I am a loyal Steelers fan, even though my overall knowledge of sports is limited. With the revelation of Ben Roethlisberger's escapades, all sorts of sordid thoughts are now running through my head and will be every time the play-by-play describes one of Ben's passes. I am disgusted (like the Rooneys.) This was not some get drunk, do something stupid incident that escalated beyond a fairly innocent intent. This was a 27-year-old man and his buddies shoveling drinks down the throats of 20-year-old girls to get them drunk so they'd do sexual favors for them. The incident in Las Vegas was, apparently, just a Pass Go card to him since there were no consequences. I will not be able to appreciate his athletic abilities anymore. My granddaughter has his shirt and learned to say Big Ben among the first ten names she knew. As she outgrows # 7 we will try to steer her adoration to another player--Troy Palomalu sound good to us, and in hockey, there is no finer player than Sidney Crosby. Maybe this is all the beginning of a turning point for our society when it is no longer OK to abuse women. Poor Plaxico Buress--he was just playing around with a gun, didn't hurt anyone, and ends up in jail. In his little speech, Roethlisberger talked about being a role model--he can forget about ever being a 'role model.' I don't really care about Tiger Woods--he had sex with consenting adults. It is his private business. And wasn't it high justice that when Mickelson won, his wife was able to be there--sort of showed how fakey Tiger's personal life is. Sports and sex are the 2 dominant themes in American society, and if we can have the 'elegant' practitioners of both be our new heroes, maybe there's hope for us. There was always praise for the likes of Cal Ripken and Nolan Ryan, but even in the good old days we held in high esteem some pretty raunchy sports characters--rather like the pass given to JFK.

I think that the elevation of school sports led to the elevation of professional players as 'heroes.' Young students have school pride from sports teams, not from academics or fine arts. Schools have perpetuated the myth that one can get ahead, get scholarships by being a good athlete. The vast majority of these kids never even get an adequate high school education, let alone college. What about Arne Duncan's idea of keeping schools out of March madness who have graduation rates below a certain level? That will not happen because too many people's livelihoods depend on college sports, and the biggest money in the country (both on and off the books) is not made by Wall Street, but by professional sports. Esteem goes to schools with famous athletes as graduates. Nearly forty years later, I can still tell you that my now defunct high school was the alma mater of Johnny Unitas. All high school teams should be intramural or schools mixed teams--no rivalries--that can be left to community teams like Little League. Schools should concentrate on health and academics. If all the effort and money that is plowed into high school sports was more evenly distributed, schools would be way better off. How many man-hours in school districts are devoted to scheduling, busing, ordering gear, coaching, etc. If we put that much effort into curriculum and teacher in-service we'd have fabulous results. We make a lot of noise about wanting to improve our schools, but we want to do it without ruining the Friday Night Lights which for all their romanticism in popular culture do not benefit the majority of students in a school; not physically, not socially, and certainly not academically. I thought it quite telling that my children's high school, while unable to find a few minutes each day to announce academic awards, always found time to have 15 minute pep rallies each week. Our children are really quite bright--they get the messages we send. We haven't chosen to send the right messages. While soft drink companies made our children fat, we made exclusive contracts with them to pay for electronic scoreboards (not for tutors or computers.) How much of the budget of a new high school is devoted to the "stadium." How many students, as participants in a sport will use the stadium during its life? How many students will use the media center, the library, the laboratories in a school? If an alien came to earth and investigated schools, they would surely determine that schools are built to give athletes a place to gather between contests, and to give 'teachers' a place to talk--but that's another blog.

Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds | Video on TED.com

OMG--I am so glad that Temple Grandin and her life story is being brought to the general public--the new movie about her is coming out soon. This talk should be required for all teachers to listen to. Her book, Thinking in Pictures, should be required reading for teacher candidates. It is far more enlightening than 3 weeks of learning about autism. Click this link and watch!

Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds Video on TED.com

Creativity, PSSA's and childhood squandered

Please go to You Tube to see this talk on how education quashes creativity--funny and thought-provoking

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

You will then want to go to the TED website to view other fascinating talks on the human potential, technology, education, and the creative process. Try this one http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera.html

A student's blog on his 'Life on the Spectrum' of autism is also well-worth a read.

http://dwarren57.wordpress.com/

Youtube novice

I just put a 2-year-old video on youtube. A few years ago I was experimenting with a webcam and wrote a song and recorded it. It is about the downside of high-stakes testing such as the PSSA in Pennsylvania and the pressure teachers feel to "teach what's on the test." Here is the url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4Cec48Mfuw

I want to use youtube to record my parent orientation so those who cannot attend can "meet" me also, and hopefully be more at ease about to whom they are entrusting their children.

August Birthdays

My daughter, Mo, just turned 21 ten days ago. She was born on a Sunday evening, July 31, after 9 pm. Three more hours and she would have been an August baby. My mom said that wasn't allowed--too many August birthdays in our family. Today would have been my dad's 91st birthday. Saturday is my mom's 85th. Both of my grandmothers also had August birthdays. So do a brother and a sister, three nieces and a nephew and my husband. One of my sisters was married in August. It is a great month for celebrations in our family, but today, I am missing Dad.

blackandgold

Each week in elementary classrooms across the country, students are featured as "Star of the Week" or "Student of the Week" and share photos, collections, favorites. My student who was presenting today came to the item of his favorite color and without hesitation said, "blackandgold." None of the students who normally might snip that "That's two colors!" said anything. There was total acceptance of this answer. I looked at the support teacher-aide and said, "Well, in Pittsburgh, that's one color." She agreed.

Aunt Nancy's Chair

It was full of money--so Suzanne said.

She had cancer--Nancy.

She beat it for a while--ten years.

But the osteoporosis caused her so much pain, the fractures just for turning in her bed.

She sat in her recliner.  A lot.

She could get comfortable there.

I don't know how with the 'bulges.'

My husband, Ed, would tease her,

"Can I have your chair when you die, Nan?  You don't weigh much.  It won't have much wear."

He got the chair.  Suzanne, Nancy's daughter, gave it to him, and Ed's addendum of,

"If I'm still alive, Nan, since I know you'll be at my funeral" didn't come true.

We got Nan's chair.  

She used to keep her money in that chair.

She and Jack, her young husband, who died at 52 and left her a widow of 50

had never had more each month than most of us hand to the pizza delivery guy.

But when Sue and husband Dave came to live with her they paid the bills.

And Nancy had dollars to stuff in her chair

And give to the needy.

Hurricane victims, cancer patients (as if she wasn't one),

the home care nurse whose daughter was a single mom struggling to get by.

Nancy had tens of dollars to give.

She was lucky, Nancy was.  She was rich.

The dollars from the chair were dispensed with alacrity--

"Your daughter needs a communion dress.  Take this $20 to help with the cost."

Out of the chair it came.

It helped her back, the fractures, 

to get that money out of the chair 

so it didn't press on her spine.

That chair sat on the second floor.  

It should have fallen through with the weight of the cash that was hidden inside.

A $5 bill for a little boy.  A $20 bill for a big boy.

Grandchildren, nephews, nieces, friends, the RedCross, Salvation Army.

The money fell from the chair.

It blew into lives and sometimes went to many hands like "Pay it forward."

The richer recipients understood that once in their wallets it multiplied and moved on.

Aunt Nancy made less money babysitting than some folks spend in a day,

Yet the chair became stuffed and then...

The chair is gone

but the stuffing lives on.

Suzanne had emptied the chair of all its dollars and somehow they grew as she and Dave

continued to find good causes

for the money in the envelope where the cash from the chair had been placed.

Year after year she was able to send the money out where Nancy would never go.

Nancy had agorophobia.

But through the money in her chair she went all over the world.  

No wonder she had fractures in her back, sitting on that damned stuffed chair.

It was bulging with.....

I check my own chair a lot.

It's not as uncomfortable as Nancy's.

She helps me dig deep to popcorn, a barrette, a ten dollar bill.

Hey, Aunt Nancy, my back feels better.

A family nearby found a ten in their mailbox just as the milk ran out.

The note said, "Good luck.  Nan."

I don't have faith, don't go to church, but my back feels better when all the

popcorn

and barrettes,

and

...stuff is cleaned out of my chair.