We drove up to the City and did some errands today- one of them being Hub’s attempt to return the defective HD scanner that destroyed his entire hard drive to Fry’s.

It went well. Go, Fry’s! I’ll continue to love you as long as you do what you’re supposed to do. One wrong move, of course, and I’ll nail you to the wall. For example? Boo, Hewlitt-Packard! We had to buy a new sound card today because your scanner software apparently blew the old one to smithereens. We did finally get the printer to work again, though.

Never cross a blogger.

On the way home, we stopped at Hub’s favorite restaurant, Jonathan Byrd’s. It’s not my favorite by a long shot, because I don’t like cafeterias, but the one who pays gets to choose, and I know he does love that restaurant.

There were two families sitting behind us. One of them had lovely well-behaved children who sat up straight, ate what was before them, spoke in an indoor voice, and behaved beautifully. They behaved like children, and I do love the giggle and chatter of a well-behaved child, but they behaved well.

The other family had five little boys who were as wild as unbroken mustangs. They were loud and wiggly and had no concept of an ‘indoor voice.’ Actually, neither did their parents, so it would have been amazing if the innocent children had been taught to behave properly in public.

These people were LOUD. Not obnoxious, really, for which we gave thanks, fasting, but simply LOUD. It was the kind of loud that can hyper a person into a frenzy.

When they finally left, there was a collective sigh of relief from everyone in the restaurant.

The well-behaved family watched the loud family leave with a look of amazement on their faces, parents and children alike.

It reminded me of my three beautiful borrowed Michigan children – now in their teens – who used to come down and stay a week with me during the summers: the most enjoyable week of my summers, it was. Sigh.

These three have always exhibited beautiful public behavior, even when they were tiny. One day, when they were still quite young, I took them to McDonald’s and, as usual, let them eat their ice cream first. (Hey, when children come to me for a vacation, I give them a VACATION.)

In a booth across from us was a family of wild animals, yelling, climbing, throwing things, grabbing each others’ food, you name an obnoxious public behavior and there it was, in the Beffurt McDonald’s, right across the floor from my three angels and me.

My borrowed kids stared in amazement, and when this awful family finally left, I whispered to them, “Now aren’t you glad your parents insisted that you always behave yourselves in public?”

As if in a chorus, all three children said, “YES!!”

In your family, who’s the boss? Hmm? Think hard. Who’s the boss? If it isn’t you and/or your spouse, you’re got trouble, and you’re going to have more.

Children are important. Children are the future. Children have a right to be loved and fed and clothed and hugged and honored and educated and respected. Did I mention “loved?” Yes? Well, it can’t be mentioned too often.

But children are NOT the bosses of our households. If yours is, please consider eating at home.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

The newest Carnival of Education is up, over at the Education Wonks! Head on over there and find out what’s going on in the world of education. How can you form a viable opinion if you don’t know what the issues are?

The title of yesterday’s post is from the novel “Good Morning, Miss Dove,” by Frances Gray Patton. This lovely novel was made into a movie in 1955, starring Jennifer Jones and pretty much every major and minor actor in the world. I love the book, I like the movie, but the stage play is simply dreadful.

Miss Dove is the stereotypical schoolteacher of the first half of the 20th century. She is an old maid by choice, although she was not without her own love story. Her clothes are dreadfully dowdy; she’s worn the same hat for thirty years. She has conducted her classes in exactly the same way ever since she first started teaching, at 18.

As the generations went by, parents criticized Miss Dove’s outdated methods, but since she had taught pretty much everyone in the town, nobody could shake the feeling that she was the BOSS and tell her to change her ways and get with the modern program.

In Miss Dove’s classroom, time stood still. In her classroom, every child was able to relax, because as long as he/she obeyed the rules, nothing bad could ever happen. Miss Dove was in charge, and Miss Dove knew how to make a child feel secure. Miss Dove looked for the good in each child, and she tried to instill in each student a love of and longing for personal virtue, goodness, and ethics. When she found a child with these qualities, it was the biggest thrill of her life.

“William Holloway started out with a gift rarer than mathematical genius or perfect pitch. A child in whom the ethical instinct was as innate as the function of breathing.”

In the other teachers’ rooms, sounds of mayhem were often heard, but as each child walked into the geography room, he/she instantly became calm and well-mannered and respectful. The occasional little boy who disrupted for ANY reason simply, at a look from Miss Dove, got up and walked over the the classroom sink, washed his own mouth out with soap, and sat back down.

In Miss Dove’s room, mountains were tall, deserts were dry, certain kinds of animals with certain dietary habits lived in each kind of earthly environment, ants tasted like sour pickles – that fact was in the textbook and to make sure, Miss Dove tasted an ant – “arctic” was spelled with a “c” in the middle, camels were not pretty beasts but could go for many days without water, and for many, many years, China was purple. No child left the Liberty Hill elementary school without bringing with him/her an extensive knowledge of world geography that would rival that of most college students, nowadays.

In Miss Dove’s room, knowledge of the world became knowledge of the varied cultures and peoples of the world. There was no name-calling or social “status” in Miss Dove’s room, and there were no put-downs of any kind, in Miss Dove’s room. Miss Dove knew that when a child feels secure, almost any child can learn.

In Miss Dove’s classroom, no child had to be afraid of what another child might say or do. No child had to fear having his/her pencil stolen or being mistreated in any way. In Miss Dove’s room, if a child kept his/her margins straight, sneezed into a handkerchief, paid attention, showed respect for everyone in the room, obeyed the teacher, and did what each student is supposed to do anyway, no harm could ever come to him/her. The geography room was a safe haven.

Schools should all be safe havens. Every room and hallway in every school should be a place where any student who obeys the rules and shows respect for everyone can relax, take a deep breath, and learn.

Schools who don’t enforce the rules, or which allow exceptions for the rules, or allow students who have no intention of obeying the rules and EVERY intention of hurting others – and disruption is a way of hurting others because it interferes with learning and that is a deliberate, hurtful thing to do – to remain in the school, are doing the majority of their students a great disservice.

We make fun of Miss Dove and everyone who looks, talks, and acts like Miss Dove, these days, but the truth is, when Miss Dove and her peers were allowed to be genuinely in charge of their classrooms, the vast majority of children liked it. Children were free to learn in Miss Dove’s room. Disruption of any kind was simply not tolerated, nor should it ever be. When children feel secure and safe, they learn.

It’s too bad teachers nowadays are not allowed to be as Miss Dove was allowed to be: the boss of her classroom, and woe befall any child who chose to be a pain in the neck. It just didn’t happen back then, and if by chance it DID happen, that child paid the price for his/her unfortunate choice of behavior.

Good morning, Miss Dove. I had you in second grade and I adored you. You treated us with respect, and demanded likewise from us. Because you genuinely liked us and wanted us to learn, and removed any and every possible obstacle that stood in our way, within your power, we were able to learn. You taught us many things, and then expected us to continue proving our ability to use this knowledge all year long. We couldn’t forget things because you required us to keep doing them.

When you smacked that dreadful, dreadful little boy who wouldn’t leave us alone and kept grabbing our erasers, on the top of the head with your knuckles, every other child in your room sighed and relaxed, for it proved that you would not allow harm to come to any child who behaved well. You frog-marched him out, and we never saw him again. Nobody missed him. We were just glad to be left in peace, to learn all the things you promised we would have the chance to learn. Removing kids who actively chose to disrupt that process was part of your promise to the rest of us that we would be able to learn, and be safe, in your classroom.

You were at least 150 years old when you were my teacher, and you’d been my mother’s and my father’s teacher, too. Dad used to say that you were one of only two women in our town he would tip his hat to.

Good morning, Miss Dove. I think our country would be a lot better off if you were still around.

Here’s the kicker. Even now, when I read or watch “Good Morning, Miss Dove,” I know that Miss Dove is supposed to be quite old. She looks old, she acts old, she’s taught at least two generations of Liberty Hill citizens, and, well, everybody treats her as though she were really, really old.

And then she tells us that she’s 54.

I wouldn’t mind BEING like Miss Dove, but I certainly don’t want to LOOK like her.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

I belong to that unlucky, skipped generation that never had a geography class in school. To this day, I have trouble locating many countries, especially the ones that all have the same suffix.

I’ve also taught lots of students who have even less of an idea about where places are than I have. Students are also full of misconceptions and assumptions about other cultures, but this isn’t anything new. People have had misguided ideas about how other countries do things ever since. . . well, forever.

And, of course, many people in many cultures in many countries believe that it’s not enough to have culture: everyone must have MY culture. Otherwise, they’re an inferior and primitive culture.

Go ahead and laugh; you KNOW people who think that way! It’s none of us, of course, but we know people!

I used to have my middle school students draw maps of the world, when we were studying the origins of the names of continents, countries, etc, and label them. I ended up with the usual assortment of stuff that would knock your socks off: a lot of maps pretty much like these, and worse. There would also be the occasional student who drew a map that Rand-McNally would be proud to call its own. I could usually recognize Florida, but maybe that was just the way my mind works. And I could assume the boot was Italy, even if there was often a little Eiffel Tower drawn on it.

One year, I learned from several students that Queen Elizabeth rained while bucking in the palace, and that the Star used to rule Russia. I musn’t forget the leaning tower of pizza, either, which had a “noticeable slant” to it.

Back in the olden days, students were required to draw accurate maps. Any kid could tell you where any country was, and what countries bounded it. I say, bring it back.

Bring all the old stuff back: diagramming sentences and memorizing poems and doing mental arithmetic, etc. Bring the old stuff back, and throw the test prep nonsense out the back door and lock it.

Require our kids to actually learn things and prove it, and maybe they’ll find out what REAL self esteem feels like.

Bonus points if you know the source of the title.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly