This is a picture of the new Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex that will open in Los Angeles next month. Built on the site of the former Ambassador Hotel where Senator Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, it is a 578 million dollar K-12 project which when done, will drip with opulence on a scale rarely seen in an educational setting.
The school will feature things like fine arts murals, talking benches, and a massive, ornate Cocoanut Grove auditorium. It will have underground parking, a state-of-the-art swimming pool, and a faculty lounge superior to many fine restaurants. It will also include portions of the original Ambassador Hotel for historic purposes, and a marble mural to commemorate the late Senator Kennedy.
At the price tag mentioned, this school is now the most expensive ever built in the United States. And when you divide that into a per student average, it may turn out to cost a cool quarter million dollars for each child who will attend. Now, we’re talking about the building, here. The cost beyond that to staff and maintain the school, has not yet been publicly announced.
Obviously, in this terrible economy many people are justifiably upset at such an astounding expenditure of taxpayer money. Compounding that, this school is being built in a district that presently suffers a 640 million dollar operating deficit. Not only has it laid off over 3,000 classroom teachers in the last two years, it has had to cut many of its educational programs, and reduced the total number of days that kids are in school, as well.
Not coincidentally, LAUSD also stands out as one of the lowest performing school districts in the United States. With a student dropout rate of thirty-five percent or better, how less impressive could its credentials be?
The furor over this educational “Taj Mahal,” however, has lost much of its steam because of how the school district got the money to build it in the first place. Not part of its regular budget, the funding came from voter-approved bonds passed to the tune of twenty billion dollars. Yes indeed! Gullible Los Angeles voters once again came to the rescue of a failing school system when it begged for funds to build new schools. And once again, they got some bureaucrat’s vision of reality.
Here’s the point. The more money you vote the government or any of it’s agencies, the more outlandish they will be in spending it. Bureaucrats are not in the business of building strong public entities that benefit people and strengthen society. They’re in the business of building monuments to themselves. To them, it’s never about efficacy, it’s all about legacy.
In the past, then, I have not been a friend of bond issues. So the chance I will ever vote to pass one in the future, (whether it’s for mothers, American flags, or apple pie), seems remote. Of course, that might change if a bond comes along that solves peoples’ issues with ingenuity, fearlessness, and permanence . When James Bond runs for something, then, he gets my vote!
In just a few days, a new school year will begin. For parents of young children, it’s often the moment of “emancipation” for which they’ve been waiting for a number of months. For kids, it’s always a time of new beginnings that makes their stomachs tingle with excitement one moment, and ache with uncertainty the next.
Most parents want their child’s learning experience to be a positive one. But because the school day happens outside their immediate sphere of influence, it’s not always easy to insure this will happen. So as new school year begins, it is important to quickly establish a working relationship with your child’s teacher. Doing so from day one, will greatly improve the chances of educational success during the rest of the year.
Here, then, are some simple suggestions that can help make the first week of school, a smooth but effective transition for both you and your child:
- Take your child to the school campus as soon as class lists are posted. Act excited about who his or her new teacher will be, even if they’re not your first choice.
- If the campus is open, walk to the classroom that day so its location will be familiar to your child on the first day of school.
- Attend any initial school meetings that are offered. Some campuses hold a “Meet Your Teacher Day,” for orientation purposes, and almost all conduct a “Back-to-School Night" the week school begins.
- If it’s an adult meeting, leave your child at home. That helps eliminate distractions, and makes the information seeking process easier.
- Read and save all handouts given you at those first meetings. Ask GENERAL questions if your unsure about policy or procedure. Save questions based on your child‘s specific needs, for either after the meeting, or at a conference scheduled for another day.
- Introduce yourself to the teacher, being sure to tell him your child’s complete name, especially if last names are different. Be pleasant and positive. Convey that you’re looking forward to a great school year.
- Be sure the teacher has received an Emergency Card which includes your contact information. Also find out the best times to call him should the need arise.
- If your schedule allows, sign up to volunteer in your child‘s classroom. There is nothing more interesting (and often instructional) than seeing your child interact with his teacher and classmates in a live setting.
- After returning from any meeting, reiterate to your child that what you saw and heard there convinces you this is going to be one of the best school years ever.
THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
- When you take young children to school on the first day, there may be “separation anxiety” after a long summer at home with you. So, assure them you’ll be back to pick them up when school is over, give them a hug or kiss good-bye, then TURN AROUND AND LEAVE WITHOUT HESITATION. If a few tears occur, they’ll be nothing like those generated if you hang around and try to talk your way out gracefully. Please know this… children almost always settle down once they’re in the classroom with their peers, and their parent “crutches” are gone.
- Be aware that brand new clothes, (especially shoes that have never been worn), are often quite uncomfortable. Try to dress kids in something weather appropriate, that they’ve “broken in” prior to the first day of school.
- Do NOT send young kids to school with fancy school supplies on the first day. Things like pencils with bobble-head erasers, and binders with secret pockets full of stuff they’ll rarely use, almost always become a problem rather than an asset. Your child does not need any such distraction the first week or so of school, so keep the supplies simple, if you buy any at all.
That’s it for now. Here’s wishing you and your youngster, a WONDERFUL AND SUCCESSFUL SCHOOL YEAR!
This past Monday marked the thirty-third anniversary of the death of rock-and-roll legend, Elvis Aaron Presley. Thousands of hardcore fans paid tribute to the singer at not only his home in Graceland, but around the world, as well.
A variety of emotions were evident in the huge crowds that stood in the hot sun to show their respects. And it was clear by the fact they were there, that for a vast number of people, Elvis is still an important and enduring part of their lives.
Many of those present seemed too young to have even seen Elvis when he was alive. Why, then, did they feel such a strong kinship with the deceased rock-and-roll legend? After all, I had personally watched him from the start of his career, and considered him one of my teenage idols. Yet, for whatever reason, I felt none of the emotion being displayed by his current fans, either young or old.
Elvis began his public career when I was in Junior High School. And like most young boys at the time, I thought he was just about the coolest dude on the planet. There was something downright seductive about his slicked back hair, long sideburns, with a forehead curl in the front, and a rebellious ducktail (D.A.) in the back. I mean, he made a statement to guys my age either coming or going.
And what he wore compounded our loyalty. He always looked so non-conformist dressed in that black leather jacket, tight blue jeans, and engineer boots. And when adults said he looked like a street hoodlum, we simply loved it. And their comment propelled him to instant sainthood in our minds.
Then, in 1956, when columnist and T.V. host Ed Sullivan had his cameramen shoot Elvis from the waist up while he was dancing during, “Hound Dog,” whatever was going on “out of frame” fanned the fires of our fertile imaginations. We could only mourn being visually cheated of those “wicked movements” the camera angle had censored.
Even the titles of his songs had a ring of juvenile disdain about them, and they never failed to energize us. “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” and “Hound Dog,” all resonated in our heads with lyrics that seemed so counter culture at the time. And though we didn’t quite understand they were mostly descriptions of love and romance gone bad, they almost seemed an anthem to the systematic persecution of youth… at least in our minds.
When Elvis was drafted into the Army in 1958, I was a High School Junior. It was at that point his brightness as an icon began to fade for me. I still listened to his music, of course, but his new soldier image no longer meshed with that of the exciting rock-and-roll idol who made adults angry. Now he was an adult, himself, and serving his country as grownup males did when the draft was still in force.
And by the time Elvis was discharged, I had graduated and enlisted in the Army myself. From that point on, he became just a familiar voice on the radio as his songs were played overseas where I was stationed. Our connection across the miles, then, was simply musical. No more caring about how he dressed or styled his hair, or how the girls screamed as he thrust his pelvis during a rock-and-roll performance. No more caring that he was in now in movies, and that Hollywood had dyed his hair black and shortened his sideburns. In the bigger scheme of my life, it no longer seemed to matter.
As always seems to happen, then, the process of living tends to sort things out for a person. And in the end, I guess that when Elvis grew up, so did I. While I did come to respect him as a musician and performer many years later, I no longer thought of him unless I happened to hear his music being played. And then, for the briefest of moments, it brought me back to that special time when being a teenager was an exciting adventure on an alien planet. And Elvis Presley made me feel I belonged.
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Young children are probably the most underrated group of humans on the planet. And most adults are famous for thinking we’re “higher functioning” than them, just because we’re older, more experienced, and of course, taller (at least in most cases). We also get that impression because kids usually do what we tell them to, and someone who defers to grownups seems basically, a lesser being.
During my years of teaching, the one thing I learned is that children should not be underestimated regarding what they can accomplish, what they can intellectually handle, and especially how creatively they can think. And it’s when adults get smug and start thinking we’re superior in those categories, that’s when kids jolt us back into reality by showing us how wrong we are.
A great example of this comes from back-in-the-day when I taught Kindergarten for the first time. There they were, thirty little people sitting on the rug in front of me, listening with eager intensity as I taught a simple lesson from the Science curriculum. Of course, looking back now, that rapt focus should have been a tip-off that something was about to go wrong.
The lesson’s simple “objective” was to teach this concept: “Every species of animal has babies of like kind.” So for fifteen minutes I taught my novice heart out, showing them pictures and giving numerous examples to prove the validity of the concept I was sharing. And they seemed to be “buying” my pitch! For a young teacher… that was good.
Towards the end of the lesson, I started asking evaluation questions like, “Now, what would a mommy and daddy squirrel have?” And predictably the sweet little scholars would answer, in unison, “Baby squirrels.” And then I’d inquire, “What kind of babies would a hippopotamus family have?” Of course they chimed, “A baby hippopotamus.” I was relieved… my lesson was a success!
Of course, at this point, I was fully ready to enshrine myself in the “New Teacher’s Hall of Fame” for doing such a fantastic job. But, for ego purposes, I just had to have one more shred of evidence that my superior performance was absolutely airtight.
So I smugly asked this last, completely unnecessary and gratuitous question: “Before we‘re done, can anyone think of an animal that doesn’t have a baby that’s just like itself?” Of course, there were a lot of shrugs accompanied by almost uniform responses of “No,” and “Uh Uh.” I smiled, and nodded my head in silent agreement at the consensus being displayed. It had been the perfect lesson, and now it was over.
But before I could pat myself on the back, a small hand slowly rose to signal there was yet another response. It was attached to the arm of a little girl I knew to be very bright, and unique for her divergent style of thinking. I acknowledged her hand signal and waited for a response, never thinking I was about to be bushwhacked.
“Teacher,” she said, “I know an animal that can have a baby that’s not the same as it is,” she said with confidence. Thinking I was going to have to let her down lightly, I said politely, “Really? Well tell us, then, what kind of animal could do such a thing?” The tiny scholar looked me straight in the eye, and without hesitation announced for everyone to hear, “A mommy dog can have a worm.”
I was doomed. Immediately the room was filled with nodding heads and hushed affirmations such as, “Yeah, it can,” and, “She’s right, my doggy had worms once.” At that point, the only other thing I could hear was the gurgling of my “perfect lesson” as it dribbled down the drain.
Alas, my hopes of making it into the “New Teacher’s Hall of Fame” before lunchtime, were dashed. But, though disappointed, I slowly came to realize that actual learning had taken place that morning, at least for me. For never again did I underestimate the power of a child to think something through, and give an answer that not only makes perfect sense to them, but makes an adult feel childish at the same time.
I have a teacher friend who writes the most beautiful religious music for the church in which she worships. She also has a beautiful singing voice, so she performs and records many of her own compositions for the congregation, as well.
At school, one day, we got talking about the creative process involved in composing music. She happened to ask if I had ever written any, so I told her I had, but that most of it was simple stuff for my students to sing at school. Besides that, my notation skills were pretty weak, so very few of my compositions had ever been permanently committed to staff paper.
Anyway, as would happen, my impulsive nature (especially creatively), prompted me to go home and begin the difficult task of writing a song. I decided it should be one that I could not only play for her, but one that she could sing if she liked. And it needed to have not only a pleasant melody, but words which reflected things I knew were important to her. One, of course, was her strong religious faith, and the other was her love of teaching children.
So I began my work. But as time went by, a strange thing began to happen. With each new day, I found myself writing lyrics which seemed less and less meant for someone else, and more and more meant for me. And ultimately, those words became a silent prayer which not only reflected how I viewed my role as a teacher of children, but clearly defined my daily responsibilities to each young person I served.
Below are the lyrics of that song. While a personal expression of the daily help I sought in the classroom, the words may have relevance for anyone who works with youngsters. Beyond that, they might hold special meaning for those of you who are loving parents, especially of young children.
A Teacher’s Prayer
Oh Lord, these words I pray,
Help me touch one child’s heart today,
May I reach out with love, Your gift from above,
As a potter with precious clay.
May I nurture each child I teach,
Using words that encourage, not preach,
And when patience runs thin, may I call from within,
Your peace, the most restless can reach.
Let me know when to listen, not talk,
Through example to lead, walk the walk,
Serve each day ‘til its end, as a mentor and friend,
With my heart sensitized, to see You in kids’ eyes,
This I ask, I pray.
Dear Lord, I thank You for this trust,
May I joyfully do Thy work.
© 9-20-05
I didn’t want to write about politics in this post, because besides eating tainted oysters, it’s the only other subject that makes me sick to my stomach on a regular basis. But with the quick passage of HR 1586, I simply had no choice. I’m so mad right now that I’m fogging up a twenty-two inch computer monitor from two feet away.
This bill is informally being called, “The Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act. I say “informally,” because they rushed it through so quickly that they actually didn’t give the bill a title. Costing a total of 26.1 billion dollars, 10 billion of that is earmarked for grants to school districts to save what is purported to be over 300,000 teacher jobs.
“What a righteous cause,” you might say. “As a former teacher, you must be thrilled that the government has finally done something right.” Well, forgive me fellow teachers, and all you pro-education zealots out there. I’m not the least bit thrilled, and our demented politicians have gotten it wrong yet again!
In short, this government is out of control when it comes to spending. And that refers to spending on “good” things, as well as “bad.” We are at a point in our history that each new dollar expended will have to be accounted for and paid back by the very children who were gratuitously posed around Speaker Pelosi in her photo op signing ceremony. How sad is that for them?
Of course, the majority party would argue that the money is coming not from us, but from new taxes on those “greedy” corporations who earn overseas income. Pelosi’s even gone so far as to say this bill “reduces the national deficit by 1.4 billion dollars.” Right, and I’ll be playing center for the L.A. Lakers next season.
Face it, Folks, Washington doesn’t gave a hoot about your kids and their education. It’s reality is that teachers are one of the largest and most reliable voting blocks the majority party has in its ranks. I should know, because I’m still a registered Democrat. And the other constituents who will benefit from the remaining 16 billion dollars of the bill, are poor Americans who mostly vote like teachers, that is, if they vote at all.
So why select teachers as the “cause celebre” for saving jobs in this disastrous economy? Are they “better” than clerks, office and factory workers, or people in the service industries? Is it because they’re better educated and more important to the health of our society? I don’t think so. And when you consider the implications of tenure, they actually begin with better job security than most.
No matter how you slice it, then, the political motivation for HR 1586 is clear. If you take care of teachers, they’ll take care of you at election time. And all the while, you can save face as you slip them the bribe, because, of course, it’s really “for the children.”
With November soon upon us, this week’s legislation is a partisan wolf masquerading as an honorable philanthropic gift to lambs. But anyone with basic common sense and the willingness to look forward honestly, certainly realizes one immutable point. Once they’re fattened up by the farmer, sweet little lambs become lamb chops!
The other day I ran across this interesting picture while surfing the net for visual content. While its creator was using it to make a humorous statement about the crap that comes out of Government Agencies and major Media Networks, I thought it might serve a more practical purpose here. So, for the next few hundred words, I’m going to consider it a symbolic way to dispose of some of the most irritating, nonpolitical subjects that have been bugging me lately.
Of course, if I listed everything that chafes my derriere on a daily basis, I’d need to definitely replace the symbolic bag, with a symbolic dumpster. But for now, I’ve randomly picked only three of the smaller irritants I'd like to see go. The rest can wait for another time.
First to be tossed, is the fact I have to pay the same price for a pair of pants as a guy who shops for clothes in the “Big and Tall Man‘s” section. I mean, give me a break. You could make two pair of my sized pants, out of the cloth it takes to make just one of his. Why, then, am I paying 100% more? Because I can’t afford to get arrested walking around naked from the waist down, that’s why.
And another thing. I can’t even buy pants “off the rack” like he can, that fit me without a need for additional shortening. So there goes another few inches of cloth into the trash, which adds gross insult to financial injury. You know? I think there might be a successful A.C.L.U. discrimination lawsuit here.
The second thing into the BS bag, are those paper-thin plastic bottles that drinking water comes in these days. Some environmentally conscious bureaucrat decided it would be more “green” to make them as thin as humanly possible. After all, it takes a plastic bottle one hundred years to biodegrade, so a thinner version may reduce that time to who knows … maybe ninety years?
But a thinner bottle means that when you open one, too much hand pressure makes the water shoot up your nose like a geyser. I mean, it’s like a bidet for your face. So, if time in the landfill is what prompted thinning the latest version of our plastic bottles, I’d suggest they start selling drinking water in tin cans. At least they don’t crush under hand pressure, and take only fifty years to biodegrade.
Third, and last for today, is the high tech, high altitude spying that’s going on in the skies over my neighborhood. I mean, is there no such thing as privacy anymore? Isn’t it unAmerican for a person not to be able to garden in the nude within the walled confines of his own yard, that is, without someone spying on him from a couple thousand feet?
I know why my city subscribes to satellite surveillance services. They want to stay on top of things like whether I’m raising mosquitoes in my swimming pool, or adding structures to my property without taking out a city permit. Besides that, they also want visual reassurance that those tomato bushes I've planted along the backyard wall, are not really marijuana plants in drag. I mean, the next thing they’ll want to know is if I’m smoking my oregano plants.
In the end, then, I think surveillance from the air must, in some way, tromp on the “search” provisions of the Fourth Amendment. I mean, if a two thousand foot tall officer can’t search you home without probable cause, why should a two thousand foot high satellite get away with it?
This picture is one of the dirtiest, most pornographic images I’ve ever seen. And it couldn’t be worse, were all three people in the photo standing there completely nude, while clapping and writhing to the passionate beat of Ravel’s, “Bolero.”
The man at the podium is foreign President, Felipe Calderone. He runs the Federal Republic of Mexico just south of our border. As a world leader, his resume is lackluster, at best. During his tenure, he’s accomplished almost nothing to significantly improve the lives of millions of impoverished Mexican citizens who, on his watch, continue to languish in quiet desperation.
His leadership is questionable as he presides over a regime that wreaks with fraud and abuse, and suffers from rampant corruption throughout its ranks. Besides that, his government lacks a social conscience about the plight of its poor, and is more willing to let them flee north to seek a better life, than to apply strong domestic leadership to keep them safe and satisfied in Mexico.
The record also shows that his nation is awash in violence that has overwhelmed not only his law enforcement community, but spilled over into this country, as well. And the sad statistics show there were almost 23,000 deaths in that country during the last three years, most the result of open warfare on Mexican streets by dangerous drug thugs.
So you see, Calderone “runs” lots of things, but none of them well. And, when he needs a break from all that hard “work,” he has the nerve to come to this country to lobby and blatantly run something else… his self-serving mouth. And the issue he’s blabbing about, mainly American immigration policy, is frankly none of his business.
To me, the most grotesque part of this whole charade, is not that he has the “cojones” to come here in the first place. After all, as Forrest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does.” My gripe is that American politicians invited him to address the U. S. Congress, then gave him many standing ovations as he did. They also allowed him to publicly bash not only our sovereign immigration laws, but kindred states like Arizona who are trying to enforce them because the Feds won‘t.
So how does a two-bit, foreign politician who has done nothing of substance to improve his country, get to stand behind the most prestigious podium in the world and preach to Americans about how to improve theirs? Simply put, through the direct efforts of the Washington pornographers in charge at the moment.
And what results when this happens, is not only what I call “political smut.” It becomes downright unadulterated horse manure, especially to those of us who don’t like being force fed non-solutions, by the very foreigners most responsible for the problem in the first place.
I mean, look at the photo. Nancy Pelosi is having an orgasm as she basks in the presence of someone she considers so “bright, famous, and politically macho.” And Vice President Biden’s expression tacitly endorses the whole spectacle, with a silent, “Right on, Brother Calderone! Tell it like it is, Hombre! Americans need to hear the truth from someone else besides our administration.”
And Calderone, with hand over heart… is of course saying, “Thank you, Dear Colleagues… I’m so honored to be invited here to offer advice on how to fix your country … and to be able to talk down to you and the American people as I would a child.”
As pornography goes, then, this travesty in the Congress ranks right up there with the worst anyone could find on the internet. And, when a country’s collective blood pressure hardly rises as its political leaders “rent” a foreign fox to lobby for plans to leave the hen house doors open, it’s a sign of the times.
Yes, the picture is not only perverted, but disgraceful. So, shame on you, Washington, D.C. Bringing in a Third World mercenary to share policy blueprints to make this country more like his, is a new low even for you. And I think it demands nothing less than an official apology… that is, to every honest, hard working American pornographer whose reputation your actions have sullied.
Every once and awhile I get e-mails from unknown “friends” whose English spelling suggests their IP address might be an undisclosed bunker somewhere in Osama bin Ladin’s part of the world. I’m not sure how anyone from there might actually get my contact information in the first place, but chalk it up to either the wonders of modern technology, or al-Qaeda’s uncanny ability to steal absolutely useless information here in the U.S.
The author always greets me so cheerfully, just like we’d shared a cup of coffee the night before in a mutual cave. And the message, though often grammatically incorrect, strives mainly to convince me that his only purpose for writing is to help me improve various aspects of my life that are lacking, especially two areas.
The first of these is education. This e-mail always seems to begin the following way: “In today’s world, sad to say, it’s simply no longer good enough to just excel at what you do.” Of course, this always starts me thinking. You mean my outstanding ability to putter around the house, water my strawberries, chat with the guy across the street, and write occasional Blog posts are no longer good enough? Yikes! How depressing!!
The e-mail goes on to suggest that getting a university diploma will absolutely change my life, and open new doors for exciting personal advancement, no matter what knob I choose to turn. And, of course, my far-off “friend” is more than willing to supply me with such a customized diploma from the “university of my choice,” and for a very reasonable fee.
What’s best, he unequivocally claims I can qualify without actually taking coursework. It seems, these days, colleges are more than glad to give what’s called, “Recognition of Prior Learning” credits to someone like me who possesses such profound life knowledge and experience. Of course, there is a process to assess all this, but I’d have to dial the listed phone numbers to find out what.
Now, this education offer always brings two questions to mind. First, how much more wonderful could my life be if I added one of their diplomas, to the half dozen I already have lying around the house? And secondly, why the heck didn’t they make me this offer before I spent eighteen tough years in school, slaving to earn the ones I already have?
Honestly, I have considered taking advantage of this intriguing offer, at least someday. My other degrees aside, I think I’d like to add the degree, “Doctorate of Retiremental Pursuits,” to my resume. And just maybe…… after being authorized to use the title “Doctor” in front of my name, I can put on a white smock and catch the eye of a few “younger’ women at the local Convalescent Home.
Finally, the other area of my life that seems to generate e-mail offers of help, is my lackluster gardening ability…… or at least I think that‘s it. I guess with rampant world hunger, there’s a real concern about being able to sustain oneself by growing things.
Anyway, every so often a nice Dr. Maxman offers me special “additives” he claims will result in “fast and effective growth and enlargement.” He goes even further by guaranteeing that, “My little sprout will grow.” Sounds intriguing, I must admit, but for now I think I’ll pass. After all, it’s really too late in my planting season for his special fertilizer to do much good.
This is a picture of the new Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex that will open in Los Angeles next month. Built on the site of the former Ambassador Hotel where Senator Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, it is a 578 million dollar K-12 project which when done, will drip with opulence on a scale rarely seen in an educational setting.
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