Wet & Warm @ Florida Fat Farm after Harrowing Flight

One of the boons of my existence is a sister in Florida, who this year gifted me a ticket to what I like to call her “Fat Farm,” a gated community with a pool and a large exercise facility. Full of contraptions that look like torture devices. Well, I suppose it depends on whether you regard exercise as a natural high or torture!

Getting here was variations of the latter: That big storm that bedeviled Atlanta earlier in the week, moved southeast over Florida and fogged in the Podunk airport, where the flight was supposed to land. With no instruments, the pilot couldn't see the runway, but descended anyway, deployed the landing gear and when, I presume, the altimeter told him we were getting too low, he aborted the landing, pulled up, banked and flew back to Tampa/St. Petersburg.

We were informed we were running out of fuel, so would land and give it another try. Quickly, the stewardesses passed through the cabin with a legal handout disavowing any airline responsibility for deposits on rental cars, hotel rooms, etc.

On the ground we taxied to a gate, were told the weather wasn't getting any better, and buses would arrive within the hour to take us back to Podunk, where most of the passengers had friends or family (me, the brother-in-law) picking them up—a 2-hour drive.

We were shuttled down to baggage claim, a few managed to rent cars, but they quickly ran out. Checked luggage appeared and after about an hour another flight arrived from Bangor, Maine. The vending machines ran out of change and various items. The airline staff evaporated and, though most people had left in the morning, not a bottle of water nor a scrap of fruit appeared, though here were seniors possibly diabetic or hypoglycemic and one using a walker.

Around 9:30 p.m. six buses arrived, but the one I boarded had a governor on the heat and would only blow cold air. Fellow passengers rustled up a blanket for an older woman who was dressed for Florida and may nevertheless have pneumonia by this time.

Critical Eye got out her computer. Didn't take long to see who benefits handsomely from flagrant disregard of passenger health and safety—Allegiant Air stockholders. Both in 2012 and 2013 they received bonus benies of $2 and $2.25. This is how the U.S. gov't Federal Aviation Admin protects us!

Good Days for Dying. . .

These howling Januaries haunt me—they provide such good days for dying. Am still grieving the demise of my dear friend, Dorth, early last January. Likely till the end of my days. Dad died when I was ten, and being the eldest, Mom & I slipped into an inadvertent partnership mimicing marriage. She needed somebody energetic and outrageous and I either was or became . . . who knows? Dorth nurtured and mentored me, but uniquely flexible, she was a grand friend-companion and I miss movies with her.

Late winter last year I lost another long-time friend Tom Carr, who, as his eloquent Celtic kinsman Mr. Dylan Thomas, advised Did not Go Gentle into that Good Night. Like Chagall's Lovers above the town, Tom's spirit floats above my garden, which he kept up in my Korean and German absences, and I fancy I see it when I look out the south windows.

One of the drawbacks of village existence is being closer to death than our big city counterparts. I have lived in Chicago, L.A., Denver, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, and Changwon, South Korea and don't believe I ever attended a wake or a funeral in any of them. You don't even know a big city librarian dies, but when the village librarian dies, you do and we buried her this a.m.

This evening is even more painful. We went to basketball games with Peggy, riding around with boys, cutting the gut, laughed, sat in class with her sister, and complained to her about the inadequacy of the onion crop this fall. And now she is gone.

But standing back, casting a Critical Eye on the world, maybe it isn't really a drawback being closer to the ground, knowing the cold. Maybe we are the lucky ones, far more conversant with reality.

What Big Pharma Does to Little Budgets

Late last week I received an inauspicious padded envelope with a German postmark from my friend in Koln. She had been to Turkey where she often flies in the late fall Urlaub and when she does, brings me back a couple boxes of Levotiron.

Thyroid malfunctions are quite common among women and several of my personal acquaintances (not only women) take synthetic thyroid to supplant their under active gland output. One had an overactive gland removed and must have total hormone replacement therapy.

When I was teaching in Turkey I discovered Turkish generic, was an over-the-counter and cost approximately $3.30 for a 100 tabs, a 3-month supply, which cost $45 here. Since you can have your blood tested for TSH you can monitor it easily to achieve the optimum reading.

Keep a Critical Eye on of profit American drug manufacturers feel entitled to earn.

Right outside your front door

Look no farther than the snow on road or street outside and in your driveway if want to understand why less than half the people trust government these days, down 37 percent.

Typical, this city has added approximately 10 miles of streets (Nobody knows for sure.) in the last 20 years. So, in a year like this the city workers are practically living in plows and end loaders racing up and down frantically plowing the streets open and our driveways shut!

This is what comes of running a city like a business, giving developers most of what they want, and workers practically nothing.

Cast a Critical Eye outside your front door and the answer is right there!

Sunday on Skype

Talked to my Israeli friend Rona on Skype this a.m. The new computer has an on board camera, so I can see her cats and she can see Lion Kitty. She was off to the theater so couldn't talk long, and I returned the kitchen, where a pic of Christ contemplating Jerusalem from the Garden of Gethsemane has been hanging in roughly the same spot these many years. It gives me a chuckle every time I see it: When I visited Gethsemane, it was at the bottom of a hill! Since, I have checked on line and there seems to be a dispute about where it actually was. Not the only one in the “Holy” Land!

The Implications of Millionaires in Congress

The Center for Responsive Politics has done us all a good turn revealing that roughly half of American congressmen are millionaires, but left it up to us to consider the implications. Though they characterized this as “a watershed moment. . .when law makers are debating unemployment, food stamps, and minimum wage.”

Exactly. What does a millionaire know about coming up $10 or $20 short on the week's groceries?

Any American who has ever been unemployed for any length of time, knows until the Great Recession extensions, unemployment lasted 26 weeks (a lousy six mos.) and ended whether you got a job or not. (In civilized countries you are classified as unemployed until you're employed.)

One man I know with formidable skills, cobbled together a living taking any work he could find for 7 years. Of course, with no health care or pension and coming close to losing his house in the process.

What does a millionaire know about that?
Statistically, however, this worker was listed as employed because the U.S. government only counts the people receiving unemployment in the official figures. Unemployment is down from 7% to 6.7! It's probably closer to 20%!!!

Clearly, there is a correlation between all these millionaires and number of bills and decisions at all levels of government that are favorable to business and shareholders, resulting in the persistent dismantling of the U.S.middle class and the near-total demise of unions?

Though Boeing is riding high and v. profitable it was able to strong-arm its machinists into accepting a contract that crashed their pensions. Why? Elected officials all over this country offered Boeing great deals to attract the company there. Yeah, elected officials handed a highly profitable company the means to undermine its workers. And we elected these people! The people who passed the law that Boeing workers couldn't strike.

Cast a Critical Eye on the people you vote for and make sure they share your values!

MYOB, Please!

Don't you think we should all give French President Francois Holland a discreet round of applause for telling the press corps to mind its own beeswax?

Apparently, he is having an affair with an actress and when the press requested details, he told them that your private life is just that—private. When we had better manners as a nation, the now-lionized, then-President John F. Kennedy had an affair with Marilyn Monroe,but no one dared ask. And really, isn't inquiring about personal details—that aren't volunteered a bit like window peeking?\

Certainly the Critical Eye belongs outside the boudoir!

This is the first of several posts I will be making to this blog from my manuscript Adventures among the Awesomes--A Boomer Teacher Memoir in hopes that they will give the regular reader the proverbial fly (ah, critical eye) on the classroom wall view.

15 April 2011 – A Testy Test

             Up to sixth period, it hadn’t been a great day, but it hadn’t been the worst either, and I know this year’s eighth grade is tough.

            The teacher’s notes warn the Soc class I will have for a only a 15-minute quiz is “very talkative,”` a euphemism for expect misbehavior, and I already knew T---  is in there -- she and the short kid who had messed the whole previous period accomplishing sweet nothing. However, they had not compromised the rest of the computer class.           

                T’s buddy takes a seat across the room at the back. His seat is the first desk inside the front door. This makes several other kids feel entitled change their seats, or so they tell me when I become aware of it. We waste nearly five minutes sorting that out, during which I remind them “This is your test-taking time we are wasting. You have only fifteen minutes . . .”

                “We had a test yesterday,” they claim, outraged.

                “You know I am a sub and I have to follow Mrs. O’s instructions.”

                “Then Mrs. O is bogus. We don’t supposed to have a test unless she tell us!”

                “You don’t supposed to give a pop quiz after you give a test.”

                “Aren’t supposed to. And you know that substitutes aren’t supposed to change teacher’s plans. Ms. O. may not even count this test, so discuss it with her.”

                This mollifies and I pass out the quiz, but don’t explain I suspect that it’s the standardized version of the test they took, and Ms. O probably wants to see how well they will do on it compared to the one she wrote. The language is challenging, and the questions abstractly constructed. I want to give them, as much time as possible., so I assure them I  will take the test of anyone who talks and he/she will get zero. They know the rules .

                The grumbling and challenging continues, leaving me no choice. I take the test of the boy at the front making the most noise. This puts a dent in it, but, doesn’t stop it altogether. I again remind them of test ethics.  One girl in the back row is complaining vociferously that the test is too hard and leaves me no choice – I take her paper.  This puts an end to the noise.    

                With less than five minutes to go before class is over, most students have handed in their papers and only two are still working but the talking resumes in decibels—mostly furious and insistent restatements of how unfair this test is. What entitles thirteen-year-olds to dictate to teachers when or what test to give?

I can just imagine what would have happened if we had tried a similar maneuver. This is part of what makes teaching so hard – the vastly changed standards. Ultimately, how much of this is a factor the comparative inefficacy of American education? The very people taking tests are deciding what should be on them! How many of these little twits will go home and complain to their parents?  And how many of them will call Ms. O, who is just trying to get a sense of how her group stacks up.

                “Not everyone is finished,” I say in a well-modulated voice “Please respect the right of your classmates to work in silence. Stop talking.”

                One of unfinished is a tow-headed girl who had been messing in the previous class and she yells at the top her lungs: “Yeah, SHUT UP, YOU Guys. This is ridiculous. I deserve the right to work in silence.”

One glance at her speaks volumes: she’s doing her best to keep from laughing.

The whole class is up for grabs – shouting insults back; she’s nobody’s favorite:

                “Shut up yourself. You could give a shit; yer flunkin’ anyway.”

                “Give us a break, B______ you can’t answer those questions and you know it.”

                She is yelling back at them, enthralled with the exercise and there is no point in trying to top their screaming, which can certainly be heard in the hall, so I am not surprised when the director of PLANS enters furious.

A pall of silence falls suddenly over the class.

                Ms. S__  the discipline coach, enters and begins upbraiding them for their disrespect, their lack of school pride in giving me a most unfavorable impression of the school and finally makes them get out another paper and write me an apology.

 The bell rings, but she makes the next class line up outside. I collect the apologies and we dismiss.

                On the way out, she explains there are some “problems” in this group.

                 “Problem was they didn’t want to take a quiz because they had one yesterday.”

                “They don’t have that choice.”

                “They apparently think they do.”

                She makes them all write me notes of apology, and I suppose there is a certain rationale in it, but I hate these letters because they are so perfunctory. What is the point if continually tell kids they are awesome and allow them to comment on everything.  What will they (or their parents)do tomorrow? Try to intimidate her out of using the test?  Iowa kids, who used to lead the parade of standardized tests, can no longer even take them!

                The final class of the day is uneventful, but I am not finished – I have crossing guard duty. I don the caution orange vest and grab the Stop sign, hustle out the front door and take up my position. In a couple minutes, the students begin flooding out to the crossing point.  

A girl, undoubtedly not an eighth grader, comes up and asks with a smirk, “How were things in Social Studies today, Ms. McDermott?”

               

Rubbing my nose in their rotten behavior. This is how hormone-addled thirteen year-old are allowed to treat teachers

Incensed, I stomp back into the school, grab the apologies out of my briefcase and scan them few are from kids who didn’t participate in the craziness to begin with are sincere. Most of the rest, puddles of crocodile tears. I rip them in half and toss them in the recycling

If this society wants to improve educational scores it has to reinstate the teacher and not allow teens to call the shots.

-30-

Keep critical eye peeled for crocodile tears.

Branstad at it Again

Friday Jan. 10^th Iowa Governor Terry Branstad made yet another pronouncement about increasing the rigor of teaching training. Attempting, he says, to attract better candidates to teaching.

Count on it Gov!!! The best and the brightest will flock to a profession that is vilified for results beyond its control. Poverty and parental support affect kids' education stats far more than anyone will admit in public. Politicians leverage this ignorance to try to erode the teachers' union, the only sizable one with any influence left in the country, which is of course why teachers' salaries remain relatively middle class.

I have a niece who was in talented and gifted classes for most of her time in school, got a full ride to a masters in library science, worked for one year as a school librarian, and quit. Reporting that the administration demanded impossible results.

Since he is up for election, we perhaps better keep a critical eye peeled for a governor who can deal more forthrightly with these issues.

New Obama Directive to Schools 

 

Earlier this week, observing that “Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be punished harshly,” the Obama Administration directed school districts to revise their policies to break the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

A laudable objective certainly, but the Critical Eye wonders about the downsides.

Looking online at classroom management theory, a reader is repeatedly exhorted to put the individual learner first. It goes without saying then, that the topic being studied and decorum of the overall group come in 2^nd & 3^rd.  In actual classroom practice 1 or 2 students' behavior can sabotage the time and instruction of others'. This dictum may lead to more disruption in school.

With Am. Educational stats telling us a very mediocre tale, the whole society needs to cast a critical eye on these kinds of decisions.

German Creationism Home-Schoolers Find a Home

            Between January of 1998 and July 2002 I spent nearly five years in Berlin. During which time I taught one of the most interesting classes of my life: a group of East German engineers with a decent grasp of English grammar, incisive minds and wonderfully ironic points of view.

They were fond of asking me incriminating questions like: “Why do UFOs always land in the U.S?” and I believe I learned more from them about skepticism than I ever taught.

            As they needed speaking practice especially with the progressive tenses (-ing verb forms—was going, had been driving, etc.) most sessions were conversation. They were fascinated with how Scientology, the Hari Krishna, Amish, and all orthodox and extreme groups affect overall American society.  They regarded their own Skinheads as no asset.

I staunchly maintained ours was a more open and flexible society because of the freedom it offered individuals as far back as the Puritans citing productivity as proof. They countered with social disorganization figures, and I am glad it was then, not now, as we trail most Euro democracies by most parameters from infant morality to criminality.

 Once, in mock exasperation I exhorted them, “Well, would you guys stop sending us your weirdos and wackos?!”

            They laughed and loved it, but I see it hasn’t stopped: a new group of German Creationists have immigrated to Kentucky to evade the German equivalent of Common Core, the standard ideas and skills mastered by every child in the education system.

            It will take more than a high Critical IQ to explain to a dozen East German engineers how these immigrants are going to impact American science scores positively.

           

What's ________ Mean?

            Anytime I open my mouth in a classroom I know I earn my keep. Subbing one day before X-mas a student was telling me all the things he has to do for the two sports he is active in.

            When he finished, I remarked half-sad, half-sarcastically, That's vital for your education, son.”

            What's vital?” he asked.

Keep a Critical Ear peeled as well!