The Left Side of the Moon

Big Happenings

This fall marks big happenings in our household. Trouble is starting first grade tomorrow and LT starts pre-school in a week and a half. It will be Trouble's first year in school all day and LT's first year in pre-school. I've been attempting to get them on an earlier schedule, which is half working. They'll get up earlier, they just won't go to bed earlier. It took two hours to get them both to sleep last night. We started at eight-thirty and didn't get LT to sleep until ten-thirty. Trouble starts school at 8:10 AM, the bus picks him up at 7:23 AM at the corner of our street. Geez, that's early for elementary school. Two of our elementary schools start at 8:10 and two at 8:50, figures ours starts early. I believe this has something to do with saving money on buses. So I'm considering driving Trouble to school, but LT won't start until nine, so I'd have to go back home in between which sucks. We're going to start with the bus and see how it goes.

I think LT's ready for pre-school and I don't anticipate any separation anxiety. Trouble certainly didn't have any when he started pre-school, he didn't want to go home. When you pick the kids up you have to show your ID and then they bring the kids out to you. During the first week, one of the teachers went to get Trouble and he didn't want to leave, so he hit her. We had a talk about how you can't hit your teachers and if you do, they won't want you to come back to school. For weeks after that Trouble would come out of school proudly announcing to everyone in the hall that, "I was a good boy today, mommy. I didn't hit my teacher!" Way to go Trouble, set those expectations high.

Can I get a Woot! Woot!

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has finally resigned. Boy, I didn't think he was ever going to take a hint. Though, I think I may actually miss the clips of him trying to talk in circles while being questioned about the firings of the U.S. attorneys. It was quite entertaining. Too bad it's entertainment at the country's expense. Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert will have one less source to draw their political humor from.

Gonzales follows Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Karl Rove in the exodus of Bush cronies from the White House. Now if we could only get Bush and Cheney to resign. Or get them impeached. But it would have to be both of them together, because just about the only thing I can imagine being worse than having Bush for a President, would be (shiver) Cheney. May we never be forced to endure that horror.

A Teaching Moment

You might be getting the idea that all I have to say about my teaching experiences is bad, but that's not true. A lot of it is bad, most of it is bad, some of it is horrifying - but there was some good stuff too. If it weren't for all the other BS that goes on in our schools today, if teaching were really about teaching, I might have been happy doing it. And there were those moments where it was about teaching, about helping a student learn something, about having that teaching moment with a class where you feel like they actually got it, or at least some of them actually got it.

I taught a class of honors ninth graders and the first writing assignment they turned into me was atrocious. These were the honors kids? You're joking, right? Please, you must be joking. Because this is ninth grade and half of these kids can't write a complete sentence, let alone a complete and coherent paragraph. I had to start the post-initial-writing-assignment-class with a discussion on why we use a period after Mrs., Ms., and Mr. but not after Miss, and when to use there, they're and their, the difference between its and it's, and basic subject/verb sentence structuring. Back to elementary school anyone?

One of my tasks with the ninth graders was to teach them to write your standard, five paragraph essay - introduction with thesis statement, three body paragraphs supporting the thesis, and a conclusion. This was taught using a writing process that had the students handing in several drafts of their essay for comments before handing in the finalized essay. I wanted to de-mystify the writing process for them, so we spent days drafting an essay together in class on the board. And it worked. Not for everyone. I did this with all my ninth grade classes at all levels. The students had to hand in all the drafts with their final essay. Half of them couldn't even manage to do that. But for some, the progress was truly staggering.

There is one girl from that honors class that I will always remember. She was very bright, an excellent student with brilliant ideas who worked hard and applied herself, but her initial writing with me was horrifying. I couldn't believe that someone so articulate, who was such an excellent student had such horrid writing abilities at this stage in the game. Her sentences were incomplete. Her printing resembled that of a second grader, complete with the spelling and grammatical errors to match. And paragraphs? There were no paragraphs. Just one, rambling block of text that one could barely make heads or tails of. I was deeply concerned. Her tests, homework and class participation may have allowed her to continue in the honors track up until this point, but with those writing skills I was going to have to recommend dropping her a level unless she showed some dramatic progress.

The writing process for, lets call her Olivia, was a difficult task. But like I said, she was smart and diligent and determined to master it. Perhaps she was just finally ready to learn how to write, but I like to think I had a little something to do with it. By the end of the year, she was one of the best writers in my class. The transformation was astounding, but it didn't happen over night. She wrote more drafts than any other student in any of my classes, and I read and directed her on all of them. She listened to my corrections and explanations and actually went back and applied them. Her sentences were not only complete, they were thoughtful and insightful, but that had never been Olivia's problem. She had always had thoughtful and insightful critiques and perspectives, she just had no idea how to write them down. But I doubt by the end of ninth grade writing was ever a problem for Olivia again. The horrible penmanship was replaced by type-written pages. The ideas of her inquisitive and sharp mind were well-formulated into a structured, coherent and well-argued essay. I was emmensely proud of her for the work she put in that year, as well as the progress she made.

Students like Olivia are what teaching is all about. She is one of my most treasured memories from those dark years. I know that in the midst of all the chaos and kids, struggling and frustration - I helped at least one girl learn how to write. She probably doesn't even remember my name, but that's okay, I'll always remember hers.

Polly, now there's music stuck in my head

Polly and Bookgirl have this thing about theme songs. I've heard other people talk about it too. Times get rough and you're supposed to sing your theme song to yourself (silently or not from what I gather) and it's supposed to help you get your mojo back. I wish that worked for me. The mojo's seriously low these days. Maybe I haven't found the right theme song yet. Or maybe I just need to spend a day at the spa or even just in bed would be nice. For some reason, the whole idea of a theme song brings to mind the opening of The Mary Tyler Moore show for me, and I'm a little young for that.

Even though I don't do theme songs, Polly's post has music stuck in my head. There are those songs that always remind me of particular people or events in my life, and now all those songs are playing concurrently. There's a Cure song, I can't remember the name of it, that always reminds me of Polly - the one that starts, "I've waited hours for this." I've never been good at song titles or artist's names. Boy's Don't Cry always makes me think of Bookgirl, and even more vividly, of her singing it. There's a Third Eye Blind song that makes me think of Polly's brother, even when I haven't seen or spoken to him in years. Hotel California makes me think of Blackstone, there are myriad of other songs I associate with him after all this time, but that was the first and for that reason will probably always be the strongest association. The Cowboy Junkies remind me of teaching aerobics at RIC, I used it as cool down music.  I'll be by Edwin McCain brings back my wedding, it was the last song we played.

So, now I've shared and there's probably music stuck in your head, too. You can thank me later. Or go thank Polly. She started it.

Double Trouble

You may have been wondering what my crazy little boys have been up to. You might be thinking that since I haven't written about them in a few weeks that they haven't gotten into much. Well, they're still in one piece but it's not like they decided to start acting like little angels or anything. They got in trouble this past week while Blackstone was watching them. They were in the living room while the kid from down the street was mowing the lawn. Only the glass door was closed. It's one big glass panel. Whoever put that in absolutely did not have kids.

All of the sudden the kid who was mowing the lawn stomps in the house and the boys go running. Blackstone has no idea what the boys have done or why the kid is so upset. Turns out Trouble and Little Trouble had been mooning him through the glass door. Pulled-their-pants-down, naked-butt-cheeks-pressed-against-the-glass mooning. Delightful aren't they?

And Trouble informed us yesterday that he does not like the way he's treated at home and plans to run away to his friend Isaiah's house. Too bad I don't know Isaiah's mom better. Because I think a few days in a second floor apartment with five kids would do Trouble some good. I can't see her going for it, though. Oh, and he's taking LT with him when he leaves.

What I Didn't Know

I'm only about a hundred pages through Clinton's autobiography "My Life" and I've already been surprised by a couple political facts that I didn't know. I never paid much attention to politics until GW ran for office. I knew I was a democrat, I knew I liked Clinton and never agreed with him being impeached over the Lewinsky thing. I had studied American history in school which for some reason seemed to cover the American Revolution and Civil War over and over again, never getting any closer to Modern American History. I did know about the McCarthy trials and Vietnam, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Desert Storm and other highlights and lowlights in our recent history. But I know there are a lot of holes in my knowledge. Here are some of things I found surprising.

Now, I realize the McCarthy era was a scary time to be in Washington. To take a stand against McCarthy was to be labeled a communist. It was the witch trials all over again. (Which is why Arthur Miller published "The Crucible" around this time, and did you know he was married to Marilyn Monroe for a while? Him and JFK, guess Marilyn liked her some liberals. I wouldn't have gone for Joe DiMaggio if I were her, though. What a temper and I'm not into jocks, especially not the gods-greatest-gift-type jocks.) Anyway, what I didn't know was that there was only ONE senator who voted against supporting McCarthy's committee, Senator Fulbright of Arkansas. ONLY ONE SENATOR! I probably shouldn't have been so shocked, but somehow I thought there was at least a small group of senators opposing McCarthy. I thought New Englanders were a bit tougher than that.

The second realization was that since I was born there have only been two democratic Presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and both of them were from the south. Again, I shouldn't have been so shocked. I knew the Bushes and Reagan were republicans, but I've never really thought about it in such definite, concrete, linear terms before.

Rove Will Be Leaving the Building

I may be slightly behind the eight ball, it's not like I didn't hear about this days ago, but I've been busy. Anyway, I just thought we should all take a moment to enjoy the fact that Karl Rove has announced his resignation. Another faithful Bush adviser and favored crony has found his way to the door. Let's not quibble about whether he was shown the door, showed himself to the door, or received a nice kick in the rear in the general direction of the door. Bottom line is he's leaving and good riddance!

Now, I know you smart and thoughtful people, you're thinking don't start celebrating yet. Because while he is being subpoenaed to testify in the firings of the U.S. attorneys, it's likely that even they can get him to testify, if he's convicted Bush will pardon him just as he did Scooter Libby. And they might not even be able to get him on the stand. Yes, I can see all this written in stone too people. It's like we're all clairvoyant together or something. But please let's not go all the way down that path yet. Let's just enjoy the moment as Rove leaves the building. It's as good as someone sending you flowers for no reason, or finding twenty dollars in the jacket pocket you haven't warn in months. Smell the roses and enjoy them while you can.

Higher Learning

I doubt it's surprising to many of us that (gasp) some of our students in high school are on drugs. It's not like I grew up in the Dark Ages, there were drugs going around when I was a high school student. I did a little experimenting myself, though when I say little, I do mean little. I was a conscientious student who was preparing for college and eventually a career, I was not about to be side tracked with an expensive habit that required me to shoot money directly up my nose or into my arms while my life went down the crapper. While I did blow off some steam  with alcohol, pot and cigarettes, that's as far as it went for me. I knew there were kids that did more serious drugs, but they weren't in any direct contact with me. And my friends and I had the good sense to keep our indiscretions on the down-low when it came to parents and teachers.

So I was surprised to see how brazenly my students talked about partying, drinking and drugs in front of me. They did not whisper. They were not discrete. They rolled there eyes and were inconvenienced when I told them they were talking openly about being involved in illegal activities in front of a teacher and if they didn't want to spend serious time with their guidance counselor they should have the good sense to keep their mouths shut about it in front of me. One student looked at me cockily after I told him to stop talking about getting drunk and said, "My mom buys it for me. What are you going to do about it?"

Um, lets see, what am I going to do about it indeed? Nothing, really. But the police if they catch you will arrest you, and your mother for that matter, seeing she's the dumb-ass who's illegally supplying you with booze. And that's if you don't kill yourself driving drunk which seems like a very likely possibility from where I'm standing. Which I did tell him, in much more watered-down and politically-correct terms.

I'm rather appalled at what our high schools are becoming - hubs for hooking up, dealing drugs and socializing. The kids are not there to learn about Shakespeare, math and science, or to prepare themselves for college. They're there to meet up with their friends, try to find a boy/girlfriend, and buy and sell drugs. And those that are trying to learn something are frustrated and distracted by all the minutia going on around them.

I feel very strongly that we need to do away with the whole concept of high school. It's not doing anyone any good, or at least not nearly enough of people any good. I think we should move the majority of high school students away from the traditional high school setting and curriculum and put them in a technical high school instead. Now, this may sound rather elitist at first, but bear with me for a moment. After I quit my full time teaching gig I spent a semester teaching at a technical high school. It was by far the most effective high school I had ever worked in. The kids were required to tow a certain line with their grades and behavior, too many infringements and they were sent back to their regular district high school. Imagine that, young adults actually being held accountable for their actions. I was in heaven. And most of them were willing to tow that line because they were tracked in a program of their choice that would certify them to work in one field or another once they graduated. And there was a diverse amount of programs being offered - automotive, cosmetology, culinary, electrical, graphic design - to name a few. These kids were motivated because they were learning about something they were interested in, that they felt was useful and applicable in their own lives. This made so much sense. Why do technical schools get such a bad rap?

Now I think every kid should have the opportunity to enter a college prep type program. But I also think there should be requirements for them to get in and remain in the program. And I also think that kids that are caught with drugs, have been suspended a certain amount of times for fighting, cutting class, or bunking school - should be expelled. And expulsion should be permanent. As in, no more tax-funded education for you. Did you know that kids are often re-admitted after being expelled? That often they're just moved from one district to another? Or assigned a state-funded tutor? We need to put an end to that. School districts need to have the right to expel and it needs to be permanent and national, otherwise we're never going to eradicate violence and drugs from our schools.

One of my students was truly a waste of space in my classroom. He did not attempt to do any work. Some days he slept, others he was a constant annoyance. And when kids go this far in their mis-behaving, they eventually are no longer amusing even to their classmates. This kid was sitting in school while waiting for a spot to open up in rehab. I was warned not to call his mother because it would only make her cry. Understandable I guess, if that were my son I wouldn't know what to do but cry too. If this were a fictional novel or up-lifting film there'd be this inspiring story about how I was able to reach him, make him see how important it is to get a good education. But this is real life and their is no happy ending. Only him leaving my class later to get the treatment he so desperately needed. I hope it did him some good.

He wasn't the only kid in my classes that I knew was on drugs. After one of my students scared the day lights out of me with a ranting verbal attack, I went directly to guidance to figure out what was wrong with him. He'd always been a rather agreeable student, even if his assignments and attendance were sporadic. Turns out he was detoxing which made him rather irritable. You don't say? Why the hell is he detoxing at school? I went through the year with him intermittently on and off the drugs. I definitely liked him better high.

And then there was the litany of kids that just spent too much time drinking and smoking pot. One of the pot heads in my class always had me laughing. He obviously didn't spend much time looking over his tests. Instead of T or F on the true and false sections, he'd answer A,B,C or D. I kept pointing it out to him. Not sure if he just kept forgetting or just didn't care.

FYI

I know I'm not the only one who gets tired of answering the same question repeatedly. I have just been asked this question for the umpteenth time by a client.

"Also in this screen I was wondering why some of the fields are white and some are tan colored."

When you go to a form page and some of the fields appear as yellow or tan, that means these fields are recognized by your browser as field names that you have entered data into previously. So fields which are commonly named phone, email, address, city, etc. - the browser can auto-complete them for you if you have filled such fields out before. Even if you filled them out on another website.

You may not care, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Just to be sure that you don't ask me in the future.

Guilty Little Pleasure

We all have them, do we not? That TV show we know we shouldn't like, but we can't seem to help ourselves. The new pair of shoes that we have no practical reason to own, but just have to be ours anyway. (I have a pair of spike-healed, red suede, knee high boots in my closet that fit this bill. Though I really think they helped my get the raise I asked for at work. You won't convince me otherwise.) The massages, pedicures, manicures, expensive lattes, designer lingerie. That little or not so little something that gives you the boost you need to get on with your day, week or year. We all need a little something that makes us smile or laugh, that relaxes us and makes us happy, boosts the serotonin levels, reminds us that there are these small moments in life that make it all worth it.

I am in love with the not-so-new series "Weeds." It's on Showtime or Cinemax, I'm not sure which. I just know it's one of the premium cable channels I don't get. So I rent it from Netflix and am a season behind. I believe season 3 is airing now, so season 2 just became available on DVD. I've only got a few episodes left to watch and then I'll have to wait months or maybe a year even to see the current season. That's alright. I can wait. Time has a way of flying lately and I'll be surprised at how quickly the next DVD is eagerly clutched in my greedy little hands.

If you have somehow been able to not hear anything about this show, the premise is your ordinary family living in suburban California that is struck by tragedy when the father of the family dies suddenly. The stay-at-home mom who is left with very little money, a mortgage on beautiful house in a perfect neighborhood, bills to pay and no way to pay them, and two sons to take care of, turns drug dealer to support her family. I find the premise incredibly seductive because while it is insanely unorthodox, it is also completely understandable. I mean really, if you've been staying home taking care of your kids for the past eighteen years, living an upper middle class lifestyle and suddenly have to figure out a way to maintain that on your own, you're going to be rather desperate.

The main character Nancy is torn about her new-found career. While it has taken away the stress of keeping the electricity on and putting food on the table, it has brought a whole new realm of stress that as a naive mom who would never actually call herself a drug dealer, she never saw coming. Nancy only sells pot, which she justifies because it's only weed. Not that she wants her kids or neighbors to know what she's up to, but it's not like she deals coke or heroine. Come on people, lighten up.

The writing is hilarious, the plot is eccentric but believable. The dichotomy of the show really asks you to take a closer look at yourself and your neighbors. How far would you go to keep the life that you live? The house that you live in? To send your kids to the right schools? And if you're willing to start selling drugs to keep it, how long can you sustain the charade? How well can you hide that from your kids? How are you going to show your face at the PTA and town council and act the part of perfect parent and citizen, all the while knowing it's all a lie?

Anyway, if you're the type of person that enjoys a certain amount of quirk and a great deal of sarcasm in a TV show, I'm sure you'll love it. It is my current guilty pleasure.