The Reason I Get Up in the Morning had a full girls’ day planned this past Saturday so she left the house around 9:00 to pick up one of her friends who is getting married this coming Saturday. They were going to pick out altar flowers and some other mystical stuff that guys never understand about their own weddings, much less anyone elses. Then they had a bridal luncheon planned. Well, all that meant to me was six hours of “me time” to do whatever I wanted . . . as long as the laundry got done.

My first order of business was breakfast. I have a serious weakness for McDonald’s hotcakes, so I ventured out into the torrential downpour to visit the local Golden Arches for my usual: three orders of hotcakes (total of nine circles of golden goodness), two hashbrown patties, a hot fudge sundae, a cinamon bun with icing, and a large Diet Coke.

When I got out of my Element — seems I’m always getting out of my element — I noticed a very bedraggled looking young robin huddled on the sidewalk. He looked like a yearling just mastering the art of flying and apparently, this was his first run-in with what human pilots call “instrument only” flying. He just sat there looking cold and miserable and defeated. I eased him over to the cover of an equally bedraggled bush so someone wouldn’t tread on him accidentally — or more likely, stomp him on purpose (we live in that kind of world) — and went inside to work on my heart attack.

When I came out twenty minutes later, I checked on the little guy. He was still where I’d left him and he looked like ten miles of bad dirt and gravel road. I reached down figuring he’d fly away, but instead, he just looked up at me with a sort of resigned sigh of a gaze that said, “so this is how it ends; life was so short.” I couldn’t help smiling because I’ve seen that look in the mirror on many a Monday morning (and many a Sunday morning back in college, but I digress).

I scooped him up in my hand and he gave a half-hearted peck at my finger and sort of ruffled his feathers, more to keep up appearances in case any of the relatives were watching than any real attempt to get away. I unlocked the Element and sat him on the passenger side floor where he dissolved into a head down blob of soaked feathers and misery. Once I got the VTEC rolling, I cut the heat on full blast. I could see the draft of warm air move his tail feathers.

It didn’t take long for the little fellow to locate the source of this wonderful artificial Santa Ana and he hopped right up next to the vent duct. I was a little worried at first that he might try to climb inside, but he was content to hunker down at the mouth of the vent. As I backed out of my parking space, he shot me a look that said, “I just may survive after all.”

I went to get gas and left the engine and heater running. By the time I’d filled up and pulled away from the pumps, he had almost completely dried out and spread his wings to get the dampness from the undersides. I could tell then that my suspicions had be correct . . . he was wet and cold, but otherwise unharmed; no broken wings or missing feathers.

In that mode, we wended our way towards home. About half way back to the house, he actually fluttered up to my shoulder and looked me in the eye. I told him that I understood his concern, but that I wouldn’t make any comments about how he flew if he didn’t make any snide whistles and chirps about how I drove. He hopped down from my shoulder and explored the rest of the vehicle for the duration of the trip home.

Once we reached the Feet hacienda, I reached under the back seat and plucked him from his new found hiding spot. Again, he put up a bit of a token resistence, but mostly sat quietly in the relaxed grip of my left hand. I set him in an old nest we had on the porch then seated myself in the porch glider and waited to see what he’d do. After taking the measure of his surroundings, he flew from one end of the porch to the other then alighted on the rail, and, giving me a head bob of what I took to be avian appreciation, fluttered off into my boxwoods where I’m sure he received a warm welcome from the rest of the resident fowl.

The moral of the story? I don’t suppose there is one, but if I had to make one up, this is what it would be. The economy is in the tank. A lot of us, including yours truly, are going to lose their jobs. It’s a stressful time for just about everyone. Blame is flying around. People and companies are going bankrupt. In general, it’s a cold, wet, and figuratively miserable day and a whole bunch of us are on the wet tile sidewalk of life just waiting to get stomped on.

And what can I do about it? Not a dead blessed thing. I can’t change the economics; I can’t “dry the world off” so to speak. I’m in a mess myself. But, I can take the time to help out a creature less able to meet the demands of the moment than I am. That’s the only way we are going to make it through these times ahead — together. So, if you see one of your sisters or brothers — one of your fellow travelers on our Pale Blue Dot — and he or she is lying soaked and miserable on the sidewalk of life, take a moment to lend a hand. Sometimes, all they need is a little time in some warmth just to get some strength back to flutter on a little further. That’s the best any of us can hope to do, y’all — just flutter along and try our best to keep our feet clean. Love you all.

Okay, my best buddy and I work at the same school. We have a forty minute commute, one way. Eighty minutes is a long time to spend in the car with one person on a daily basis, so we have pretty much solved every crisis including the economy, global warming, and nuclear proliferation. However, we have discovered a new menace on the horizon that we have no idea how to solve. It’s called “The Watchmen.”

I don’t know if you’ve read Alan Moore’s seminal graphic novel, but it’s a pretty mindblowing read. Thinking back to the Eighties when it was first published, I can only think the guy had guts to write it and DC pushed the envelope to publish it. It was pretty groundbreaking stuff. I have to admit though, I hadn’t thought of Watchmen in years. I always have preferred Moore’s sophomore effort, “V for Vendetta” about the guy in the Guy Fawkes mask who blows up things to protest authority he doesn’t respect. Hmmm, wonder why?

Anyway, hadn’t thought of Watchmen, but the movie came out. My little buddy / right hand man Chris went to see it and told me his opinion. My wife’s friend from work went to see it and she shared Chris’ opinion. Well, my boy Beau Geste went to see it this past Saturday so I was looking forward to his opinion on the drive down on Monday. Unfortunately, I didn’t get his opinion on Monday . . . or Tuesday for that matter . . . because my main dude was laid low by a case of the green apple trots. Yep. The old stomach flu bug. You know the kind. Sitting on the throne with a bucket in your lap because, as a sportswriter once said about some game or other, “It could go either way.”

Well, Bo was back yesterday, still a little green around the gills, but ready to tell me about Watchmen. He’d asked me to go, but once I found out the movie was around three hours and fifteen minutes, I knew that this little grey duck wouldn’t be going. The last movie (other than the three Lord of the Rings masterpieces) that I endured was Titanic and I’m sorry to all the 25 to 35 year old women out there who LOVED that movie, it didn’t take the blasted boat THREE HOURS to sink!! All I could think about through the whole movie was “hit the iceberg already!!” Of course the last scene was stupid as well. Leo is in the freezing water clinging to the door that Kate is floating on. Does she scootch over to let him on? Heck no. She sits there and lets him freeze to death all the while talking about how she’ll never let him go. The door was the size of a double garage for crying out loud!!! Half the blasted boat could have fit on it and she couldn’t move her skinny butt over enough to let “her Jack” on?

But I digress. So, I asked Bo about Watchmen and he shared the same opinion as Chris and Erica. He described it as “three hours of soft porn starring a shiny naked blue guy with some obvious special effects in his nether regions.” I knew right then that I wouldn’t be seeing the movie. Three people confirmed it for me. The book didn’t seem so risque’ back when. I even dug out my copy to check my memory. Sure enough, ol’ Dr. Manhattan always seemed to be standing in the back of the panel or, if he was drawn full frontal, his, um, “reactor” was much more tastefully muted than the movie.

Now, I’m not a prude by any means, but one must draw the line somewhere. I had an acquaintance who fancies himself a movie critic and an “artiste” tell me that Dr. Manhattan was a classical representation of  the human form much like Michealangelo’s “David”. I politely told him he was drunk AND an idiot who didn’t know art or movies because “David” was classical sculptural marble and Dr. Manhattan was a naked glowing porn Smurf. He sniffed and said I didn’t know a thing about art. I said that I might not know art but I knew what I liked and I pretty much didn’t like a three hour Enzyte commercial with a seven foot tall glowing blue version of Smiling Bob!!

Well, I love the graphic novel, “The Watchmen”, but I suppose I’ll give the movie a pass. I can’t sit still for three hours anymore and besides, I prefer my main characters to be a little less “in your face” if you know what I mean. So, I’ll be anxiously awaiting the release of Star Trek in May just to see if they butcher it like they did “The Golden Compass.”

Until then, may the Force be with y’all and be sure to wash your feet . . . and every other sparkly blue part too! 🙂

W.B. Yeats once described education as “not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” These days, that dear voice of Ireland would probably say something like “education is not the celebration of understanding, but the taking of test after test after test.” American education is in a sad state of affairs because all that matters is (cue the ominous music) The Test. Well, I say . . .

BALONEY!

Tuesday past, our faculty had our annual testing inservice in preparation for next week’s two day writing portion of our state’s NCLB qualifying High Stakes Test. The theory behind this latest retooled monstrosity is that by giving the writing piece of the test this early in March, we will have “useable” results earlier than halfway through second quarter next year.

BALONEY!

This test isn’t even normed yet, so how do they expect to give us any meaningful results early enough to be of any “diagnostic” use? Bottom line is, they don’t. This test is just the latest in a line stretching back nearly twenty years now of ways that politicians try to reduce something as complex as a young human being with hopes, dreams, issues, baggage and aspirations to nothing more than a raw test score so someone somewhere who also has no clue about education or children can “compare” two students, schools, or states.

MORE BALONEY!!

If you are reading this and you are not an educator, you have no CLUE what sitting in a testing inservice is like. It’s not the boredom or the endless procedures. Oh no, it is something much more palpable and terrifying than that. It’s the gut wrenching fear of knowing that every single thing you’ve done in your classroom this year is about to be judged by one blunt instrument . . . The Test. We pour an academic year into cramming standards into our pupils’ heads and it all comes down to this. One week of testing that is a minor aggravation to the students, but is of unsurpassed major importance to the teachers. Your career, your livelihood, and (if we educators will admit it) a big chunk of our self esteem is on the line every spring just because some politicians think we aren’t doing our jobs so we must be “held accountable.”

EVEN SMELLIER BALONEY!!!

Hold US accountable? Who, may I ask, is holding the PARENTS accountable or the politicians accountable who make these ridiculous policies that are enforced with draconian measures but funded with penny mandates? Worse, how can any reasonable person believe that any two states in this Union or any two children in the world can be compared based on the results of ONE TEST? What is more, what sane, reasonable person with any understanding of children would WANT to?

BIG LOAD OF BALONEY!!!!

Tests, by their very nature and definition, are designed to show what someone has “learned” or “retained” or “knows”. Unfortunately, this kind of instrument is patently USELESS in this 2009th year since the stable in Bethlehem. We are no longer in a paradigm where what you know matters. What you “know” is USELESS in many more cases than people want to believe. What you “know” will be outdated tomorrow. In this modern paradigm, the important thing isn’t what you “know;” it’s what you can FIND OUT and how you can use what you find. It’s the Information Age, but we are forced to evaluate our digital natives using hopelessly analog anthropology. It’s the equivalent of trying to tune a Ferrari’s engine with a wainwright’s tools.

IT’S SUCH COMPLETE, UTTER BALONEY!!!!!

We mourn the fact that so few students care about school or education. I’ll be honest; if I’d had to sit through a day, week, year of classes that drilled me for one big test that carried no relevance to me or my life, I probably wouldn’t care much about school either. I don’t work with poorly trained teachers. I don’t work with hard hearted, slave driving administrators. No, I work with and for some of the brightest, most caring, most student centered people you will ever meet, but their hands are tied. I cannot tell you how many wonderful units of learning or how many great teachable moments have to pass by unfulfilled because it would take time from what is essentially TEST PREPARATION AD NAUSEUM. Teachers and administrators have no choice. School funding, the lifeblood of any facility, lives and dies — rises and falls — on test performance so we have no recourse to, as much as possible, TEACH THE BLOODY TEST.

And meanwhile, a generation of students who could otherwise be engaged learners become passive vessels whom we hope can spill their contents successfully and accurately onto a page full of bubbles and thereby validate our existence as educators for one more year.

It’s a load of baloney; it is crippling our educational system; it is robbing our teachers of their joy; it is destroying our students’ desire to learn.

It. Is. Awful.

If we don’t find someway to take a stand and get politicians in office who can change this “high stakes, win or lose, testing as the be all and end all” mentality, our public education is doomed.

Then where will we be? Where will we wash our feet, y’all? 😦 ?