For Crying Out Loud

hurray, you got a picture! I don't know aboutt he warning, I never read them! Mendon looks so happy and so well rested! I wish I felt that way. Up the Down Staircase has left me feeling totally depressed, and getting up at 6am and coming home at 7 or 9pm has me exhausted!

I bet! Thank God for Fridays, no? I often feel that way about weekends, then plan every minute so go back to work exhausted-er. On Tuesday, I got up at 6 worked in the garden from 7 to 11, showered, went to work, taught until 9, then came home and printed invitations for work on the computer until midnight. Not really streneous, but I was tired yesterday. And people commented. Maybe I should start wearing more makeup? (Just joking!)

Do you think up the down staircase reflects reality today? I remember reading it and feeling like, boy, am I glad this is not my reality. How have things changed over the spanning decades since the book was written?

I think the problem with pictures is my slow internet connection. In the lower left hand corner of the status bar, it looked as though I was connected at 24000 instead of 56000. This seems to be a sort of random thing and out of my control, but when I am connected at 56 (baud?) I am able to load pictures. I never was able to see the little film that Nae included, even here at work where we have a T1. Technology, ya got to love it.

1. The trackback/ping notice is to be ignored. It is totally irrelevant to our existence.

2. Up The Down Staircase: You mean you understood it? I started reading it once, couldn't make heads or tails of it and stopped. Seriously, it was total gibberish to me.

And I really like the picture. Do people comment on the height difference between the cousins? :-)

Ma,
I hope you won't mad at me for suggesting a book before I finished it-you've read it in the past though, no?. I, like you, get very emotionally involved in the books I read...

I think that one of the things to keep in mind is that this book is set in New York... Mentor high was never like that(though may be now..who knows, things have changed since I left). But I think that highschools in DC are like this. The buildings are - many of them- actually condemned!
And speaking to my classmates who are interning in DC schools that are do not have PTA support (financially or otherwise)-well you'd be shocked. In elementary school students may not talk in the halls, must stand in a standard position with their hands behind their backs...it's literally a mini-prison.

Okay, how honest do I have to be? I did read the book back in high school, followed by "Please Don't Eat the Daisies". (Now there was a book I really didn't understand!) I remember being surprised that the book was so angry, given what I thought was a whimsical title. I don't really remember too much about it. (This is where the honesty issue comes into play -- I said something about it being a favorite book) I do remember that I couldn't identify with the alienation and anger. I found it interesting, but, as Rae said, my high school experience was different. But Mentor and Lower Merion High Schools are both affluent suburban high schools where most kids have two or more parents and more than they need materially.

Wait a minute! You thought Please Don't Eat the Daisies was angry? I thought it was hilarious! I mean, it's a bit dated - and it's a stretch to imagine that anyone I know would be competing against someone famous for the affections of their husband or wife - but that was a funny book.

On the other hand, if you mean Up the Down Staircase, well, I didn't find it angry so much as utterly despairing. As I said, it made me want to be a teacher. I remember reading Don Quixote when I was eight(!!). I wanted to be him so badly. Mommy and Daddy can verify this; I listened to Man of La Mancha nearly non-stop.

Such vanity in someone so young! I was sure that if I was Don Quixote de la Mancha, I'd never give up! I'd never turn away Dulcinea! I'd forge bravely on, dreaming the impossible dream, trying when my arms were too weary, reaching the unreachable star! I'd never get disillusioned!

And by the same token, if I were a teacher, I'd inspire the administration above me to abandon their ridiculous ways and let teachers teach. Parents would talk to me once and come away with a passion for their children's education. Children would eagerly await another day in my class.

Unremarkably, I no longer believe the former. Remarkably, still believe the latter. I taught other Marines in the Marine Corps and I've tutored High School students. I loved it and was good at it. However, there are some real problems with teaching professionally.

1. I don't want to prove to someone that I can do something that I already know how to do, especially if the proving process involves learning and teaching someone else's curriculum.
2. The state education boards are packed with idiots. I disagree with them on so many points about what should be in the curriculum that we may as well be from separate planets. Mathematics should be approached as history. Everyone should learn how to dance. It's more important that people play sports for fun than to win.
3. Responding to the students in a way that allows them to further their study in the direction that interests them is paramount. This is how society moves forward. Anyone who says otherwise is both lying and selling something.
4. Grades are utterly irrelevant, although testing isn't.

I believe in merit pay, giving the same test before and after a school year to measure success, abolishing teacher's unions, elimination of tenure and voucher programs.

I just wouldn't fit in. *sigh*

Hey, I forgot! Jamie is a lovely young lady. I haven't seen my cousins for so long that I don't know what they look like. Jamie was a baby the last time I saw her. How old is she now?

Also - Mendon & Kristen, it is so good to see you two together. It warms my heart.

Out of curiosity, was this picture taken at a function of some sort? The ratio of Miami students in jeans versus those not in jeans is radically lower than what was normal for my days at Mount. Unless, of course, it was because everyone else was in flannel pajama pants :-) [actually, that really is rather true...]

You will notice that Mensch is the only one in jeans. And he is the freshman. The rest are sophmores. The 'occasion' was upper-classmen moving in day, if that could be called an occasion. Does this say something about Miami? Or is it just a coincident? Maybe they will comment, as they can speak to this better than I.

Nae, I'll get back to you when I have more time.

hmmmm... where to begin. Nathan, you would make a terrible Don Quixote. Or, rather, a fantastic Don Quixote... no, I think that you have made a fantastic Don Quixote. Not that I think that you joust windmills but something of the metaphorical sort. Also, you do so much useless stuff just to prove a point it's ridiculous. If I were that merry little barber I'd get the hell out of your way!
I'd also like to comment that there is nothing wrong with the school system today; except, it is terrible.
as for the nice clothing below the waists... well. Maman just about has it, except, I think that Kristen just really likes that skirt. Jaimie and Joe are much more involved in the Miami culture.
Also, I'd like to point out the smiles. if you went on sesame street you'd get, "one of these things is not like the rest" (notice that Joe looks like he's in pain). I won't comment on the rest of his personality but Jamie is all sorts of fun. I kind of wish she thought I was a little bit less of a monstrous dork because she'd be great to hang out with. she's holding onto the leashes of her rotten spoiled dogs, by the way.
Also, I wish that we'd had a better picture. I look a little swish and gaunt on top of it and poor kristen is trying to balance herself on the edge of the sofa.
to my beautiful brother nathan, again, it is so good for myself and kristen to be together again. We'd love to be able to hang with you at some point. so, if you come back to the states i'll see if i can't make a point of getting the two of us out to see you.
Oh, by the way, those are my 'nice' jeans. er... um.... they're kristen's favorite anyway.

Mensch, I sincerely hope that the only reason that you allow my opinion to influence the quality of your clothes is your apathy. Really. You look good in them, but they're just jeans. And you're right, I just enjoy the skirt. When I wake up on the weekends, I have more than 10 minutes to get ready, (which is all I end up with during the week) so I wear clothes that I like, rather than the same pair of jeans... everyday. Mendon and I are both pretty removed from Miami culture.
By the way, this is not listed on the Dornbrook homepage and it should be... please?

Nae,
most of the people in my education program- including me- agree with what you have to say. I think that when I grow up I want to run my own school.
I don't wear jeans anymore except on the weekends!
I read please don't eat the daisies but can't remember a lick of it, even with these comments.
I love Scotland and a certain someone who went with me to the Titian (tee hee) exhibit!

Here you all are! I have been searching the entire blogosphere looking for this strand, and not finding it!
Please Don't Eat the Daisies-- I remember reading this and thinking, this is supposed to be a humerous take on the chaos of raising a big family, but I wasn't amused. I thought the woman was a lazy ditzoid who couldn't manage life. I found it depressing that there were people out there who had so little . . . whatever she was lacking. I don't even think I finished the book. If anything, I felt it just added to the negative stereotype that women are incapable. I thought it was annoying. Maybe I didn't get far enough into it to find it amusing.

Nae, I like your philosophy of learning. You are right, the schools are not what they could be. But I see a bigger picture of competing interests and budget constraints and sigh and think, they are doing the best they can with what they have. Me too. We are experiencing budget cuts left and right at Lakeland. The mail has been reduced to once a day instead of twice. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but it makes a difference. And Friday we had no mail at all because the student worker couldn't find our office or something. So something that was supposed to go out Friday (off campus) and be in someone else's office on Monday was still in my out box this morning, which means that I had to get in my car and drive it to them. What a waste of time and resources. But the budget looks better. And now, interoffice mail gets walked to its destination instead of using the system because the system is broke!

OHHH! Spoiled Rotten Dogs doesn't begin to describe these Hell-Hounds! Heidi and I visted last September when we brought Mensch home from Louhelen and stayed with Aunt Barb and Uncle Christophe. These dogs jumped up on the DINING ROOM TABLE! and ate the dinner! I was appalled. I mean, euuuuuuuw.

Nae, you would have been a fantastic Don Quixote. You still tilt at windmills, in your own way. You care enough to question the status quo. You deflate the bombastic when necessary, yes, even when the bombast is me.

I was listening to NPR a few months ago and thought of you. There was a guy (I can't remember his name or the character (Dame Edna sort) that he plays), but he is a comic and satirist. (Was it a Terry Gross doing the interviewing?) I can't remember. But anyway, in his own way, he reminded me of you because he used his satire to tell the administration of South Africa that they weren't wearing any clothes, to mix a few metaphores. I'm glad you don't fit in. I think I would be disappointed if you did. Like you had sold out or something.

Oh, I remember that time now ... when I dressed up when I had the occasion. Now, because I have to dress up for work, I dress down when I have the occasion. So I am now at least as addicted to jeans as I used to be.

Kristen, what's not on the Dornbrook home page? Mendon's blog? There are other ways... i.e. www.dornbrook.com/Blogs :-) but we can pressure Nathan, too!

I think it is the link to my blog that Kristen is missing. Not that I mind . . . (sigh)