It's August..................

Summer in the Pacific Northwest is always a mixed bag, but this summer has been especially schizo--cooler temps than normal, cloudier than usual.....just wanted a real summer--heat, sun, you know, SUMMER? Oh well, at least the time off is the same, rain or shine.  I have oodles of time on my hands because I'm a teacher, and well, one of our perks is to have summers off.  That's not to say we teachers don't work during the summer--we just don't work the 8 - 5 job--we have to be more disciplined than that and set our own work hours.  Which means that most mornings I wake up about 8:00, luxuriating in the fact that I don't have to get up at all.  But I do--my coffee is waiting for me, thanks to my lovely husband who hears me padding down the stairs, barely awake.  Ah, the morning if off to a great start.  Then, it's choice time--do I watch the Today show for awhile, do laundry (or other housework) and then turn my attention to planning my courses for the coming year, or do I work first and relax later.  Decisions, decisions....Life is tough when you're a teacher.  Having the time off to think and plan is vital to good teaching, so thank goodness for this time--but wait, is that the sun I see peeking through the high clouds? Where did I put that sunscreen?

Education

The readings in my composition class for today have me thinking and rethinking the overall goals of education in our country. HUGE topic. Lots of tracks to follow on this line. When I was growing up and going to school, there were no learning styles surveys.  We all took the IQ tests--I never knew the outcome of mine, although I must assume I "passed"! When I got into my senior year in high school, they started tracking students--the smart kids were placed in classes together and the not-so-smart had their own classes. I wonder what the long term affect of this kind of tracking has been. I'm reading a book right now called The Social Animal by David Brooks, and in it, he discusses the mistakes made by assuming that IQ can tell all educators need to know about a person's ability to learn. The quantification of abilities seems so neat, doesn't it? If only a number could tell it all.  But I think we all suspect that there is much more to the picture. It would be nice if everyone could just be assigned a number and given a spot to fill, and then we could all go about our business, right? Life is not neat, however, and potential cannot be measured. Perceptions form over long periods of time and they shift like waves in the wind. Better to allow people to explore as they learn, rather then pigeon-holing them before they even have a chance to know themselves....

May

Midway through the quarter and I'm aching for summer, for space and time and flip-flops and gardening and playing my guitar and visiting family and friends and eating dinner on the deck watching the ducks in our pond and the heron fishing. . . .SUMMER--will you ever get here? When I look back to my childhood, it seems like summer lasted forever. Now it seems to just fly by, once it gets here.  Why is that? It is a question I will never find the answer to, and yet I ask it every year. Sigh. I'm such a sentimentalist and a dreamer. Double sigh. Sometimes I just don't want to think--about politics and the economy and work and gas prices and elections and.....the list goes on. Sometimes it's all just too much....You know? I should think of summer as a state of mind--so throughout the long winter, I can have little summers, tiny slices of time in which I stretch my limbs in an imaginary sun and just REST. ; )

on retreat

The word retreat is an interesting one--in battle, it means "fall back to a safer position until we can regather ourselves for another attack." This is a specific action.  But it also has come to mean the place itself.  I am staying overnight at a retreat center near my home.  The purpose of the retreat is to carve out some much needed space for curriculum planning at my university. I came here with a small team of teachers, but there were close to one hundred of us here for this short time. It is a time out of time, a retreat. Life goes on outside of this space in its usual way--work continues, errands, busyness. But here, time stops its usual progression and sort of empties out. It's not that time slows down--it's that it just sort of pauses. I can retreat from a war, but only long enough to gather up my strength for the next battle. It's interesting to me that in this way, retreat takes on the context that life is a battle and that we all need a break from it every now and then. I don't know if I'm entirely comfortable with the idea of life as a battle.  It sounds so contentious.  It sounds so difficult and contrary. Shouldn't life be "a bowl of cherries" or "a dream" (as in "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream; merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.") But I know better of course. Life is difficult and contrary and tiring and frustrating. But it is also wonderful and funny and envigorating and surprising and lovely. And sometimes it's war. It is in retreat that the wonderfulness of life returns to us.

World View

The class is writing blogs this week about their world views: what they are, but more importantly, how they were shaped (or are being shaped).  I must say that the most important influence in shaping my world view has been my family relationships.  School, of course, has been a big part of my life.  I started school at age five and I guess you could say I've never left it.  I love learning.  But I came to that love of learning because of my parents.  My mother wanted me to be happy and have a satisfying career--she didn't get the opportunity to finish school.  I think that she knew a long time before I did that I would be a teacher.  My dad quoted poetry to us from the time I can remember, instilling in me a love of literature. We always had plenty of books in our home, as well as music.  My dad and two of my brothers played the guitar; my mom and I sang and played the piano.  That makes it sound like we had a family band--we didn't, but I think we probably could have.  At any rate, a basic curiosity about the world was instilled in me at a very early age.  I hope I always keep that curiosity and anticipation about what might be around the bend in the road.  I never want to get old!

So many books. . . .

And here's another book I absolutely must read: The Secret Life Of The Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents Of The Middle-Aged Mind

     Here's the review by Barbara Strauch: "As the health and medical science editor at The New York Times, Barbara Strauch can spot good research and new ideas. The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain is full of both. No depressing documentation of memory loss here. Strauch focuses on what middle-aged brains can do better than younger brains — most important, synthesize and use information, and see things more broadly. She tells her story in a very accessible way, through anecdotes of discovery and profiles of brain scientists. At the end of the book, there's advice — but no guarantees — on how to keep your brain in good shape. And for any people (including teenagers) who doubt the middle-aged brain is all that great,..." This book is a MUST read--I think I still qualify as middle aged. . . .but that aside, it's good to know that us "older folks" can still make a contribution in the world.  Misplacing my keys, locking myself out of my office--not signs of alzheimer's but just a sign of distraction.  I've never really been all that good at multi-tasking anyway.  So I'll add this one to my list, and maybe once I buy it, I won't forget where I put it on my bookshelf. . . .

Blogging in class!

I decided to go ahead and try the blog this quarter in my argument class instead of regular journals.  Can't wait to see how it turns out.  I will need to keep my blog updated now! This is going to keep me accountable. Hm. Controversial topic of the day: President Obama's speech this evening....or wait, something more local: Pierce Transit's ongoing decision to cut four bus routes out of my morning commute.  Grr.  I know, very academic response.  I must get more facts about this situation so that I can attend the April 18th "town meeting" in Gig Harbor.  This is an inconvenence for those of use who need this bus to get to and from work--so that we can save gas, help the planet, etc. I have heard that the directors of Pierce Transit are not in any hurry to reinstate those routes.  It does help save money; but since the Lakewood fuel station exploded a few weeks ago, all they have done is make excuses about why those routes have been cut.  No plans to bring them back.  I am really griping because I don't want to get up at 5:30 in the morning.  Whine, whine.  But really? We'll only have two routes in and two routes back? From now on? SRO in the afternoons, for sure. BOO!