On Lost, the Hero’s Quest, the Tree of Life, and the Dualities of Life

     More and more I am thinking of the LOST island as some type of  world navel or axis mundi.  The Losties are, each of them, on a heroic quest of the type that Joseph Campbell outlines in hisThe Hero with a Thousand Faces.  Indeed, each of the passengers is himself or herself a “hero” on his or her own individual quest.  They each even have various amulets along the way – (Hurley has Charlie’s guitar case; Locke has his knives; Jack has his tattoo).  Here is a chart showing how Jack follows the hero’s quest paradigm:

The Hero’s Journey from Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces as played out in Star Wars and, perhaps, Lost:

Campbell’s Hero	Star Wars (Luke)	Lost (Jack)
SEPARATION	SEPARATION	SEPARATION
·  Call to Adventure	R2D2’s holograph of Princess Leia: classic princess in distress	Jack sees Christian Shephard’s ghost; Rose tells him he is “good”
Refusal of Call	Parental blocking figure, Uncle Owen, reminds Luke of familial responsibilities.	Drunken Christian Sheppard tells young Jack not to be a hero.
Answering Call	Luke returns to find family farm burned out by imperial stormtroopers; now has no reason to stay	Jack operates on the pilot and the marshal; Rose tells Jack that he is good;
·  Supernatural Aid: Guide/ Talisman	Obi Wan Kenobi — Merlin figure – is guide; talisman is father’s light saber	Mentor: Locke??  Later, Ben?? Talismans: Virgin Marys; the numbers; Jack’s tattoo from Achara
Companions	R2D2 & 3CPO, the loyal servants; Han Solo, the older brother/lone rebel with his own Other companion, Chewbacca: Tonto, Sancho Panza, Jim to Hans’ Huck	Messenger: Hurley, Trickster: Locke??  Then Ben?? Lone rebel: Sawyer Shape shifter: Achara; Juliet?
·  Crossing the Threshold	Luk’e leaving of his home planet Tantooine	Plane trip to the island
Threshold Guardians	The bar with its chaotic assembly of aliens serves as a passage to the dangerous world Luke is about to enter. Obi Wan and Han each slay an alien, and Obi Wan also distracts imperial storm troopers so that the way is clear for Luke to leave	Desmond in the hatch; Smoke Monster as “guard” of the temple
·  Entering the Belly of the Whale	The Imperial Falcoln is drawn into the Death Star by tractor beam.	Going down the hatch

INITIATION	INITIATION	INITIATION
·  Road of Trials	Luke’s efforts to save Leia	Polar bear; others; freighter
Brother-Battle	Luke v.s Han	Jack v.s. Sawyer
·  Meeting with Goddess	Finds Leia	Jack and Kate / Juliet, etc.
·  Abduction/ Night Sea Journey	Fall into trash compacter	Trip on the raft
·  Dragon Battle	Serpent in trash compacter; real battle with Vader is displaced onto Obi Wan	Polar Bear…Smoke monster
Ritual Death/ Dismemberment:Sparagmos	Death of Obi Wan	Jack trapped in the cave-in; Jack’s shoulder gets dislocated; Jack attempts suicide
·  Sacred Marriage		Jack and Kate / Sawyer & Juliet
·  Atonement to/Recognition by the Father	Return of Obi Wan as internalized voice; Luke and Darth, who removes helmet	Jack and Christian / Miles and Chang
·  Apotheosis	Luke becomes a hero rescuing Leia — Tarzan leap; targetting enemy fighters	Jack operates on  Ben and hatches a plan to get the group free from the Others..
·  Ultimate Boon/ Magic Elixir	Saves Leia and R2D2 with plans of Death Star	The numbers??

RETURN	RETURN	RETURN
·  Refusal of Return	Han refuses to go back to Death Star	.Kate refuses to go back to the island
·  Magic Flight/ Pursuit	Flight through Death Star	Helicopter ride
Rescue from Without	Han comes back to protect Luke from fighters	Sawyer jumps to save others on the copter
Crossing Return Threshold	Falcon escapes exploding Death Star	.Back to the Island
·  Master of Two Worlds	Recognition of Han and Luke by assembled rebel troops	.Master of science and reason?
·  Freedom to Live	"A New Hope"	Christian Shephard: Not leaving. No. Moving on.

As to Jacob and the “man in black,” I think that they simply represent the duality/dichotomy of life.  At first I thought that one represented “good” while the other represented “evil,” but such a conclusion is really all too simplistic.  They are perhaps even more organic than that: perhaps one is “life” while the other is “death.”  Even so, representing two such opposite forces, they are in essence opposite sides of the same coin – like the Roman god Janus.  As such, one cannot destroy the other.  Ultimately – it is their essential dichotomy which perhaps leads to the existence of all of life’s other dichotomies: good/evil; love/hate; faith/reason; trust/hopelessness; lost/found.  

      Perhaps the ultimate “message” in this show is not that there is some secret alchemy to life – rather, that each of us faces a hero’s quest in life which is ultimately one of self-discovery or even of redemption.  We have in each of us an inherent capacity for life’s various dichotomies that we must recognize or remain perpetually lost.  We’ve slowly seen this message unravel through the development of the characters themselves.  In this season’s premier, for instance, we see the characters still on the island but almost at the end of their journey:  Jack has had his cold sureness steadily whittled away; Kate, no longer running from every situation that confronts her, has opened up and is more giving of herself; Sawyer, no longer the con-man, actually seems to care about people as something other than opportunities for a scam.

 Link to Joseph Campbell’s thoughts on “The tree of life”and his discussion on dualities.  Begin at “The world navel, then is ubiquitous…”

On Craig Claiborne and Cooking for New Year's Day

It's New Year's Eve, and my thoughts turn invariably to Craig Claiborne.

 In my twenties and thirties, I spent many years as a restaurant cook and chef. I've cooked fine dining Italian, fine dining French, Greek, fancy American, casual American, and high volume Fusion. When people find out that I've live a previous life as a chef, they always ask me what my favorite dish is to cook. Difficult question -- as I most often like to cook what I most like to eat...which is a lot.

 But every year, come the end of December, I do find myself getting psyched up to cook one of my most favorite meals: New Year's Day Hoppin' John with Collard Greens, and Braised Country-Style Pork Ribs. But I could never have come to love this meal as much as I do without the recipes of Craig Claiborne from his bible, Southern Cooking. Most especially, as a southerner and as an lover of written words, I love the prose he uses to describe the dishes of this quintessentially Southern meal. So, I'd like to share with you his words-- his recollections "of the sights and smells of home cooking."

 HOPPIN' JOHN
Black-eye or black-eyed peas seem to figure ubiquitously on Southern tables, and Yankee visitors seem to look at them askance. They are not necessarily country fare, as many people claim them to be. They appear on the table of rich and poor, the educated and the uneducated alike, and are eaten with equal enthusiasm. They are the basis of a dish known as Hoppin' John, the origin of which name no one seems to be able to explain. The dish is made with either black-eyed peas or cow peas and rice, and it is certainly one of the most traditional of Southern dishes. It is served in many Southern homes on New Year’s Day to bring all those assembled good luck throughout the year. Claiborne grew up in Sunflower, Mississippi, where during the Depression -- his families finances ruined -- his mother opened up their large home as a boarding house. Many of the dishes he lovingly describes in this cookbook were first learned at the side of a big stove, where he "was allowed to break off crisp bits of the outer coating of the chicken as it came hot from the skillet."

MIXED SOUTHERN GREENS
The standard item of soul food that appearedd almost daily at my mother's table were one form of greens or another, always cooked with pieces of pork, sometimes salted, sometimes smoked. The greens were of a common garden variety, such as mustard greens, collard greens, and turnip greens. These would be put on to boil with a great quantity of water and salt and allowed to cook for hours. Once cooked, the liquid is much treasured by Southern palates. It is called "pot likker," and you sip it like soup with corn bread. If yo want to get fancy, you can always make cornmeal dumplings to float on top of the cooking liquid.

 And he does, thank heavens, address that age old question Cornbread: what is the one, true way to make it?

There are more recipes for corn bread than there are magnolia trees in the South. 

Happy New Year's!! For more on Craig Claiborne's Southern Cooking:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cwDT7hzUjBgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Craig+Claiborne%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bsLDUovkJsWpkAeMqIC4Dg&ved=0CEkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

Advent day 1

On Advent, hope, and expectation

Nine years ago, after the deaths of my mother and father a year apart from each other, I was in a little bit of a spiritual crisis.  Interestingly, maybe oddly, I took a lot of comfort in choral music, medieval chants and polyphony.  I also took a lot of comfort in meditating, and would sometimes drive to a monastery in Conyers, Georgia, and just-- well-- sit. Meditation particularly interested me as it related to specific liturgical seasons like Advent and Easter--seasons that were definitely proving difficult to enjoy.  Growing up in a large Roman Catholic family, the season of Advent was a particularly big deal in our house. We always had an Advent wreath on the dining room table, and I got to do the selected readings each week when we lit each candle. Also, each day I got to look forward to opening a window of my Advent Calendar, hoping that there was a treat inside.

So, a little bit adrift nine years ago, I took a deeper look at the readings and lessons of Advent, hoping that they would give me some assistance in getting out of my spiritual funk.  Well, they definitely provided me with some comfort and guidance -- though I must confess to still being a spiritual wanderer.  All that being said, here's the take away: regardless of your own faith life, I hope these readings and my meditations on some of them can provide you with some company (or at least some interesting scenery) in your own faith journey during this season of Advent -- or whenever you might need them through the year.

The Man Who Fell in Love with Neko Case

Seeing as how she has a new disc out, I thought I'd share some lines inspired by Neko Case -- from a few years back....


The Man Who Fell In Love with Neko Case


What thoughts I have of you tonight, Neko Case,
all because I walked past a half shuttered farmhouse
with its scraggly forsythia and bottle-thrown windows.
I heard your seraphic high notes in the distance,
stuck in a canyon at dusk with nothing but sagebrush and tears
to scare away the coyotes.
I imagined you shirtless and brazen at the microphone,
smoldering looks to the ushers and the college boy in row 12,
asking about their nightmares and if they love their mothers.
Your hair lights up the darkness –
a pile of glowing embers from some burned down cottage.


In the concert hall, Garth meditates on his Lowrey,
channeling Bessie Griffin like a teleprompter.
And you, Richard Manuel, what brings you here
to the sound stage? Was it you who passed along your muse
to her fifteen-year-old runaway soul?
Where will you take me, Neko, after the show?
Will we walk to the airport and watch the planes take off?
Will we touch each telephone pole, one after the other?
Or, will we run all the way back to Tacoma,
looking for battered front porches and empty swing sets
with rusted chains?


--Michael McIntyre

October, 2008

On Georgia's Withdrawal from PARCC

Last week, the state of Georgia decided to formally withdraw from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) consortium. Here is Georgia Education Superintendent John Barge's explanation for the decision.  Link:  Barge's Explanation
In a nutshell: PARCC costs too much, and we can come up with stuff that's just as good.

My response to his explanation:
This is as unacceptable an explanation as we could possibly have hoped for. Georgia spends a measly $18.00 per student for assessments, and the state won't increase this for PARCC, let alone to a level that is on par with other states like Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania. We can't afford $30 million dollars for students for their DIRECT benefit, but we can afford $300 million dollars to dig out Savannah harbor with our fingers crossed that students as well as the rest of Georgia may hopefully one day benefit from its trickle-down largesse.

It is very tiresome when political leaders continually say, "You're just going to have to trust us on this. We know what's best" -- particularly on an issue like education, where Georgia has languished for GENERATIONS! Two years ago, you all agreed that PARCC and RTTTop were the golden ticket, even though you knew then that it was going to be expensive. But now you say that Georgia was only in the consortium just to see what was going on -- camel's nose under the tent, in other words -- and then we sneak away! How noble!! Great lesson for the kids: "You don't have to expend any effort, kids. Just copy from your neighbor's test!!"

You say, Mr. Barge, that our forthcoming tests will be just as good, just as rigorous as PARCC -- but, students won't have to spend as long being tested, and the in-house system won't cost as much. HUH?!?! How are you going to square the circle on that one in a reliable and valid manner???

I think the real reason is that you have burned your political bridges with the GOP (charter schools kerfuffle), and they've made you drink the kool-aid on this one, or they're going to show you the door come next election cycle. As for the Governor, he has to get rid of an issue that is so volatile with the Tea Party wing because he has a guy up in Dalton who can stir up trouble for him with the base and make him spend more money in the primary than he would otherwise like to. He needs this CCS/PARCC issue to go away, just like his junk yard.

I just hope that for your penance they don't make you go down to Savannah and help dig out the river with a little plastic shovel.

Per pupil spending on Assessment systems (go to pg. 9)
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2012/11/29%20cost%20of%20assessment%20chingos/11_assessment_chingos_final.pdf (go to page 9)

My Dog Harry

My dog Harry

loves it when -- on the back porch,

listening with me to the crickets --  

I slide him slivers of cheddar

from my paper plate.  He sits,

peering through the screened-in darkness,

and searches for backyard varmints

or wayward interloping cats.

My dog Harry

sits with me on the couch --

A Person of Interest flickering

in the colorblind distance --

and rests his chin upon my thigh,

heaving great sighs from time to time,

thoughts of squirrels perhaps,

or the collie at the dog park.

My dog Harry

lies on the carpet,

equidistant

from me at my desk

and where the children sleep

in their beds.  

I do not need a yardstick.

My dog Harry

wags his tail gale force

when he sees the red leash,

and leaps onto my legs

for his harness.  

He walks with me full gallop

and pees on every vertical surface --

bushes especially,

and our neighbors’ unsuspecting mailboxes.

--Michael McIntyre

Dacula, April 2013

What Happened to Sears?

ALMOST LIKE THE CABLE GUY
Saturday, 2/2/13, first arrival window was 10-1...changed to 1-3....showed up at 3:30, disheveled and exhausted looking. I later found out that he'd been non-stop for a month and a half, 12 hours a day, 7 days a week -- and he looked it. I genuinely felt sorry for him, as he was working alone, for what appeared to be (surely) a 2-man-job.We had to leave the house at 6:30, so he came by the next day to finish. 4 hours into the job on Sunday, he realizes that the belt drive shaft will not fit in our garage, as there is a drop down header which supports the bonus room above the garage. I would think that the salesperson who came out the previous week realllly should have caught that little detail. The install technician said that he did not know if Sears would be able to make the opener work at all. A phone call technician later said that they might have to take the door down and refund our money.

ONE WEEK LATER 

So, for this week we've been manhandling the garage door (even though he did not put a handle on it), and today a tech called to say they'd be out on Saturday, February 16 to see if they can fix the door. Frankly, I'm ready to call Overhead Door (who installed the previous door, which lasted for 14 years) because they evidently did not have any problems with the support beam running the width of the garage. They simply used a shorter,screw drive shaft. I don't know why Sears cannot accomplish this task.


AH, FOR YESTERYEAR
When I was young, it was always a big impressive deal when the Sears technicians would drive up your driveway in their shiny panel van. This time,not so much, sadly. Our technician arrived in his own beat-to-death pick-up truck with supplies and tools just thrown into the bed and spilling over its sides. It is sad that corporations have worked themselves into this corner: chasing profit margin means gaining operational inefficiencies, which all too often means hiring straight commission sales people to get the job, and then utilizing one person to do a job that 10 years ago would have been done by two installers. Of course, we consumers -- constantly chasing the cheapest deal in town -- have largely enabled corporations in this self-destructive behavior. See Circuit City....see K-Mart.....

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

Google+....Let the Games Begin!

I was a little amused today at the response of many Google+ users when it was announced that Google would be adding a game component to the platform.  “Oh, no!!!!”  “There goes the neighborhood” and “That’s why I frackin’ left Facebook” all seemed to be the common refrain.  And I must admit, I was right there with most of the responders.  I mean, I’ve never even played Angry Birds or Mafia Wars, but if I got one more notification that Downtown Johnny needed my help to shake down a D.A., I was gonna scream.  Milk your cow???  Are you kidding me???

And I think that the powers-that-be at Google are fully aware that a large component of the current users of Google+ are here for just that same reason -- to escape from some of the noise and clutter and chaos of the other place.  While it started out friendly and fun, of late it had just become too much of a middle eastern bazzaar or downtown Atlanta sidestreet during the 96 Olympics.  I fully think that Vic, Bradley, and the rest of the Google-trust are going to be very careful and judicious with how they maintain games as an unobtrusive part of the Google+ platform.  Still, the outcry from the Plutopians -- the palpable gnashing of teeth --  was startling.

Which led me to consider:  Jeesh, people, relax...just how do you think the lights are going to stay on for this party, huh??  I mean, the very same day that games was announced, the Google Docs team announced that they just raised the max file size from 1GB to 10GB in Google Docs.  I wonder how many servers Sergey and Larry needed to buy to make sure that the Cloud was going to be able to handle that little entitlement for their million or so Docs users.  And Docs is FREE!  So, for that matter, is Google+.  

I mean, could you imagine if Starbucks rolled out all those comfy stores with their catchy indie music and never had the expectation that people would, oh, have to buy coffee and stuff in order to justify the existence of those sofas and Norwegian wood ottomans?  Oh, sure, come on in....hang out for as long as you like!  Commerce -- the transaction of goods and services -- is ultimately what pays the bills, whether we like it or not. So if there is a dime or two to be made from having Games somewhere on the Google+ platform, then it should come as not outlandish surprise that Google is going to try to leverage that potential revenue stream.  Same with advertising; it’s going to be there.  Everyone is just in a mad panic that it not be there on Google+ like a constant jackhammer while they’re trying to talk or read.  But we have to remember, it will ultimately be revenues from games and ads that provide the luxurious, beautiful, and user-friendly soap boxes for the rest of us to wittily dazzle our universe of circles. Hell, even the Four Seasons Maui has a game room.   In this case, though, I’m going to go out on a limb and trust Google with keeping the Game Room really nice -- and perhaps way in the back behind the ice machines.