February 2007 Archives

Your very own copy of Literary Cash : Unauthorized Writings Inspired by the Legendary Johnny Cash awaits on the other end of this Amazon link! Contribute to Readerville.com while you enjoy PC's short story "The Snow Chaser," Russell Rowland's "One More Wrong Thing," Gayle Brandeis's "Tumbling," Gretchen Moran Laskas's "Things Might Happen," and more.

Occasionally, I snap.

The frustrations of teaching are many. When students sit blankly and don't even hazard a guess at the questions I ask in class, I sometimes flare my nostrils and sigh. When a student asks the same question I just finished answering, I find it hard not to fire off a few shots from the Sarc-Five DripGun Automatic. And when they don't bring homework to class... even when it's a review sheet for the exam... on the last class day BEFORE the exam... then yes, I tend to grind my molars and gesticulate wildly as I yowl at the boys and point out that this might not be the best way to prepare for a test that counts 20% of their grade.

That said, I don't ordinarily have to spend hours working out replies to student comments on our campus intranet system. The boys can post comments on a variety of subjects (from the Carolina Panthers to the Republican Party to the Korean traditional music called Samulnori) in forums designed for all interested parties, and faculty sponsors monitor (and usually participate in) the discussion. I sponsor the folders for the Comic Book Club, the North Carolina Club, the Liberal Club, the Panthers fans, and the Political Forum. Usually things are pretty peaceful, and my main task is to keep people from posting during study hall.

Every once in a while, though, one finds a way to make me feel gobsmacked to the point where I have to craft a response. It's usually when a student demonstrates ignorance in an unexpected area, or in an unusually large amount. Then I feel I have to use every tool in my box, both as a teacher and a writer, to lead him (and the other students who may be reading) out of that ignorance and into the pure light of reason. That is my job, after all.

This week was such a week. A student (a perfectly nice guy whom I will neither name nor quote directly) posted in the Liberal Club a brief post expressing his disdain for public schools, claiming that they were awful, that they could be reformed with ease with a voucher program, and that teacher's unions ought to be outlawed. And I snapped.

I'm no particular fan of teacher's unions; I never had any interest in joining one even when I worked among numerous NEA members at Pine Forest Senior High. Today's unions are proportionately as corrupt as today's politicians (who claim to be either working with or fighting against them, whichever will bring in more money and/or votes), and teacher's unions in particular seem to me far too concerned with keeping bad teachers at work, rather than improving the working conditions for good teachers. That said, I'm well aware that unions were responsible for many of the working conditions we now take for granted--the 40-hour/five-day week, occupational health & safety laws, child labor regulations, etc.--and find the idea of outlawing them appalling from a variety of perspectives (not least the First Amendment perspective.)

That wasn't what drew the majority of my ire, however. As anyone who knows me can attest, I've got a lot invested in the idea of public schools. My grandfather attended public schools in North Carolina and became a teacher, a principal, and later an employee of the state's school administration. My father attended public schools in N.C., went on to a state university, then became a public-school teacher (briefly) and a public-university administrator for most of his adult life. My mother was a public-school graduate. My wife, my brother, and my sister-in-law are all public-school products with multiple degrees from state universities. (Okay, technically Kelly's still working on her graduate degree, but it's from a state school.) My closest friends, many of them men and women of enormous intellect, erudition, and talent, are almost all public-school products. If my children, who have attended public school since kindergarten, happen to turn out like any of them, I'll feel that public education has more than fulfilled its promise.

I myself attended public schools for all twelve years of my primary and secondary education, for another thing, and I stayed with a state-operated school for both my bachelor's and master's degrees. I cut my teaching chops in a public high school, both as a student instructor (at good ol' Chapel Hill High), a substitute (at Southern Durham, Southeast Guilford, Orange County, and a few others) and a novice teacher at Pine Forest. Basically, I spent 24 years of my life in public schools, and I'd like to think I have a realistic picture of their good and bad points. That's why I tend to snap when I hear public education casually dismissed, particularly by a student at an exclusive private school.

That snap, in this case, produced the following response, which I hope and pray opened a few eyes on our campus:

"Public schools are awful." This is a popular stereotype, but that's all it is--a stereotype. Some public schools are superb, particularly those in areas that can afford high-quality facilities and good compensation for teachers. Public schools can also be awful particularly in areas where there is little funding available, or where students have little encouragement from home. Many public schools are mixtures, with some outstanding students and some terrible ones, some great teachers and some abysmal ones, some good programs and some bad ones. Some are mediocre all the way.

The sad fact is, however, private schools run the same gamut of quality. There are excellent private schools with outstanding faculties and lavish facilities, and there are slapdash private schools run primarily to exploit parents' fear of public schools. Some of the latter use class and racial fears to improve their attendance. Some cater to parents' desires to indoctrinate their children, rather than educate them. Others, because of the lack of certification requirements in private schools, have faculty members teaching subjects where they have no experience or training. "Private" is not a guarantee of excellence any more than "public" is a guarantee of inadequacy.

There are also some things that even a good private school may not offer, while a local public school might; if the local day school doesn't offer many computer courses, or field a good football team, or allow girls, there are students (girls, for example) who might well choose to attend the public school that does.

I've seen students come to WFS with superb preparation for success here, while others arrive with only a very weak grounding in the necessities for success. Those with public-school backgrounds have fallen into both categories; so have those with private-school (and home-school) backgrounds. To simply label public education "awful" is a disservice to those students (and faculty members) whose public-school educations have served them well.

As for the idea of vouchers, it sounds tempting, but I have significant doubts. For one thing, in most proposals I've seen, vouchers would pay only PART of private-school tuition. Vouchers would certainly HELP some families defray the cost of sending their kids to private school, but poorer families would have to settle for the same public schools their kids already attend--even if they were really bad schools. And since many of the families who were most concerned with getting their kids into better schools would have used their vouchers to do so, the remaining students would be the poorest kids, and/or the children of the poorest or least ambitious parents.

Moreover, what will happen when private-school applications shoot through the roof? Many applicants may be turned away, forcing them back into the public schools. If not, the private schools will become overcrowded, which will make them less academically effective. (Also, what if private schools do not WANT to accept some students? Will they be forced to do so?)

Of course, new private schools may spring up as demand grows, but it may be hard to gauge or control the quality of these hastily-established institutions; moreover, where are these schools going to get their teachers? Will they have enough money to attract qualified new teachers to the area? Will they hire the former public-school teachers? If not, who will teach the kids? Untrained and unqualified locals?

And of course one voucher issue that's often ignored is the fact that most public-school funding--about 97% of it, as a matter of fact--comes from state and local sources; the federal government contributes very little. Should the feds then dictate how a state ought to spend its money on education vouchers? What if Georgia and Illinois have different opinions about that? What if Georgia has fewer private schools per capita than Illinois?

I would certainly like more choices to be available for parents and students, and a less monolithic public-education structure is something I'd be eager to see. The Cumberland County School System where I worked, for example, now has 88 schools; if the superintendent wants to visit each school for a single day, it'll take him half the school year. How can he successfully lead a system he can't even visit? And that's the system of a middle-sized city and its surroundings--what's it like in D.C. or Chicago public schools?

I'm as yet unconvinced, however, that handing out vouchers (let alone illegalizing unions) will produce beneficial results, and there's little doubt in my mind that either would cause significant problems. Public-school reform will have to be done with forethought, care, and flexibility; it will also require money, patience, and maybe even a little prayer. And frankly, I think the federal government is probably NOT the institution to do the job.

I'm sorry to go on at such length, but this is an area where I've got more than a little invested. There ARE bad public schools, without question, but judging public education by them is kind of like judging the institution of marriage solely by the marriages of Britney Spears and Tom Cruise; those train wrecks don't say much about whether you and your girlfriend ought to wed, or whether your grandparents' 50-year marriage was a bad idea.

In the end, my hope is that all of you will do what you can to ensure that every American child has access to a good education, whether that child is your own or not, and whether that education comes at a public or private school.

It was a loud snap, and a rather long one. Here's hoping that it gets some people's attention.

11:26 PM

With just a click, you can order Literary Cash : Unauthorized Writings Inspired by the Legendary Johnny Cash through this Amazon link and help Readerville.com, earn a few pennies in the process. Now you can read PC's short story "The Snow Chaser" (based on Cash's "Field of Diamonds"), Russell Rowland's "One More Wrong Thing," Gayle Brandeis's "Tumbling," Gretchen Moran Laskas's "Things Might Happen," and more.

Some days it doesn't take much to put you in a crappy mood.

Or so I suppose, because I've been in one all day and I can't figure out why. It's not a lack of sleep, because I got in a good nine hours last night--a real rarity for me. Yesterday I spotted the year's first White-crowned Sparrow, a beautiful winter visitor that always cheers me up. We've got a huge bowl of M&Ms left over from last night's cast party, so there's no reason for my pleasure center to be understimulated. I'm reasonably caught up with my grading, so I'm not feeling huge pressure on that front. My E period class is getting ready to start reading Our Town, which is one of my favorite plays. I even got to give the dog a long walk today, his first in some days, since we've been largely snowed in.

But then again, I've had a few minor annoyances today. Somehow I managed, in the course of reaching to close the shower curtain, to jam a peeling flake of paint from the windowsill under the end of my left middle fingernail. I was able to pull (most of?) the paint out and wash it away in the shower, but it still hurts like hell. Then, climbing into the car after dinner, the door (which was slightly to the uphill side, but not significantly) began to shut as I was pulling my head in, and I scraped my left ear hard against the top of the driver's side window. No blood, but a very thorough abrasion along a rather sensitive stretch of skin. And to top it off, while reaching down to pick up Kelly's inhaler from the floor beside our bed, I managed to jam my left middle finger (see above) squarely into the hard plastic cylinder and re-aggravate the original injury.

All in all, the day's progress led me to bail on the evening and go straight to bed... at about 8:45 p.m. But of course I neglected to consider that Kelly would come to bed about three hours later... and once I've had over two hours of sleep or thereabouts, I find it very difficult to get back to sleep. So here I am, at 2:30 in the morning, listening to the soothing sounds of Joshua Rifkin playing Scott Joplin's "Gladiolus Rag," killing time in hopes that I'll soon be tired enough to head back to bed... and noting, with no small amount of weary cynicism, that the act of sitting here and typing isn't helping my finger feel much better...

7:12 AM

Readervilleans everywhere invite you to order Literary Cash : Unauthorized Writings Inspired by the Legendary Johnny Cash through this Amazon link and help their online home away from home, Readerville.com, earn a few pennies in the process. Now you can read PC's short story "The Snow Chaser" (based on Cash's "Field of Diamonds"), Russell Rowland's "One More Wrong Thing," Gayle Brandeis's "Tumbling," plus stories by Gretchen Moran Laskas, Bob Batchelor, and more in one sitting!

Y'know, in the rush to post with the New and Improved Blogger.com, I neglected to try one thing which has occasionally been a bit balky: posting images. Let's see what happens...









Hmm. Looks normal enough from here.

Defining "normal" in the loosest possible fashion, that is.

9:01 PM

Readervilleans everywhere invite you to order Literary Cash : Unauthorized Writings Inspired by the Legendary Johnny Cash through this Amazon link and help their online home away from home, Readerville.com, earn a few pennies in the process. Now you can read PC's short story "The Snow Chaser" (based on Cash's "Field of Diamonds"), Russell Rowland's "One More Wrong Thing," Gayle Brandeis's "Tumbling," plus stories by Gretchen Moran Laskas, Bob Batchelor, and more in one sitting!

Well, Blogger has finally forced me to switch over to its New and Improved version--a term I'm always dubious about, particularly after such debacles as installing the new MS Office on this laptop, which disabled my ability to use my SmartBoard in class for several months. We'll see if it works the way it's supposed to when I click "PUBLISH," I suppose.

But at least it gives me the chance to share this marvelous observation by Tim Kreider, whose webcomic, The Pain--When Will It End? is a wonderfully cathartic reading experience for most thinking Americans.

He has perfectly described Dinesh D'Souza here:

He is the equivalent of the happy cartoon pig in the chef’s hat who invites drivers to pull over and fill up on bar-B-Q pork.

I don't know how well this thing will work, but I know I feel better for having shared that with you. Thanks, Tim!

7:50 PM

Readervilleans Peter Cashwell, Russell Rowland, Gayle Brandeis, Gretchen Moran Laskas and others invite you to order Literary Cash : Unauthorized Writings Inspired by the Legendary Johnny Cash through this Amazon link and help their online home away from home, Readerville.com, earn a few pennies in the process. Now you can read PC's short story "The Snow Chaser" (based on Cash's "Field of Diamonds"), Russell's "One More Wrong Thing," Gayle's "Tumbling," and more in one sitting!

LBJs

*I finally caught a movie that wasn't on DVD! Yesterday we made it to Cville for a matinee of Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, a gorgeous, provocative, disturbing, and enchanting tale of Ofelia, a young girl in Franco's Spain who escapes her unpleasant homelife through what are either fantastic hallucinations or actual encounters with enchanted creatures. Meanwhile, her pregnant mother has married a fascist army officer assigned to repress the anti-fascist rebellion in the hills, and Ofelia is now caught up in both the personal and political struggles playing out there. The film is absolutely lovely to look at--even the awful bits are so well-crafted that you find yourself thinking admiringly of the way the blood spurts, or the horrible anatomical details of the monsters. The actors were all unknown to me, though they may be absolutely huge in Spain, but they did a tremendous job, especially Ivana Baquero as Ofelia and Sergi Lopez as Capitan Vidal. I know it's only a matter of time before Hollywood insists on making an inferior English-language version (this one's in Spanish with subtitles), so do yourself a favor and catch this one in the original. It got a 22-minute standing ovation at Cannes (where it won the Palme d'Or), and it's been nominated for six Oscars. Joe Bob says check it out.

*Our third winter at Massanutten continues more or less steadily (we missed it on the Saturday night of the play, of course), and the boys are now capable of handling the highest of the intermediate slopes without falling. I still think it might be a while before they take on a black diamond slope, but I can look at them now and feel that it's only a matter of time. (Poor Kelly, alas, still hasn't put on her boots yet this season; she's been having enough asthma trouble to feel as though breathing cold air would take her out of commission altogether. Still, she's been enjoying the chance to sit in the lodge and knit like nobody's business.) We've had every sort of weather imaginable--from the so-toasty-we-barely-have-snow balminess of Week One to the oh-my-god-we've-got-to-make-snow-so-have-this-faceful-of-Polecat-output obstacle course of Week Two to the okay-it's-NATURALLY-eight-degrees-now chill of Week Four, we've covered all the bases. In fact, this last Saturday night was cold enough to hurt my ears right through my knitted hat--while I was in line to get lift tickets. Recognizing the problem, I took a swift trip to the lodge to buy a warmer toque, namely the pale olive-green Turtle Fur number pictured here (under "The Festives.") My head is, I'm happy to report, thoroughly protected from winter's chill--and I get to say I own a hat made of turtle fur. Bonus!

*Ignoring the changing political winds that have blown the Dixie Chicks to a five-grammy triumph for their latest album, I'll simply note here that "Cowboy Take Me Away" from 1999's Fly is one great tune.

*I'm a little irked with my senior Senator, John Warner (R-VA), mostly because of his actions regarding Bush's "surge" plan--the that involves throwing troops against the wall in Iraq. The 20k or so he's sending will get our total to around 150,000 on the ground there, while most estimates of what we'd need to pacify and control the nation run from 300,000 to 500,000. Since it's therefore clear that the "surge" would provide inadequate number of soldiers to actually reverse our fortunes in Iraq, it's equally clear that this entire plan is intended to cover Bush's political ass so that he won't be blamed for "losing" Iraq. How many young Americans the administration is willing to sacrifice for this political coverage is unclear, but Warner, like everyone in D.C. who's not a total Kool-Aid addict, saw the 2006 elections as a referendum on the Iraq war and decided to act. First he took the bold step of composing a resolution--a non-binding one, though, because, y'know, you don't want it to look like you're standing up to Bush or anything--and sponsoring it for the Senate's consideration. But then, when it was time to consider the measure, the GOP faithful decided that they didn't want to vote on the resolution at all--so Warner voted with his party to keep his own legislation from coming up for debate. This is the guy who once stood up to Republicans who supported Oliver North for a Senate seat--lo, how the mighty have fallen.

*Bad news: I've realized there's at least one big change I'll need to make in the manuscript of A Raven for Doves, so I'd have to say it'll be a good while before y'all get a chance to see that one on your bookshelves. On the plus side, I think it'll be a better book when I'm done--maybe shorter, certainly tighter.

*No, I still haven't heard about the lastest draft of The Amazing Q.

*I suppose the time to grade papers is upon me.

Drat.

6:58 PM

With a mere click of your mouse, you can order Literary Cash : Unauthorized Writings Inspired by the Legendary Johnny Cash and help PC's online home away from home, Readerville.com, earn a few bucksfrom Amazon.com. Featuring PC's short story "The Snow Chaser" (based on Cash's "Field of Diamonds"), it also contains Cash-inspired writings by Readervilleans Russell Rowland, Gayle Brandeis, Gretchen Moran Laskas and others. Enjoy!

Not much to say right now, folks; it's pouring snow onto us, and with tomorrow's high forecast for a mere 32 degrees, it's safe to say the kids will be staying home for at least one day. Would that I didn't work at a boarding school and could join them in sledding... sigh...

But on the plus side, I'm done with a successful production of The Nerd, I'm catching up on both sleep and grading, and best of all, the Lamb of God is sending me email!

No, seriously. Right there under "Sender," it says "Jesus Christ."

I'm a little puzzled by the "Subject" box, though, because it reads "As we approached the point, Jeff tells us that he sees Marcy coming up the draw."

And more puzzling still, the content of the message seems to involve Dakota Fanning, the Sundance Film Festival, and a few claims about real estate brokers and Cisco server products combined with a bit of narrative from this online account of a bike/paddle race. (I was not only unaware of Christ's ministry to the adventure racers, but had no clue that His parables involved real estate or internet service; I guess I really need to spend more time studying the Scriptures.) Here is the relevant chapter and verse:

The next leg was going to be a paddle leg.
We saw a bunch of folks we knew, but did not hang around.
Marcy and I chatted about it a little and we agreed to abandon our road finding plan and just head on a bearing toward the next point. As we neared TA, my buddy Kip passed us and yelled Marcy is beating us! We were in 3rd at this point. We were cold and hungry when we pulled in.
As I went over the top, Mark had gotten the CP and we took off down. In addition, the CiscoIPS Signature Management Service simplifies day-to-day operations of IPSdevices by deploying and tuning signature updates as they become available.
This is where things got interesting. The IDX Broker application provides agents, brokers and other real estate professionals with the tools needed to create a competitive advantage in a growing real estate market. At 8am 14 teams took off at a run. Marcy popped out of the woods and immediately started wading across the river.
The only problem was that they were on the OTHER side of the creek from us.

The theological implications are astounding.

5:07 AM

Help PC's online home away from home, Readerville.com, earn a few bucks by clicking right here to order Literary Cash : Unauthorized Writings Inspired by the Legendary Johnny Cash from Amazon.com. In it, you'll find PC's short story "The Snow Chaser" (based on Cash's "Field of Diamonds") plus Cash-inspired writings by Readervilleans Russell Rowland, Gayle Brandeis, Gretchen Moran Laskas and others.

As I face the daunting prospect of tonight's premiere of Larry Shue's The Nerd, which I've been directing this winter for Woodberry's Black Box theater, what's going through my mind?

Well, honestly, it's the question of why I some of the images currently occupying the "My Pictures" file on my laptop are really the kind of thing I want to call "my" pictures. Judge for yourself:










I mean, if a picture is worth a thousand words, I just tossed off a reasonable short story. On the other hand, what the heck is it about?

Maybe I should run down to the theater and set up a few things... just in case...

6:49 PM