Where’s the Heat?

Given the sub zero windchill today, I’m kind of a heat kick. My apartment complex pays for gas and water, so my husband and I are spared the terror of a gas bill every month. A week or so ago I visited my parents in Fort Wayne for the weekend and my dad was expressing how big their heating bill is and how much it has gone up. I remember the phrase “hundreds of dollars” being said several times.

My husband and I don’t have a “Five Year Plan” – but with a baby on the way we’d like to be in a house by the summer after next. I’m the budgeter of us two, and as we talk about a house, I am constantly reminded of all the maintenance and upkeep one has to pay in addition to monthly house payments – and heat is one of my big concerns.

My second year of teaching I was the music teacher at Walkerton Elementary school. Grades 4-6 participated in the Christmas program. It was a pretty big production, and I was really proud of the kids and, I will say, myself, when we pulled it off. I went away on Winter Break very happy with myself. I went to my parents and grandparents and came home after Christmas to find several messages on my answering machine from our principal. One night over Christmas break, two of our students, a third grade boy and a sixth grade girl, had died in a fire. William and Amanda lived in a trailer with their parents and an uncle. They had very old space heaters as their only source of heat, and these malfunctioned and started a fire. Tragically, the heaters had been placed by the only exit, which was blocked by the fire, and the family was trapped.

I was stunned. To come back to school in January, and those two simply weren’t there. It was even stranger when a parent gave a videotape of the Christmas program, and there was Amanda, singing and dancing along with everyone else.

Things like this should not happen. Like I said before, I think my eyes are really beginning to open.

State of the Union

The last thing I would ever call myself is political. I really get tired of people bashing the president—whoever he happens to be, republican or democrat. I feel like it doesn’t get anything done. When I was a high school teacher, I hated hearing students talking about politics when I could tell they were just spouting what they heard at home and not getting information of their own and coming to their own conclusions.

But. I read a handful of blogs this week about the State of the Union Address. I will admit, I didn’t watch it myself, so I’m getting second hand information, but pretty much everyone said Bush did not address child poverty in the US. He said he wanted to make health insurance more affordable, to which almost every article or blogger responded, “What does that mean?” Then, ironically, I read an article from a newswire that said the Address talked about the United States’ role in global hunger. It was very positive, with nice quotes and statistics, and I’m thinking, we’re saving other countries’ kids, but not our own?

I am not in favor of government health care for everyone. The country is so ridiculously in debt already, I don’t know how the government can afford such an idea. At the same time, I see how much insurance costs are going up, and I wonder about the kids in my schools.

On Tuesday I had an injury in my classroom. It was an accident—some boys were horsing around, and one ended up hitting his tooth on another boy’s head. Tooth boy was fine—Head boy got a laceration that needed stitches. As I filled out the incident report, I wondered if his mom had insurance. Was this going to set her back a couple hundred dollars?

I’m tired of policy. I’m tired of politicians. I’m tired of politics. 2008 is going to be a long year—a long year of election mess, with little getting done. Meanwhile, Americans are freezing in their homes and kids are going without food. Again, I’m not for bashing anyone, but I’m realizing that this is not a good thing. You all may be saying “Well, duh,” but I think my eyes may be truly opening for the first time.

Snow Day

This morning I got up as usual, took a shower and was getting ready for school when my groggy husband murmured, “I think your school is closed.” He was right…over a hundred school delays blazed across the bottom of Fox News this morning, and Elkhart Community Schools was one of them. Hooray for me! Any day as a pregnant lady I get to spend sitting more than standing is a good day. I didn’t even mind that I was already up and awake when I could have slept in. It’s just nice to stay home.

    I started to think about the homework I needed to get done today, and looking at my feeds about child poverty, and something occurred to me that I had never thought of before. Everyone is happy for snow days, right? Kids are, teachers are…but what if you are a parent? I’m not talking about the hassle of finding someone to watch your kids if you are supposed to work. I’m talking about feeding your kids. Over half of the students at my school are on free or reduced lunch and breakfast. That’s ten meals a week a child is guaranteed…unless there is a snow day. What about the mother of four who is watching every penny? Suddenly you have 8 unexpected meals to provide (four mouths x two meals.)

    While I’m happy to sit at home and get a day off, are any of my students going without food because of it?

Popcorn on the Floor – my story

    Social Studies held little or no interest for me in 7^th grade. That didn’t mean I didn’t work hard in the class—I’ve always tried to be a good student—but I certainly didn’t care what India’s main export was or how trade in Europe could effect how much my parents pay for things. People didn’t have enough food to eat in Somalia—what could I do about it? I had frizzy hair and never said the right thing in front of boys—THOSE were problems.

    Mr. Moser was my social studies teacher. He incidentally was also my English, Bible and homeroom teacher. That kind of thing is pretty typical in a small, private school. He was sarcastic and a somewhat overweight, and had no trouble laughing at us when we acted like idiots (which was a lot of the time.) In true 7^th grade fashion, there were times I hated him, and times I thought he was great—often in the same day.

    I have only one solid memory of the subject I cared so little about, but it impacted me enough to stick with me eighteen years later.

    ”All right, kids, get the desks against the wall.” This had happened enough for us to know where to put them. “Put your chairs in a circle.”

    We watched as Mr. Moser pulled out cups. There were two sizes of cups—one about the size of a large fast food restaurant drink, and one about the size of a sippy cup. Then he pulled out a large bag of popped popcorn. We started getting excited. “Sorry folks, this isn’t for eating.” Groans.

    Mr. Moser divvied us up into teams. Each team was assigned a country. Some were in Africa, some were in Europe, there was of course the United States, maybe Indiana or Australia—about twelve in all, seemingly randomly selected. “The large cup represents so many pounds of food, the small cup represents this amount of food,” he explained. He went to each country and passed out cups, saying things like, “Okay, you guys are India, right? India needs two large cups and one small cup to feed its population.” All the way around to each group. Here are your cups, this is how much food you need. Blah Blah Blah.

    Then he began to pass out the popcorn. Up to India, he gave them enough popcorn to fill one big cup. “Hey, wait a sec,” Missy, a particularly apt pupil in the India group, said. “You didn’t give us enough.”

    ”Ah ha…” murmured Mr. Moser mysteriously as he went on to the next group.

    Imagine Missy’s surprise when the United States group, who only needed a large cup and a little cup to feed its population, was given four big cups of popcorn! And wouldn’t you know, the most cocky, arrogant boy in class, Chad, was part of the United States group. He laughed over his hoard greedily and his partner, little Jeff Nobody, laughed nervously along.

    Mr. Moser finished and everyone looked around. Every group save maybe one was off—either they had more popcorn than they needed or not enough. “Okay, kids. You have ten minutes. At the end of the ten minutes you need to have enough popcorn to feed your country. It is up to you to figure out how to get what you need. I’m not going to interfere, so don’t come crying to me for help. You figure it out. Go!”

    We all sat there for a minute or so kind of stupidly. My country was Italy, and we had one small cup more than we needed. I knew I was lucky. Missy looked around for a minute, then got up and started walking around to the groups with more than they needed, asking for their extra. Others who were in the same situation as Missy started to do the same. When someone came to our group, my partner and I gave away our little cup—we didn’t care as long as we had what we needed—but after that we severely guarded our necessary store.

    It was a good thing we did, too! People went to the United States group almost immediately. Lots of them. And Chad loved the attention. “I’m not just going to give it away,” he said. “What’s in it for me?” Some girls tried to sweet talk him, and for Judy, who was cute, cute, cute, it worked. Not so much for the others, especially the other boys. Suddenly, Clint, who was Somalia, ran up and lunged, and got a big cup out of Jeff’s hands.

    ”Hey!” Jeff cried, feebly grabbing for the cup.

    A lot of the popcorn landed on the floor, but a lot of it landed in Clint’s cup too. We all looked anxiously at Mr. Moser, but he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Five minutes.” A few people grabbed handfuls of the fallen popcorn on the floor and ran back to their spots. Chad was one of these, ironically.

    After that things got a little nuts. Other people tried to steal from other groups—and not just the big countries like the U.S., but even countries who barely had any to begin with. My partner and I stayed out of this, but we kept an eye on it. A couple people tried to see if they could catch us off guard, but we were ready. We weren’t going to lose our popcorn stash. Popcorn was all over the floor, crunching under people’s feet, being ground into the carpet—people were yelling and arguing, hoarding or begging.

    ”TIME’S UP! Go back to your places.” It took awhile for this to happen. There were several red faces. Missy was pouting because Judy’s cups were full and she was still short.

    Mr. Moser went around to each group to see what they ended up with. More groups had what they needed than when we started, but only two or three. One country that had started out with enough now didn’t have enough because they had been “robbed.” About four countries ended up with “starving people.” Of course, Mr. Moser reveled in this, “Well, India, you lose. Somalia, close, but you lose,” etc. He turned around and surveyed all the popcorn on the floor.

    Suddenly, he got surprisingly serious. “Kids, I passed out enough popcorn for everyone to have enough. And yet, look. India is starving. Somalia. Morocco. But here’s the kicker: there was enough out there for everyone, plus two large cups extra. Why didn’t everyone get enough?”

    ”Because Chad wouldn’t share,” Missy snapped, and everyone laughed.

    ”Chad’s not far from the real deal,” Mr. Moser replied calmly. “This is what I want you guys to get: there is enough food in the world for everyone. Enough with extra to spare. But it takes people who are willing to share. If they don’t…people die.”

Mr. Moser has since died and the school’s been turned over to a different organization. I don’t know where any of the kids in my class ended up because I changed schools the following year. But I can still see all that popcorn on the floor. Wasted food. Wasted resources. Wasted lives. I pray I will never forget it.

New Topic

    Well, I changed my mind. This afternoon I was driving home and thinking about my students at school, and for whatever reason, I started thinking about how many (over half at both schools) are on free and reduced lunch. That led my thoughts to something I heard either on the radio recently—how there are more children than ever at the local homeless shelter. The woman who they interviewed said the average age of a person living in poverty is 7 years old and it is getting younger and younger. It may be the fact that I’m about to have my own child, or maybe just that I’m starting to pay attention to more of the community around me, but children living in poverty seems like a cause I’d like to learn more about and be more active about.

    I see students come to school in shorts or thin coats in weather like we’re having this week. I know some of it can be neglectful parents, but what about those parents who can’t afford appropriate clothing? What if that were me with my new baby? This is something I really want to learn about.

Class assignment topic

    I’m thinking about doing my class papers on the importance of the arts in schools. I’ve found some interesting feeds written by other music teachers who have had really neat experiences in the classroom, so I’m hoping they can give me some inspiration to write. My only hesitation is that I don’t know how much of a controversy over the arts in schools is, especially here in Indiana. If there’s no controversy, is it still worth writing about? Is it still a “cause”? Granted, after seeing programs cut in schools with lower funding across the nation, maybe it is a cause–one that I can bring to some people’s attention who might not have thought about it before.

    Obviously, this is an idea close to my heart—it’s my job and what I love doing. In elementary school you’ve got almost all the kids happy to come to music class. After a meeting with colleagues last week, we were discussing what the ultimate goals of elementary music are. There are the fundamental musical ideas that we are supposed to teach, like singing on pitch, recognizing certain note values and note names on a staff, etc. But we all came to the agreement that our job is to instill a love a music in children—help them want to listen to many different kinds of music and enjoy singing. I only see the kids once a week, so that’s a good primary objective. We teach as much as we can of the fundamentals, but hope that those will be cemented by our counterparts in middle school and high school who get to see the kids every day for semesters at a time.

    Maybe someone out there has some ideas about the direction I could take this…

Notes about Stories

    After reading the stories by Orwell and Pyle and listening to a few of the StoryCorp recordings, I find that a good story is one with memorable characters. The story teller shows the character(s) doing something that affects the reader in some way—makes him feel what the character is feeling. It doesn’t have to be overly descriptive—one doesn’t need to be a Dickens and describe it to the very mouse hole in the corner—it must give you just enough to get you in the story teller’s surroundings and pull you into the scene. I found the story by Pyle the most moving, and yet he was able to make me feel that way without any flowery words or sentiment. It was a very masculine story, but one that you could see in front of you.

    Being able to hear someone tell you a story is even better than reading it. You hear the emotion in the person’s voice (like Debbie getting choked up as she told about her father.) You can tell in a much deeper way how someone’s actions effected the teller, just by a tone, a laugh, a change in volume—anything that shows expression. It’s a real shame that more stories aren’t told and handed down orally. It should be a bigger part of family traditions.

Public intellectual—the argument.

    Wow…I think I am going to need some help navigating the world of the blog. I looked up public intellectual on Google, Google Blogs and Technorati, and got a little lost among arguments that only barely mentioned the term. Apparently a writer by the name of Russell Jacoby made some waves in the blog world recently in an article in the Chronicle for Higher Education. I read the article and then some blogs that commented on it. Jacoby argues that in America, blogging has just turned into noise, where everyone can put in their two cents about something and so no one’s opinion matters anymore:

“In the United States, however, blogs are not so much about challenging an authoritarian state as about adding to the cacophony. Blogs may be more like private journals with megaphones than reasoned contributions to public life.”

Jacoby writes about Richard A Posner, a self-proclaimed public intellectual, who argued that public intellectualism is dying because people are giving opinions and criticisms on things they haven’t spent their lives studying: “The scientists who objected to a national antimissile defense system, the lawyers who protested the Clinton impeachment, and the professors who questioned the invasion of Iraq did not know what they were talking about. None possessed the requisite professional knowledge.”

    So is blogging just a waste of time, like Jacoby says? Apparently other bloggers don’t think so, because I read with a very intelligent counter argument: “…Jacoby’s…error… is assuming that there is only a cohesive public for intellectuals to address. Perhaps public intellectuals have disappeared, but they have been replaced by “publics intellectuals.” [emphasis added] Clearly, as we go into a presidential election season, there is still value in addressing a national or global public. But what readers and writers have both found is that new technologies allow for new kinds of publics. The Greek democratic public was constrained by the distance from which the voice of Stentor could be heard. Jacoby mentions the megaphone, but misses the importance of a large number of people owning them. We don’t need the world to hear, we need only form publics of interested parties.

    That makes sense to me, and is kind of what Rusbridger was saying in his speech. However, it also scares me a little—if we all go off into our own little publics and start ignoring what’s going on in other little publics, won’t we all retreat into our own little worlds?

Phew. I may need a few days to wrap my head around all of this…

Blogging for Dummies

    I read Tim Dunlop’s article after listening to Rusbridger’s talk, and so it came off sounded almost like “Blogging for Dummies”—defining terms and stating the basic ideas behind blogging and what bloggers do. I’m not saying it wasn’t helpful—before this class the closest I’ve gotten to blogging is an occasional note to friends on Facebook. To me, it seems like keeping a journal online, and who out there in cyberspace wants to know the comings and goings of a little pregnant music teacher in Indiana?

    He does specify talking about political blogs, and as he describes blogging, one paragraph stuck out to me:

…there is an absolute need…to offer bloggers a reasonably generous reading, to allow for the speculative nature of what they do and to give them a chance to redeem their error. If there was one overriding criticism I have of blogging it is that bloggers themselves too often try to play “gotcha” and will pounce, via a counter post, on any perceived weakness in another blogger’s argument….In my estimation, nothing will kill blogging quicker than people feeling that they are going to get creamed every time they make a mistake, or express an unpopular opinion.”

This is what I’m afraid of! I’m about as conservative as they come—I don’t drink, don’t smoke, I go to church, don’t believe in sex before marriage, I’m pro-life, I’m a REPUBLICAN—as far as political scenes, wouldn’t I just be painting a huge red and white target on my back? Who’s going to listen to me except other people who believe the same way I do?

    I’m not ashamed of who I am or what I believe. At the same time I don’t wear a sandwich board declaring everything I wrote in the previous paragraph. How do you find a way to express yourself to people who DON’T believe the way you do, and yet have them hear you out? I’m hoping that this class will be able to help in that endeavor.

Rusbridger and Craig’s List

    I thought Rusbridger’s comparison of the New York Times and Craig’s List was a fantastic stroke. I listened to the talk online, and to hear him show comparisons of each business’s place of work, price of placing and add and how many people they employed, and hearing the audience laugh at the difference was great. The thing that really surprised me was that Craig Newmark has been offered tons of money to let the whole thing go, and he refuses. Rusbridger said:

“They’ve tried to IP own; they’ve tried to float him; they’ve offered him untold and obscene billions of dollars in order to just give up this ludicrous exercise and come to his senses and his answer is, ‘look, this is a sort of utopian exercise I’m doing; it’s a really interesting thing on the internet. I just want to give these people space; I’m not interested in money; I employ my 18 people’.”

I didn’t think there were people still out there like that. But when you think about it, this Craig didn’t plan to have this huge thing that would scare corporate America—he was just a guy looking to get information when he moved to a new area. Imagine his surprise when all of this happened. Wikipedia claims Newmark is a huge advocate for the internet being free. It must be nice to have been a “little guy,” become a “somebody,” and be able to say to a big industry used to throwing its weight around, “No, I’m not going to do what you say, I’m going to continue to do what I want, thank you.” Just stick it to ‘em a little.

So maybe that’s part of the answer to one of my previous blogs…how to get myself motivated to be active. Yes, we want to change the world. We want a better life for our children. We want a better environment, better schools, better community leaders—all those things. But sometimes…it must just feel good to stick it to the Man.