn’t get it, whether it’s points or percentages or salaries or anything, in fact, in the world.  We do not deserve what we did not earn for ourselves.

I’m proud of my students. I will miss them, after this week. They did well.

Except for those few slackers, of course, but you know what? They had the same chances and choices as the others, and they chose poorly. Let the consequences of those poor choices fall on their heads, and let them deal with it themselves.

Those who worked hard? Congratulations. Those who did not? Well, there’s always the summer session, or the fall semester. Try again. And this time, do it right.

Cripes, I love my school and my students. I wouldn’t waste my meanness if I didn’t care. It takes too much effort.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charge with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

==

Mamacita says:  This is one of many poems Mrs. Chandler made us memorize in Junior English.  I am still amazed at the number of students who simply refused to do it and took a zero and didn’t give a tinker’s dam about it.

I know that many people do not believe in memorizing poetry or anything else because we can always look something up if we want or need to know it.  I am sorry for these people.

I love memorizing things and can sit back in my airplane seat, close my eyes, and read entire books in my head.  When we memorize something, we have it with us always.  We can entertain ourselves from within.  We are never bored.  We don’t need batteries.

Even cooler than those things:  we have tons of “stuff” to make connections with.  Remember, education is all about the connections.  The more we know, the more connections we can make.

I pity the little kids whose parents don’t help them learn nursery rhymes, poems, stories, and cool trivia before they begin kindergarten.  I don’t think a child can ever make up for all that lost and wasted time, and parents who don’t do this are selfish dysfunctional assholes lazy know-nothings.

Then again, we can’t miss Days or Oprah or the big game; sheesh.

I still despise the father who refused to drive his spelling Bee winning son to the radio station to compete against the winners from the other schools because he was tired and didn’t want to miss the big game on TV.  Whenever I see this man, I think of this.  Whenever I picture this man in my mind, I see a fat dirty guy in a wifebeater shirt, belching, stinking, and demanding beer after beer to be brought to him because he’s too worthless to get up off his ugly ass to get it himself.  This man is a prominent citizen (hahahahahaha), but I know what he really is.

He’s a selfish jerk who puts himself and his own wishes before the welfare of his children.

I hate this man, to be quite honest.

And this was over ten years ago.  Yes, I tend to hold a grudge against people who don’t do right by a child.

I frankly don’t care WHAT this man says or does now.  He may have changed his ways and become a nice guy, a model citizen, but I will never believe it.  He put himself before his son, and that is all I will ever think of when I see him.

Don’t piss me off.

I fear that my personality type goes against the grain of the poems I love best.  Wishful thinking on my part, maybe.

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.