Dispirited with the Public Schools

I have stopped comparing the public schools where I volunteer to the one private school I once ran. Now, five years into my volunteer experiences, I am still appalled. There is a reason why Obama sends his kids to Sidwell Friends School. There is a reason why I send my grandson to private school. If a family can afford it you opt for a school that isn't the deadening and lackluster place where FCAT is paramount. The bottom line is that every child is worthy, some are very bright, most are average, and a few need more help. Here is my view of a public elementary school. In this particular one, a "D" school for the last couple of years, the sense of fear is palpable. Most of the teachers this year are new. They take seriously all the meetings and visits from THE STATE. If the rating cannot go up to at least a C, they will be toast. And so, this involves lots of nonsense about reading 100 minutes a day, no recess, no fun, no reading out loud. I have never gotten as much as a sniff to indicate that any of the teachers or administrators actually read anything! What about the kids? These high poverty kids need experiences! They need to do hands on stuff, play, talk, go outside to run and tumble. They need to have the experiences of growing things, cooking, sewing, measuring, building, playing games, talking! They need mulch for their minds! Teachers do not have any autonomy. I stroll through the classrooms and see in these bleak windowless rooms only neat canned and commercial things and directives on the walls. No art, no science nooks full of interesting things, no creative toys,no live pets to care for, no inviting reading spaces. It shrivels my heart. No joy. Several of us from our local town garden club got a grant to install a school/community vegetable garden. And now, this garden is incredibly bountiful, bursting with all kinds of vegetables. We are eager to cook with the kids who have grown this. When the classes come to the garden,water and weed, pick the produce, and prepare and eat it, it's wonderful! But, so often, we find that most of the teachers really have no idea that there is this great garden out back. They are so hunkered down doing their so many minutes of FCAT prep, there is no time to look up. To say the least, it is uphill work introducing these kids and families and teachers who live in a food desert, to good eating and nutrition. We certainly do not feel valued at all. Except by the kids! One of the faceless and gray people from "THE STATE" accidentally crashed our worm farm to the floor the other day. No apology, just a terse directive to get the custodian to clean up the dirt. I wonder how this school could be if it had a real sense of community? I wonder how it would be if those humorless and gray folks from "THE STATE" would just go away and the teachers could really talk about how education in their school could be, take on the challenge together? I wonder how it would be if everyone was not fearful? I wonder how it would feel to a first year teacher to be able to actually run their ideas by their peers,and be challenged by the best profession, teaching? Who cares what grade this school gets? The point is to educate kids. I notice as I roam around that these kids are sorely lacking in writing skills, math, and of course, no one actually reads for pleasure, and NO ONE READS ALOUD ON A REGULAR BASIS to kids! This total devotion to upping the school grade is devastating to any real meaning of education. Kids do not work this way. To have kids really be good readers they have to have a lot of experiences to hang up there in their minds. If you are reading about geese, for example, you need to have your kids actually see a goose! You can't make sense of sea life if you don't have those kids go to the seashore with a seine net. You can't make sense of history unless you take the kids to the local history museum and let them touch old stuff. It is nothing useful for reading and anything else to just make kids hunker down with commercial materials that are foreign to them. The commercial education companies, which are the drivers of all this,are in it for the money. They have made us all afraid. I believe that every kid is pretty much above average, every kid is valuable, and we owe it to them to make their childhood joyful,interesting, safe, and provide them with the skills they need for life. I want our principals, superintendent, lead teachers to lead the way and not be afraid to really really TEACH our kids.

What was I Thinking? Twenty for Thanksgiving!

Feels like I have just finished a cruise! We are just putting away the last of the laundry and six dishwasher loads of stuff from this feast.

On the day, we began by amassing all the stuff- the turkey, the salmon, all the vegetables from the garden,the cranberries, the potatoes, the ingredients for the gluten free, the vegetarians,and all the rest. We have our plan of attack affixed to the fridge. Our daughter has set up the tables for twenty in the hall, corralled enough chairs, made the table look beautiful and bountiful, set up the table for the wonderful hors d'oeuvres my sister will bring. Grandson Quincy is on board to light the many candles (and he looks splendid in fresh clothes and very large black shoes!) As sou chef I spend the morning washing and chopping vegetables, cleaning as we go, and the chef works on preparing the stuffing, marinating the turkey, knowing all. At some point it seems that everything is ready to go. Broccoli, beans and collards are washed, chopped, ready in their steamers. Potatoes are peeled and ready to be mashed and the butter and garlic is at the ready. The stuffing is in the oven with the turkey. An amazing green and red salad from the garden is washed and spun and ready to be dressed. My sister comes and lays out her appetizers on the porch table (and immediately we all dig in! She makes an incredible spinach pesto loaf, olives, tapenade..) Now folks are arriving, the table is set, drinks are set out. We have been on our feet since dawn (and we are not Martha Stewart!). The best part of the day is when people begin to gather - friends and family we have not seen in a long time, and others we have not yet met. There are hugs and inquiries, people bringing pies and orchids and bottles of wine. In this last part of a Florida afternoon the light is lovely and warm so our guests wander about and enjoy the place. Of course, there is always way too much food! We toast our happiness and good fortune, and dig in to the bounty of food. After the pies and the coffee we repair to the fireplace room (and several of us take turns loading the dishwasher over and over!) No one here turns on the T.V. to watch football. What we did was to do some stargazing with the help of my brother-in-law's i-pad. And, of course, there was the usual clot of folks who talked politics. So, it was a wonderful traditional American Thanksgiving. We gave thanks for the outcome of the election, for not having any Hurricanes here,for our health and happiness, for friends and family, for frogs. Lots of folks spent the night so there were the arrangements of sheets, blankets, where to brush your teeth, do they have enough covers, etc. Brother-in-law Jay prepared breakfast the next morning for everyone: local eggs, bagels, lox, tomatoes and the works. Grandma Molly was k.p. and laundry queen, then captain of the walk through the fields and woods - and then, after all guests left, one could see her lying on the floor of her studio, maybe meditating, maybe thinking that... I love doing this! It does take a toll on us, but it's worth it! We are eternally thankful for all our blessings, our friends and family, our energy to be helpful in our community.

Football frenzies

O.K., people, you know who I am. Watching 60 minutes tonight about the huge driving force that football is in our universities, I was sickened. Here is this huge amount of money spent on the football programs, five million paid to the coach of Michigan (or was it Alabama?).

I know that many folks love their teams. My co in-laws go to every alumni game and bleat their brains out supporting it. I wonder how they would feel if our grandson was beating his head and body on the field as a regular practice?

Here's a proposal: Separate the football from the academic! Those football players should just play football with all the violence and danger and money. Make it a sort of sub professional league. Those young folks who wish to participate in this blood sport could do it without also having to do the charade of also being students. Perhaps they could also have some support about how to make it into professional teams and get on with a meaningful life.

What has football got to do with acquiring an education? Think of it- that brilliant girl or boy, starting out to save the world by studying environmental science has no interest in damaging his/her brain with the violence of football.

Let's put football in the same realm as casino gambling. Just go for it as the violent sport it is (kind of like dog fighting, maybe). Let it be totally profit driven, a business people can support or not.

But, this violent sport of football has no place in academia that I can see. Young people who are about getting an education need to do just that. If all college football programs went into another league, not connected to their college or  university we would actually see how much alumni support there is. Maybe not pretty, but realistic.

Sports have an important place in any academic program, but to have football with all its violence and entitlement be the driver of money acquisition seems to me to be callous and unethical. I am proud to be an Ivy League alumna with a crappy football team. I only wish they would dispense with it entirely!

The Problems of Powerful Men

During the Viet Nam war, my husband was drafted. Basically a pacifist, he could not see any alternative to going. Many of our friends got psychological and other waivers, but he believed in doing this thing that all American young men did. As a Harvard graduate, he had the chance to go to Officer Training School, and the perks and pay would be better. But he chose to be a PFC and see where that led.

He was not about to do any possible thing that led to killing people. He stayed stateside in boring jobs, dispensing dental floss and teaching English to new recruits. At one period he was fingered to be some kind of bomb demolition expert, but he did not pass security clearance (Our parents were Lefties). And this guy who could have been an amazing four star general, except for that inconvenient fact of his pacifism, went on to be a powerful person in journalism.

I remember dreaming about what would happen if he decided to be a military man, and thinking that that fact would lose him from me entirely.

Then our lives tumbled into great careers, the raising of a family, and by increments our financial position improved from the relative poverty when we were students. There were times, later on when we dined at the White House, danced at soirees given by the President of Argentina and Chili, toured Russia, ate incredible buffets put on by the King of Norway. But at home we painted our own house, went to soccer games, and our entertainments were largely just friends we cooked for.

We were beguiled by the opulence of many of the entertainments we attended, but, no way was this something we wanted to do. We were much more interested in the common folks we met, and any excess money was given away to causes we believe in.

I think that this Petraeus thing is having power gone wrong. I kind of have the French take on this: public is public, and don't lift up that private page. But I do wonder about this Jill Kelly person. She and her husband and sister seem to embody the worst sort of greed. She ensnares.

My husband would never be ensnared by the baubles of surface beauty and the entree to opulent living. Neither would our current president.

But still, we have lost an excellent public servant and it makes me sad.