Peanut Butter and Jelly and Bread, Oh Mice. . . .

Posted on by September 22, 2010
8

I’m re-running this post from over three years ago because, you know, deja vu and stuff like that.

GenerosityMamacita says: I got home from class late tonight, around 9:30, and had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for supper. (We have less money than usual this week. Ouch.) As I looked at the containers, and the smeary knife, I was reminded of something I used to do in my old middle school classroom.

Every year I did the “Write out the directions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich” thing in each 8th grade class. On the due date, each writer would come forward and follow his own directions, read out loud by another student, and see if the end result was an actual sandwich. Usually, it wasn’t. Any student who wished to eat his sandwich or the mess thereof was cordially invited to do so, and many of the students gladly ate up the evidence. We can’t have anyone knowing we had fun learning how to follow directions, now could we?

After this assignment was over, I kept the big jars of peanut butter and jelly in my room, on a shelf beside my desk, hidden from view of the class, although everybody knew they were there. Every week, I brought in a fresh loaf of bread and put it there beside the peanut butter and jelly.

No, we weren’t re-doing the assignment. I always tried to time that assignment so it was as near to the beginning of the school year as possible, so I could establish the food there on that shelf as early in the year as possible.

Every day, once word got out, a handful of students would come in at noon and ask permission to make a sandwich. These kids had no money, and their parents were too shiftless illiterate and drunk to come in and sign the paperwork that would give their children a free lunch.

Most of the students knew about the food stash; often, a kid who just plain forgot his/her lunch money or disliked the cafeteria menu for the day would come in and make a sandwich. No, it wasn’t from the students that I kept the food hidden in the bookcase by my desk.

I was hiding it from the other teachers and from the principal, because ‘food in the classroom’ was expressly forbidden, and the other teachers in my building had an especial hate on for the kind of kid who frequented my classroom during the ‘off’ hours of lunchtime and after-school.

I was used to being in constant trouble at school for going all out for a kid, and frankly? There at the end of my public school career, I really didn’t give a tinker’s dam for rules that would prevent a child from having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

At the end of each week, a kid would always ask me if he could have the rest of the loaf of bread. Every Monday, I brought in a new loaf. I didn’t want students to eat stale bread; I mean, would YOU want a sammich on stale bread? Ick. At the end of the school year, I gave away the jars. The kids thought it was the same jars all year, and actually, it was. I just scooped the new stuff out of new jars and refilled the old jars so they wouldn’t know I was buying more. I kept the new jars hidden in my locked cabinet in the back of the room. They never knew. My students might have felt bad if they knew I was buying new stuff all the time.

I sincerely doubt that any of the teachers in that building read this blog; I don’t think any of them know what a blog is. But I know for a fact that many of my former students read this blog, so listen up, kids: I’m going to share a secret with you.

I know why our floor had mice.

Them There Words What Be Correct

Posted on by September 15, 2010
2

punctuation Mamacita says:  It’s 2:30 in the morning, and I have to get up in a few hours and go to school, and be all enthusiastic about punctuation.

The thing is, I AM enthusiastic about punctuation. It’s important.

It tell us when to pause, and when to stop. It tells us when to end a sentence on a vocal inflection. It tells us when we are stating, and when we are questioning.

Think about math. What would it be without the symbols that tell us exactly what to do with the numbers and letters? That’s punctuation.

Think about music. All over the page, there are symbols that tell us what to do with the notes and the words. The pauses are just as important as the notes. So are the silences.

The pauses, and the silences, are as much a part of the beauty of the music as are the notes and the lyrics.

It’s the same with our spoken language. It is, after all, an ART. The Language Arts are as much of an art form as are the musical arts, or the studio arts. Done properly, language should flow from us, or from the page, as music flows.

With most of language, we instantly know when something is not said or written properly; the musical flow of the language is gone. The problem is, every geographical region has its own particular language idiosyncracies, and we get used to hearing them. Then, when we are taught that a way of expressing ourselves is incorrect, we are astounded. How could it be incorrect? Everyone we know says ‘it’ that way.

Maybe, maybe. . . . .

But the way we express ourselves opens doors, and slams doors shut, before us when we don’t even know it. We are judged daily on our ability to communicate our thoughts to others. And when we communicate poorly, we are judged and found wanting. Fair? Not always, but think: don’t we all put people on ‘levels’ according to their language? Good grammar connotes intelligence, like it or not.

Doctors, lawyers, dentists. . . . . most professionals use fairly good grammar. We expect it of them. We don’t want our brain surgeon to sound like Jethro Bodine, do we? I think not.  It would be hard to trust one of the Beverly Hillbillies to cut us open if he/she hadn’t even learned how to use the language properly.

Our language standards are not as high with some other jobs. I think this is a shame.

Language is such an awesome wonder. . . . think about it for a minute. It connects us to others, and all of education, and much of life, is about connections. It also enables us to share, as well as to conceal, our thoughts. Some days, I’m not sure which is more important.

I should probably go on to bed. I’m lecturing again. Sometimes, it just pours out of me when I don’t realize it. Now that I realize it, I should stop.

That’s hard, for me. I love our language dearly. I hope you can tell.

Picasso Passes

Posted on by September 13, 2010
2


Mamacita says:  This is my favorite Picasso*, and it hangs in the foyer of my home. I’ve loved it for many years; a copy hung in the men’s side of my college dorm, (I still love you, Willkie Co-op!)  and it used to fascinate me. The print.  The print fascinated me. It just happened to hang in the lounge of the men’s dorm.  I loved seeing it there.  The print.  No, wait, I mean. . .oh heck. (Um, somebody told me it was there.) (It was the MEN’S dorm! Why would I sneak want to go in there?) (I mean, you had to know how to pick the lock of the side door!)

Ahem. Well, moving right along. . . . I love Don Quixote de la Mancha. I love his unfailing insistence that life IS beautiful, even when it is at its most un-beautiful. I love the way he tilted at windmills. I love the language, the grammar, the turn-of-phrase. I love the use of the word “tilted.” I love “The Impossible Dream,” although when Jim Nabors sings it, I can’t look.

I love how he, like Pippa**, passes, and the mere fact of his passing changes the lives of almost everyone who encounters him merely by his ontological presence. He passes through, and everyone he touches is better. He doesn’t change people on purpose; he merely is what he is, and suddenly – or gradually – others become what they should be instead of what they actually were.

He speaks; he acts; those who listen are improved; the world is better for it.

I think this is what good teachers do.

*It’s not the ORIGINAL, for heaven’s sake! It’s just a framed poster, but I love it.

**Bonus points if you know who Pippa was.

Dear Parents: Don't Sweat the Trifles

Posted on by September 8, 2010
2

motherandchild400x504Mamacita says:  I had a lot of expectations and I made a lot of plans.  Then I had kids.

There’s nothing like having children to knock most of our lofty expectations and plans into a cocked hat.  Other people’s children are one thing; who among us has not watched disdainfully as someone’s child melted down in public or ran wild in a grocery store or openly defied a red-faced, humiliated parent in front of “people.”

Our own kids are quite another thing.  “MY kids will never behave like that!” said we all to ourselves whilst still there and to each other when we got home again.  “Bad parenting!  We won’t have problems like that when WE have kids.”  Such statements are, naturally, curses that work well, only in reverse.

I now live such things entirely in retrospect, which, bless it, removes most of the traumatic memories and fills our heads with the good stuff.  Looking back, it’s the good memories that make me cry real tears into the photo albums of tiny little girls in fluffy dresses and hairbows, and smiling little boys in overalls and miniature red baseball caps.

The picture of my three-year-old son in a little brown suit complete with vest and tie makes me smile now, because when I focus on his bare feet, toes curling, the memory of how he had hidden his shoes “because I don’t LIKE them” right before our studio appointment has had all the “upset” removed and replaced with laughter.

The picture of my five-year-old daughter with her hair chopped off from the middle of her head to her forehead makes me smile now, too; I remember that little voice telling me with great pride that “I cut my own bangs myself so I’ll be extra pretty for kindergarten” and instead of blushing red when I look at her yearbook I now laugh out loud with delight at that perky scalped little girl  beaming with pride.

Dear Parents:  Don’t waste your energy getting upset over trifles.  A few years down the road and you’ll be laughing your asses heads off over the innocent silliness of your infinitely precious little people.

To be perfectly honest with y’all, I lose my shoes all the time, because I only wear them when I absolutely have to.  I never hid my shoes, but only because it never occurred to me.  My little son’s picture with his tiny bare feet and curled toes is far more true to form than a fully dressed and posed studio portrait would have been.

As for hair, my skills in hairdressing were and still are so non-existent that even a semi-scalping didn’t make my princess look all that different from what she would have looked like with a Mommy-made hairdo.  I did well to manage a curly ponytail cascading down her back.  Two ponytails?  The part down the back of her head was always more crooked than a dog’s hind leg.  The harder I tried, the worse it looked.

belleandzappateacherforumpicI know there were many traumatic things when my children were small, but nothing comes to mind right now.  I just remember those little people nestling and snuggling all over me, and trusting me to keep them alive, fed, clean, and happy.  I did the best I could.

They’re still alive;  they seem pretty healthy;  they’re usually clean, and I hope and pray that they’re happy.  They’re also still speaking to me, and I count that as a good sign.

Now, where did I put my shoes?

Quotation Saturday, on Sunday Again

Posted on by September 5, 2010
4


Mamacita says:  You all know by now that I love a good quotation. Words have such mighty and majestic power: they can make us laugh; they can make us cry; they can make us cower in fear, or stand tall with pride, or melt with love. Name it, and words can make us feel or do it. Wisely chosen words make us respect someone, or not. Words can inspire us, and words can fill us with disgust. Or longing. Or remorse. Or happiness. Or nostalgia. So much strength in words. . .there are no words to fully describe what words can do. Many words, and no words.

And, of course, other people’s words are far more powerful than mine. Funnier, too.

“There never was a rule that didn’t have to be broken at some time, and the man who doesn’t know when to break a rule is a fearful pain in the neck.” –William Feather

“The price one pays for pursuing any profession or call, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.” –James Baldwin

“Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse.” –West African Proverb

“Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men or women, it is but a civil term for weakness.” –Mary Wollstonecraft*

“So live that you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.” –Will Rogers

“. . . he who does not increase his knowledge diminishes it; he who refuses to learn, merits extinction.” –Talmud

“A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.” –Tagore

“I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them.” –Ezra Pound

“I hasten to laugh at everything for fear of being obliged to weep at it.” –Pierre De Beaumarchair

“You don’t look in the mirror to see life; you gotta look out of the window.” –Drew Brown

“We do not really know anything at all until a long time after we have learned it.” –Joseph Joubert

“Happiness is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it.” –Anonymous

“Do not assume that the other fellow has intelligence to match yours. He may have more.” –Terry-Thomas

“He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson of statecraft.” –J.R. Lowell

“Do not fear when your enemies criticize you. Beware when they applaud.” –Vo Dong Giang

“Earnest people are often people who habitually look on the serious side of things that have no serious side.” –Van Wyck Brooks

“It’s the most unhappy people who most fear change.” –Mignon McLaughlin

“Eccentricity is like having an accent. It’s what “other” people have.” –Oliver Sacks

“Some people crave baseball. I find this unfathomable; however, I do understand how someone could get excited about playing a bassoon.” –Frank Zappa

“Sometimes I think war is God’s way of teaching us geography.” — Paul Rodriguez

“A headline is not an act of journalism; it is an act of marketing.” –Harold Evans

“Take a rest; a field that has rested gives a beautiful crop.” –Ovid

“If a man does not work passionately – even furiously – at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God.” –George Lois

“All of us are mad. If it weren’t for the fact that every one of us is slightly abnormal, there wouldn’t be any point in giving each person a separate name.” –Ugo Bette

A good quotation is an education, isn’t it. Sometimes, a really good one can make my skin tingle and my brain light up in one of those big areas we never use. Maybe a really good combination of words is the spark we need to heat up those empty lobes and see what’s going on in there.

*Bonus points if you know what she wrote!


Digg!

Less Ignorant Daily, and the Education Buzz

Posted on by September 2, 2010
10

ani_thinkingcapMamacita says:  The latest Education Buzz (formerly Carnival of Education) is now up over at Bellringers, and if you are a parent, student, doctor, lawyer, construction worker, fireman, or any of the other Village People or citizens of the planet, you owe it to yourself, your kids, and your planet to click on over and read this month’s posts by teachers and parents. In fact, why don’t you submit something of your own, or something about education you’ve read elsewhere, for the next Education Buzz?

Remember, if you don’t take the trouble to find out what’s going on and what people are saying about it, you won’t KNOW what’s going on.  Not to keep updated is to choose ignorance.  Choosing ignorance is one of the most horrible things a person can do, no matter what the topic.  Education is what separates the sheep from the goats, because not to understand that everything is connected to everything else, and that nothing exists in isolation, and how to connect these dots to form ideas and understanding, is to actively choose ignorance.  We can’t help being ignorant about things we’ve never been exposed to, but to choose non-exposure is to choose ignorance.  Oh, and those people who take great pride in refusing to learn?  They are ignorance, personified.  Harsh?  I don’t really think so.  In fact, I have not even begun to express my disgust for people who are able, yet actively choose to be ignorant.  We are all ignorant of many things, but if we continue to learn, to be less ignorant daily, we’re on our way.

Oh, and please don’t forget that ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing.  Not the same thing at all, at all.

Parents, professional educators, and all inhabitants of the planet, simply must keep learning.  If we stop learning, “they” might as well bury us, because such people are as good as dead. Worse, even, because dead people don’t bring others down.  Ignorant people do.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE, as Alastair Moody would say.  To choose ignorance is to choose a kind of death.

P.S.  When I took my beautiful daughter to her college dorm and went back home without her, itself a traumatic thing, “Less ignorant every day” became our rallying cry for her college education.  We still quote it, laughing, when we learn new things and share them.  Why don’t y’all use it, too?

Less ignorant daily.  Bring it on, universe.