That's what we are now, I guess, to today's kids. We were educated to be teachers more than 40 years ago, before MTV, before rap, before Marshall McLuhan, before school shootings, and definitely before the Internet. We saw ourselves as professionals and dressed and behaved accordingly. We spent a lot of time preparing for our classes and saw ourselves as the guiders of young minds -- inspirers and role models. And we worked hard to make learning exciting and fun for our students.
Some of us eventually moved into other fields; most of us are retired, now. Schools and kids have changed so much that I know I could never handle one of today's classrooms.
That's not the case for my old friend, John Sullivan, who, although retired from the CIA and a published author, still manages to do substitute teaching. The other day, I got this email from him:
Earlier this month, when I began subbing, I hadn't taught a high school class since I was in graduate school in 1969. During the time our two sons were in high school, I became aware that things had changed, but this awareness didn't prepare me for this new age high school.
One of the two schools in which I subbed is the same high school from which our older son graduated, and there are still some administrators and faculty there whom I know. The student body includes the entire socio-economic spectrum as well as students who, according to the principal, speak 75 languages. There are hints of Blackboard Jungle there, but only hints.
One of the teachers for whom I subbed left a note about one of the classes, to wit: "John, this is the class from hell, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy." I went into the class a bit nervous, to say the least, and was very surprised at how well it went. At least half of the kids are Latinos, and for whatever reason, we hit it off. I talked to the teacher the next day, and he kept pointing out that he just couldn't communicate with them, and he was obviously afraid of them.
One of the seniors in one of the AP classes I had is a borderline genius, has a serious stuttering problem and has been accepted to Harvard. A girl in a Freshman AP class came back from lunch, and in reply to my quetion, "how was lunch", said, "It was ok, but some Jewish guy tried to stick my head in the toilet." When she said she hadn't reported it, she also said, "I took care of it. I beat him up."
The only semi serious problem I had was with a disruptive Afghani kid, but it worked out.
One of the bigger adjustments I have to make is the almost slovenliness of the male teachers. Some of them are unshaven, dress like rag pickers and look more like students than teachers. The desk, and working area around the desk of the teacher for whom I subbed yesterday looked as if it had been hit by a tornado. Papers, books, CDs etc. were strewn everywhere.
All of this being said, and as tiring as it was, I have gotten some great feedback from the kids and other faculty with whom I worked. At the end of my last class yesterday (a Freshman AP history class), the kids gave me a spontaneous ovation. I liked it.
I'm sure that there are some young "old time" teachers out there, and I have the utmost respect for them. I watch my daughter, who is home schooling my grandson, carry on the tradition of this family as she stimulates a love of learning and a curious intellect in our energetic six-year-old.
Encouraging changes in the teaching and learning of today's schools is an essential part of President-elect Obama's plan for improving education. But government can only do so much. The dedication of parents and teachers to creating and providing exciting learning environments is key. And school bureaucrats need to retool themselves into committed educators as well.
Meanwhile, teachers like John will continue to make a difference, one classroom at a time.
My 92 year old mother is up late since I am watching the election returns. Obama has won and is about to speak.
"Look, Mom,"I say. "That's the new president of our country."
I'm never sure she hears me and/or understands. But this time she looks hard at the television screen, taking in the crowds, the shouting, the man.
"Is he black?" she asks.
"Yes," I answer, explaining (now that she seems to be paying attention) that his mother was white and his father was black, and he is now the president of the United States.
She continues to look intently at the television screen as Obama begins his acceptance speech.
"Can you make it louder?" she asks and moves to a chair nearer the tv, where she sits and listens and watches until he's done.
I'm not sure what it all meant to her, but I sure know what it all means to me. We have a truly democratic leader as president.
This morning I explained to my son why this is so historical. Why it's a big deal that an African American could be President. To do so, I had to introduce slavery as part of our history (mind you, he's only 6 and in first grade)...he askes SO many questions. "Why did men take them from their homes?" "What do you mean, can you explain more about how they were treated badly?"
And as I explained the best I could in appropriate terms for a 6 year old, but also without sugar-coating the truth, I saw tears fought back in his eyes. Our SIX YEAR OLD felt the injustice those men and women must have felt. Our child felt the horror and sadness of it. "Just because of the color of their skin?!"
He was aghast and stymied. Disgusted and outraged.
The only way I could make him feel better was to assure him that in the end, other men felt the way he just did. Which led to teaching him a bit about the civil war, Abe Lincoln and Harriet Tubman. It helped a bit, but there was no totally shaking him from the sadness he felt to learn how human beings had been treated.
I told him I was proud that he cared. Proud that it mattered to him. And that in the end, that is why it was historical today.
Don't tell me kids can't get it. And don't tell me a kid can't help direct his learning. Homeschooling rocks!
And my son b!X parties in Portland, missing his Dad, who would have been overcome with joy at the reality of President Obama.
For the last year and a half, a team of psychology professors has been conducting remarkable experiments on how Americans view Barack Obama through the prism of race.
That's the first line of an article in the New York Times that links to online tests that you can take to assess your attitudes about race and skin color, particularly in relation to the presidential race between McCain and Obama.
The article goes on to say:
A flood of recent research has shown that most Americans, including Latinos and Asian-Americans, associate the idea of “American” with white skin. One study found that although people realize that Lucy Liu is American and that Kate Winslet is British, their minds automatically process an Asian face as foreign and a white face as American — hence this title in an academic journal: “Is Kate Winslet More American Than Lucy Liu?”
After you read the article, you might want to test yourself here or here.
I took one of the tests on the first link above. The results said that I prefer black people to white people and that I prefer McCain over Obama. I am positive that neither statement about me is true. And the two results are conflicting anyway. So, I'm skeptical about that series of tests, but I plan to try out the rest of them anyway.
The second test is a whole other approach, and I think I'm just not quick enough to connect what I'm seeing with the right key.
Nevertheless, I'm going to go back to both sites and try more of the tests. As the Times article states:
....with race an undercurrent in the national debate, that also makes this a teachable moment. Partly that’s because of new findings both in neurology, using brain scans to understand how we respond to people of different races, and social psychology, examining the gulf between our conscious ideals of equality and our unconscious proclivity to discriminate.
Incidentally, such discrimination is not only racial. We also have unconscious biases against the elderly and against women seeking powerful positions — biases that affect the Republican ticket.
As the article goes on to explain, our attitudes and biases probably are formed by some combination of "nature" and "nurture." Understanding that can, indeed, make this a very "teachable moment" for a great many Americans.
While I don't have a bias against McCain's age or against Obama's race, I admit that I do have a bias. And it's in favor of a liberal policy agenda. Whoever has that has my vote.
Over the years, I've accumulated a following of various catalogs. Clothes, especially, but there are other kinds as well.
But the catalog I got in the mail today is one of a kind in my long list of order offers. And I don't know how or why they got my name. I can't help wondering if someone put my name on their mailing list just to annoy me.
I mean, this is what this slick catalog is selling:
-- a 20 CD set of lectures entitled "The Hand of God in the History of the World."
-- a read-aloud series for children: "How God Sent a Dog, Stopped Pirates, ande Used a Thunderstorm to Change the World."
-- a book: "Passionate Housewives Desperate for God."
WTF!!! I guess their marketing guru never got a look at the sidebar of this blog.
Oh, and then there's "The Wise Woman's Guide to Blessing Her Husband's Vision."
Now I'm grinding my teeth!
In between all of this, pages of miltary, detective, construction, outdoor, and battle costumes and tools for boys. And what do the girls get? Equal pages of cutsy dresses and dolls, baking sets and aprons, tea sets and crochet gloves AND a book on "How to Be a Lady."
Groan. Nausea. Twitches.
And. AND. This, and I quote from the blurb on "Return of the Daughters":
For the first time in America's history, young ladies can expect to encounter a large gap between their years of basic training and the time when they marry...if they marry. Now Christian girls all throughout our country are seriously asking: What's a girl to do with her single years?
This documentary takes
... viewers into the homes of several young women who have dared to defy today's anti-family culture in pursuit of a biblical approach to daughterhood, using their in-between years to pioneer a new culture of strength and dignity -- and to rebuild Western Civilization, starting with the culture of the home.
I have to admit, the writing in this catalog is good, the presentation skilled. And that even makes it more scary. I am not linking to its website because I don't want to give it any additional visibility.
Finally, the back cover:
A Creation Celebration. ... each episode will build your appreciation for the brilliance of God's design and will teach you how to dispel evolutionary myths...
Evolutionary myths!!!
This is one catalog that I'm going to feel great pleasure in throwing into the recycle pile. That is, after I rip off the address label and stick it in the mail with an order to take my name off their !@#$% list.
I used to do one of these every week, feeling that it's good to keep life on this planet in wacky perspective. So, here, are some news bits you might have missed (and/or that I think bear repeating).
Satellite images revealed that global-warming-induced melting had left the North Pole an island.
The jobless rate rose from 5.7 percent to a five-year high of 6.1percent, with more than 84,000 jobs lost in August.
Despite McCain's opposition to earmarks, Palin,when mayor of the 6,700-resident town of Wasilla (known tostate troopers as Alaska's "meth capital"), hired lobbyist Steven Silver to help win federal earmarks totaling $27 million. It also emerged that Palin, 44, received her first passport in 2006.
"Paris Match" published a glossy eight-page spread of Taliban fighters wearing the uniforms of the French soldiers they had killed.
Virginia Tech students were falsely told by the local registrar of elections that if they voted at college their parents would no longer be able to claim them as dependents on their tax returns, and that they could lose their scholarships and their health- and car-insurance coverage.
Tens of thousands of copies of a Swedish food magazine were recalled after an error in a recipe for apple cake sent four readers to hospitals with nutmeg poisoning.
A British teenager's head swelled to the size of a soccer ball after she consumed a Baileys chili-tequila-absinthe-ouzo-vodka-cider-and-gin cocktail.
For the first time in a century, a month passed without a visible spot on the sun. An ice age, said scientists, may be forthcoming.
The Victorian Aboriginal Education Association warned Australian girls not to play the didgeridoo because it was "men's business" and could lead to infertility.
The author of the book "100 Things to Do Before You Die," having completed about 50 of the things on his list, fell, hit his head, and died.
To read additional bits and for links to authenticate any of the above go here.
I suppose that's one way to get little kids aware of the election coming up. Although I imagine it would be more appealing to girls than boys, who tend to like more physical activities where they don't have to sit still for so long. At least that's the case with my 6 year old grandson.
Nope, not Rachel Ray. She's sort of the antithesis of the Rachel who has really impressed me recently.
Rachel Maddow, who has her own program on Air America, and has been on MSNBC's Countdown as a political analyst, recently has stood in for usual host, Keith Olbermann (who, by the way is the one man with whom I'd like to be stranded on a deserted island.)
Maddow has the presence and the personality of a true news media star. She's brilliant, articulate, appealing, confident, and down-to-earth. She's also openly gay, and the way she presents herself visually reflects that fact in a very professional way. She has developed her own female -- but not particularly feminine -- style, and it works.
I suppose, if I had to be stranded on a deserted island with a lesbian, I'd just as soon it be Rachel Maddow.
Already, newspapers and magazines (and soon TV programming) are encouraged to sell key words to advertisers – so-called “in-text advertising” – in the online versions of stories. Can you imagine advertisers going for stories with key words such as “health care reform,” “environmental degradation,” “Iraqi casualties,” “contracting fraud,” or “K Street lobbyists.” I don’t think so. So what will happen to news in the future as the already tattered boundaries between journalism and advertising is dispensed with entirely, as content, programming, commerce and online communities are rolled into one profitably attractive package? Last year the investment firm of Piper Jaffrey predicted that much of the business model for new media would be just that kind of hybrid. They called it “communitainment.”
Moyers also said great stuff like:
...this Administration – with the complicity of the dominant media – conducted a political propaganda campaign, using erroneous and misleading intelligence to deceive Americans into supporting an unprovoked attack on another country, leading to a war that instead of being “quick and bloodless” as predicted, continues to this day. (At least we now know that a neo-conservative is an arsonist who sets the house on fire and six years later boasts that no one can put it out.)
and
Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent while enhancing the power of the state and the privileged interests protected by it.
Democracy without accountability creates the illusion of popular control while offering ordinary Americans cheap tickets to the balcony, too far away to see that the public stage is just a reality TV set.
Nothing more characterizes corporate media today – mainstream and partisan – than disdain towards the fragile nature of modern life and indifference toward the complex social debate required of a free and self-governing people.
This leaves you with a heavy burden – it’s up to you to fight for the freedom that makes all other freedoms possible.
Be vigilant; the fate of the cyber commons is at stake here, the future of “the mobile web” and the benefits of the Internet as open architecture. We’ll lose without you: the only antidote to the power of organized money in Washington is the power of organized people at the netroots.
You can go to the FreePress site and read, listen to, or watch the whole amazing speech.
A couple of years ago, I agreed with Molly Ivins that Bill Moyers should be president. Maybe what he should be is Barack Obama's Carl Rove.
Surely there must be some foundation or trillionaire somewhere who might want to give out grants to independent citizen blogger/journalists? I nominate b!X to be first on the list.
Who doesn't like having the last word, and this time it was mine at the end of Ronni Bennett's great essay on elderboggers, Put It In Writing, published today in the Wall Street Journal. You can't get to the essay online, so Ronnie had to send it in an email to those of us she mentioned in case we don't subscribe to the newspaper, which I don't.
Interestingly enough, the Journal began the printed version of Ronni's essay with a quote from my quote. So, here I am, the alpha and the omega.
Ronni will be having occasional articles on aging and retirement for the Wall Street Journal from now on. Congratulations, Ronni.
And thanks for giving me the last word.
I blog to connect with the world outside myself that I'm trying to make sense of.
I blog to keep up my spirit; to stir the spirit of others; to stir my blood, my brain and my beliefs.
ADDENDUM: I discovered that you can read the whole great article by going here and then clicking on the story title, "Put it in Writing."
I think that Hillary Clinton would be damned by public opinion no matter how she ran her campaign. If she had Barack's eloquence, charm, and public persona, she would have been damned for being to theatrical, too smooth, not tough enough etc. etc. Oh yes, she's made too many mistakes in her campaign, but I don't think that's the reason there's so much animosity toward her.
Many American's love the idea of good vs. evil, the bad vs. the good, and they've been handed a perfect opportunity to set up a METAPHORICAL (not racial) black vs. white battle. No grays here (except creeping in on Hillary's battered head.)
And, despite all of the backlash against Ferraro, I believe that if a white male with Barack's change agenda AND LACK OF EXPERIENCE were running, he wouldn't have made it this far.
Oh, wait a minute. A white male with Barack's change agenda AND CONSIDERABLE EXPERIENCE was running and didn't make it.
Perhaps what it all just means is the time is right for someone like Barack -- a moving, persuasive orator, a symbol of radical change from the status quo (symbolized by his bi-racial ethnicity), someone from a new generation who appeals to the new generation. If he could be canonized by us liberals, he would be called Saint Barack, patron saint of idealists.
So often, timing is everything. And, as we saw on Ellen, Barack's got the timing down pat.
And late middle-aged, thick waisted, experienced, tough broad Hillary be damned.
I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall
after an Indian woman puts her shoulder to the Grand Coulee Dam
and topples it. I am told by many of you that I must forgive
and so I shall after the floodwaters burst each successive dam
downriver from the Grand Coulee. I am told by many of you
that I must forgive and so I shall after the floodwaters find
their way to the mouth of the Columbia River as it enters the Pacific
and causes all of it to rise. I am told by many of you that I must forgive
and so I shall after the first drop of floodwater is swallowed by that salmon
waiting in the Pacific. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall
after that salmon swims upstream, through the mouth of the Columbia
and then past the flooded cities, broken dams and abandoned reactors
of Hanford. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall
after that salmon swims through the mouth of the Spokane River
as it meets the Columbia, then upstream, until it arrives
in the shallows of a secret bay on the reservation where I wait alone.
I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after
that salmon leaps into the night air above the water, throws
a lightning bolt at the brush near my feet, and starts the fire
which will lead all of the lost Indians home. I am told
by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall
after we Indians have gathered around the fire with that salmon
who has three stories it must tell before sunrise: one story will teach us
how to pray; another story will make us laugh for hours;
the third story will give us reason to dance. I am told by many
of you that I must forgive and so I shall when I am dancing
with my tribe during the powwow at the end of the world.
With this post is a reminder to often check out 3 quarks daily, a group blog for those who like to have their brains prodded.
I read the post that linked to this soon after I had a look at some photos that my amateur photographer daughter had been playing with, using some trial software. The item is about "computational photography" and is about innovations in digital cameras, but the concept includes innovations in software a well.
This landscape photo of hers, for example, she transformed to look as though it had brush strokes in it. This one turned into a watercolor.
What will these new technological capacities for creating "art" mean for the value (monetary, aesthetic, and historical) of the more traditional artist?
And it's not just the two-dimensional visual arts techniques that are changing. Creative writing has reached a new frontier as well. 3 quarks daily cites an article in The Guardian that reports:
The book-writing machine works simply, at least in principle. First, one feeds it a recipe for writing a particular genre of book - a tome about crossword puzzles, say, or a market outlook for products. Then hook the computer up to a big database full of info about crossword puzzles or market information. The computer uses the recipe to select data from the database and write and format it into book form.
Phillip M. Parker, the inventor of the system, gives his reason for inventing it:
"there is a need for a method and apparatus for authoring, marketing, and/or distributing title materials automatically by a computer." He explains that "further, there is a need for an automated system that eliminates or substantially reduces the costs associated with human labour, such as authors, editors, graphic artists, data analysts, translators, distributors, and marketing personnel.
"
I can't help wondering if the next steps will be to program machines to actually do the painting, take and make the photos, write the books, make the movies......
Will actual human creative processes become obsolete and will we become -- as we almost are already -- just consumers??
Will the offspring of Roomba leave no place for future Rembrandts?
A security assessment found that just one third of Baghdad's neighborhoods were under U.S. control, police recruits shot a "suspicious woman," a Catholic priest was kidnapped along with five boys, and 27 corpses, each shot in the head and showing signs of torture, were recovered.
China was in the grip of "Web 2.0 madness.
Three adulterers were executed by firing squad in Khyber, Pakistan.
Hillary Clinton thanked God for helping her endure the sexual indiscretions of her husband.
Two John McCain campaign officials were fired for refusing to "rape and pillage" church directories for potential donors.
Students at Harvard University were scalping tickets to their own graduation, high school officials in Galesburg, Ohio, withheld the diplomas of five seniors after their friends and families cheered too loudly at the commencement, and three students were arrested in Aurora, Illinois, following a cafeteria food fight.
Forest guards in western India were using cell phone ring tones of cows mooing, goats bleating, and roosters crowing to lure hungry leopards away from human encampments.
In Bautzen, Germany, three teenagers were found not guilty of impairing the sex drive of an ostrich.
The Internet's storehouse of wisdom, information, and pornographic images was determined to weigh 0.2 millionths of an ounce
For the originating links for these and other news bits to contemplate, go here.
Yes, Paris in the Spring...or the springing of Paris...or Paris reslammered.
Yeah...that Paris, the Hilton one, not the worthwhile one.
A friend of the lesser one points out, "It was so cruel what has happened to her. She wasn't allowed to wax or use a moisturizer. Her skin is so dry right now!" My god, Paris with dry skin! Leg stubble! Returning bikini-line hair! How dreadful! "She's had an awful five days," the friend goes on. "She wants to see her friends and have fun. She's been punished enough already." Five days without a party? My god...cruel and unusual punishment! California's Guantanamo!
And well-heeled, high-powered defense attorneys to a person cry out that she's been singled out only because of her celebrity. Right. And those same attorneys say nothing about how their butter's breaded by the rich and famous.
But you know what? What happens to Paris Heirhead is not the important story. What is of relevance is the national obsession with her and this event. Every t.v. station covers it incessantly, even cutting in for "breaking news" about it, lest they lose advertising revenue if they ignored it as they should. Newspapers are adorned with the story. They've reached tabloid heaven. And why is this obsession important? Because it shows us loud and clear and in no uncertain terms just how shallow America has become. Paris Hilton drives all else out of the news of the day! Paris Hilton!...who's not worth a rat's aspersion of our time or interest, yet here we are, dominated by her.
If we asked that friend of hers what the american military death toll is in Iraq, do you suppose we'd hear from the friend that it's over 3500?
If we asked what help she and her friends have given to the poor, or homeless, or an ailing parent, think we'd hear about any meaningful humane efforts?
If we asked about what's happening in Darfur, think we'd get a knowledgeable answer?
Of course not. Those events detract from party time. Please...all we'd get is more drivel about "poor Paris." More petitions to "save her." More websites crying out on her behalf. Or another fan yelling, "She's America's Princess Di!" (Another pitiful obsession inexplicably rampant.) All of it is hard evidence of precisely where we've arrived in this country: in the shallows of monumental stupidity.
