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.

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?

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.

1.  To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. — George Washington (1789–1797)

2. I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessing on this house (the White House) and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof! — John Adams (1797–1801)

3. That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. — Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809)

4. I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. — James Madison (1809–1817)

5. It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. — James Monroe (1817–1825)

6. If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. — John Quincy Adams (1825–1829)

7. As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending. — Andrew Jackson (1829–1837)

8. The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity. — Martin Van Buren (1837–1841)

9. A decent and manly examination of the acts of the Government should be not only tolerated, but encouraged. — William Henry Harrison (1841)

10. Let it be henceforth proclaimed to the world that man’s conscience was created free; that he is no longer accountable to his fellow man for his religious opinions, being responsible therefore only to his God. — John Tyler (1841–1845)

11. No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure. — James Knox Polk (1845–1849)

12. I have no private purpose to accomplish, no party objectives to build up, no enemies to punish—nothing to serve but my country. — Zachary Taylor (1849–1850 )

13. May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not. — Millard Fillmore (1850–1853)

14. The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded. — Franklin Pierce (1853–1857)

15. I like the noise of democracy. — James Buchanan (1857–1861)

16. America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. — Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865)

17. If the rabble were lopped off at one end and the aristocrat at the other, all would be well with the country. — Andrew Johnson (1865–1869)

18. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate. — Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877)

19. It is now true that this is God’s Country, if equal rights—a fair start and an equal chance in the race of life — are everywhere secured to all. — Rutherford B. Hayes (1877–1881)

20. Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained. — James A. Garfield (1881)

21. I may be president of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s damned business. — Chester A. Arthur (1881–1885)

22. It is the responsibility of the citizens to support their government. It is not the responsibility of the government to support its citizens. — Stephen Grover Cleveland (1885–1889)

23. We Americans have no commission from God to police the world. — Benjamin Harrison — (1889–1893)

24. Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters. — Grover Cleveland (1893-1897)

25. Unlike any other nation, here the people rule, and their will is the supreme law. It is sometimes sneeringly said by those who do not like free government, that here we count heads. True, heads are counted, but brains also . . . — William McKinley (1897–1901)

26. The only man who makes no mistake is the man who does nothing. — Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909)

27. Politics, when I am in it, makes me sick. — William Howard Taft (1909–1913)

28. If you want to make enemies, try to change something. — Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921)

29. Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little. — Warren G. Harding (1921–1923)

30. Character is the only secure foundation of the state. John Calvin Coolidge (1923–1929)

31. Absolute freedom of the press to discuss public questions is a foundation stone of American liberty. — Herbert Clark Hoover (1929–1933)

32. Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. — Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933–1945)

33. We need not fear the expression of ideas—we do need to fear their suppression. — Harry S. Truman (1945–1953)

34. There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure. — Dwight David Eisenhower (1953–1961)

35. If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. — John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1961–1963)

36. You ain’t learnin’ nothin’ when you’re talkin’. — Lyndon Baines Johnson (1963–1969)

37. Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you. Those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself. — Richard Milhous Nixon (1969–1974)

38. A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. — Gerald Rudolph Ford (1974–1977)

39. We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles. — James Earl Carter, Jr. (1977–1981)

40. We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around. And that makes us special among the nations of the earth. — Ronald Wilson Reagan (1981–1989)

41. The United States is the best and fairest and most decent nation on the face of the earth. — George Herbert Walker Bush (1989–1993)

42. There is nothing wrong in America that can’t be fixed with what is right in America. — William Jefferson Clinton (1993–2001)

43. Recognizing and confronting our history is important. Transcending our history is essential. We are not limited by what we have done, or what we have left undone. We are limited only by what we are willing to do. — George Walker Bush (2001-2009)

44. My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington. — Barack Obama (2009 – present)

Now, here are some trivia questions for you and your students:

Obama, our 44th president, is actually our 43rd president.  Why?

Kennedy, at 43,  was our youngest elected president, and the oldest was Reagan, who was 69. However, Kennedy was not our youngest president; who was?

Assassination attempts were made on nine presidents, but only four attempts were successful.  Which presidents were were actually assassinated, and which presidents survived the attempt?

Four presidents died in office, besides those who were assassinated.  Can you name them?

For which president’s wife was the term “First Lady” first used?

Has the U.S. ever had an unmarried president?

How many divorced presidents have we had?

What president was not elected by the people?

Have we ever had a president who was not a U.S. citizen?

Several 19th century presidents were not college graduates, but were there any 20th century presidents who never attended any college?

Let’s talk height:  Lincoln was tallest at 6’4″, and Madison was the shortest at 5’4″.

How many of our presidents had also been vice president?

How many presidential wives gave birth while living in the White House?

We assume that most deceased presidents are buried in Arlington Cemetery.  How many presidents are buried there?

Only one president was elected unanimously.  Who was it?

Who was the first White House bride?

James Madison was the first president to wear a certain type of clothing.  What was he the first president to wear?

Which president liked to go skinnydipping in the Potomac River? (He was also the first president to be photographed!)

Which president and first lady always spoke Dutch at home?

The first vice president to become president upon the death of a president never made an inaugural address, and never ran for that office.  He also had the most children – 15!  This presidents second wife started the tradition of playing “Hail to the Chief” whenever a president appeared. Which president was he?

Which president’s wife hosted the first annual White House Thanksgiving dinner?

Who was the first president to have a Christmas tree in the White House?

Which president’s wife taught him to read and write?

Which president held the first annual Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn?

Which president liked to answer the White House phone himself?

After the White House was wired for electricity, which president was afraid to use it?

The first president to campaign by telephone was also the first president to ride in an automobile. Who was he?

What was the original name of the White House?

Who was the first president to own a car?

Who put a flock of sheep on the White House lawn, and sold the wool to make money for the Red Cross?  He was also our first president to earn a PhD.

Which president wore size 14 shoes?

Which president donated his salary to charity and approved “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the national anthem?

Which president served his entire presidency without the use of his legs?

Which president was first to travel in a submarine and first to give a televised speech?  He used to get up at dawn to practice the piano for two hours.

Which president, while playing football at West Point, was injured when he tried to tackle Jim Thorpe?

Which president once worked as a fashion model and a Yellowstone park ranger?

This speed-reading president was the first president born in a hospital. Who was he?

Who was our first Rhodes Scholar president?

Who is our only president to have won a Grammy Award?

18 presidents never served in Congress.  Who are they?

Eight of our presents have been left-handed.  Which ones?

Fourteen presidents were once vice presidents.  Name them.

Enjoy.

This term also refers to the fact that back in ancient times, a worker who was hired at the eleventh hour of a twelve-hour workday was paid the same as those who had worked all twelve hours.

After World War II, Armistice Day was changed to Veterans’ Day.  Many people do not realize that this is an international holiday, observed by many other nations as well as by the United States.

Schools do not teach students much about World War I, and I have never really understood why.  Most social studies classes, unless it’s a specialized elective, study the Civil War (Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn) and then make a giant leap over everything else so they can briefly mention World War II (Hitler was bad) and then leap again and remind students that JFK was assassinated (“I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris”) (“I am a jelly doughnut!”)  all just in time for summer vacation.  I learned most of what I know about World War I from reading L.M. Montgomery’s Rilla of Ingleside, and yes, it’s another Anne book; this one is mostly about Anne and Gilbert’s daughter Rilla. I cry every time I read it, even though I know what’s going to happen.  You’ll cry, too.  This book was written eighteen years before Anne of Ingleside, which takes place when the children are very young and was was sort of “inserted” into the list of Anne books, but that’s all right.  I would imagine, though, that at the time the books were being written and published, that might have been confusing to readers.  Anne of Ingleside has an ominous vision in it, that comes true in Rilla of Ingleside.  I have not been able to re-read Anne of Ingleside ever since I realized this.

L.M. Montgomery is one of my favorite authors.

Which of her characters are you?  I’m, ironically, Jane of Lantern Hill, which is another of my favorite books.  If you aren’t familiar with these titles, my goodness, get yourself to the library right away.  This is unacceptable!  Anne might be Montgomery’s best-known heroine, but there are many others!  I think my ultimate favorite Montgomery heroine is Emily; her story is told in a lovely trilogy that thrills me to the core.

Ahem.  Sorry.  In any lesson, often the tangents are more interesting and teach us more than the actual lesson.

On this day, let us honor the men and women who keep us safe, both past and present.

I’m not a Clinton fan, neither him nor her, but I do like this quotation by him: “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”

I also like this one by Calvin Coolidge:  “The issues of the world must be met and met squarely. The forces of evil do not distain preparation, they are always prepared and always preparing… The welfare of America, the cause of civilization will forever require the contribution, of some part of the life, of all our citizens, to the natural, the necessary, and the inevitable demand for the defense of the right and the truth.”

And I’ll end this post with this one, by FDR:  “When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him.”

God bless America.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P.P.S.  I guess I got started on it.

It looks like you.

And why should you be interested?

Because it could have been you. Maybe it was you.

Women remove their bras for many reasons. You know them, so I won’t list them. But I will add this one: so we can check for lumps.

I would, of course, be participating in the Army of Women’s “Blog For Your Breasts” project in any case, since I am a human being, a woman, and an owner of breasts, but I have a particular interest in this project because I love my sister and I loved my mother-in-law.

Several years ago, my sister discovered a lump. She immediately contacted her doctor, who saw her right away, but even so, by the time her doctor saw the lump, it had grown bigger. He put her in the hospital, and the lump, along with pretty much everything touching or near the lump, was removed.

My sister underwent chemo. Our mother drove a hundred miles every few days to take her. My sister has very few memories of those trips; chemo takes it out of you in more ways than one. Her hair fell out, and even though she works for a big insurance company, that company refused to pay for a wig so she could continue to work. She finally did get one, however, and knowing my sister, I’m betting the company finally agreed to foot the bill. Harsh as the chemo was, it did the trick, and my sister has been cancer-free for several years now. She makes jokes about being lop-sided, but with the exception of her chest, everything about her, physically and mentally, including her hair, which grew back super-curly, is intact, for which all who love her, and that definitely includes me, are grateful. Every time I see her, I think about that time, those weeks in which we weren’t sure we were going to be allowed to keep her around, and I am so grateful she beat the odds that tried so hard to beat her down.

To be truthful, when it comes to this sister and any kind of odds, I’d bet on my sister every time. She’s tough and she’s good and she’s ALIVE. Love you, Teresa. Always have; always will.

My mother-in-law discovered her lump many years ago, but she didn’t tell anybody. By the time she showed it to her sister, it was huge. By the time she showed it to me, it was even huge-er – and black.

We had to bully her into going to the doctor; she was convinced that if she continue to ignore it and pray, it would go away without any effort on her part. I guess she forgot that God helps those who help themselves, because she put all the onus on God and flatly refused to do any of the work herself for years. Meanwhile, the lump put out roots and waxed strong.

Finally, she let us take her to the doctor, who, naturally, was horrified, both at the state of the lump AND at the state of her stubbornness. She underwent surgery; the lump was removed, as were as many of its clinging roots as possible. However, those of us who garden know what roots can do; they can live for a long time when the bulk of the growth is long gone; those roots can fester, evolve, and grow. Those roots can put out rootlets far from the original root. Think “strawberries.”

It was only when someone at work knocked her down and broke her hip that we discovered the extent of the malignant spread. The growth had grown, and poured itself forth throughout her entire body. Still, she upheld her claim that she would be healed without any help from humanity. I admired her faith, but I can’t admire her refusal to work along with her faith. (I believe that attitudes like this often dissuade others from “believing,” in fact. Sigh.)

Again, we bullied her into undergoing radiation treatments. From the very start, she was convinced that these treatments would not help her; I wonder still if that attitude was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In the fall of 2008, she was still getting around, driving, eating, and working three days a week as a newspaper reporter. She retired in December of 2008. In February of 2009, she was gone.

Many people, including me, firmly believe that if she’d had that lump taken care of back in the mid-nineties when she first found it, she’d still be alive today. I suppose part of it was a generational and upbringing thing; she didn’t want to expose her breasts to a male doctor, and breasts are a private part that aren’t supposed to be exposed at all. She was brought up VERY strictly, with many rules and regulations that were ridiculous. It’s a bloody wonder she was able to rise above many of them at all. Sigh. She was much loved, and will always be missed. She was a wonderful mother-in-law, and was always very good to me.

Both of these women were brave, courageous, and bold, just like Hugh O’Brien’s Wyatt Earp: “Long live (their) fame, and long live (their) glory, and long may (their) story be told.”

However, if “it” should happen to you, please follow my sister’s example, not my mother-in-law’s.

Want to know more about the Army of Women? Click here.

Want to get involved? Click here.

This post is a rerun, but before Banned Books Week becomes just a memory, I want to share with you again this memo from a college-educated man who was in charge of a building full of impressionable middle school students.

I firmly believe that any memo, letter, or piece of written information that is sent by an administrator, should contain no idiocy or errors.

I also believe that any memo, letter, or piece of written information that is sent by an administrator that DOES contain idiocy or errors should be posted publicly and that the general public should be allowed to mock it.

I suppose that my belief that administrators should be required to be intelligent and able to proofread would be thrown out by the PC police.

This is the letter a principal gave me several years ago, demanding requesting that I take down my bulletin board about Banned Books Week. I had used that same bulletin board for over ten years, and in those earlier years, he had actually praised it for being timely and creative. That was, of course, before he saw Waldo on there.

This is the same school system that had a virtual meltdown because I was bringing in speakers; the curriculum director didn’t want me to bring in people from the outside to talk about careers because, and I quote, “it might give the students ‘ideas.’” These people volunteered their time, and would have continued to volunteer their time, and it would have been of enormous benefit to the students, but no. Ideas are scary, and, to the ignorant, dangerous.

A few years later, the same man who denied permission for me to bring in speakers for free, spent nearly a million dollars of taxpayer money to take all the middle school students to town and have paid speakers talk to them about the same thing I could have done for free. By this time, you see, the Trend Wheel had spun back around, and it was now permissible to give the students ‘ideas.’

One of those speakers represented General Motors, and her speech was excellent, although it didn’t sit well with administration. She spoke about high school ‘graduates’ for whom a diploma was nothing but a piece of paper that connoted untruths. She spoke about how an employer should have the right to assume that a diploma pretty much guaranteed literacy and general competence. She spoke about all the money big corporations were having to shell into remedial programs for employees who had diplomas, pieces of paper that represented four years of showing up and not much else. She spoke about how businesses would really appreciate a diploma that told the truth: that if a student had been graduated out of respect for really trying, the diploma should say so, discretely of course, but in terms that the business world would be able to interpret. If the student was just going through the motions of graduation for self-esteem’s sake, the diploma should say so. And if the diploma was rightfully earned because the student had become fully literate and generally competent and had genuinely and individually and truthfully learned how to care for himself/herself in the world in general, the business world should be able to see that kind of diploma and interpret it for what it was: a real diploma.

Oohh, the remarks that were scattered throughout the auditorium. And when we returned to the individual buildings, there was much talk of blueberries and self-esteem.

My friends are mostly lawyers, musicians, various businesspeople, and other educators. Before the edict went out, I often had one of them come to my classroom and talk about what they did all day, and then the students would ask questions. Silly me, I really thought it was helpful.

Sure, they asked my lawyer friends about their individual rights and stuff, but. . . . .

Oh. I get it.

We certainly can’t have our students understanding their basic civil rights and those of their fellow citizens of any age, now can we.

What a narrow escape.

P.S. A few years later, I dared to submit a speaker proposal for my classroom again, and it was again turned down, but this time the reason was different. Apparently, it was unfair to other students if one group got to have a speaker and others didn’t. I suggested that other teachers could just as easily invite a speaker into their classroom, too, but nobody else cared to go to the trouble, so I couldn’t, either.

Are our schools in trouble? Darn right they are, and most of it isn’t coming from the students.

Censorship and book banning, indeed. If our society gets any more politically correct, it will be so boring and insipid and cowardly, it will be indistinguishable from an ant colony.

Remember, if you don’t take the trouble to find out what’s going on and what people are saying about it, you won’t KNOW what’s going on.  Not to keep updated is to choose ignorance.  Choosing ignorance is one of the most horrible things a person can do, no matter what the topic.  Education is what separates the sheep from the goats, because not to understand that everything is connected to everything else, and that nothing exists in isolation, and how to connect these dots to form ideas and understanding, is to actively choose ignorance.  We can’t help being ignorant about things we’ve never been exposed to, but to choose non-exposure is to choose ignorance.  Oh, and those people who take great pride in refusing to learn?  They are ignorance, personified.  Harsh?  I don’t really think so.  In fact, I have not even begun to express my disgust for people who are able, yet actively choose to be ignorant.  We are all ignorant of many things, but if we continue to learn, to be less ignorant daily, we’re on our way.

Oh, and please don’t forget that ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing.  Not the same thing at all, at all.

Parents, professional educators, and all inhabitants of the planet, simply must keep learning.  If we stop learning, “they” might as well bury us, because such people are as good as dead. Worse, even, because dead people don’t bring others down.  Ignorant people do.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE, as Alastair Moody would say.  To choose ignorance is to choose a kind of death.

P.S.  When I took my beautiful daughter to her college dorm and went back home without her, itself a traumatic thing, “Less ignorant every day” became our rallying cry for her college education.  We still quote it, laughing, when we learn new things and share them.  Why don’t y’all use it, too?

Less ignorant daily.  Bring it on, universe.

My blog, my rules.  What up, dawggggg?

I admit it: too much Scrubs.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

But oh golly, I do love my job now!!!!