Against the Wind

I’d planned to drive 8 hours to Nashville and Betsi’s in front of the storm. But I also planned to stay home and wait out the blow here. Tara, however, is taking over as the Mother of record. She’s not willing to stay in Slidell and wait out the storm… and there will with 50% probability (National Hurricane Center’s maps) be winds at 60 mph on the north side of the lake.

The storm is due to weaken somewhat, but this morning it looks like it’s still a category 3 storm at landfall. Katrina was the same. Katrina came in very near my house. This one is due to center around New Iberia. So, if it were up to me, I’d wait and see if we lose power. But Tara doesn’t care to risk it with the little boys. Tara has convinced Marianne and me to go with her to Springdale, Arkansas north of Fayetteville to wait out the storm. Darryl has family there. Marianne, Barry and I will stay in a hotel, so we’ll all be in the same town anyway. Katrina was tough because communication was knocked out and we were so scattered.

If it looks like we’re going to be there more than a couple of days, I’ll get in touch with Robert and see if some of us can crash in Norman, Ok. It won’t be that much farther! Betsi offered for me and the girls to stay at her house until she heard about 2 dogs, 2 boys, 2 pseudo son in laws, 2 daughters AND me. Then the joy of my presence didn’t sound so good!

I’ll finish packing up my handwork and a cooler and wait to hear from the kids.

I’ve not unraveled the mystery of the password for this site so further posts from the road will be at my Old Site. I think I still know the password and can post remotely at that site.

Where are you going? Are you evacuating? Reservations are hard to find.

It started Wednesday at Nunez. Almost all of my students were in class, but as a storm approaches, many get understandably twitchy. I left Pearl River High with hopes that we’d all be back in class on Tuesday as planned. It’s not affecting me. I’ve lost my temper once, cried in hurt over a false grievance, but I’m calm. Yup, no problems with me. Ya’ll panic on.. I’m staying above this.

Just for the record if it gets Katrina deep here, I’ve got gas, I’m heading to Nashville. The sun should be shining and I’ll be fine. Tara says they’re off to Birmingham if.. and I think Marianne is headed to Houston. (Bad move.. the storm track is progressing west.) I’ll leave when it’s clear that I have no power and won’t for a day or five. As long as the lights stay on, I’ll stay home. But I lost a few shingles and a shed and a fence to Katrina, so my trauma drama isn’t so severe. PTSS is rampant in this area.

Back earlier in the summer, I spent a day after WW at Tara’s house. I took several pictures and we celebrated my birthday. Here’s Quentin in the tree house his dad and he are building.

I posted early this morning, in haste and without a photo. Today there were so many photos that might have been the pic of the day, mostly in a sense of my photo diary, but this one of the quilt top is the only snap I made of the quilt top before I went to work on it. A single snap, and that with the window peeking out behind. I didn’t want to leave it hanging there too long, because fading is an issue always with sunshine. But I think I could have taken a better photo.

This has moved on to have it’s last addition, but I put one on before it left here. This is Gail’s top. I cannot scream long enough and loud enough about how well this project is progressing. Of course the thing ends up in the middle of nuptial madness in my life. So I’m feet up and stitching on Ann and Robert’s quilt. I’ve put in the last machine stitches, and tomorrow I’ll cover with a quilt (stitching) while I listen to the Clerk of Court’s election office give the obligatory class on the congressional election coming up in September. Since accepting the part time gig, my life has not slowed. My body has!

When Newton left writer’s group Tuesday, he was trying to spur me on to greater writing efforts by saying something like, “you have a great deal of experience in the education field, why don’t you write something in the ‘how to fix education’ vein?” I can splutter a dozen responses to why that’s not such a great idea, but shortly thereafter I ran across a quote in a blog that at least points in the direction I’d like to say is the biggest source of my frustrations with education.

What makes an impressive teacher? What motivates a good teacher? And what’s built into the system to encourage adequate teachers to become good teachers? Ok, the money quote was:

Studies have consistently shown that graduate coursework (e.g., a Master’s degree) does not affect teacher productivity.
…merely making patients healthier or making students perform better doesn’t count much toward impressiveness

Teaching well takes a lot of time. I was up at 6 this morning thinking through where I am going in the high school today and getting an assignment ready for them. I’ll likely not get breakfast before I leave. And I’m only teaching half time or 40% of a full teaching load without extra committee assignments or bus and lunchroom duties. I am so blessed!

One of my students looked up and said, “I understand!” with that look of amazement on her face that is the source of my energy. I told her “thank you.. that’s what I get up and go to class to teach for.” And I do. The picture of those lightbulbs going on in head is the power that motivates me. But it’s not easy. It takes time.

What’s built into the system to encourage a teacher to take the time? How do you document the ahha moments you’ve produced? Others surely do it better than I, but what gets you a pay raise is taking more course work, serving on important committees, or having impressive credentials. Those things take time too. Time that takes you away from student contact and teaching.

My inclination is that the reason unions hate no child left behind and teacher fear it is that it minimally allows some sort of a measure of what teachers, schools and so forth actually teach. Accountability has historically been terribly absent from education from top to bottom. Only a few professions have an entry test that holds their academies to some standard. The most clear cut is the CPA exam. There’s also a bar exam. Teachers claim to have a professional entry exam as well. My experience early on in that process was that the exam was lip service. I had to recognize the musical notation as row row row your boat? To teach high school math? Might come in handy, and I know some music, but really!

The reward structure isn’t there, the accountability isn’t there, and students know who are the good teachers. Teachers know who are the good teachers. But the good teachers and the bad get promotions and raises, because those are based on other criteria.

…merely …making students perform better doesn’t count much toward impressiveness.

Endo rant. Bath water awaits. Time to move toward the classroom.

There’s a desperate feeling when you want to write, you want to find time to write, and there’s never a moment. That’s the way this last week has been. And to top it all off, it seems I never catch up with anything. Today I hustled over to Pearl River High School and did my thing. Repeat after me. That class is fun! That’s the classes that made teaching worth while all those years ago, the one you get up in the morning for. BUT you don’t go into a classroom of top drawer sharp as a knife students half prepared. Or if you do you look really foolish. Takes time.

Then there was a minute to see if the stocks had gone south. Oooohhh they went south. This was stink day on the market for me. Never mind, time to get the house cleaned up, writer’s group is due here at 12:30. They cleared out a minute or two before 3, so I piddled for a minute (trying to finish writing a test for Slidell High placement–learning how to use an equation editor in my open office software.

Tara called about 3:15, could I entertain Quentin because Cameron was still asleep. Ok. we read and had a good time. By the time they left I got back to piddling with this damn evaluation instrument, and had dinner and played my evening games of bridge. I should have ducked out, but I don’t unless I’m really in a spot. So between the two games, I rode my bike a bit and got an answer key together for this test, and now NOW, I can whine about not having enough time in the day?

Spoke to Tania. She’s back in NYC. Spoke to Carlo. He wants to buy the house Marianne lived in. And he’s trying to get a toast thought through for the wedding.

That’s my daily stuff. I still need to do a bit before teaching tomorrow at 10. I’ll be up a bit late tonight or get up when I awaken in the middle of the night. NOW I’m typing and looking for a photo. And it makes me feel somewhat in control to do that.

One Sunday, when I went to visit Doris in the rehab, she was nowhere to be found. But P– and F– were coming out of her room and invited me over for a cup of coffee. I’m here to tell you, this is not an invitation to decline!

Ok, back to work or off to bed, so I can get up and work before walking in the morning with C.

Sometimes you can love a photo too much. The original, from when we wandered out into the heat of the summer to pick blueberries, was from a series of photos of Cameron wondering around naked. It was so hot in those blueberry bushes, and he was going to run, no matter how hot it was, so he did the only sensible thing. He left his clothes in a pile and spent the 30 minutes or so as nature’s boy. Grandma did something to get him decent? No. It was just he and his mother and his Aunt Mimi and I, and we let him run. So, the second choice is to grab the camera!

Now as it was taken the shadows are too harsh, and the boy too much in the shade, so I “fixed it” some.

But can we leave well enough alone? I rather liked this of the “twins.” But if I’d really planned and had more time, I’d have taken another photo of him and superimposed the copy of him. But it was fun to do, so I’ll share.

I’m waiting for the girls to drop by again to pick up some of the vases for tables at the wedding. Haven’t heard from them for a while. Last I knew they were going to Marshall’s to look for dresses for Marianne and Tara. I declined. Took a brief nap and will now go sew a seam.

Serendipity? The hand of God? Doors opening just when you need them? What do you call it when the stars line up just so, and the sensation that divine providence is much much more than an “expression?”

A week ago at this time, I was worrying about drawing down my finances too much with what I’d promised Tania in the way of paying for a small piece of her wedding, so I started thinking in terms of what would be the ideal teaching position for me. Well, I’d really like a part time job teaching gifted high school students in a religious school. I went so far as to check out the web site of the local catholic high school, and found nothing looking like a pressing need for math teachers flashing up there. I’d thought in terms of how nice it would be to open a Presbyterian high school, but Presbyterians are not notoriously drawn to education, nor religious education. I say I was worried, but not to the point of actually.. you know… looking for a J.O.B.

This morning I arise knowing that it’s Saturday, and the weekends for the next few months will feel like weekends used to feel. Time to catchup on laundry, down time for me, time to reflect on the week past and how to teach my classes in the week to come.

You see last Saturday afternoon, Conrad called to ask about my availability to teach for the semester coming. There were a couple sections that were getting big enough to need to be split, would I be interested. When are they? What are they? And there are a couple things in St. Tammany. The high school honors math classes at two schools need teachers/liasons for the “Early Start” program the high schools have worked out with the University system so that the students can get college credit for their High School honors courses. There is a problem at Slidell high with the teacher of the courses almost having evidence of the 36 hours of graduate math courses, and the teacher at Pearl River has no need of more courses. He, like me is old. He’s a PhD engineer, retired, went into financial planning and financial services. After Katrina, someone told him about a need for an honors math teacher at Pearl River High, and he’s been there ever since. Katrina blew us all about. But going back and taking graduate math courses for the sake of certification is not what he needs to do. So they needed a college instructor to actually teach the class at PRH. He’s excellent. I’d love to see my brother Robert fall into such a position after he retires. We will have some issues through this semester, but I don’t think it’ll be many.

It’s Saturday morning, and I only have one syllabus yet to write for the class on campus, and I’ve resolved a conflict involving eligibility of students in Slidell High, practicing negotiating skills I had long hidden. Living alone I try not to get into disagreements with myself that require negotiation!

Yesterday evening, I sat with Tania who was visiting a friend of L– and K–’s who is about finished with Cosmetology classes. She’s about to turn 30 and finally decided that doing hair and make up is just where she wants to be. Really gifted with people, and likes the extravagant do’s and period looks from years ago… she’d be great in a theatrical setting. But she had a consultation with Tania, and they clicked pretty well, and she showed how she could fix Tania’s hair for the wedding, as well as be around to do bridesmaids and so forth before the wedding. We were there for more than two hours, so we did a lot of chatting.

She lost a lot in Katrina. She said that several times, “I lost so much in Katrina,” and I finally got her meaning, at least partially. She wasn’t talking about the antique furniture she’d enjoyed finding and fixing, nor the shoes she’d set aside, nearly $1000 in shoes. She lost something much more precious. Her mother was a psychiatric nurse, and evacuated with the patients in the state hospital near here. She was month in Jackson Mississippi, 12 hours on 12 off nursing mental patients. It cost her. She went insane herself. So this gal not only incurred the losses of her home, flooded six feet deep, she also lost her mother, who is alive, but not really.

If there is divine providence, and I sense it so much in my current situation, I hope God reaches out and holds her and her mother and sister. Comfort and care are still needed. Many, most are coping with their new situations, but some just barely, and some not at all. There’s a sign as you leave St. Bernard Parish, where shortly after the storm a hugh crucifix had been carried out of one of the destroyed churches with a make shift sign, “God help us.” Now there is a monument sign in that place. “Leaving St. Bernard Parish: Don’t forget us.”

I went to teach my first class today. First I rode my bike to Carolyn’s and we walked, then I rode home. Does this make me a triathelete? Yeah, I thought so too. Then I got to Nunez, to find the A/C was out, making the building unbearable!

CT who split my class with me is about the age of Bridezilla (who is in town this week) I noticed she’d lost some weight, so I asked. Yup… 80 lbs. 70 to go she says. “Do you feel better?” “No, but I’ve got crippling arthritis, so I may never feel better.” TA has had a brain tumor forever. It’s started bleeding and she’s losing some motor function. I’m still negotiating my pay, and all the people students, heat, phone calls… all too stimulating! I’m exhausted.

Proverbs 4:18 - 19

The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn,
shining ever brighter till the full light of day.
But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know what makes them stumble.

I am learning to love Proverbs 4, titled “Wisdom is Supreme” in the online look up I use. The Path of the righteous is what John F. Kennedy wrote about in his Profiles in Courage. Courage and righteousness are not exactly every day virtues. I can manage a few everyday virtues, but that seems to be my limit.

God guide my feet, let my enthusiasm shine through as I teach this semester.

And who would suspect, I have the photo of my quilt top from JUNE as I sent it on to Deb. Could it be that I’m catching up on the photos? I just didn’t take so many this summer.

So for tonight, I’m whipped. Early tomorrow I head over to Pearl River High and meet and observe the class I’m to teach over there.

Returning to the thread of having one’s ears chewed, Gail recognized the syndrome and asked me about it. Heard a wonderful story at the bridge game after the day of hearing all there might be to know about the extended family of my chattering friend. It seems that Chattering Friend, and husband of same, hereafter refered to as CF and H, took a long ride to a tournament venue with a couple of other bridge players, ladies from Covington. One of the Covington gals, DD is also quite a talker though not I think in the league of CF. After the trip, H turned to a friend of DD, and asked, “How can you travel with DD? You can’t get a word in edgewise!”

Now, a concern. Prayers, good positive thoughts for Linda. She’s off to the doctor today, and pretty sure the labs will show she’s slipped into kidney failure, and will likely end up in the hospital. She’s hating being where she is!

Presidential Politics

Sunday school was disrupted by politics yesterday. I’d have loved to get there on time, but it’s not the way it happened. I was reminded of Neo’s article on “mixed marriages.” You know… democrats who’ve married mean spirited republicans, or republicans who’ve married lying power hungry democrats. The fact is that unless we can discuss without rancor, dicussion goes nowhere, and only ill feeling result. So in the spirit of even handed politics, I am including the Onion’s analysis.

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

Then there’s the reflection on truth telling from “Overcoming Bias” Mundane dishonesty!

1. I am tragically uncertain about how I should divide my time between work and play, among various possible work projects, and with who I should ally and spend my time. These are terribly important decisions about which I have only very weak clues. But I usually act as if I know what I’m doing.
2. I actually care a lot what other people think of me, and in most conversations the major topic for most everyone is who praises or blames who else how much. But this strong subtext is usually not acknowledged in our explicit text. Like most people, I act as if we were talking about other topics, and only indirectly make points of praise or blame.
3. I think about sex an awful lot - it is not far from my awareness anytime I am in the presence of, or thinking about, most any healthy female. But I almost never acknowledge that fact directly via my actions or words.

A quote of the day? David Warren

It is years since I hauled out my favourite Josef Stalin quote. Time to carry it up from the basement, dust it off, and put it back on display. “Nuclear weapons are only a problem for people with bad nerves.”

Then two education links, and I’ll quit. Same writer, Charles Murray, first in the Wall Street Journal, then in the New York Post.

Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal:

First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn’t meet the goal. We will call the goal a “BA.”

You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that’s the system we have in place.

The second article deals with primary and secondary education.

When it comes to thinking about our schools, politicians and educators recoil from a truth that the rest of us learned in first grade when we read “Dick and Jane.” That terrifying truth? Some kids just weren’t very good at reading and math. In fact, some kids were pretty bad, and nothing the teacher did made them better. As our school years progressed, it became clear to us that some of the kids (maybe including ourselves) did okay at reading and math, but it wasn’t their strong point, and they were more interested in other things. Add up the kids without the ability and the kids with the ability but without the interest, and we’re talking about a majority of young people.

Of course I know that big pieces of your life can turn on a dime. Everyone in south Louisiana knows that. Probably everyone who has lived 60 years or so knows it as well.

A couple of phone calls yesterday sent me in some new directions. The first was what looked like a familiar number, though indeed it was not a number I should recognize at all. On the phone was my old office mate/colleague, now promoted to dean of the division at Nunez. That means he’s the one that has to make calls to find adjunct faculty and as he’s not in the classroom, the old school needs some math classrooms filled. He was just calling to see if or when I’d be available.

Well, since I’ve had dreams of being in some really tough teaching situations lately, because I’m worried about relieving some pains of the pocketbook, this was like mana from heaven. I don’t have to put on any pretenses about how dedicated I am to teaching or how important I think it is that everyone be able to do algebra. I just have to stand in front of a class and present the material in a manner that allows an interested or at least willing student to learn some algebra skills. The other interesting thing he brought up was the dual enrollment class in College Algebra/Advanced Math at Pearl River High School. This is all fine and well, but the high school teacher doesn’t have the credentials for the College Algebra certification. So he was going to drive the 40 miles or so each way once a week. But he wasn’t a bit hurt when I said I could surely serve as that liason. For me it’s about six miles. I’m sure he’d be glad to collect the milage for that, but it’s a huge lot of time, week in and week out. I’m hoping I can actually teach the class now and again. High school kids and their optimistic energy is one thing that I truly miss in education. And the capable ones who could profit by such a program would be a thrill to work with for a semester. However, I might not have any lecture time at all. I’d hate that, but I think I will wait and talk to the teacher and see what he would like in the way of liason/support. Then I’ll see if I can provide it and be able to serve as the teacher of record as far as the community college is concerned. I’m lurching about looking for my old notes and assignments, just to see what’s available without reworking notes for Intermediate Algebra. Tara says she’ll sub for me the week of the Quilt festival, so I won’t even have to give that up!

The other phone call’s repercussions probably won’t last very long. But the quilt I’m making for Ann and Robert, like the one Ina May finished long ago, I imagine… it’s been quilted. I brought it home today, and now I’ve trimmed off all the excess batting and backing, figured I need to find 2/3 yard of fabric to cut the binding…anyway, a few days work, and that project will be done. It’s been two years since I purchased the first bits of that. I’ve spent $400 easily on this thing, and it’s a beauty. It’s in the home stretch! (For the record, I contacted B— the local long arm quilter to ask her to take on this project right after Christmas. She’s just finally had time to get it done.)

Photo Moment

Along the vein of my empty chair series that I’ve envisioned but never executed, we had a lovely beginning of summer trip to the beach in early June. Marianne’s b/f came with us and the boys got a Ship Island trip. This trip however was eventful in a way you don’t want. We were no more than thirty minutes off the boat and the life guards were trying to tell people to get out of the water. I had to go investigate, and it came out that someone had drown, and a child was missing. I guess the child showed up eventually, but the helicopter came out to the island from the mainland to carry out the drowning victim. The picture of the empty chairs is also the picture of the helicopter small in the background. We sanitize it, carry the corpse off in a helicopter not on ice in the ferry, but there are many opportunities to step out of the hurly burly and enjoy the timelessness of a day on the beach. I submit that it’s important to do so, joyfully. Life’s a gift and the least important bit of it is the hurry hurry of retail therapy and wanting something more. One minute you’re swimming on the beach and next thing you know, the tide has you exhausted, and you’re on the nightly news. Life is so much more than that!

Links, always links.

August is slow news month… congress is not in session, everything is kind of on hold until September, and two of the most important things that have happened this year kick in. Solzhenitsyn took his remarkable courage, and a relationship with truth we can only marvel at… his Russian spirituality and clear eyed view of our world, has left us. We are all poorer for his loss. I suspect the magnitude of the loss will be little understood for another generation or two. The other is the Russian thuggish overrunning of Georgia. Weekly Standard has good articles on both of these.

Harvey Mansfield on Solzhenitsyn

I was witness to the great man’s great speech at Harvard on June 8, 1978. It happened to be my older son’s day of graduation and my 25th class reunion, and we were treated to the most, unhappily the only, memorable commencement speech in my nearly 60 years at Harvard.

Robert Kagan on Georgia

One wonders whether Russia’s invasion of Georgia will finally end the dreamy complacency that took hold of the world’s democracies after the close of the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union offered for many the tantalizing prospect of a new kind of international order. The fall of the Communist empire and the apparent embrace of democracy by Russia seemed to augur a new era of global convergence.

I found this listing on an economic blog worthy of note as well.

I’ve been traveling on business and have talked to around two hundred financial and investor groups about the 2008 election and what it could mean for Wall Street. The people I’ve spoken with have been high income (in some cases very high), highly educated, and far more Republican than what you’re likely to find with a truly representative sample of Americans.

But in spite of the apparent homogenity of the groups, what I’ve heard and discovered so far has been truly surprising.

1. The differences from state to state are astounding. Income and education simply are not the great equalizers I assumed they would be. For example, the groups I’ve spoken to in Texas and Oregon have asked many of the same questions and been interested in the same substantive data, but they process the information and talk about what should be done about it in completely different ways.

His list of ten observations from talking to and listening to people all over the country is thought provoking.

If you’ve not had enough economics yet, Here’s a blog from the bowels of the fed.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1918-2008 RIP.