I was giving a test today, and I checked the news only to read of today's terrible event in Connecticut I looked out at my class, and a student looked back at me, smiled, went back to her test. And then I looked at my classroom door and the heavy filing cabinet that I would topple in front of it if, god forbid, I ever needed to.

The news from Connecticut has been pretty impossible to process.....as a parent, as a teacher, as a plain ol' human being......I've been sitting for the last two hours with head phones and loud music trying to keep the awful thoughts at bay. I eventually wrote, hard as it was. My prayers to the families and community of Newtown.

Newtown

On the whiteboard in neat manuscript:
December 14, 2012
Today’s weather is chilly.
A little yellow mitten
rests by the window, fallen from its cubby --
the one with the Spiderman lunchbox.
A Hello Kitty hair clip,
sits alone on the desktop
like an exclamation mark
for the carefully taped down nameplate
S-O-P-H-I-A.
And in the hallway,
hanging from a clothespin,
a fingerpaint sun smiles down
from bright blue construction paper sky.
CLap, CLap, CLap!!
There’s a man with a gun in the schoolyard.

Michael McIntyre

Dacula, GA

Summer Days End

Father
pack mule
grasping up the florescent goggles,
the lime-violet dive sticks
and the castaway towel
adorned with Angry Birds.
Popping the stubborn clip
to let down
the goliath umbrella -- 
cerulean and sun-stained 
ivory stripes -- 
careful not to pinch a finger.


Children cranky,
wife exhausted 
with Southern Living.
Close now by the horizon,
Apollo dips behind a 
big Bradford Pear, 
and its shadow casts
on the concrete 
trail of damp footprints
that fade away toward the
chain link gate.


A wayward pink tee shirt
skitters across the cement --
stubbed toe, expletive stifled.
And father
shakes out the Super Soaker
like an Easter Sunday bishop, 
slinging holy water 
on a row 
of slightly askew
but penitent 
chaise lounges.


-- Michael McIntyre

Some Thoughts on Running as a Form of Recreational Loco-Motion

My ponderous legs

chug and churn

up the hill

as if laden

with cinder blocks,

or 25-pound sacks of flour

intended for that pizza place

over by the Kroger.

Any moment now….

I wait for the crack --

the gunshot-like snap of a hamstring

to echo through the neighborhood,

bouncing off of the tidily manicured Tudor

over to the stack stone façade

of the house with the man

who always cuts his grass too low.

In a minivan

the lady from the cul-de-sac

motors by,

chatting on her iPhone –

snickering, no doubt,

at the idiot who looks near cardiac arrest

as he lumbers by the mailbox

at 1252.

I lift an index finger

in recognition of her,

so as not to appear rude.

Thankfully,

I quit smoking 10 years ago,

or I’d be bent over on the sidewalk,

hacking up a lung

(or some suspicious viscera)

by the freshly painted fire hydrant

at the bottom of the hill.

Or perhaps I should’ve never quit.

And instead

lapsed into middle age,

Archie Bunker-like:

a comfy chair to cradle me,

and a TV tray

with a ham and swiss on rye

as my reward

for a day well done.

On the Instruction of Writing...with help from a robot

As states and school systems struggle with ever-shrinking budgets, and as the march towards on-line schools becomes ever-quickening, education providers and vendors have begun to investigate robo-readers as an effective (read "monetarily efficient") tool for writing instruction.  A great debate, subsequently, has ensued:  Could these things possibly be any good?  Science World Report article.


I am currently piloting the WriteToLearn program (Pearson) for my district.  I teach language arts to 100 seventh graders. The WTL program purports to analyze the writer’s semantics (meaning), and it uses the Six Traits model as its framework -- IDEAS; ORGANIZATION; CONVENTIONS; WORD CHOICE; SENTENCE FLUENCY; VOICE.  Interestingly, it uses the same type of algorithmic analysis that the Dept. of Homeland Security uses to sift through and find commonality among millions of emails, websites, etc. The system does a serviceable job, I feel, in helping to provide students with quick, meaningful feedback when they are in the early stages of the draft/revision process (when they ask, Is this good!?!?) -- especially when it is a roomful of 30 students who all want immediate feedback.  I would not, however, dream of using this program as the final assessment of a piece: the analysis simply misses too much of the nuance (and meaning, even) that developing writers bring to their pieces, albeit sometimes awkwardly.  In that respect, a fellow writer needs to be the final judge.


I wholeheartedly agree that automated systems such as WTL will not ever be able to replace an instructor who knows what he or she is doing (OK, probably not ever).  Perhaps that is the rub here:  there are far too many “writing” instructors out there who don’t know how to teach writing well -- they know it when they see it, but they can’t teach it. And this is by no means entirely the fault of the teacher; even pharmacists sign up for professional development to stay on the top of their game.  I wish, certainly, that we would spend as much money on professional development for writing teachers as we seem bent on spending for these automatic programs.  But school systems are in a budget panic, and I recognize that they are looking 10 years down the road and not just at next year.  


To be sure, when pondering the future of education, we live in curious, tumultuous times.  I always shake my head when I see the 7th and 8th grade football teams practicing.  Each team fields 70-80 players.  Each team then fields 13-15 coaches to help the players in specific areas such as receiving, offensive line, defensive line, special teams. Coaches see their players for 7-12 hours a week for practice and games.  Teams start weight training in March, and spring practice in May. These players will receive about 210 hours of practice and feedback before the first scrimmage.  My academic team of 100 students, on the other hand, has 4 core teachers, each of whom sees his or her students for a total of about 210 hours for the entire school year.  Until we as a society pledge to support learning with the same volunteer energy and money that we support our extracurricular activities, I would argue that we are always going to have, for the most part, an under-educated student body -- and a society of poor writers.

Another rant: On the Georgia Private School Scholarship Program

“The money follows the student.”
    That’s the hidden intent, yes -- but not the intent that is publicly presented.  And this is why the program has been kept so quiet.  The fact is: there is no state constitutional mechanism for “tax dollars to follow the student” -- or anything else, for that matter.  So, this tax-credit “scholarship” program is simply an end-around this fact.  
    The dollar-for-dollar tax credit is presented as a tax benefit to you because you’ve made a contribution to a non-profit organization (the Student Scholarship Organizations) so that they can dispense scholarships to “qualified” students.  Your tax dollars aren’t so much following your student: you’ve just made a nice gift, so here’s a tax credit.
    But then, interestingly, these contributors often turn around and apply for one of these scholarships for their children -- and this is how the public income tax-credited money happens to follow the child into the private school system.  As one SSO puts it, this tax credit program “allows tax payers to have some control over how their tax dollars are used.”  Oh, would that were the case with all of my tax dollars: I don’t like guns, so I should be able to see that none of my tax dollars goes to state hunting programs.  I don’t think the government should be in the business of health care, so I want to see that my tax dollars get diverted to support private health clinics.  I don’t like these state-run services for senior citizens, so I want to have my tax dollars diverted to private services for senior citizens.  Where would this “follow the tax-payer” mantra stop?  
    The qualifications for the scholarship  is not so much need based as it is based on the child being first enrolled in public school.  For the past three years, public schools across the state have spent many, many man hours enrolling thousands of students who never show up on the first day of school.  And then the schools spend hours and effort to un-enroll these students, and also reconfigure classes because of these students who never showed up.  So, I could make a $2,500 donation to one of these SSOs, enroll my child in public school, and request a scholarship (say, $2500) from the same SSO, and voila, I’ve just received $2500 essentially from myself, and I never had to pay income tax on it -- and there’s no oversight on this.  And if I own my own small business, I can have my corporation make a tax-credited gift as well.  Bonus!!
    That there is so little oversight of these SSOs and to how the “scholarships” are disbursed is particularly troubling.  These SSOs, mind you, only have to disburse 90% of the funds that they collect.  Currently there are 33 of these federal income tax exempt organizations set up to each take in part of the 50 million dollars that is diverted to them.  33 virtually unregulated, tax free organizations to “watch over” 50 million dollars that has been diverted from the income tax digest.  Why such a mad rush to start up an SSO, I wonder??  Well, lets say I set up an SSO and I take in 2 million in contributions.  I only have to disburse 1.8 million in scholarships. The other $200,000 dollars is for “operating expenses” of these non-profit agencies.  And they say Georgia’s teachers make too much money????  
    So, yes, the money follows the student.  But it’s a game of three-card Monte.

Rant: Society Does Not Support Education.

      I just finished reading the local newspaper, and the lead article relayed the fact that my local public school district -- for which I teach -- is facing an 89 million dollar budget shortfall for the 2012-13 school year. The system will address this shortfall by expanding class sizes by two students and by cutting continuing to cut support staff and teachers.  My middle school, for example, expects to enroll 1,659 students -- 13 more than this year.  Great: no big growth in our numbers.  But because of the current fiscal situation, we shall be expected to teach essentially the same number of students with about 7 fewer teachers.
     Seven doesn't sound like a big deal to most, but the ramifications of this number are pretty stark.  Most classes will increase by two students; so, classes that are already at 26-28 will bump up to 28-30.  There will also be an increase in 2-teacher and 3-teacher teams, where the teachers will have to prepare for an extra content area or two (for example: someone who has in the past just had to prepare for a language arts class, will now have to prepare for that and a social studies class, or math, or science.  Fine....we're teachers.  We can handle it.  We teach.  
    Trust me, though, having thirty13-year-olds in a classroom is an entirely different learning environment and classroom management situation than twenty-five.  And our classrooms for gifted students -- those which schools have historically attempted to keep class sizes low (around 20-23) because of the frenetic, high-performing nature of these students -- have already ballooned to 30, and the previous 4-teacher teams have been pared to 2 and 3 teacher teams.  OK, fine....do more with less -- we've been doing that for a few years now.  We get the picture.  And my school will for the most part be fine:  we've got some pretty high performing students, and we are in a fairly well-off part of the county and blessed with tremendously supportive parents who often bend over backwards to support the teaching and learning that goes on at our school.  It will be a struggle, but we will get by; even the teachers who will have extra preps will muddle through.  Because that's what we do.  We teach.  We have students who've faced death in the family, homelessness, divorce, and the lights being turned off: but in the end, we love them, and we teach them, and we see that they learn.
     More and more, though, it feels like public schools are being treated like a cancer, and choked off from any nourishment that might feed them -- all in the hopes that maybe they'll just go away.  At the schools in our county which aren't so fortunate, I cannot imagine the carnage that the current fiscal mess will wreck upon schools which serve lower achieving students who don't get the support from their homes or communities that they truly need to flourish. And I don't even want to think about the poorer counties in South Georgia and North Georgia that do not have anywhere near the resources of the larger Metro Atlanta districts.  Yet we as a society keep cutting.  Not only that, but we seem to be willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater, eager to set up a parallel system of quasi-private charter schools that -- although apparently well-intended on the surface -- will ultimately only siphon away money from their public school brethren.  And anyone who tells you different is a liar.  The state simply cannot fund a new set of schools -- when public monies for existing schools are already shrinking alongside the tax digest.
     So I am continually stunned when we as a society allow this to continue: the constant degradation of Education.  We as a society just don't seem to value it enough to sustain it.  Interestingly enough, though, you've got thousands of people knocking others unconscious in order to get at the latest pair of Nikes or the latest iPad, but there's not enough money for students in our schools.
      If we cared about it, we would fund it.  Period.  And frankly, it seems, we've chosen to not fund it -- at least not to the exclusion of other more pleasurable pursuits, whether they be hunting trips, nail salons, X-Box games, or Under Armour hoodies.  In my county, the senior citizens even voted to opt out of the Education component of their property tax bill -- not just the poor senior citizens, but even the rich ones, many of whom are still working.  That's how little we care about our schools.  And this in a country where students attend school only 180 days a year, which compared to the rest of the world is pretty laughable.
     So, back to my perusal of the local paper.  A whole section (every day) is devoted to sports -- often times college, high school, and even middle school or recreational league sports.  And today in the Sports section -- for like the third day in a row -- was an article called Getting to Know which featured a nice  exposé  of some high school coach -- baseball, golf, cross country, defensive line, whatever.  And this article really stuck in my craw.  Because, I thought to myself: When was the last time you saw an article for "Getting to Know" the principals or even the assistant principals for our local schools -- let alone the teachers?  Wouldn't it be nice if we slathered the same love and adulation on the people who educate our children.  That is how I know we no longer care.
     And this attitude, I'm afraid, will doom our society. Education, for most (especially the poorest), will simply fade into obscurity -- because it's just not as fun as the other stuff.

Tim

Tim Bowen by Fiel Luna

        I found out tonight that my cousin in Philadelphia took his own life.  His name was Tim Bowen, and he was an artist and a musician.

         My earliest memory of Tim is from when I was little, maybe 10, and he came to visit our Grandmother (that's what connects cousins, after all) in Spartanburg, SC.  He was on his cross-country tour, so this would have been around 1975, the heyday for hitchhiking.  I remember my mother getting a phone call in the kitchen and telling us, "Well, he's here...let's go pick him up."

Djangology by Tim Bowen

       
   
                            He was travelling with another guy -- weirdly, I remember his name: Buck -- and they literally had nothing with them but the clothes on their back, some big backpacks, and their guitars.  We picked them up at Hearon Circle near a pay phone, and the smell of them assaulted us the second they hopped into our station wagon.

    "Oh God," I heard my mother say before she pulled up to them.  "They look like hobos."
    "Hey, Aunt Mary!"
    "Oh, Tim...for the love of God....you've got a week of dirt on you!  Don't touch anything when we get back to the house, but go straightaway and take a shower!"

Self Portrait by Tim Bowen

         After they showered, Tim regaled us with stories of their journey across the country -- of the cars they rode in, of the trucks they flagged down, of the songs they sang with their guitars for payment.  And they sang songs for us too.
           I was fascinated that he had a contraption that strapped his harmonica up to his mouth so that he could play guitar and sing, but then play harmonica when he needed to.
        My grandmother -- Nanny to us, Nana to him -- was especially excited by the visit. I remember how eagerly she sat for Tim in her chair-- regal, as her artist grandson sketched her portrait. It was one of the times I remember her happiest.
       He taught me how to draw storm clouds.  Draw your poofy cloud...now lick your finger and rub the edges of your cloud.  Just rub around the edges.

The Love Dogs --  at East Side Club, 1981

     
       
       Of course, as is so often the case, I lost touch with my cousin over the years.  But we had recently reconnected with the help of Facebook, and I got to see all of the amazing artwork that he's painted over the past 40 years, and he told me about the time that he and his band opened up for The Feelies back in the day.  It was good to reconnect.


         Tim's last post  was on January 3.
In it he posted a picture of one of his most recent works: I Love You (78" x 98", acrylic on canvas, 2011).  You can visit his Facebook page and see his wonderful legacy here: Tim Bowen Facebook