The Weather Channel airs a series of episodes chronicling the effects of weather on major events in history. Episodes include The Chicago Fire, D-Day, Hindenburg, Titanic, and others. On this Friday of Spring Break 2015, at the end of a week of rain and crazy changes in atmospheric pressure, I am wondering how many other events have changed the course of our lives but have not been attributed to weather.
As a teacher of young children for 20 years, I dreaded the passing of a weather front, knowing the negative effects of such fronts on children's behavior. Just google it, and you'll see lots of studies have been done on this phenomenon, cataloguing the long list of behavioral consequences, such as increased impulsiveness, lower cognitive functioning, irritability, and the reduction of oxygen to the brain. Multiply this times 27, and three o'clock can't come too soon.
Even as a child, I observed the effects of a series of rainy days or the approach of a weather front on the behavior of members of our household. I just wanted to be very still and hope it would give way to sunshine quickly, but Mama threw open all the doors to "enjoy" it and often had us go out and dance in it. It seemed the only ill effect she suffered from a front was if it came through on a day she'd planned to make divinity.
Job didn't seem to allow weather to affect his actions. When a bolt of lightning struck his sheep and shepherds and a tornado hit the house where his children were partying and killed them all, Job blessed the name of God.
I do wish the weather didn't affect me the way it does, I really do. Because if it didn't, I might not be so dadgum irritated when I go on Facebook and see yet another commentary posted about the Common Core and how bad it is for children or how the PARCC uses passages that are two grade levels above the grade being tested. I might not be so tempted to message each of those people individually and yell at them, "If you're not literate enough to go to the primary source and stop relying on commentaries for your information, then just keep your mouth shut."
A check of WDAM's weather page tells me the sun is supposed to shine tomorrow. Just for the sake of a little experimentation, I might revisit those posts to see if they still make me want to stand up Moses-style in front of the congregation and retrace our education history, reminding them of the wilderness wanderings and ridiculing them for choosing to stay there. Maybe tomorrow when the sun shines, I won't want to yell at supposedly literate adults and point out that reliance on commentaries is not a capacity of a literate being. Maybe.
Or I might just make some divinity.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Thursday, February 05, 2015
Below is the text of a letter I sent last week to Mississippi's Senate Education Committee. I also sent one to the House Education Committee regarding HB 1117. This is a very important time in our state. We can blow it, or we can do it right.
Dear Members of the Senate Education Committee,
I am growing increasingly concerned about the inflammatory rhetoric surrounding the Common Core standards in our state. Initially, as I witnessed the escalation of the discord, I was primarily concerned that the high ELA standards of the Common Core would be replaced with standards less tied to readying students for the literacy demands of citizenship in a democratic republic. Recently that concern has become secondary to the fear that the continued divisive rhetoric used by some state legislators is fomenting community unrest and even hostility. I am sure you have come to realize, as I have, that whether or not the Common Core State Standards survive this legislative session, one thing is certain: the sacred bond of trust between the public schools and the communities they serve will most assuredly be a casualty.
Dear Members of the Senate Education Committee,
I am growing increasingly concerned about the inflammatory rhetoric surrounding the Common Core standards in our state. Initially, as I witnessed the escalation of the discord, I was primarily concerned that the high ELA standards of the Common Core would be replaced with standards less tied to readying students for the literacy demands of citizenship in a democratic republic. Recently that concern has become secondary to the fear that the continued divisive rhetoric used by some state legislators is fomenting community unrest and even hostility. I am sure you have come to realize, as I have, that whether or not the Common Core State Standards survive this legislative session, one thing is certain: the sacred bond of trust between the public schools and the communities they serve will most assuredly be a casualty.
The literacy crisis in our state is real and should be approached with both calmness and urgency. I see neither of those at work right now. As a 28 year educator, a National Board certified teacher, a K-12 literacy specialist, and an early childhood specialist, I have watched Mississippi students fall behind the nation in literacy acquisition for many years due to low literacy standards and low expectations of the capabilities of our students. If we raise those standards and expectations, our students will most certainly encounter challenges. Supported and encouraged by adults who remain calm and maintain a sense of urgency, our students will be able to meet and embrace those challenges.
As a Newton County native and a graduate of Lake High School in Scott County--valedictorian, STAR student, recipient of multiple academic awards in both Math and English--I was accepted into the Honors College at USM in 1983 and knew immediately that I was behind in academic achievement compared to my Honors College classmates from other states. I was privileged to be born into a literate family, many of whom served in the state legislature and were educators, doctors, and businessmen. Though a lifelong avid reader, I found it quite challenging to read, discuss, and write about the complex texts required of me in college. It was a baptism by fire, so to speak, and I had to discipline myself to embrace the discomfort that comes from being stretched beyond the literacy demands of previous experiences. I had been taught by adults not to back away from challenges but to work through the discomfort to eventually gain proficiency.
As a Newton County native and a graduate of Lake High School in Scott County--valedictorian, STAR student, recipient of multiple academic awards in both Math and English--I was accepted into the Honors College at USM in 1983 and knew immediately that I was behind in academic achievement compared to my Honors College classmates from other states. I was privileged to be born into a literate family, many of whom served in the state legislature and were educators, doctors, and businessmen. Though a lifelong avid reader, I found it quite challenging to read, discuss, and write about the complex texts required of me in college. It was a baptism by fire, so to speak, and I had to discipline myself to embrace the discomfort that comes from being stretched beyond the literacy demands of previous experiences. I had been taught by adults not to back away from challenges but to work through the discomfort to eventually gain proficiency.
If I had been taught using the higher standards of the Common Core or something comparable, I would have been more prepared for college, as the literate capacities in the CCSS were exactly those required of me at USM. Much has been made of the fact that "not everyone goes to college." As I think back to the typical literacy experiences in my own K-12 education and those of most of the Mississippi schools that I visit as a professional development provider and World Class Teacher Program director, I am convinced that "college and career ready standards" are even more necessary for those Mississippians who choose not to pursue education beyond college than for those who do, since all citizens will be making the same difficult decisions about navigating systems, budgeting for their own and their children's futures, and choosing political candidates for whom to vote. A high literacy level enriches the lives of all of our citizens, not just those who earn college degrees.
I taught in schools with a high level of poverty and worked hard to raise the academic bar for my students. I planned challenging lessons and created engaging experiences that would enable my students to achieve as much as their same-age peers in other communities in the state and nation. Most of my students were being raised by grandparents who trusted me and trusted the entire school community to do what was best for their children. There was a sacred bond of trust in place between the school and the community. I didn't need the huge tomes of research that have been churned out over the last several years to tell me that the bond of trust between schools and the communities they serve is a key contributing factor to student achievement. I am not describing nor advocating a relationship in which parents merely accept school policies. In fact, every school district in Mississippi has mechanisms in place for both parental input and feedback into almost all aspects of school operations.
I taught in schools with a high level of poverty and worked hard to raise the academic bar for my students. I planned challenging lessons and created engaging experiences that would enable my students to achieve as much as their same-age peers in other communities in the state and nation. Most of my students were being raised by grandparents who trusted me and trusted the entire school community to do what was best for their children. There was a sacred bond of trust in place between the school and the community. I didn't need the huge tomes of research that have been churned out over the last several years to tell me that the bond of trust between schools and the communities they serve is a key contributing factor to student achievement. I am not describing nor advocating a relationship in which parents merely accept school policies. In fact, every school district in Mississippi has mechanisms in place for both parental input and feedback into almost all aspects of school operations.
Senate Bills 2690 and 2249 both call for the formation of committees to choose new standards of learning for Mississippi students. In my opinion, SB 2690 is so strictly prescribed that there is little need of a committee; one or two people could carry out the prescribed actions fairly quickly, pulling from pre-2010 standards of states that are no longer using them. SB 2690 seems more thoughtfully crafted and takes into consideration several logistical factors, including the need for professional development for teachers once the committee has chosen new standards and they have been adopted by the State Board of education. Both bills create a gap period of uncertainty for teachers. The members of this committee will be charged with choosing and/or creating standards that will have a huge impact on the future of our state. Their task should be approached not only with courage but with fear and trembling. I will pray for each member to have clarity of mind and purity of motive as they respond to this challenge.
However, I fear that no matter what standards are adopted and implemented in our state, so great a level of discord exists in many communities, along with the attendant atmosphere of mistrust that comes with such a state of agitation, that those standards will be met with suspicion and dissatisfaction. No bill can be written to form a committee to restore the sacred bond of trust between schools and the communities they serve. Until this bond is restored, if indeed it can ever be, no amount of work on the part of a standards committee will make one bit of difference.
Sincerely,
Robin Atwood
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Various and sundry items
So much going on here and never time to write. I miss writing and made a resolution to write more in 2009. I do write, of course--I even do a lot of personal writing when I'm facilitating professional development with teachers--but not the kind of "this is what's going on today" type of writing that helps keep a record of day-to-day goings on and helps me to sort of put things in their place for order and structure.
I have a meeting tonight with NB candidates, so I'm allowing myself a lunch break and a little writing time. I need to get five pounds off that crept up on me in the fall, so writing during lunch might help to make that happen.
We finally got all the bulbs in the ground. My shoulders, neck, back, and the backs of my thighs are very sore from wielding the shovel and all the bending involved. We had several boxes full of bulbs--probably seven or eight hundred altogether, possibly even a thousand. A nursery up Mama's way overstocked their late-winter bulbs and had them on a trailer for delivery to the landfill. They alerted the community to come and take what they wanted, and they loaded down people's car trunks and truck beds with them when they showed up. Mama dispensed huge sacks full to several people, including us. For several days, I'd go out and plant 50 or 60 daffodil, narcissus, tulip, and crocus bulbs. Still, after a week of it there were so many bulbs still to go that began to despair of ever finishing. Then Tim got the idea to make two island beds in the yard. He prepared the beds with a plow on the back of his tractor and bought a load of topsoil from someone up the road. He and I went out and put hundreds of bulbs in the prepared trenches, then he covered the bulbs with the new dirt. It was over in a couple of hours and beats the heck out of the shovel method I was using, one bulb at a time. Now we're going to add trees and flowering shrubs to the beds. I can't wait for the bulbs to bloom. The way we massed them, they should be quite striking.
I am reading my day-by-day chronological Bible this year. It is arranged chronologically, which means it is different from a regular Bible because Job comes right after Genesis 11, the psalms are inserted within Kings and Chronicles, during the time frame in which they were written, the gospels are all intermeshed, and Paul's letters are interspersed throughout Acts. The readings are divided by date, so that if you start on January 1 and read the daily readings every day, you will have read through the Bible by December 31. I can't stick with a schedule of that sort, of course, so I got through Abraham way ahead of schedule and am skipping straight over to Acts. I'm itching to get to those epistles and refuse to wait until October.
I'm also reading a collection of Teddy Roosevelt's writings. What a man. That's about all I can say. They don't make 'em like they used to. Where are the statesmen anymore? Have you ever in your life seen so many constitutional crises as we're having these days? Every day, it seems, there's a constitutional crisis. Trouble is, not many of those folks in Washington seem to have read the constitution. Makes me want to cut a switch for sure and get up there and clean house. Teach your children the constitution, please, or else don't encourage them to vote. People got all excited about the huge voter turnout among the youth in the last election. I'm all for voter turnout, but without an informed electorate, we're up a creek. If they don't have knowledge of history, government, and yes, even economics, they don't need to be at the ballot box. How can they make an informed choice? Through what will they filter the rhetoric? When I was growing up, my parents made sure we watched all the presidential debates and watched the political conventions. Afterwards, there were debriefings where they'd explain to us what we'd just heard and seen. I knew the difference in liberalism and conservativism when I was a preteen. That's why I know GWB was only masquerading as the latter, and not very effectively at that.
Arne Duncan? What? It's all over, folks. First of all, the fact that he is not an educator is a slap in the face to every teacher in the nation. Will the insults never stop? But I never expected BHO to appoint a teacher anyway. No one ever does, but good grief. Arne Duncan? I don't even have words.
If you're not drinking green smoothies several times a week, why not? Get on to it right now. My friend put me on to them, and at first I was drinking them every day. I have to admit it did get old though: peeling and chopping fruit, washing spinach, cleaning up the blender. And I had an old blender and there were spinach leaves I was having to chew. Now I'm all set with a new blender, and I do the smoothies 3 or 4 days a week. Try it. Today.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Bereft
That's about the only word I know that describes how I feel right now. Last time I wrote here, I wrote about our 7-month old puppy. I continued to become more and more attached to Pup Pup. I really think he pulled me through the grief over not teaching. We got him in September, and as his primary caregiver I got him out of the playhouse every morning, fed him, played with him, rocked him in the rocking chair on the back porch, and all the rest of it. He sat on the back porch and watched me cook supper every afternoon, he went on walks with me twice a day. We were walking together Saturday, when I thought I felt a sprinkle or two even though it was mostly sunny. There were a few dark clouds, and I've been caught with clothes on the line in afternoon showers too many times to count lately. I went around back to get the clothes off the line, took them in the house, decided to start some coffee, and that's when Bobby came to the door and I couldn't hear exactly what he said but I did hear "your little puppy". I just dropped the pot and ran, and there was his sweet little body in the road. I have been in a fog the last couple of days. Sunday was particularly hard. I had such a sense of unreality that day, expecting him to be sitting at the back window watching me, and expecting to hear the tinkle of his little tag when he came running around the house. I've had to change my walking route, because I can't walk the same route I walked with him--just too painful.
We went to the animal shelter yesterday; Lizzie picked out a brother-sister puppy duo. We paid the $150 to have their little surgeries and shots and everything, and we're waiting for them to call us to come and get them. I walked every step of that place, looking for another Pup Pup, not that I thought they'd have a designer hybrid at the shelter or anything, but mainly I was looking for a pup with his spunk and love of life. Pup Pup absolutely made the most of every minute of every day. He plunged headlong into everything with a real zest for life. When Tim eulogized him at the graveside, he thanked our Father for the privilege of knowing Pup Pup and asked that we would all learn from his example, the way he embraced life and made the most of it. I've thought a lot about that through my grief during the last couple of days. I've been thinking about all the people I've loved and lost, the friends I don't have anymore through death or moving away. I realized with startling dismay I don't have a friend right now. Not a real friend, really. I asked God for another Katie, another Shontelle. We'll see what happens.
Enough about Pup Pup; I am starting to descend again. On a brighter note (but what is brighter than Pup Pup?) I saw the Celtic Spring band on EWTN the other night. Incredible! Wow! Google them for more info. They have a truly enjoyable show.
My friend Mandy Lacy's husband Ray found out a couple of weeks ago he has colon cancer. He's only 29. For updates, click here: http://www.stpatrickhighschool.net/?section=viewStory.cfm&ID=3716
Oh, and here's a page I made of the pageant Hannah was in: http://mrsatwood.com/pageant2008.html
I don't know why the link thing isn't working.
I voted early this morning against Barack Obama. Only 8 people had voted before me. Tim voted on the Republican side, and I voted on the Democratic side. It's the first time we've voted on different tickets. I really felt strongly led to vote against Obama, so that's what I did. He scares me. I don't even think he's a good speaker the way everyone says. Isn't substance part of the package at all? Can you be a good speaker if you have no substance? My main problem with him is I think he's very weak. I don't think he'd ever be able to stand up to his handlers. It irritates me that you have to vote either one ticket or the other. There were people running in the congressional races that I wanted to vote for, but I couldn't. Whose dumb idea is it to make you vote a straight ticket?
Did any of you ever look into the history of early church worship? Did you ever think how closely related it is to synagogue worship, since of course the early church started out in the synagogues? It just seems so obvious to me that it was heavily influenced by it. It also seems so obvious that so many early Christians were crazy in love with those priest suits and ceremonies, despite Paul's clear and constant warnings against it all, despite his clear and continual declaration that the new covenant is new, new!, they sewed that blasted vail right back up and kept right on. I have friends who've been to Rome and they say those keys are everywhere in every basilica. Despite the fact that Jesus himself said the world would know his body by their love. But did you ever try to call one of them on it? One of those people who are into genealogies and holy days and priest suits and keys? They'll spew hatred for all they're worth and come running out with their swords cutting off ears right and left.
I guess I could care more, but since we put Pup Pup to rest under the dogwood tree, it just seems to me there's no time for anything but love.
We went to the animal shelter yesterday; Lizzie picked out a brother-sister puppy duo. We paid the $150 to have their little surgeries and shots and everything, and we're waiting for them to call us to come and get them. I walked every step of that place, looking for another Pup Pup, not that I thought they'd have a designer hybrid at the shelter or anything, but mainly I was looking for a pup with his spunk and love of life. Pup Pup absolutely made the most of every minute of every day. He plunged headlong into everything with a real zest for life. When Tim eulogized him at the graveside, he thanked our Father for the privilege of knowing Pup Pup and asked that we would all learn from his example, the way he embraced life and made the most of it. I've thought a lot about that through my grief during the last couple of days. I've been thinking about all the people I've loved and lost, the friends I don't have anymore through death or moving away. I realized with startling dismay I don't have a friend right now. Not a real friend, really. I asked God for another Katie, another Shontelle. We'll see what happens.
Enough about Pup Pup; I am starting to descend again. On a brighter note (but what is brighter than Pup Pup?) I saw the Celtic Spring band on EWTN the other night. Incredible! Wow! Google them for more info. They have a truly enjoyable show.
My friend Mandy Lacy's husband Ray found out a couple of weeks ago he has colon cancer. He's only 29. For updates, click here: http://www.stpatrickhighschool.net/?section=viewStory.cfm&ID=3716
Oh, and here's a page I made of the pageant Hannah was in: http://mrsatwood.com/pageant2008.html
I don't know why the link thing isn't working.
I voted early this morning against Barack Obama. Only 8 people had voted before me. Tim voted on the Republican side, and I voted on the Democratic side. It's the first time we've voted on different tickets. I really felt strongly led to vote against Obama, so that's what I did. He scares me. I don't even think he's a good speaker the way everyone says. Isn't substance part of the package at all? Can you be a good speaker if you have no substance? My main problem with him is I think he's very weak. I don't think he'd ever be able to stand up to his handlers. It irritates me that you have to vote either one ticket or the other. There were people running in the congressional races that I wanted to vote for, but I couldn't. Whose dumb idea is it to make you vote a straight ticket?
Did any of you ever look into the history of early church worship? Did you ever think how closely related it is to synagogue worship, since of course the early church started out in the synagogues? It just seems so obvious to me that it was heavily influenced by it. It also seems so obvious that so many early Christians were crazy in love with those priest suits and ceremonies, despite Paul's clear and constant warnings against it all, despite his clear and continual declaration that the new covenant is new, new!, they sewed that blasted vail right back up and kept right on. I have friends who've been to Rome and they say those keys are everywhere in every basilica. Despite the fact that Jesus himself said the world would know his body by their love. But did you ever try to call one of them on it? One of those people who are into genealogies and holy days and priest suits and keys? They'll spew hatred for all they're worth and come running out with their swords cutting off ears right and left.
I guess I could care more, but since we put Pup Pup to rest under the dogwood tree, it just seems to me there's no time for anything but love.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Time Flies
I'm sitting in Starbuck's in the university library with my bold brew and chocolate-covered graham crackers. The waistband on my pants is snug and not likely to get any looser if I don't take some action. Actually, I do work out three or four days a week, but still I've gained ten pounds, mostly in my mid-section, despite the kick boxing. I lack energy, I lack creativity, I lack initiative. I googled all my symptoms, including the chest pains, sleeplessness, etc., and it's almost certain I am experiencing depression. It's not in me to just accept it, nor to go to a doctor for meds, so I'm doing the magnesium, fish oil, exercise, fresh air bit. As much time as I spend googling health problems, I think I could probably practice medicine.
A girl named Michelle just came in and called across Starbuck's to a boy named David that they're having a birthday party for Sharla (Charla) and all chipping in together to buy her some fuzzy dice. She is wearing an orange and red North Face jacket. His is black. From where I am sitting, I can see 11 North Face jackets. If I turn around, I can probably see more, but if you've seen one you've seen them all. Or so I thought. Hannah got one last year, but somehow needed (?) another one this year.
How do mothers get through the teenage years? This week, there's Beta convention which requires new clothing; next week, there's the school beauty pageant--she's wearing a dress she's worn before, at least; two days after the pageant, cheerleader tryouts; later in March, she's someone's little sister in Junior Miss. Then there's gas and eating out and general public school expenditures. She also has a prom dilemma unfolding. When she comes home in the afternoon, it takes her 30 to 45 minutes to tell me about her day. I mostly listen attentively, sometimes sympathizing, sometimes advising, and always silently praying she is learning good lessons from these teenage dilemmas and will mostly make good decisions.
Some of these coffee drinks cost nearly $4. How do these college kids afford it? A North Face jacket just came in in a color I've never seen before.
A couple of days ago, I read with deep grief that Emmett Rosenfeld did not gain National Board certification this year. I had kept up with his blog last year as he went through the process. Most of you know that part of my new job is to support National Board candidates. When I read Emmett's news, I immediately wanted to get in touch with him and give advice, etc. , but then yesterday I saw that he has been inundated with advice about Entry 4. I somehow don't want to add my words to those that have been written already. Just too, too many words
Lizzie has a dog. I am crazy in love with him. Jennifer's dog had three puppies back in August, and she gave us one. A Pomeranian / Rat Terrier mix. I didn't know until one of the home school moms came over for a play date that he's a designer hybrid. She said, "Oh, wow! You have one of those designer hybrids!" What? He's a mutt. Turns out he's a Pomerat, a designer hybrid. All I know is I am deeply attached to him, and he has absolutely got to stop running cars. I've seen him almost get killed a couple of times. Every time I come home, I look for his little body in the road before I turn into the driveway. He has a name, but I've called him Pup Pup from the start. It made Lizzie mad initially, but now the whole family, including her, calls him Pup Pup.
These are possibly--no, definitely--the best chocolate-covered graham crackers I've ever had in my life.
I just don't have any get-up-and-go. I know it has to be some sort of imbalance; I know I should go to the doctor. I know. I'm reading Beth Moore's new Stepping Up, a study of the psalms of ascent. I don't normally like her stuff--I don't like her writing style--but the content of this is good. I just tune out her voice, and listen to God's. In all my years of Bible study, I never knew there were psalms of ascent. Check it out for yourself; google it. This may be what gets me out of the mire, please God.
You just don't leave something you loved with all your heart, soul, and mind for twenty years and not grieve. It has finally hit me, and I can't seem to throw it off. The anger is gone--mostly--but the sorrow is overwhelming.
News . . .news. . . .news. . ..What has happened since I wrote last. . . A lot, really. Almost too much to attempt to catch up on. Daddy had surgery for prostate cancer. Mama had two more shoulder surgeries, the latest one a replacement. She's in a lot of pain, which is not likely to get better for a while.
Lizzie has stopped accusing me every day of taking her away from her friends. She only accuses me a couple of times a week now. I don't have a defense, so I don't usually say anything. I stand dumb before my accuser. I worry about it. A lot. I wonder about the lasting effects it will have on her. On a good note, she and I are having some very rich times in our morning Bible study. I do not believe inteaching children doctrinal stands--hold your cards and letters, please--because I think if you fill them with the word of God, they can draw their own conclusions. I'm not saying they don't need some guidance if they're way off, but in my experience they don't usually get way off. It's simple, really. Love, faith, obedience. I read the biblical accounts to her, chronologically, of course, and she is very astute about getting to the core of what's happening. She has made some profound observations about Abel, Noah, Joseph, the children of Israel. She ponders the events in the Garden of Eden perhaps too much--she becomes very disturbed about this at times--but perhaps not too much, after all. I just will trust God to direct her thoughts. She understands faith and obedience in a deep way that is certainly not lived out in her own life with her parents. She is strong-willed and disobedient, to put it frankly, and I yearn for the day when her understandings, her heart, her head, her hands, her tongue, are all in one accord. She listens in disbelief to accounts of disobedience, lack of faith, lack of trust, strife, etc., and derisively scoffs at the lack of discernment evident in the accounts, but she doesn't make any connection between herself and the infidels. Come quickly to her, Lord Jesus.
I will not get another bold brew, though I want one. I will not get another pack of chocolate-covered graham crackers, though I want one. I will never have any energy, I will never get out of this hole, if I don't stop living on sugar and caffeine. I long for the day when my understandings, my heart, my head, my hands, and my tongue are all in one accord. Until then, there will be no peace for me.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Thank Goodness I'm Not in New York
I'm supposed to be in New York City this morning, but thank goodness I'm not. I've got the Piggly Wiggly sales paper right here in front of me, and it's downright frightening to think of the sales I'd have missed if I'd gotten on that plane yesterday. Right this very minute, instead of making my grocery list, I'd be fighting crowds in the Javits Center. Who needs that? Not me. Much better to be perusing this paper. . .whoa! five pounds of flour for ninety-eight cents. That's gotta' be a good deal. Better write that down. Hmm. . . Better get some of these cocktail smokies for two dollars. I could set 'em out tonight to munch on while I'm being thankful I'm not at the Crowne Plaza in Times Square at that pesky Writing Project social. I wonder if two dollars is a good price for four pounds of sugar. Stove Top stuffing for ninety-nine cents. . .do people really feed boxed stuffing to their families on Thanksgiving? Surely not. Of course, I'm of the mindset that you can't beat cornbread dressing. They'll probably serve stuffing at the Scholastic Thanksgiving dinner Saturday night. I'm sure glad I don't have to sit through that. Let's see. . .they've got Honey Comb and Honey Bunches of Oats for two dollars a box. Is that a good price? Reckon what they'll be serving tomorrow morning at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square for the reunion breakfast? Probably stale pastries and weak coffee. I sure dodged a bullet with that one. 'Course, it would've been nice to see the old gang from Boston, but. . .omigosh! cream of mushroom soup is only eighty-nine cents! Thank goodness I'm not in New York.
Monday, August 27, 2007
We got some much needed rain yesterday and again during the night. The grass, which had gotten brown and crisp, is green again this morning. I think there's rain in the forecast every afternoon this week. Back in June and July when it was raining every day, I longed for just one or two rainless days. Now, I'm wanting just one or two wet ones.
I really wanted to watch a movie on the Hallmark channel last night. August is Mystery Month. It was Perry Mason, though, and I just can't get into Perry Mason. I like Mystery Woman, Agent Jane Doe, and McBride. I like Murder, She Wrote too sometimes but not always. It's impossible to believe there could be that many murders in Cabot's Cove. I do like that look Jessica Fletcher gives the criminals at the end. If I'm flipping through channels and I catch Murder, She Wrote toward the end, I'll just stop there and wait for Jessica to give that look. It's kind of like pity, reprimand, and disdain all rolled up into one look.
Well, anyway, since it was Perry Mason and not something I like on Hallmark, I watched Iron Chef America and then Throwdown with Bobby Flay. The whole time, I was writing a grant, too. I should've finished the grant before I went to bed, but I worked Friday night until 9:00 and then Saturday from 8:30 til 5:30, so I was pretty exhausted going into yesterday. I made myself get most of the grant finished, since it's due today, but by 8:00 I was ready for a little break. So, back to Throwdown. If you've seen it, you know the premise: Bobby Flay finds these people who are experts at cooking a certain dish, and he challenges them on their own turf. They'll cook their signature dish, and Bobby Flay will cook his version of the dish. Then, judges will choose the "winner" by having a taste test. I've seen Bobby whip up on a very nice lady who made macaroni and cheese, a man who had won multiple contests with his signature cocktail, a cake decorator, and I can't even remember who all else. Every time, I'm in a fury by the end. I mean, here's Bobby Flay with a culinary school background, a staff of helpers, experience in Kitchen Stadium, and on and on. He picks on some poor woman who has spent her life perfecting her macaroni and cheese. Flay and his staff meet and work for days on how to beat the taste of the poor woman's macaroni and cheese. They put in seven different cheeses, bacon, and some fancy herbs. Sure enough, the trained chefs they get to judge it choose Flay's mac and cheese over the poor woman who has only herself and her kitchen and her little local mac and cheese reputation. I've seen it happen over and over again on this evil Throwdown show. It always makes me want to walk up to Bobby and say, "Bobby Flay, I want to tell you a story about a man who has a thousand sheep, but he wants the sheep of a man who has only one. This man, with his thousand sheep, takes that other man's sole sheep. Bobby Flay, you are that man." BUT!!!!! GUESS WHAT!!!!! Last night, Bobby Flay took his cocky self to New Orleans to challenge some muffaletta kings down there. And guess what!!!! Bobby Flay's muffaletta got whipped up on. Yep!!!! He lost the Throwdown!!!! I was so into it, I completely stopped working on the grant. Which means I need to finish it up this morning. However, there are four men here building a staircase to our new addition. I'm tired, tired, tired of workers being here every day. Tired.
I have been in a deep, deep depression the entire month of August. School started on August 1, and I wasn't there. I can't even explain the way I felt except to just say it was awful. I've started to get slightly better now. Shontelle e-mails a lot, telling me the downside of everything, and I've talked to lots of other teachers who are all beaten down by the unreasonable demands of administrators who are pushing for test prep in August already. I know I'd be miserable there, but still it doesn't feel right not to be there. I'd just started to think maybe I'd truly done the right thing by leaving, but then something happened yesterday that was like a knife in the chest. I saw Shontelle and Emily at "Meet the Tartars" last week, and they were telling me about something ridiculous that had happened at school--something they were told to do that is just plain flat wrong. Yesterday, I was telling Tim about it and how ridiculous and bad for children it was, and I said to him, "Can you imagine how miserable I'd have been having to do that?" Well, he just looked at me for a few minutes and he said, "You're wrong. None of that would have happened if you had been there. You wouldn't have let it happen." Now, I know he didn't mean to hurt me, but it really has put me back into the depression because I'm pretty sure he's right. I could have probably kept it from happening.
I have some things I want to write about Mother Theresa, but the grant is calling. There are things I really need to say about an article I read yesterday. Later, I'll post the link here with my comments.
I really wanted to watch a movie on the Hallmark channel last night. August is Mystery Month. It was Perry Mason, though, and I just can't get into Perry Mason. I like Mystery Woman, Agent Jane Doe, and McBride. I like Murder, She Wrote too sometimes but not always. It's impossible to believe there could be that many murders in Cabot's Cove. I do like that look Jessica Fletcher gives the criminals at the end. If I'm flipping through channels and I catch Murder, She Wrote toward the end, I'll just stop there and wait for Jessica to give that look. It's kind of like pity, reprimand, and disdain all rolled up into one look.
Well, anyway, since it was Perry Mason and not something I like on Hallmark, I watched Iron Chef America and then Throwdown with Bobby Flay. The whole time, I was writing a grant, too. I should've finished the grant before I went to bed, but I worked Friday night until 9:00 and then Saturday from 8:30 til 5:30, so I was pretty exhausted going into yesterday. I made myself get most of the grant finished, since it's due today, but by 8:00 I was ready for a little break. So, back to Throwdown. If you've seen it, you know the premise: Bobby Flay finds these people who are experts at cooking a certain dish, and he challenges them on their own turf. They'll cook their signature dish, and Bobby Flay will cook his version of the dish. Then, judges will choose the "winner" by having a taste test. I've seen Bobby whip up on a very nice lady who made macaroni and cheese, a man who had won multiple contests with his signature cocktail, a cake decorator, and I can't even remember who all else. Every time, I'm in a fury by the end. I mean, here's Bobby Flay with a culinary school background, a staff of helpers, experience in Kitchen Stadium, and on and on. He picks on some poor woman who has spent her life perfecting her macaroni and cheese. Flay and his staff meet and work for days on how to beat the taste of the poor woman's macaroni and cheese. They put in seven different cheeses, bacon, and some fancy herbs. Sure enough, the trained chefs they get to judge it choose Flay's mac and cheese over the poor woman who has only herself and her kitchen and her little local mac and cheese reputation. I've seen it happen over and over again on this evil Throwdown show. It always makes me want to walk up to Bobby and say, "Bobby Flay, I want to tell you a story about a man who has a thousand sheep, but he wants the sheep of a man who has only one. This man, with his thousand sheep, takes that other man's sole sheep. Bobby Flay, you are that man." BUT!!!!! GUESS WHAT!!!!! Last night, Bobby Flay took his cocky self to New Orleans to challenge some muffaletta kings down there. And guess what!!!! Bobby Flay's muffaletta got whipped up on. Yep!!!! He lost the Throwdown!!!! I was so into it, I completely stopped working on the grant. Which means I need to finish it up this morning. However, there are four men here building a staircase to our new addition. I'm tired, tired, tired of workers being here every day. Tired.
I have been in a deep, deep depression the entire month of August. School started on August 1, and I wasn't there. I can't even explain the way I felt except to just say it was awful. I've started to get slightly better now. Shontelle e-mails a lot, telling me the downside of everything, and I've talked to lots of other teachers who are all beaten down by the unreasonable demands of administrators who are pushing for test prep in August already. I know I'd be miserable there, but still it doesn't feel right not to be there. I'd just started to think maybe I'd truly done the right thing by leaving, but then something happened yesterday that was like a knife in the chest. I saw Shontelle and Emily at "Meet the Tartars" last week, and they were telling me about something ridiculous that had happened at school--something they were told to do that is just plain flat wrong. Yesterday, I was telling Tim about it and how ridiculous and bad for children it was, and I said to him, "Can you imagine how miserable I'd have been having to do that?" Well, he just looked at me for a few minutes and he said, "You're wrong. None of that would have happened if you had been there. You wouldn't have let it happen." Now, I know he didn't mean to hurt me, but it really has put me back into the depression because I'm pretty sure he's right. I could have probably kept it from happening.
I have some things I want to write about Mother Theresa, but the grant is calling. There are things I really need to say about an article I read yesterday. Later, I'll post the link here with my comments.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
I've been sitting here reading the responses to last Friday's blog, wishing I had the e-mail addresses of each poster so that I could respond to them personally. After I posted it Friday, I packed for a weekend trip and forgot about it--not about the pain, but about the actual blog entry. I was pretty surprised to return home and find that there were so many responses, not just from people I know --Jen and Kim--but from others, too. I was pleased, and more than a little humbled, to know that my words have found their way to a listserve and a home school support board, in addition to Susan Ohanian's site. What probably was the biggest surprise was seeing Elizabeth Jaeger's name. Elizabeth and her four friends, the "Downer Five", have been in my thoughts and prayers for several months now. I also received several beautiful e-mail messages from close friends such as Dick Graves, Mary Kay Deen, Sherry Swain and others.
Throughout these past few years, I have tried to keep reminding myself that there are still countless (?) good people in education who, in spite of the fact that the light seems to be going out rapidly, are still working to keep the sparks of sanity alive. However, there are far fewer who are strong and courageous enough to speak up–just a few here and there, it seems. I would tell myself, "They’re not bad people, they’re just weak or scared." I have come to realize and accept that we may never get people to speak out in droves in any given school district or area of the country, but far from being discouraged by this, it should serve to strengthen our resolve to be those lone voices here and there and to know that there are always those others who, whether or not they publicly acknowledge it, are saying the inner and victorious "yes!" to our words. I say that "yes!" when I read about the Downer Five and Doug Christensen and Stephen Krashen and Susan Ohanian and Ken Goodman. Those lone voices crying in the wilderness give hope to all, courage to some and, perhaps, repentance to many.
Most of the teachers and administrators with whom I work can discern the wrongness of NCLB, but they lack either the courage or the know-how to right those wrongs. Of far greater concern to me are those who seem oblivious to the immorality of it all and appear to be genuinely baffled and even irritated when I try to "inform their discretion", to quote Thomas Jefferson. I was accused of being unprofessional and of having a personal agenda to keep the system from working. I was determined not to be sidetracked by those personal attacks and to keep working to keep DIBELS out of my school. To that end, I printed everything I could find about it and distributed it to several of my co-workers. I bought Ken Goodman’s book and gave it to my principal. I knew DIBELS had already been purchased for all three schools in our district, but I still held out hope that somehow none of our children would have to be subjected to it. My blog might have been misleading in that it may have caused readers to infer that my school will be using DIBELS next year in Response to Intervention; it will not. My principal purchased a different tool for progress monitoring. Still, the first weeks of school will be spent administering it to every student in grades K-3 rather than on crucial community-building and gathering information on the whole child. I cannot for the life of me understand why people will not acknowledge that children need to be made to feel safe before they can learn or that learning is not divorced from feeling. Why are these truths viewed as fluffy feel-good extras when they are indisputably the bedrock of learning?
I think we absolutely cannot rest until sanity is restored to the system, beginning with a solid definition of what is basic and the conditions in which children, and indeed all humans, learn. It is imperative that the concept of the Big 5 is re-examined and re-defined to acknowledge the fact that the language arts are about communication: listening, speaking, writing, reading, viewing, thinking. Why in the world must people continue to attempt to quantify what cannot be quantified and plotted on a graph? Why must everything be reduced to numbers?
We must not let ourselves fall into that same numbers mentality; if we do, we run the risk of becoming discouraged when we can't drum up the support of large numbers of people. Whether it’s five as at Downer, or twenty, or one, speaking out is always risky because we do not know if others will join us or if our voices will be heard. However, one thing is certain: if we remain silent, it is guaranteed that they will not.
Throughout these past few years, I have tried to keep reminding myself that there are still countless (?) good people in education who, in spite of the fact that the light seems to be going out rapidly, are still working to keep the sparks of sanity alive. However, there are far fewer who are strong and courageous enough to speak up–just a few here and there, it seems. I would tell myself, "They’re not bad people, they’re just weak or scared." I have come to realize and accept that we may never get people to speak out in droves in any given school district or area of the country, but far from being discouraged by this, it should serve to strengthen our resolve to be those lone voices here and there and to know that there are always those others who, whether or not they publicly acknowledge it, are saying the inner and victorious "yes!" to our words. I say that "yes!" when I read about the Downer Five and Doug Christensen and Stephen Krashen and Susan Ohanian and Ken Goodman. Those lone voices crying in the wilderness give hope to all, courage to some and, perhaps, repentance to many.
Most of the teachers and administrators with whom I work can discern the wrongness of NCLB, but they lack either the courage or the know-how to right those wrongs. Of far greater concern to me are those who seem oblivious to the immorality of it all and appear to be genuinely baffled and even irritated when I try to "inform their discretion", to quote Thomas Jefferson. I was accused of being unprofessional and of having a personal agenda to keep the system from working. I was determined not to be sidetracked by those personal attacks and to keep working to keep DIBELS out of my school. To that end, I printed everything I could find about it and distributed it to several of my co-workers. I bought Ken Goodman’s book and gave it to my principal. I knew DIBELS had already been purchased for all three schools in our district, but I still held out hope that somehow none of our children would have to be subjected to it. My blog might have been misleading in that it may have caused readers to infer that my school will be using DIBELS next year in Response to Intervention; it will not. My principal purchased a different tool for progress monitoring. Still, the first weeks of school will be spent administering it to every student in grades K-3 rather than on crucial community-building and gathering information on the whole child. I cannot for the life of me understand why people will not acknowledge that children need to be made to feel safe before they can learn or that learning is not divorced from feeling. Why are these truths viewed as fluffy feel-good extras when they are indisputably the bedrock of learning?
I think we absolutely cannot rest until sanity is restored to the system, beginning with a solid definition of what is basic and the conditions in which children, and indeed all humans, learn. It is imperative that the concept of the Big 5 is re-examined and re-defined to acknowledge the fact that the language arts are about communication: listening, speaking, writing, reading, viewing, thinking. Why in the world must people continue to attempt to quantify what cannot be quantified and plotted on a graph? Why must everything be reduced to numbers?
We must not let ourselves fall into that same numbers mentality; if we do, we run the risk of becoming discouraged when we can't drum up the support of large numbers of people. Whether it’s five as at Downer, or twenty, or one, speaking out is always risky because we do not know if others will join us or if our voices will be heard. However, one thing is certain: if we remain silent, it is guaranteed that they will not.
Friday, May 25, 2007
"I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."
e.. e. cummings
This morning I opened my eyes at 4:00 a.m. and realized with deep despair that I am no longer a teacher of young children. Last week, after twenty years of introducing first graders to the power of words, I wrote words I never thought I’d write: Please accept this letter as formal notification that I am leaving my position. . . .I had put off writing the words simply because I couldn’t think of what to write. Suggestions from friends included such eloquent missives as "I quit" and "Take this job and shove it". But did I quit the system, or did the system quit me? And no, I do not want them to take the job and shove it. I want them to take the job and restore some dignity to it. Better yet, I want them not to take the job at all but to get their hands off it and let someone do it well and with passion.
While my co-workers spent the past four days attending meetings about next year, I worked in my classroom, packing away materials I hope to use again some day. While they looked over the schedule for testing every child in early August in order to get baseline data outlining the "basic skills" the children cannot perform, I packed away juggling scarves and pondered: What is basic? It seems to me that the term "basic" encompasses all those things human beings would do if there were no outside interference. "Basic" is organic. I imagine a conversation between Abraham and Sarah sitting under the stars in Mesopotamia. Isaac is sleeping in the tent behind them. Sarah says, "Is there anything you’d like to do before I douse the cookfire?" Abraham scratches his beard, thinks a moment, says "I know! Let’s segment some phonemes!" Sarah says, "Nah. We did that last night. Why don’t we do phoneme deletion tonight?" Basic. If left completely alone, people would work to find effective ways to communicate, discover artistic ways to explore beauty and truth, invent tools and machines to make their work easier. Basic. And, yes, woven into and throughout the basic there would be wordplay: bibbity bobbity boo, john jacob jingleheimer schmidt, flip flap flee I’ll meet you at the top of the coconut tree. I can’t imagine that there would be such inorganic permutations of letters as voj or fek.
I pack away the multi-cultural paint and remember the day we made an amazing discovery: Ain’t none of us black and ain’t none of us white. I think back to the day last November when the world began to crumble under my feet, the day I sat in a meeting and was told we would be administering DIBELS next year. "DIBELS?", I asked in disbelief. "Wait a minute. Back up, please. This district has purchased DIBELS? Without asking the teachers?" Oh, yes, I was told. The state is really cracking down on progress monitoring. We must have something in place to test the children three times a year for comparative data, and every two weeks for those who do not measure up. DIBELS is quick and easy. "But it only gives information that is not useful ," I said, still struggling to make sense of the news. "The tasks it tests are not things I want my children to be able to do anyway." We have to have something. It’s quick and easy. Quick and easy. Quick and easy. Quick and easy.
Becoming literate is not quick and easy, I’ll have them know. It happens over a lifetime. It’s not something you do; it’s something you are. It’s the velveteen rabbit you love the fur off of until it becomes real. I cannot spend the first week of August asking children "What do you get if you take the /ch/ off chair?" Nothing you can sit on, that’s for sure. NCLB is taking more than the /ch/. They’re taking the rest of it, too. The very air is being sucked right out of our classrooms. If I don’t spend the first week of August, all of August, all of the entire year, asking "What do you love? What are you afraid of? What do you think? What do you feel? What do you dream?", then I can’t teach the children. If I don’t observe them while they’re building their Play-doh sculptures, performing their puppet plays, playing with the parachute in the yard, then I can’t know as much as I need to know about their oral language patterns, their work habits, their thought processes. I don’t want to give them busywork to do while I test children individually. I want to sit on the rug with them and read aloud Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and laugh and giggle at her reverse psychology methods. I can’t teach them if I don’t do these things and they can’t learn from me if I don’t tell them all about my fear of dogs when I was in first grade, the morning I went to get in the car for Daddy to take us to school and saw the neighbor’s house was on fire, the time I spent with my aunt while Mama and Daddy were on a business trip and the only thing I would eat was grits three times a day, and that I cried every single day of first grade–every single day–because I wanted to stay home and play on my swing set and read Nancy Drew instead of Dick and Jane. The reason I became a first grade teacher is that I hated first grade so very much because the teacher put us all through the same program of "basic skills" even though some of the children didn’t know the alphabet and I could already read the newspaper. I was determined never to do that to children. Never to standardize; always to individualize. That was 36 years ago, and we know too much to do that to children now, don’t we? Apparently not.
I roll up the rug, and I am overcome with remembering all the time I spent on rugs with children over the last 20 years. I remember the day we were sharing our fears and Maddie spoke very slowly, cautiously choosing the words through which she would bare her soul: "I still watch Barney. I’ve been scared to tell anybody that. That’s what I’ve been scared of. That somebody would find out." A tense moment followed the cathartic confession she’d made on the safe territory of the rug. Then, gradually, one by one, others began confessing that they, too, watched Barney or Teletubbies. Connections were made, bonds were forged, sighs of release and relief issued forth. After that, when we used Maddie’s "Barney" word card for word sorts, it was so much more than an r-controlled vowel and a proper noun and a capitalization rule, though it was all of that. It had feelings and emotions and new concepts attached to it.
I have wondered often since November if I am doing the right thing by leaving. Shouldn’t I stand in the gap? Shouldn’t I try to be an Esther in the palace saving her people? I don’t truly know. I think maybe the only life I can save is my own. As I packed the jump ropes and the handbells and Mac Davis’s "I Believe in Music" CD, I wondered if they’d ever be used again. At least I could’ve tried to work in some good things around all the testing, right? I really don’t think so. The struggle of going to work every day and having to choose between being a good employee or a good teacher, a choice none of us should have to make, became too much for me. The changing of definitions became too much. A good assessment is quick and easy? Being "professional" is implementing the plan handed down without asking any questions? I had reached the point where I could hardly look the children in the eye; I knew I’d let them down, but I didn’t know how to get around all the paperwork and testing. How could I teach them when I was so busy doing paperwork and testing them so I could prove I’d taught them?
People need to realize this is far more than that swinging pendulum you hear so much about in education. Good teachers never swung with that thing anyway. Good teachers don’t go back and forth, only forward. When good teachers can’t go forward because someone has thrown such a heavy weight on them that they can’t even pick up their feet, where can they go but home, I ask you? I ask you, because I truly do not know. . I cannot stand in the gap anymore. I tried to, and they knocked me down and walked right over me. I think of Mac Davis’s song, and I want to be "young and rich and free". I think of my favorite line in Charlotte’s Web: An hour of freedom is worth more than a barrel of slops. So I run free.
"Nor all your tears wash out a word of it. . ."
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."
e.. e. cummings
This morning I opened my eyes at 4:00 a.m. and realized with deep despair that I am no longer a teacher of young children. Last week, after twenty years of introducing first graders to the power of words, I wrote words I never thought I’d write: Please accept this letter as formal notification that I am leaving my position. . . .I had put off writing the words simply because I couldn’t think of what to write. Suggestions from friends included such eloquent missives as "I quit" and "Take this job and shove it". But did I quit the system, or did the system quit me? And no, I do not want them to take the job and shove it. I want them to take the job and restore some dignity to it. Better yet, I want them not to take the job at all but to get their hands off it and let someone do it well and with passion.
While my co-workers spent the past four days attending meetings about next year, I worked in my classroom, packing away materials I hope to use again some day. While they looked over the schedule for testing every child in early August in order to get baseline data outlining the "basic skills" the children cannot perform, I packed away juggling scarves and pondered: What is basic? It seems to me that the term "basic" encompasses all those things human beings would do if there were no outside interference. "Basic" is organic. I imagine a conversation between Abraham and Sarah sitting under the stars in Mesopotamia. Isaac is sleeping in the tent behind them. Sarah says, "Is there anything you’d like to do before I douse the cookfire?" Abraham scratches his beard, thinks a moment, says "I know! Let’s segment some phonemes!" Sarah says, "Nah. We did that last night. Why don’t we do phoneme deletion tonight?" Basic. If left completely alone, people would work to find effective ways to communicate, discover artistic ways to explore beauty and truth, invent tools and machines to make their work easier. Basic. And, yes, woven into and throughout the basic there would be wordplay: bibbity bobbity boo, john jacob jingleheimer schmidt, flip flap flee I’ll meet you at the top of the coconut tree. I can’t imagine that there would be such inorganic permutations of letters as voj or fek.
I pack away the multi-cultural paint and remember the day we made an amazing discovery: Ain’t none of us black and ain’t none of us white. I think back to the day last November when the world began to crumble under my feet, the day I sat in a meeting and was told we would be administering DIBELS next year. "DIBELS?", I asked in disbelief. "Wait a minute. Back up, please. This district has purchased DIBELS? Without asking the teachers?" Oh, yes, I was told. The state is really cracking down on progress monitoring. We must have something in place to test the children three times a year for comparative data, and every two weeks for those who do not measure up. DIBELS is quick and easy. "But it only gives information that is not useful ," I said, still struggling to make sense of the news. "The tasks it tests are not things I want my children to be able to do anyway." We have to have something. It’s quick and easy. Quick and easy. Quick and easy. Quick and easy.
Becoming literate is not quick and easy, I’ll have them know. It happens over a lifetime. It’s not something you do; it’s something you are. It’s the velveteen rabbit you love the fur off of until it becomes real. I cannot spend the first week of August asking children "What do you get if you take the /ch/ off chair?" Nothing you can sit on, that’s for sure. NCLB is taking more than the /ch/. They’re taking the rest of it, too. The very air is being sucked right out of our classrooms. If I don’t spend the first week of August, all of August, all of the entire year, asking "What do you love? What are you afraid of? What do you think? What do you feel? What do you dream?", then I can’t teach the children. If I don’t observe them while they’re building their Play-doh sculptures, performing their puppet plays, playing with the parachute in the yard, then I can’t know as much as I need to know about their oral language patterns, their work habits, their thought processes. I don’t want to give them busywork to do while I test children individually. I want to sit on the rug with them and read aloud Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and laugh and giggle at her reverse psychology methods. I can’t teach them if I don’t do these things and they can’t learn from me if I don’t tell them all about my fear of dogs when I was in first grade, the morning I went to get in the car for Daddy to take us to school and saw the neighbor’s house was on fire, the time I spent with my aunt while Mama and Daddy were on a business trip and the only thing I would eat was grits three times a day, and that I cried every single day of first grade–every single day–because I wanted to stay home and play on my swing set and read Nancy Drew instead of Dick and Jane. The reason I became a first grade teacher is that I hated first grade so very much because the teacher put us all through the same program of "basic skills" even though some of the children didn’t know the alphabet and I could already read the newspaper. I was determined never to do that to children. Never to standardize; always to individualize. That was 36 years ago, and we know too much to do that to children now, don’t we? Apparently not.
I roll up the rug, and I am overcome with remembering all the time I spent on rugs with children over the last 20 years. I remember the day we were sharing our fears and Maddie spoke very slowly, cautiously choosing the words through which she would bare her soul: "I still watch Barney. I’ve been scared to tell anybody that. That’s what I’ve been scared of. That somebody would find out." A tense moment followed the cathartic confession she’d made on the safe territory of the rug. Then, gradually, one by one, others began confessing that they, too, watched Barney or Teletubbies. Connections were made, bonds were forged, sighs of release and relief issued forth. After that, when we used Maddie’s "Barney" word card for word sorts, it was so much more than an r-controlled vowel and a proper noun and a capitalization rule, though it was all of that. It had feelings and emotions and new concepts attached to it.
I have wondered often since November if I am doing the right thing by leaving. Shouldn’t I stand in the gap? Shouldn’t I try to be an Esther in the palace saving her people? I don’t truly know. I think maybe the only life I can save is my own. As I packed the jump ropes and the handbells and Mac Davis’s "I Believe in Music" CD, I wondered if they’d ever be used again. At least I could’ve tried to work in some good things around all the testing, right? I really don’t think so. The struggle of going to work every day and having to choose between being a good employee or a good teacher, a choice none of us should have to make, became too much for me. The changing of definitions became too much. A good assessment is quick and easy? Being "professional" is implementing the plan handed down without asking any questions? I had reached the point where I could hardly look the children in the eye; I knew I’d let them down, but I didn’t know how to get around all the paperwork and testing. How could I teach them when I was so busy doing paperwork and testing them so I could prove I’d taught them?
People need to realize this is far more than that swinging pendulum you hear so much about in education. Good teachers never swung with that thing anyway. Good teachers don’t go back and forth, only forward. When good teachers can’t go forward because someone has thrown such a heavy weight on them that they can’t even pick up their feet, where can they go but home, I ask you? I ask you, because I truly do not know. . I cannot stand in the gap anymore. I tried to, and they knocked me down and walked right over me. I think of Mac Davis’s song, and I want to be "young and rich and free". I think of my favorite line in Charlotte’s Web: An hour of freedom is worth more than a barrel of slops. So I run free.
"Nor all your tears wash out a word of it. . ."
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Proverbs 24:17 , 18
Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.
I have made myself wait two weeks to post these links. I really, truly did remain calm when I read transcripts of the hearings. I did not dance or shout or think cruel thoughts about these wicked men. I just took a deep breath, smiled a little, and went back to doing homework. But now that the semester is over (I turned in my huge final project last night and feel fifty pounds lighter) I think I am ready to think all of this over a little. I had really, really begun to think that Mr. Bush's Reading First friends were going to get away with the evil deeds they did to America's school children. Obviously, they thought they were going to get away with it, but I truly thought they were, too. I was weighted down with thinking it; sick with thinking it; bitter with thinking it. Yes, I know there are no indictments yet, and yes, I know it hasn't hit the mainstream media yet. I even doubt that it ever will. Those evil friends of Mr. Bush's squirmed that day. The rock was overturned and the maggots crawled out into the open. The turning on one another has already begun. The denials. The finger pointing.
Still, I do not rejoice at their stumbling. My heart is not glad. A million children stumbled with them. A million trusting children were swindled and cheated while these men grew rich with the blessings of the president and his education secretary who has not one minute of classroom experience. Those of us who knew watched, waited, hoped, lost hope, prepared to write Ichabod over the door and leave. Vengeance is the Lord's and He can deal with them as He will, and He will not see gladness or rejoicing in my heart.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/AR2007042002284.html
http://edworkforce.house.gov/hearings/fc042007.shtml
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/thisweekineducation/2007/04/reading_first_hearing_survival.html
http://news.google.com/news?q=Reading+First+hearing&hl=en&um=1&sa=X&oi=news&ct=title
Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.
I have made myself wait two weeks to post these links. I really, truly did remain calm when I read transcripts of the hearings. I did not dance or shout or think cruel thoughts about these wicked men. I just took a deep breath, smiled a little, and went back to doing homework. But now that the semester is over (I turned in my huge final project last night and feel fifty pounds lighter) I think I am ready to think all of this over a little. I had really, really begun to think that Mr. Bush's Reading First friends were going to get away with the evil deeds they did to America's school children. Obviously, they thought they were going to get away with it, but I truly thought they were, too. I was weighted down with thinking it; sick with thinking it; bitter with thinking it. Yes, I know there are no indictments yet, and yes, I know it hasn't hit the mainstream media yet. I even doubt that it ever will. Those evil friends of Mr. Bush's squirmed that day. The rock was overturned and the maggots crawled out into the open. The turning on one another has already begun. The denials. The finger pointing.
Still, I do not rejoice at their stumbling. My heart is not glad. A million children stumbled with them. A million trusting children were swindled and cheated while these men grew rich with the blessings of the president and his education secretary who has not one minute of classroom experience. Those of us who knew watched, waited, hoped, lost hope, prepared to write Ichabod over the door and leave. Vengeance is the Lord's and He can deal with them as He will, and He will not see gladness or rejoicing in my heart.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/AR2007042002284.html
http://edworkforce.house.gov/hearings/fc042007.shtml
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/thisweekineducation/2007/04/reading_first_hearing_survival.html
http://news.google.com/news?q=Reading+First+hearing&hl=en&um=1&sa=X&oi=news&ct=title
Saturday, January 27, 2007
I am taking a break from measuring my practice against the IRA Standards for Reading Professionals. It is one of many homework assignments for my Tuesday night class. Last week, I finished my assignments at 5:45, just before the class met at 6:30, and I had worked on them for two or three hours every day. This week, we don't have quite as much, but only because one of the students in the class is a pathological talker and, because of that, the instructor didn't get around to showing us how to do this week's major assignment.
I worked with National Board candidates this morning. Let me just say again: GWB has ruined education in this country. I really think I might need therapy to deal with my feelings toward him, because now my animosity toward him has taken a disturbing twist: I now feel animosity toward anyone who supports him. I find myself avoiding people and situations where I might have to hear someone say something favorable about him. I have some very good friends I used to see regularly whom I now avoid because they are Bush fans. I love these people, but I am now so very bitter toward them that I just don't even want to see them. Therapy. Yes.
This morning was one of those times I needed to be able to clone myself. I needed to attend two things at the same time: National Board work and writing project work. That's what my life has come to. I know I have to work the second and fourth Saturdays of each month, and yet I scheduled a writing project staff development meeting for today in the Liberal Arts building at the exact same time I was supposed to be working in the Curriculum & Instruction building. Kim did the wp thing, thankfully. I knew I'd be spread too thin for this semester, but it couldn't be helped.
I got a lead on another part-time job for next year. A friend sent me an e-mail about it Friday. This one is almost as if I were walking down the sidewalk and someone stepped into my path and said, "Here's a wonderful gift for you." But, then, they've all been that way. And, of course, that is exactly what is happening to me since I decided to jump the sinking ship that is public education. First one friend said, "Here's a gift," then another said, "Here's a gift", now another has said , "Here's a gift." There's a story behind this, but it's personal I think. I wouldn't think so except that there are quite a lot of people I know who are jobless and in a mess, and here I am walking away from a job that pays me fifty thousand a year with really good benefits and lots of vacation time. So I don't feel quite right going around saying, "Hey, guess what? I decided to walk away from a good job, but it's okay because right away a whole bunch of other great ones just popped right up out of the blue." Just about the only bad thing is that I had to go ahead and start the part-time stuff now, and my teaching contract goes through June which means I'm overwhelmed with work, in addition to working on a graduate degree.
I need to get back to the homework now.
I worked with National Board candidates this morning. Let me just say again: GWB has ruined education in this country. I really think I might need therapy to deal with my feelings toward him, because now my animosity toward him has taken a disturbing twist: I now feel animosity toward anyone who supports him. I find myself avoiding people and situations where I might have to hear someone say something favorable about him. I have some very good friends I used to see regularly whom I now avoid because they are Bush fans. I love these people, but I am now so very bitter toward them that I just don't even want to see them. Therapy. Yes.
This morning was one of those times I needed to be able to clone myself. I needed to attend two things at the same time: National Board work and writing project work. That's what my life has come to. I know I have to work the second and fourth Saturdays of each month, and yet I scheduled a writing project staff development meeting for today in the Liberal Arts building at the exact same time I was supposed to be working in the Curriculum & Instruction building. Kim did the wp thing, thankfully. I knew I'd be spread too thin for this semester, but it couldn't be helped.
I got a lead on another part-time job for next year. A friend sent me an e-mail about it Friday. This one is almost as if I were walking down the sidewalk and someone stepped into my path and said, "Here's a wonderful gift for you." But, then, they've all been that way. And, of course, that is exactly what is happening to me since I decided to jump the sinking ship that is public education. First one friend said, "Here's a gift," then another said, "Here's a gift", now another has said , "Here's a gift." There's a story behind this, but it's personal I think. I wouldn't think so except that there are quite a lot of people I know who are jobless and in a mess, and here I am walking away from a job that pays me fifty thousand a year with really good benefits and lots of vacation time. So I don't feel quite right going around saying, "Hey, guess what? I decided to walk away from a good job, but it's okay because right away a whole bunch of other great ones just popped right up out of the blue." Just about the only bad thing is that I had to go ahead and start the part-time stuff now, and my teaching contract goes through June which means I'm overwhelmed with work, in addition to working on a graduate degree.
I need to get back to the homework now.
Monday, January 15, 2007
I emailed the link to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s letter from Birmingham jail to several people today, and I have had the most wonderful time reading their responses. I’ve gotten several e-mails from friends who lived in Birmingham during that time, sharing their own personal experiences. If I had permission to share their responses here, I would. Especially a long letter from a preacher friend who told me some very interesting things about King’s stay in that jail. I was glad to see that Bonnie posted the letter on her blog. I am enjoying reading her blog every day; it kind of reminds me to try to post a little here.
It was a hard weekend, mainly because I never sleep when I’m away from home, and also because several things happened Saturday night that kept me from getting any rest at all. In spite of all of that, it was great to see everyone and to get a good bit of work done. The next few weeks are going to be busy ones, and it’s nice to get some planning behind me.
I have a Tuesday night class this semester if I can ever get officially registered. I’m going anyway tomorrow night; I already have the textbook and everything, even though I’m not registered. I’ve let the instructor know I’ll be there and that I’m not registered. We’ll see how all that works out. I’ve read the textbook already, and so now I don’t really understand why I have to take the course. I learned a lot, I’ll try out all the strategies, so what’s the point of sitting in the class, you know? I know I have a problem. I know. I simply do not know what to do about it.
I saw several friends from the Gulf Coast this weekend. They are still living in FEMA trailers. Good grief. I am almost embarrassed to be around them.
I have finally remembered about "happies" and "purties". I don’t have time to write about them now, but I definitely will soon. Or maybe not. I’ll have to see the course syllabus tomorrow night before I’ll know what my life will be like from now until May. Now that I’ve started working on Saturdays again with National Board candidates, I already have less free time. I’ll have to drink a lot of carrot juice.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
The List
Yesterday, before I went to do the grocery shopping, I told Hannah some things I wanted her to have done by the time I got home: hang clothes on line, feed Lizzie, and one other thing I can't remember. So then on the way to town, I started thinking about all those lists Mama left for us when she went to work. Angela brought up the lists on Christmas, and we all had a good laugh. Here's the story:
I always got up earlier than Angela, and I'd go straight to the list, which Mama always put on the counter under the wall phone. I'd read through, and a typical list would look something like this:
1. Wash clothes /hang out
2. Iron 5 of Daddy's shirts/pants
3. Cln bthrms (she'd start to run out of time, and use a form of shorthand)
4. vcm
5. dust
6. swp ktchn
7. swp prchs
8. run btrbean runrs up poles
9. pck tom.
10. ct okra
11. pck snapbeans
12. shell peas
13. Start supper:
bbq chickn
baked pot.
snapbeans
Sometimes the "shorthand" was worse than that. Sometimes it was completely indecipherable. By the time Angela got up, I'd say, "Well, I've figured out all but #4 and #7. You give it a shot." Sometimes, even between the two of us, we couldn't figure them all out. We didn't dare call Mama at work. That was simply not done. So, we'd just split everything up that we could decode, and then when we were finished, we'd meet back at the list and try to crack the more cryptic items. "It could be. . ." "Wait! Maybe it's. . ." "Do you think she meant. . ." "What in God's name have we not already done?"
Mama would come home, and if there were even one or two items on the list not done, she'd say "I guess tomorrow I'll just take that TV cord with me to work." We'd just look at each other. TV? TV? We were in the garden all day. We never got near the TV.
One day, number 17 on the list, under the Supper heading, was "pot. and dump." Pot and dump? What on earth? When Angela got up, I said, "I've exhausted all possibilities. Potatoes I'm pretty sure of, but dump? I give up." So we did the divide and conquer thing, and met back at the list at the end of the day. Pot and dump. Pot and dump. Pot and dump. What could it be? POT AND DUMP!!!!! We were pacing, pulling out our hair, wringing our hands. We'd started the roast, cooked the butterbeans and corn, sliced tomatoes, made the cornbread and tea. There was nothing for it. We'd be pot and dumpless.
So then Mama came home, and when she walked in the door, we immediately admitted failure. "We didn't know pot and dump, Mama. Sorry." Mama just shook her head and stood there looking at us. "Potatoes and dumplings? You didn't know potatoes and dumplings?" Well, no, Mama. We've never had that before. They don't even go together. Potatoes and dumplings? That's two starches in the same pot. How do you even make such a dish? Why would you want to?
Mama acted as if we had potatoes and dumplings twice a week. "You boil the potatoes and dumplings, then make a white sauce. My goodness. I make it every year." Well, not since 1965, I wanted to say. I've never in my life even heard of such a dish.
I really shouldn't be writing about cooking. The heating element in my oven went out Tuesday, and I'm beside myself waiting for the new one to come in. Why in the world should it take seven business days for a heating element to arrive? I can order anything I want off the internet and have it shipped next day. Then, when it finally comes, we'll have to wait for a serviceman to come out and put it in. I never realized how much I cook in the oven. I never cook a meal that I don't use the oven. Suddenly, I want roasted chicken, baked potatoes, asparagus, brownies, pineapple upside down cake, yeast rolls.
I think I am going to set the setting on this blog to private. Invitation only. I switched over to a new version and went into the settings menu, and it occurred to me that that is something I should maybe do.
I always got up earlier than Angela, and I'd go straight to the list, which Mama always put on the counter under the wall phone. I'd read through, and a typical list would look something like this:
1. Wash clothes /hang out
2. Iron 5 of Daddy's shirts/pants
3. Cln bthrms (she'd start to run out of time, and use a form of shorthand)
4. vcm
5. dust
6. swp ktchn
7. swp prchs
8. run btrbean runrs up poles
9. pck tom.
10. ct okra
11. pck snapbeans
12. shell peas
13. Start supper:
bbq chickn
baked pot.
snapbeans
Sometimes the "shorthand" was worse than that. Sometimes it was completely indecipherable. By the time Angela got up, I'd say, "Well, I've figured out all but #4 and #7. You give it a shot." Sometimes, even between the two of us, we couldn't figure them all out. We didn't dare call Mama at work. That was simply not done. So, we'd just split everything up that we could decode, and then when we were finished, we'd meet back at the list and try to crack the more cryptic items. "It could be. . ." "Wait! Maybe it's. . ." "Do you think she meant. . ." "What in God's name have we not already done?"
Mama would come home, and if there were even one or two items on the list not done, she'd say "I guess tomorrow I'll just take that TV cord with me to work." We'd just look at each other. TV? TV? We were in the garden all day. We never got near the TV.
One day, number 17 on the list, under the Supper heading, was "pot. and dump." Pot and dump? What on earth? When Angela got up, I said, "I've exhausted all possibilities. Potatoes I'm pretty sure of, but dump? I give up." So we did the divide and conquer thing, and met back at the list at the end of the day. Pot and dump. Pot and dump. Pot and dump. What could it be? POT AND DUMP!!!!! We were pacing, pulling out our hair, wringing our hands. We'd started the roast, cooked the butterbeans and corn, sliced tomatoes, made the cornbread and tea. There was nothing for it. We'd be pot and dumpless.
So then Mama came home, and when she walked in the door, we immediately admitted failure. "We didn't know pot and dump, Mama. Sorry." Mama just shook her head and stood there looking at us. "Potatoes and dumplings? You didn't know potatoes and dumplings?" Well, no, Mama. We've never had that before. They don't even go together. Potatoes and dumplings? That's two starches in the same pot. How do you even make such a dish? Why would you want to?
Mama acted as if we had potatoes and dumplings twice a week. "You boil the potatoes and dumplings, then make a white sauce. My goodness. I make it every year." Well, not since 1965, I wanted to say. I've never in my life even heard of such a dish.
I really shouldn't be writing about cooking. The heating element in my oven went out Tuesday, and I'm beside myself waiting for the new one to come in. Why in the world should it take seven business days for a heating element to arrive? I can order anything I want off the internet and have it shipped next day. Then, when it finally comes, we'll have to wait for a serviceman to come out and put it in. I never realized how much I cook in the oven. I never cook a meal that I don't use the oven. Suddenly, I want roasted chicken, baked potatoes, asparagus, brownies, pineapple upside down cake, yeast rolls.
I think I am going to set the setting on this blog to private. Invitation only. I switched over to a new version and went into the settings menu, and it occurred to me that that is something I should maybe do.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Some good things have happened since I last wrote here. First, we had a great Christmas; I'll get the photos posted very soon (I keep writing that, thinking that if I write it enough it'll come true). Then, I found out it was my medicine that was making me depressed. It was such a relief, I'm not even going to be mad that nobody told me it might happen. I seldom ever take medicine, but the doctor convinced me my bronchitis was going to turn into pneumonia if I didn't take the medicine to make me cough that stuff out of my bronchial tubes. Anyway, I took the medicine, and dropped into a deep, deep funk. I don't even really know how to describe it. I wanted to sleep all the time; I didn't care if I lived or died. In fact, if given a choice, I would've chosen to die. Not to mention I was completely exhausted from coughing. Then one day we had somewhere to go and I couldn't sit there and cough all the way through it, so I didn't take the medicine that morning. I'd also skipped the last dose the day before, just because I was too tired to cough. By the end of the day, I'd missed several doses and, lo and behold, I was beginning to feel alive again for the first time in a week. Hmm. Needless to say, I quit taking the medicine completely. Then, on Christmas, I was telling my family my theory that the medicine had made me depressed and suicidal (really, I didn't want to live anymore), and Angela said, well wait a minute, what was it? I told her and guess what? The same thing had happened to her with the same medicine; she called the pharmacist and the pharmacist said sure enough, there's an ingredient in that medicine that makes a small percentage of people have depression symptoms. Why in the cat hair don't they tell people that? I would've stopped taking it sooner.
Another good thing is that I talked to Charles at the Atwood family gathering about my job situation and he totally understands it. He just went through the very same thing at a job he'd worked at for 40 years. He quit. I had been feeling like the caveman on the Geico commercials, like no one understood, but now that someone does (he's not the only one, okay?, but it helped so much to know that he seemed to fully understand that you just can't work under some circumstances) I feel so much better.
We had a great time at Gwen's last Saturday night. After the food and gifts and fireworks, the family tradition is that everybody sits around and sings and those with guitars play guitar. If there's a piano, then someone plays that, too. This year, the men all sang love songs they'd written. It got to be kind of funny, because they tried to outdo one another. Some of them were pretty darn good. Recordable, in my opinion.
I thought we were going to have the SMWP book swap here, because Kim said she hadn't heard from Patricia. I was sitting on standby, just in case. When I heard, I went straight into high gear: polished the silver, hired a sitter, made hors d'oeuvres (I looked up how to spell that, so I know it's right), hired Service Master to come and clean the carpets and upholstery, pruned the shrubbery and trees around the front of the house, reupholstered the dining room chairs, and bought a new outfit. Then come to find out, Patricia's having it after all. (Okay, none of this ever actually happened. I just wrote all that in case Patricia reads this. Really, I had not lifted a finger to prepare for it.)
The other night, Tim and I argued over whether or not water will boil faster if it's hot when you put it in the boiler. He says no; I know yes. He says he did some kind of experiment when he was in high school or something. Listen, I don't care if Jonas Salk, Madame Curie, and Bill Nye the Science Guy all say otherwise: I've been cooking for thirty years, and I know what I know.
I was going to write more, but I'm in the middle of cleaning out my sock drawer. I am so restless these days, I can't sit still. Nervous energy, I think.
Another good thing is that I talked to Charles at the Atwood family gathering about my job situation and he totally understands it. He just went through the very same thing at a job he'd worked at for 40 years. He quit. I had been feeling like the caveman on the Geico commercials, like no one understood, but now that someone does (he's not the only one, okay?, but it helped so much to know that he seemed to fully understand that you just can't work under some circumstances) I feel so much better.
We had a great time at Gwen's last Saturday night. After the food and gifts and fireworks, the family tradition is that everybody sits around and sings and those with guitars play guitar. If there's a piano, then someone plays that, too. This year, the men all sang love songs they'd written. It got to be kind of funny, because they tried to outdo one another. Some of them were pretty darn good. Recordable, in my opinion.
I thought we were going to have the SMWP book swap here, because Kim said she hadn't heard from Patricia. I was sitting on standby, just in case. When I heard, I went straight into high gear: polished the silver, hired a sitter, made hors d'oeuvres (I looked up how to spell that, so I know it's right), hired Service Master to come and clean the carpets and upholstery, pruned the shrubbery and trees around the front of the house, reupholstered the dining room chairs, and bought a new outfit. Then come to find out, Patricia's having it after all. (Okay, none of this ever actually happened. I just wrote all that in case Patricia reads this. Really, I had not lifted a finger to prepare for it.)
The other night, Tim and I argued over whether or not water will boil faster if it's hot when you put it in the boiler. He says no; I know yes. He says he did some kind of experiment when he was in high school or something. Listen, I don't care if Jonas Salk, Madame Curie, and Bill Nye the Science Guy all say otherwise: I've been cooking for thirty years, and I know what I know.
I was going to write more, but I'm in the middle of cleaning out my sock drawer. I am so restless these days, I can't sit still. Nervous energy, I think.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
I am taking a break from wrapping gifts. I have three to go, and I'm sort of putting it off because wrapping gifts is one of my favorite things to do. Really. I love making the bows. Last night I was in Dollar General looking for gift boxes, and there was this couple on the same aisle looking for bows. You know, those pre-made ones that come about a dozen to a package? They couldn't find any, nor could one of the girls who works there. Then, the woman half of the couple said well what in the world were they going to do, and then she went over to the box that had rolls of ribbon and said it's not like she knew how to make a bow or anything so the ribbon wouldn't do her any good. Well, what else could I do? I said hey if there's a roll that's already open I'll show you how to make one. So, I did my own little part last night to bring peace on earth right there on the Christmas aisle at Dollar General, just by showing that dear damsel in distress how to make bows. She ended up buying several rolls of ribbon so she could make more. I do what I can.
When I walked through the dining room just now, Lizzie was in there playing office, wearing one of my nightgowns and a pair of impossibly high heels Judy gave her to play in. When she saw me she said please, Mama, don't "disturve" me. She never wants anybody to listen to her when she plays. Sometimes she'll come into whatever room I'm in and tell me she's about to start playing wedding or school or office or whatever and please don't "disturve" her. I remember that from when I was little. When Angela and I got into playing something, like movies or TV (usually Bonanza---she was married to Adam and I was married to Little Joe)---we'd get so mad if Mama listened to us. Mama says the only time she ever heard the two of us argue was when Angela announced she was going to Morton and she "left" without giving me time to get my babies ready.
While I was wrapping gifts, I was flooded with memories of Zate's house at Christmas. Zate is what we called my Aunt Laura Zelle. She was my great, great aunt, really. She made beautiful velvet and pearl Christmas ornaments and knitted Christmas stockings. I can remember delivering stockings to Dr. Lucas and Coach Turk at USM. She'd taught them English at Copiah Lincoln and stayed in touch with them until she died. There were always pins everywhere; you had to be careful where you sat. When I think of her, I always think of the sad story of her unrequited romance. She was madly in love with a boy when she was in her twenties---he loved her, too. But Papa Weems would not have it. No way, no how. The boy was "beneath" Laura Zelle, and he forbade her to have anything to do with him. He married and had a family, but she never did. I guess she loved him til the day she died. How sad is that? I always harbored ill will toward Papa Weems for thwarting true love, but. . . .well, now that Hannah has started dating a little, I think I may have a little of Papa Weems in me. It's a terrible thing to be the mother of a teenage girl. When this boy (nice enough boy, well-groomed, honors student, tennis and basketball teams) comes to pick her up, I find myself wanting to ask for a writing sample, a family tree, give him an aptitude test of some sort. My Aunt Sandra always preached to us the importance of good genes, of marrying someone physically attractive and of above average intelligence. I wish there were some sort of test for that.
When I walked through the dining room just now, Lizzie was in there playing office, wearing one of my nightgowns and a pair of impossibly high heels Judy gave her to play in. When she saw me she said please, Mama, don't "disturve" me. She never wants anybody to listen to her when she plays. Sometimes she'll come into whatever room I'm in and tell me she's about to start playing wedding or school or office or whatever and please don't "disturve" her. I remember that from when I was little. When Angela and I got into playing something, like movies or TV (usually Bonanza---she was married to Adam and I was married to Little Joe)---we'd get so mad if Mama listened to us. Mama says the only time she ever heard the two of us argue was when Angela announced she was going to Morton and she "left" without giving me time to get my babies ready.
While I was wrapping gifts, I was flooded with memories of Zate's house at Christmas. Zate is what we called my Aunt Laura Zelle. She was my great, great aunt, really. She made beautiful velvet and pearl Christmas ornaments and knitted Christmas stockings. I can remember delivering stockings to Dr. Lucas and Coach Turk at USM. She'd taught them English at Copiah Lincoln and stayed in touch with them until she died. There were always pins everywhere; you had to be careful where you sat. When I think of her, I always think of the sad story of her unrequited romance. She was madly in love with a boy when she was in her twenties---he loved her, too. But Papa Weems would not have it. No way, no how. The boy was "beneath" Laura Zelle, and he forbade her to have anything to do with him. He married and had a family, but she never did. I guess she loved him til the day she died. How sad is that? I always harbored ill will toward Papa Weems for thwarting true love, but. . . .well, now that Hannah has started dating a little, I think I may have a little of Papa Weems in me. It's a terrible thing to be the mother of a teenage girl. When this boy (nice enough boy, well-groomed, honors student, tennis and basketball teams) comes to pick her up, I find myself wanting to ask for a writing sample, a family tree, give him an aptitude test of some sort. My Aunt Sandra always preached to us the importance of good genes, of marrying someone physically attractive and of above average intelligence. I wish there were some sort of test for that.
Friday, December 22, 2006
This morning I watched television for about three hours. I never do that; I had no idea what the morning offerings are. I watched a tad of The View because I'd seen all the hoopla on Fox and Friends about the Rosie/Donald thing. I watched a man named Les Feldick teach a Bible study. Not bad. I don't think I'd ever heard of him. I watched Kay Arthur teach about forgiving friends when you feel they've wronged you. I like Kay a lot and have a lot of respect for her, but right now I'm more into dismissing people from my heart. Of course, she talked about the whole prison thing, and how you yourself are really the one in prison if you won't forgive, but lately it seems to me it's more of a bondage to try to hang on sometimes. I'm ready to say "you choose your direction and I'll go the other one; if some kings take you captive, I just don't know if I'll gather my men and come after you or not." But, hey. I do know. I'd probably be the first to saddle up. I did find myself arguing with Kay about it, though. Talking out loud to the television and that kind of thing.
I read Esther this morning in The Message. I don't have anything against The Message, and I pull it out at least once a week or more, but I do find Peterson's style (is his name Peterson???) gets old if you read too much of it. I wouldn't want to read it every day. I found myself focusing more on Mordecai this year than Esther. I don't know why. Also, I just wonder about the Jews declaring their own feast day. Sort of seems extra-Levitical or something. I didn't read Deuteronomy yet. Last year, I read it in The Message, but I don't think I will this year. Maybe the Amplified version. I haven't decided.
Okay, speaking of reading, I finally made it to the Collins Library yesterday. I'm telling you, it's like walking into Cheers and hearing "NORM!!!" Really. Like coming home. David said, "You're here! You always increase my circulation!" (You know, I didn't see a thing wrong with that, but Tim has committed himself to teasing me mercilessly about that comment ever since I told him about it. He's made circulation jokes about every five minutes.)
Thursday, December 21, 2006
My hair looks fine, but the whole experience turned out to be an emotional wringer for me. As it got closer to time to leave home, I didn’t know if I could go through with it or not. Finally, I called the salon and asked to speak to Danita. The receptionist told me she was with a client, but I actually whimpered (whimpered!) and told her this was life and death and that I must speak to Danita NOW. So when she came to the phone, I told her I felt positively adulterous, that this was akin to Tim seeing me go into a hotel with another man. She assured me that it was all okay (but don’t do it again), and that Megan would do a fine job. But then when I got to the shop, it seemed (was it my imagination?) that Danita was cool to me. I spoke, she spoke. I sat on the couch waiting and waiting for Megan to appear. I squirmed, picked up a magazine, squirmed some more. I got up and went over to Danita’s station, commented on how much I liked her new style (permed and really cute), felt the curls, patted her back. She seemed to "unstiffen". I asked about Lindsey’s baby, went and sat back down on the couch. Squirmed. Finally (finally!), Megan came from the back, looking all of twelve years old. Danita came over, told Megan to do a good job, that I was one of her most faithful (thanks for the knife in the back) clients. After that, I just sat in the chair numb the whole time. Just numb. I’m telling you, it was a wringer. Just wrung me right out. Tim said he likes my hair and will I be switching to Megan now? It turns out Megan is the one who cuts his hair. Of course I won’t be switching. I am faithful. This was just a lapse. A one-day stand.
One of the lead features on Yahoo this morning is a new study showing that germs make you fat. Well, hello! Do I not stand on the street corners telling people about enzymes and acidophilus and the importance of digestive health? Can I get anyone to listen? Maybe they’ll listen to Yahoo if not to a yahoo.
Kim was telling me yesterday she bought a nice framed map of the world on posters.com. I went there last night and poked around for a half hour or so. The one I want is one seventy-nine, plus delivery. I’m thinking about going to Hobby Lobby and trying to find one that I can frame myself. Never mind that I’ve never framed anything before. Tim loves maps and I was thinking that it’d be the perfect Christmas gift for him. (I haven’t been able so far to rent a cabin anywhere like I did last year.) If I’d ordered it last night before eleven and paid extra for shipping, I could’ve had it here on Saturday. I just couldn’t seem to click the mouse somehow.
The weather here is just not good. Not at all what I wanted for this week. Nothing like they’re having in Denver, though. How bad is that? And Jen told us yesterday she’s flying into Denver today. Was it today or tomorrow? Anyway, I saw on the news this morning there are 4,700 people stranded in the Denver airport. I hope it all works out for her.
Someone posted one of those NCLB parodies at the forum. I am immune to all of that, it seems. In the early days, when I’d read those (they were everywhere; remember the dentist?), I would somehow think there was hope. You know, if enough people would speak up and show the absolute senseless insanity of it all, maybe someone would listen. No. It’s not going to happen. Then when all the reports of corruption came out, the ties of the Bush family to McGraw Hill, the underhandedness of the NRP, the blatant lies, I thought well okay this is it. No. There are no WMDs in Iraq. Left is right, black is white, bad is good, and keep your mouth shut about it. When all of the good teachers have left, when the school years of billion s of children are wasted, the textbook and testing companies still have full pockets, and there’s not one single thing that can be done about it.
I had forgotten how funny Breathing Lessons is. I have laughed uncontrollably at times. Good medicine. My appetite has come back with a bang. Yesterday, I wanted every one of the sweet potato fries on Jen’s plate. Her chicken and mushroom sandwich, too. I even went by the bakery and bought a box full of homemade Christmas candy. I threw it all in the garbage, though. It was not at all good. I’m not a great candy maker, but even mine is better than that. They had divinity, Martha Washington, everything. And it was all thoroughly mediocre.
One of the lead features on Yahoo this morning is a new study showing that germs make you fat. Well, hello! Do I not stand on the street corners telling people about enzymes and acidophilus and the importance of digestive health? Can I get anyone to listen? Maybe they’ll listen to Yahoo if not to a yahoo.
Kim was telling me yesterday she bought a nice framed map of the world on posters.com. I went there last night and poked around for a half hour or so. The one I want is one seventy-nine, plus delivery. I’m thinking about going to Hobby Lobby and trying to find one that I can frame myself. Never mind that I’ve never framed anything before. Tim loves maps and I was thinking that it’d be the perfect Christmas gift for him. (I haven’t been able so far to rent a cabin anywhere like I did last year.) If I’d ordered it last night before eleven and paid extra for shipping, I could’ve had it here on Saturday. I just couldn’t seem to click the mouse somehow.
The weather here is just not good. Not at all what I wanted for this week. Nothing like they’re having in Denver, though. How bad is that? And Jen told us yesterday she’s flying into Denver today. Was it today or tomorrow? Anyway, I saw on the news this morning there are 4,700 people stranded in the Denver airport. I hope it all works out for her.
Someone posted one of those NCLB parodies at the forum. I am immune to all of that, it seems. In the early days, when I’d read those (they were everywhere; remember the dentist?), I would somehow think there was hope. You know, if enough people would speak up and show the absolute senseless insanity of it all, maybe someone would listen. No. It’s not going to happen. Then when all the reports of corruption came out, the ties of the Bush family to McGraw Hill, the underhandedness of the NRP, the blatant lies, I thought well okay this is it. No. There are no WMDs in Iraq. Left is right, black is white, bad is good, and keep your mouth shut about it. When all of the good teachers have left, when the school years of billion s of children are wasted, the textbook and testing companies still have full pockets, and there’s not one single thing that can be done about it.
I had forgotten how funny Breathing Lessons is. I have laughed uncontrollably at times. Good medicine. My appetite has come back with a bang. Yesterday, I wanted every one of the sweet potato fries on Jen’s plate. Her chicken and mushroom sandwich, too. I even went by the bakery and bought a box full of homemade Christmas candy. I threw it all in the garbage, though. It was not at all good. I’m not a great candy maker, but even mine is better than that. They had divinity, Martha Washington, everything. And it was all thoroughly mediocre.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
I was awake all night. All night. I don't mean that I was awake part of the night, or that I was awake every half hour. I mean I was awake all night. I don't really know why. Maybe it was the vanilla malt. My appetite is coming back, and yesterday around noon I started craving a vanilla malt. I wasn't hungry at supper, so I didn't eat anything, but around 8:00 I told Tim I must have a vanilla malt. Just three sips. We went to Sonic and I drank the whole thing. I didn't even really want it once I had it, but I drank it because it was there. Well, of course I have a milk allergy and I'm not supposed to eat ice cream. I was awake all night.
If you're ever in Seminary shopping at Piggly Wiggly and you decide to try to figure out how to get to my house on the backroads and you go up by the side of the store past the feed mill and then you keep going a ways and decide to turn on Speed Town Road because it seems like it would take you to Hwy. 535, and then you sit for a minute at the place where Speed Town Road forks into Frank Speed Road, and you decide to stick with Speed Town because Frank Speed looks pretty much like the road less-traveled, and then you wind and wind and wind around the winding road that is Speed Town, then you take a right onto Abercrombie/Knight Road and you end up at what looks like 535, don't turn left onto that highway. Turn right. Because you're not on 535 at all. You're on 588. So if you turn left you'll go straight to Collins, and not to my house. Just thought I'd share that information.
Yesterday morning (or was it Monday morning?) I watched the tail end of Bobby Flay's holiday show, and I saw him make a gingerbread trifle. He made gingerbread, then he mixed lemon curd with whipped cream, then he made a raspberry filling with raspberries and some kind of liqueur. It got me to thinking about the tastes of the Christmases of my childhood. Detsie made gingerbread with lemon sauce, sticky buns, and something we called ambrosia, which was oranges and coconut and I don't know what-all else. Detsie's cooking was completely different from Mama's. Mama is, of course, a world-class dessert maker. She can make anything, no matter how difficult the procedure. Then there was Mrs. Myrtle High, my Sunday school teacher. She made date-loaf candy and brought it in a little Christmas tin to church--the same tin every year. That tin was Pavlov's bell for me.
I started re-reading Breathing Lessons this morning. I got it from the library Monday. I did not, after all, go to Shirley's or the Collins Library. I went to the Seminary Library instead. I got Breathing Lessons, The Clock Winder, and a Barbara Kingsolver whose title I can't remember right now. I finished up The Accidental Tourist last night and was irritated that it ended the very same way it did the last six times I read it. Why does Macon choose Muriel every time? Why? He so obviously should stay with Sarah. It makes me mad every time I read it.
I might go ahead and read Deuteronomy and Esther this week, though traditionally I don't do it until the week between Christmas and New Year's. I sort of dread the Esther thing, since I've decided not to be an Esther anymore. I just don't want to. I've run out of steam. I always think of that guy who worked in the palace when Elijah was shaking his finger at old what's-his-name the king. I always think, well, I'm him instead of Elijah. Working from within instead of without. But I'm getting out now, and yes, it is sad in a way. Everything I did with the children in December, I'd think, "this might be the last time I ever do this with children" but then we'd have a meeting or get a memo and I'd think "I love teaching too much to stay in this situation."
Yesterday morning, I watched Proof of Life with Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan. How could anyone not love Russell Crowe? It came on again this morning at 2:30. I only watched part of it.
I've never been able to hide anything my whole life. Yesterday, I was in T.J. Maxx and I saw some lingerie I had to have. The girls were with me, and I hid it in the shopping cart (it's pretty, um, revealing) under the chocolate-covered cranberries, espresso beans, vanilla caramels, and pewter bowl. Then, when it was time to check out, I told them to go sit on the bench at the front of the store while I stood in line. The place was packed. Packed. So when I was finished and we were leaving, the alarm thing went off as we were walking out the door. I knew. The lingerie. Ink tag. All eyes were on us as we walked back over to the register. The girls walked back with me, and the cashier started pulling out all the clothes I'd bought. "It's the lingerie", I told her, and she pulled it out, held it up for everyone to see, found the ink tag, got it off, held it up again for everyone to see. Yep.
Today at ten I have a hair appointment and I'm worried sick about it. Danita was booked up until 2009 or something, according to the receptionist, so she worked me in with someone named Megan. I've been with Danita forever. We've been through everything together. Nikki's death, Preston's divorce. Everything. My hair.
At eleven, I'm meeting Kim and Jen at Chesterfield's for lunch. After that, I'm coming home to sleep, I hope.
If you're ever in Seminary shopping at Piggly Wiggly and you decide to try to figure out how to get to my house on the backroads and you go up by the side of the store past the feed mill and then you keep going a ways and decide to turn on Speed Town Road because it seems like it would take you to Hwy. 535, and then you sit for a minute at the place where Speed Town Road forks into Frank Speed Road, and you decide to stick with Speed Town because Frank Speed looks pretty much like the road less-traveled, and then you wind and wind and wind around the winding road that is Speed Town, then you take a right onto Abercrombie/Knight Road and you end up at what looks like 535, don't turn left onto that highway. Turn right. Because you're not on 535 at all. You're on 588. So if you turn left you'll go straight to Collins, and not to my house. Just thought I'd share that information.
Yesterday morning (or was it Monday morning?) I watched the tail end of Bobby Flay's holiday show, and I saw him make a gingerbread trifle. He made gingerbread, then he mixed lemon curd with whipped cream, then he made a raspberry filling with raspberries and some kind of liqueur. It got me to thinking about the tastes of the Christmases of my childhood. Detsie made gingerbread with lemon sauce, sticky buns, and something we called ambrosia, which was oranges and coconut and I don't know what-all else. Detsie's cooking was completely different from Mama's. Mama is, of course, a world-class dessert maker. She can make anything, no matter how difficult the procedure. Then there was Mrs. Myrtle High, my Sunday school teacher. She made date-loaf candy and brought it in a little Christmas tin to church--the same tin every year. That tin was Pavlov's bell for me.
I started re-reading Breathing Lessons this morning. I got it from the library Monday. I did not, after all, go to Shirley's or the Collins Library. I went to the Seminary Library instead. I got Breathing Lessons, The Clock Winder, and a Barbara Kingsolver whose title I can't remember right now. I finished up The Accidental Tourist last night and was irritated that it ended the very same way it did the last six times I read it. Why does Macon choose Muriel every time? Why? He so obviously should stay with Sarah. It makes me mad every time I read it.
I might go ahead and read Deuteronomy and Esther this week, though traditionally I don't do it until the week between Christmas and New Year's. I sort of dread the Esther thing, since I've decided not to be an Esther anymore. I just don't want to. I've run out of steam. I always think of that guy who worked in the palace when Elijah was shaking his finger at old what's-his-name the king. I always think, well, I'm him instead of Elijah. Working from within instead of without. But I'm getting out now, and yes, it is sad in a way. Everything I did with the children in December, I'd think, "this might be the last time I ever do this with children" but then we'd have a meeting or get a memo and I'd think "I love teaching too much to stay in this situation."
Yesterday morning, I watched Proof of Life with Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan. How could anyone not love Russell Crowe? It came on again this morning at 2:30. I only watched part of it.
I've never been able to hide anything my whole life. Yesterday, I was in T.J. Maxx and I saw some lingerie I had to have. The girls were with me, and I hid it in the shopping cart (it's pretty, um, revealing) under the chocolate-covered cranberries, espresso beans, vanilla caramels, and pewter bowl. Then, when it was time to check out, I told them to go sit on the bench at the front of the store while I stood in line. The place was packed. Packed. So when I was finished and we were leaving, the alarm thing went off as we were walking out the door. I knew. The lingerie. Ink tag. All eyes were on us as we walked back over to the register. The girls walked back with me, and the cashier started pulling out all the clothes I'd bought. "It's the lingerie", I told her, and she pulled it out, held it up for everyone to see, found the ink tag, got it off, held it up again for everyone to see. Yep.
Today at ten I have a hair appointment and I'm worried sick about it. Danita was booked up until 2009 or something, according to the receptionist, so she worked me in with someone named Megan. I've been with Danita forever. We've been through everything together. Nikki's death, Preston's divorce. Everything. My hair.
At eleven, I'm meeting Kim and Jen at Chesterfield's for lunch. After that, I'm coming home to sleep, I hope.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
I'm supposed to be putting together a resume and asking people to write letters of recommendation for me. Strong letters, according to the list of things I need. Not weak. I hate to ask people for those; they're all as busy as I am. I'm going to have to snap out of the reverie I've put myself into as a coping mechanism, and just get all this stuff put together this week. I don't know if I've written about this yet or not, but a few weeks ago I decided the only way to get through this is to distance myself from my work life. It's working really well, I must say. Last week, when they pulled in one of their big dogs to talk to me (she was only a little yipper, I can assure you), I sat at the conference table and observed the meeting from afar. I nodded, smiled. Well, okay, there was one moderately long speech that issued forth from me, but only one. And even that was almost just to amuse myself. When I explained to them that DIBELS is a dangerous decontextualized assessment tool that the district should never have purchased and that they have joined in selling out our children to corporate America, they looked at me as if I have six heads. Nobody can ever say I didn't try to inform their discretion.
I think I must've had a miscarriage yesterday. I've been in distance mode so long, I haven't been paying close attention to things. I woke up cramping and feeling very sick. Then there was a huge gush of blood and what looked like an organ of some sort. I bled for a few hours, then stopped. I was pretty much wiped out the whole day. Mama thinks I should go to the doctor, but I've been through this a whole bunch of times, and the nurse will just tell me to come if I run fever and continue to hurt. Which I haven't and I don't.
I did wake myself up enough yesterday afternoon to draft my Thanksgiving cards and e-mails. I try to let my friends and acquaintances know each year that I am truly thankful for them. Just writing the words makes me think about them fondly and helps me to know how blessed I am to have them. Watch your mailboxes and inboxes.
Sunday I was on the fringe of a conversation about whether or not God did indeed forgive the nation of Israel for crucifying Jesus. I was determined not to get into the conversation, but the first thought I had was that of course He did. But this person seemed to think He did not, because of the destruction of Jerusalem that came in 70 A.D.
All my writing project friends went to Nashville last week; some are still there. I stayed home, because I couldn't get the days off from work. I tried not to think of them there without me, and I succeeded until Kim sent me several e-mails Saturday night. Wish you were here.
I think I must've had a miscarriage yesterday. I've been in distance mode so long, I haven't been paying close attention to things. I woke up cramping and feeling very sick. Then there was a huge gush of blood and what looked like an organ of some sort. I bled for a few hours, then stopped. I was pretty much wiped out the whole day. Mama thinks I should go to the doctor, but I've been through this a whole bunch of times, and the nurse will just tell me to come if I run fever and continue to hurt. Which I haven't and I don't.
I did wake myself up enough yesterday afternoon to draft my Thanksgiving cards and e-mails. I try to let my friends and acquaintances know each year that I am truly thankful for them. Just writing the words makes me think about them fondly and helps me to know how blessed I am to have them. Watch your mailboxes and inboxes.
Sunday I was on the fringe of a conversation about whether or not God did indeed forgive the nation of Israel for crucifying Jesus. I was determined not to get into the conversation, but the first thought I had was that of course He did. But this person seemed to think He did not, because of the destruction of Jerusalem that came in 70 A.D.
All my writing project friends went to Nashville last week; some are still there. I stayed home, because I couldn't get the days off from work. I tried not to think of them there without me, and I succeeded until Kim sent me several e-mails Saturday night. Wish you were here.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Is there anything better than windmill cookies and strong coffee? I don't think so. That's what I'm having right now, as a matter of fact. Tim just called and said he's bringing supper home so I don't have to cook. Really, I don't mind cooking. It relieves a lot of stress; but so does writing, so it's all working out.
The best thing about last week is that I know for a fact that this week has to be better. That's how bad it was. It was pure-D awful. I showed my rear end at a meeting, and my only regret is that I didn't say more. I really do think it's time to ring the death knell on public education. It will never recover from this administration. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. Somebody's gonna' pay, though. I have to believe that.
Meanwhile, I am teacher of the world right now. I'm teaching my heart out, because I hear the clock ticking. I was reading on Susan O'Hanian's site an article written by a woman whose co-workers are saying they want to shut their doors and do what's right. She replied that she wants to OPEN her door and do what's right. What a sick sad environment, when you have to hide good teaching. I'm so glad my spine is made of steel. They're all afraid of me, really. But at the same time, I can't respect someone who's afraid of me. Know what I mean?
I spent Saturday at USM with Patricia, Sherry, and Kim. What fun. I need to do that every once in a while to get my bearings, see which way is north. If you think I'm gloom and doom, I have to admit it's not as bad as I'm making it out to be. It's a heck of a lot worse.
The other day I heard the song "Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul". I saw myself, about 5 or 6 years old, walking up the steps of Lake United Methodist Church. I was wearing a dress, stockings, black patent leather shoes, a red wool cape, and a muff. The muff was furry on the outside, and lined with sateen. (I guess that stuff is called sateen; that's what my aunt always called it when she called Mama to come over and get some: "Melvin's had sateen on sale for a dollar a yard. I got thirty yards so y'all can all line your coats with it this winter.") Well, anyway, back to the muff. Or was I getting back to the song? I don't know which way is north in this paragraph. I think I was going to write about the memory of the Sunday Angela and I sang that song at church, and I can still remember what I was wearing that day. I wonder if my cape was lined with sateen. I can't remember the inside of it.
I just remembered that even all my doll's clothes were lined with sateen. Mama would make them coats from our leftover fabric, and they were always lined and had brass buttons and everything--just like ours. Lately I've been wishing I could sew. There's no end to the ways I could make money from home if I knew how to sew. I've really been thinking about cooking, though. If I could get up a little business selling cakes, pies, cookies, maybe soups and casseroles.
We saw One Night with the King Saturday night. It was okay, but a little overdone in some areas.
It seemed like there was more I wanted to say, but I don't remember it. I was reading at the zolaboard about this whole Calivinism mess. Some of them actually think that when scripture speaks of "before time" and "before the foundation of the world" that it's referring to pre-Genesis. Surely they know that means after the exodus. Surely? And all those Romans verses they quote about the elect? Surely they don't believe their own interpretation of those. Surely?
Time for Rachael Ray.
The best thing about last week is that I know for a fact that this week has to be better. That's how bad it was. It was pure-D awful. I showed my rear end at a meeting, and my only regret is that I didn't say more. I really do think it's time to ring the death knell on public education. It will never recover from this administration. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. Somebody's gonna' pay, though. I have to believe that.
Meanwhile, I am teacher of the world right now. I'm teaching my heart out, because I hear the clock ticking. I was reading on Susan O'Hanian's site an article written by a woman whose co-workers are saying they want to shut their doors and do what's right. She replied that she wants to OPEN her door and do what's right. What a sick sad environment, when you have to hide good teaching. I'm so glad my spine is made of steel. They're all afraid of me, really. But at the same time, I can't respect someone who's afraid of me. Know what I mean?
I spent Saturday at USM with Patricia, Sherry, and Kim. What fun. I need to do that every once in a while to get my bearings, see which way is north. If you think I'm gloom and doom, I have to admit it's not as bad as I'm making it out to be. It's a heck of a lot worse.
The other day I heard the song "Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul". I saw myself, about 5 or 6 years old, walking up the steps of Lake United Methodist Church. I was wearing a dress, stockings, black patent leather shoes, a red wool cape, and a muff. The muff was furry on the outside, and lined with sateen. (I guess that stuff is called sateen; that's what my aunt always called it when she called Mama to come over and get some: "Melvin's had sateen on sale for a dollar a yard. I got thirty yards so y'all can all line your coats with it this winter.") Well, anyway, back to the muff. Or was I getting back to the song? I don't know which way is north in this paragraph. I think I was going to write about the memory of the Sunday Angela and I sang that song at church, and I can still remember what I was wearing that day. I wonder if my cape was lined with sateen. I can't remember the inside of it.
I just remembered that even all my doll's clothes were lined with sateen. Mama would make them coats from our leftover fabric, and they were always lined and had brass buttons and everything--just like ours. Lately I've been wishing I could sew. There's no end to the ways I could make money from home if I knew how to sew. I've really been thinking about cooking, though. If I could get up a little business selling cakes, pies, cookies, maybe soups and casseroles.
We saw One Night with the King Saturday night. It was okay, but a little overdone in some areas.
It seemed like there was more I wanted to say, but I don't remember it. I was reading at the zolaboard about this whole Calivinism mess. Some of them actually think that when scripture speaks of "before time" and "before the foundation of the world" that it's referring to pre-Genesis. Surely they know that means after the exodus. Surely? And all those Romans verses they quote about the elect? Surely they don't believe their own interpretation of those. Surely?
Time for Rachael Ray.
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