Then there are the high schoolers…

When you are a substitute teacher, that substitute does not see the real classroom; that person sees a version of “I know I can fool you because you are not my real teacher.” So, I take that into account when I enter the secondary grades. I do know, though, that most students are finished with the hormonal transition that turns them into beasts of burden of the junior high level (remember, I do not tread those halls) and they kinda (and I use that word with hesitation) know something (they have yet to figure that out) that education is important to their life. Yet, they know they can pull the wool over your eyes (I don’t think so!!!), and they really work at not be accountable for their work in the classroom. 

So, my question is, what happened between 3rd grade when the student is so eager and so proud of his work to being in 10th grade and the student is so tired and so unresponsive to his work?

I really don’t know. But, I guess if I could answer that question I would be a hit on the talk-show circuit.

As a nation, we say education needs more money, but I wonder, after the initial expenses are met, if money is the reason. I think it is more. I think it’s going back to making the student eager to learn, giving the student challenges and helping that student succeed.

I don’t want to trivialize this subject because it is huge … it is our future. This (education and our youths)  will determine whether we continue to be a world power or lose our footing and let other nations dominate us. But, I do think it is simpler than bureaucratic funding and regulations. I believe it is getting back to the simple. I believe it is helping the student believe in him or herself, that he or she has the answer within, that he or she  just needs to trust in himself to speak up, to try. I believe it is small groups of students instead of large classrooms where Andy is still poking Sally, Trevor has to go to the bathroom, Tyrone wants to go to the counselor’s office (a new excuse once you enter the secondary level), and now Jose is nodding off, and Nancy can’t quite seem to keep her head off the desk.

I wonder if the computer is part of the answer. 

I will have more on that next time, but until then I would like to know your thoughts on how we, as a nation, can inspire our high schoolers to achieve. I still believe they are the 3rd graders who were so eager to learn and so proud of their success.

Education is changing, thanks to the computer

I am excited about education, and it is not only because I am an educator. I am excited because many people are learning, especially those who may have had trouble with academics a few decades ago. Why? — The answer is the computer.

Let me back up for a minute and explain how we learn. There are three basic ways we learn — auditorily (by hearing those lectures and lessons), visually (by reading those textbooks), and kinetically (by trying things out with our hands). When you learn auditorily, you need to be fully focused on the words being spoken; when you learn visually, you need to be able to first know what those words mean and then you need to comprehend the meaning of those words; but, when you learn kinetically, you learn by doing, you are an involved participant instead of incorporating passive skills such as hearing or reading.

Over the past few months I have been substitute teaching, mostly in the elementary grades,   and I have seen the children in the computer labs. First and second graders are reading great topics, such as plant life, on their level with a yellow highlight on the word and earphones on their ears to follow along. They are completing addition and subtraction problems at their level without anyone knowing where they are on the education scale, such as learning numbers while the rest of the class is learning addition or subtraction. Or, maybe, another student has advanced to multiplication, ahead of the other students. This does not take the place of regular lessons; rather, it is a supplement to the classroom experience.  

I have seen the students engaged while in the computer lab with only one or two lagging behind, fiddling with logging on instead of forging ahead with the lesson at hand. This is wonderful. This is encouraging. This is where learning takes place. I know. I have seen it when  the computer flashes 100% or missed 1 in bright yellow across the screen. I have seen the students instantly smile at their success, and I know that they will try it again because they are successful and they want to be successful.

Go back into the classroom for the instruction, and there are distractions — Johnny is poking Sally, Devon is fiddling with his pencil or attending to the books in his desk or  going to the teacher to ask to go to the bathroom, Samantha is saying her stomach hurts, and Jose and Juan are talking between each other hoping not to get caught by the teacher.  So, not everyone is going to fully hear that lesson, or fully comprehend what that story says in the classroom, but everyone is going to individually be able to practice what they are learning when they are on that computer. They are engaged. They are focused. They are learning,  And I will thank that machine for helping all students learn, not just the ones who have no problems learning auditorily or visually.

Rose — that Golden Girl

I grew up with the “Golden Girls”, thinking how much fun it would be to have that type of camaraderie when I grew older. I loved to watch Dorothy mouthing her knowledge and wisdom; Sophia wise cracking the nuisances of life; Blanche focusing on her own beauty and age, modeling narcissism at its finest; and Rose telling her wild stories from Minnesota. Each character portrayed so much of life and the different personalities we see every day. So, as my days got longer and my yearn to laugh grew stronger, I returned to the “Golden Girls”. Now, I watch for the belly laughs and I recognize the social issues they tackled (which are basically the same social issues we tackle today). And, I have a deeper understanding of their characters, but none more than Rose.

Rose was actually a complex character with knowledge the viewer would never suspect she had the potential for. She had a heart of gold and yet was so competitive that you wanted her on your side if you wanted to win at a game or sport. Still, I shake my head when I hear the words come out of her mouth. Even though she shared her knowledge, and could fight a cause until the bitter end, she appeared stupid because of her understanding of language.

Rose had the ability to take every word the other girls said at face value. For instance, there is one scene where the girls discover that Rose has taken prescription pills for some 30 years, and they convince her to go for help. When she comes home from treatment, one of the girls say something like, “isn’t it great to get that monkey off your back?” Rose responds, “I’ve never had a monkey on my back.” Or, there is another scene where Blanche wants some extra money for an expensive beauty treatment and when Rose offers her a job for extra money, Blanche says she can just be paid “under the table”. Rose’s response is, “oh, sure, Dorothy tried that — I go under the table and then she never shows up.” Ya gotta laugh….

But, it’s really not that funny.

What I have found is there are many people who have this language problem. I was telling this story to my neighbor who works in the school system. We conversed about how she sees it in the school where she teaches at, saying that she is working with a boy who has this exact characteristic, and it causes problems. Of course it would cause problems because we have so many idioms, clichés and sayings that are simply understood from life experiences or explanations, but if not exposed to those idioms, clichés and sayings and they are not explained through words or examples, people would take them at “face value”, and would indeed think to go “under the table” instead of understanding it means to be paid “on the side”.

Once again, I am made aware not to “judge a book by its cover”. That school boy is probably not stupid, though I bet his classmates think he is by not understanding the words and what they mean. And that leads to being misunderstood which leads to being a problem child which leads to names and titles and stereotyping, and that leads to more problems in school and out of school and sometimes throughout life. Ah, the ways of the world…

Bedbugs, anyone?

While I was in South Carolina this winter, I had the opportunity to hike with my niece, Stacey, and family to the Indian Shell Ring in Sea Pines Plantation. The grounds leading to and around this historically preserved area was beyond beauty. Definitely, nature at its best.

Once at the Indian Shell Ring, which is over 3000 years old, there were signs and descriptions of what life was like for these archaic people. Also, there was one tidbit of information that I thought itchy and amazing — they used the moss from the Spanish moss grown on surrounding trees to sleep on. In other words, the moss was either their filler for their type of mattress or the mattress itself.

Spanish moss does not breed bedbugs, but it is the home to red bugs, which basically does the same damage as the bedbug — makes you want to scratch when even only thinking about the little creature.

It also peaked my curiosity on the bedbug since the dreaded critter is so much in today’s news.

Those little creatures have been around forever — at least some 2500 years ago when Aristotle mentioned them. Actually, bedbugs come from places where bats hang out. (This could be why we associate bedbugs with filth.) If we look at the timeline, when we go to caveman days, we did sleep in the same caves as bats.

And when I traveled to England some years ago, we toured Dover castle and found that those who protected the castle slept with the horses and livestock on straw. I’ll bet’cha there were bedbugs there.

Will we ever get rid of them? I don’t think so since they have been around forever. I have never had the unfortunate opportunity to meet with the little critter, but there is a chance due to travel, especially international travel.

There is one item that I did learn, though, in my research that I will pass along. Usually, when we pack our bags for a trip, we put the suitcase on the bed, then put our items in the suitcase. So, when we get ready to go home from our trip, we do the same, put our suitcase on the bed, pack the items (and maybe a bedbug or two). Once home, we put our suitcase back on our bed to unpack, and the little creature has found a new home. And so it goes.

In between time, though, I will remember my mother’s words when we were young and ready for bed, “Good night, sleep tight and don’t let those bedbugs bite!”

It’s all in The Look

I had an epiphany the other day. You know, the moment of enlightenment when the light bulb flashes bright dots of knowing there is bright 150 watt light, singing alleluias (or in my case rock ‘n roll); it jolted me from my everyday languidness of inertia to a full wide-awake state of aliveness; and it coddled me proving that I am treasured, valued, respected, and a worthwhile human being. What happened? I was in an elevator when a man, a gentleman, entered, said hello and looked me straight in the eye. There was no side-stepping, no glancing over my shoulder, it was a straight-forward look into my being. There was no intentional conversation, but there was validity that I existed for that brief second in the elevator. This moment in time reminded me of another time in my life.

It was years ago and I was in the midst of what some may call success, I was editing at the magazine, teaching composition at the university, volunteering and serving on boards. In other words, I was wayyy too busy to know that there was life outside of my tunnel visioned world. Then, without knowing what was going to happen, I stopped at Arby’s for a sandwich and this girl behind the counter smiled at me. It was a smile that struck me so hard that I stopped dead in my tracks, and said, “Thank you for smiling. I can’t remember when someone actually smiled at me.” She looked at me as if I was strange, and maybe I was to notice a smile.  It was a genuine smile, and at that moment something happened. I realized that I had made my life so busy that I forgot to  be human, to touch someone else’s heart, to smile back. I realized by that smile that we are all in this life together, and if I did not have time to stop and smile, to say a kind word, to make someone else’s day brighter, then, what is it all about? — definitely not the job, the so-called success, the baubles of American middle-class.

That smile has formed many of my days, and now I keep thinking of “the look”. Since the look, I have noticed how many people do not look at my eyes when I speak, and how many times I do not look into the souls of people I am talking with.Today, I am making a conscious effort to look into people’s eyes as I speak to them. I want them to feel what I felt, that they, too, are treasured, valued, respected and are a worthwhile human being. 

Please, take note, and let me know what you notice.

 

That darn misplaced modifier

Last time, I left you with a quote from Blaise Pascal, who I researched and found to be a remarkable gift to society.Check him out.

His quote was: “Words differently arranged have different meanings; and meanings differently arranged have a different effect.” The first part of his quote is all about the misplaced modifier. Remember those little trouble makers from grammar 101? Really, they haven’t gone away. We continue to use them in everyday language and by the signs on the road, they are a part of our ongoing challenge to figure out what we say vs. what we mean to say. For instance, if we drive in America we have all seen the sign “Slow children playing” — what the sign says is that slow children are playing. Definitely not politically correct. What it is meant to say is “Slow down, children are playing” . Even if the highway department would add a comma after “Slow”, it would be more acceptable than saying slow children are playing. But, we take for granted that the sign means to slow down rather than to infer that there are slow children playing.

Which brings me to another thought, a bit off base, but still focused. If the highway department can have grammatical errors, then why is there so much emphasis on teachers  following a governmental curriculum? Food for thought, or maybe it is just another one of those do as I say, not as I do.

Back to the misplaced modifiers: One of the reasons why they are and always have been and always will be a nuisance is because that is how we talk. We start to say a sentence and then know we left out a piece of information so we throw it in at the end. For instance, “Mary served desserts to her guests on paper plates.” This says her guests were on paper plates. How it should read, “Mary served the guests dessert on paper plates.” Ah, the dessert is on paper plates. Makes readable sense now. But, our language is another thing. 

And I am right there with you as far as language is concerned. I will have misplaced and dangling modifiers in my everyday speech, but really, I want to see correct grammar when I read a book or a sign on the side of the road….

Then there is that entire thing about the deer leaping in the air when I see that sign on the side of the road…..

Words to ponder…

During the Christmas season I visited family in South Carolina. During that time, a nephew and I discussed sayings and why some are thought-provoking. It started when he received a text (yes, he is a text-a-holic) that read, “it is better to understand than be understood”. When he received the text, he shared it with me, and we both pondered the words before speaking and sharing our thoughts about the subject. How those words ring true! I would much rather understand a person, idea, or situation than be understood. When I understand a situation, a person and why or how that person behaves or thinks or speaks, I understand how that fits into my life. I know what I am, who I am, and what I stand for. Hopefully, the people who know me well also knows what I am, who I am, and what I stand for, so I do not feel that I need to be understood by the masses. But, when I understand the actions of those people I do not know, an idea that is new to me, or a situation that is foreign to me, I can accept that or reject that into my life. For instance, take the illegal immigration debate that is “hot” right now.

After much reading, knowing the living conditions of where the illegal immigrants came from, and understanding how they may think they have found a golden opportunity of freedom and riches, I understand why this issue is so big. There is a million other reasons, also,on why this issue is big, but I am not going to address them. I only want to know if I understand the stakes in the debate. And, I think I do on a very elementary level. That is all I need to understand for me to make a stand one way or the other. The same holds true for the “bully” in school or work, and why one parent disciplines or shows love toward a child and another parent has a different style. The list continues throughout our life. We are all a product of  our past and the past of those who surround us, and if we understand that, then we may be able to start to understand the neighbor beside us or across the sea. I want to understand. I want to get along. I want a world filled with harmony, and if I take care of me by understanding my neighbor, then I don’t need to be understood because the next person will understand when it comes to me. Or so I think in my idealistic world.

Hey, I know this is a bit philosophical, but every once in awhile it is good to get the ole noodle working…

Here’s a thought for next time. I received it from “Word a day” — “Words differently arranged have different meanings and meanings differently arranged have a different effect” — Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662).