The three gifts that I would like to give to my young friends are the gifts of curiosity, wonder, and self acceptance.   I want them to turn to reading when they explore their world. I want them to turn to reading to ferret out the worlds wisdom.  I want them to turn to reading when they doubt themselves find that others have had the same struggles. zero waste school with a focus on nature education. I want my young friends to love every moment of the exploration. If they do these things they will have the observational and critical skills to live well and solve problems in the real world.  Virtual worlds are fine but our attention to them and has left us fraught. It is, in part, this recognition that drives us as we move to be a

NOW I worry that we force children to abandon the very things that make them children. We force their teachers to abandon that wonder of reflective time with children for a more focused, forced and formulaic approach to learning. Some of this push has been helpful for teachers to learn better methods of teaching and questioning, but the constant collection of data and the push to have all children achieve at the same level (determined by the chamber of commerce and its educational report card) is destructive.

I am writing this because the mother of a 1st grader (the kind of parent you love to have--one that is so engaged and supportive, well educated and wanting the very best for her child) was utterly distraught as she read a note about how her student was falling behind...

I encounter this child daily in the library and I want that parent to stop worrying. I want his teacher to stop worrying. I want them all to be able to enjoy learning together. The book "How to Raise a Reader"points out just how many of the things we have been told about reading are simply not true.  Reading early does not necessarily indicate much about a child's reading success.  So relax.  If your kindergartner isn't reading stop worrying.  We used to teach real reading in 1st grade, but now we push it out to ever younger populations.

I was the kind of child who would have engendered such a note, but when I was in 1st grade parents didn't get such notes.  As a young reader I saw no point to read the books I was being handed at school.  They were not nearly as engaging as what I was hearing at home in the evenings.  As a family we read books like "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" every night before bed . The basal readers of my childhood were nothing short of hideous! I lived in a rural part of Iowa, and there was no library in our town so the only books available for me to read were those from school like the Dick and Jane series of readers.

I hated reading until we moved to California and I went on bi-weekly field trips to the public library. My lovely new school did not yet have a library, so believe it or not we were swept away to the public library where I found a very old copy of "A Child's History of England" It was the first book I chose and read on my own. I loved it!  How could a non-reader go to a fluent one in such a short amount of time?  It is part of what makes learning so appealing to someone like me.  It is not linear!  Things that have been planted and are lying dormant can suddenly spring to life and surprise everyone, even the young reader.

I had the time and space and opportunity to find my place in education, to become a reader to not feel the sting of judgment at the age of 9!  What we do to children when we allow corporations to sell us everything we need from programs to workbooks to formulas for education is utterly antithetical to the transmission of knowledge. This kind of "education" may make some people wealthy, but it devalues teachers who watch as thousands of dollars go to expensive subscriptions for computer programs.

Someone I love and honor posted a meme.  It is not significant what the meme said.  What is significant is the fact that the meme was completely false and generated by someone knowingly creating it with the intent of promulgating misinformation on social media.

This meme has been picked up and published and re-published across the internet adding to the culture of those who say, "you have your sources and I have mine"  The internet has been a force for good in many instances, but fearfully it has also allowed the promulgation of malicious misinformation.

I responded to the meme by asking, "If you knew that this were false, would you publish it anyway."  The response I got was not a thoughtful one. "We are not to comment on each other's posts. I have honored that."  So we are to live in silos of belief.  If I believe the earth is flat --- so be it.  Do not engage me with information to the contrary.   This is a huge problem for someone who grew up, completely enamored of Jefferson's words, 

"For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."                                                                                                                     - Thomas Jefferson to William Roscoe, December 27, 1820

But what if reason is not left free to combat error?  What then?  Jefferson never expected a world in which a lie could simply be repeated enough to win the day.  How did we arrive at this point?  I remember studying history and being fascinated by the role of propaganda in the rise of Nazism across Europe.  I remember thinking in a sort of naive "American Exceptionalism" way -- That would never happen here because the press would expose such a lie early and often.

Now a year into Trump's presidency I am disabused of such a notion.  The president simply says whatever is expedient at the moment and changes his statements depending on current perceptions of his base.   Our press has done a good job of exposing these lies, but the president has marginalized that with has his own network (Fox)  and his constant  tweets obfuscating and producing a confusing string of words.  We are called on to simply believe the most recent tweet.  We are not to look into the past tweets to compare.

Early in the campaign, I noticed these memes and tried to track them down to confirm their veracity.  I couldn't find their source.  It was so hidden that one could not find the original writer.  Some of these were particularly egregious, like the one about the Pizzeria in D.C. where Hillary was supporting child trafficking. Another report which had an "FBI agent suspected in Hillary email links found dead"  This one turned out to trace to  the Denver Guardian.  In checking on the Denver Guardian I discovered that it wasn't a real site at all. The Denver Guardian was nothing more than a web site with links that did not work, with no way to learn who was responsible for it.  It even had a fake street address.  So the information was created for the sole purpose of misleading and getting people to click on other fake news stories.

How do we fight this kind of thing in a world where my dear friend says he doesn't want to hear anything that might contradict what he believes?  Perhaps you are saying that I do the same.  I assure you that is not true.  For example when I see a meme or post that I really want to be true, my go to thought today is to check it out before I repost it or forward.  I acknowledge my bias to be sure, but I want to know the truth beyond that bias!

INTENTIONALITY - and the four "R"s - REDUCE, REPAIR, REUSE, AND RECYCLE!

What does repairing a Reynolds Aluminum Box have to do with the School Garden or sustainability?
This question which is often accompanied by a quizzical look.  One of the biggest problems with making our world more sustainable is that our entire society is based around two things; consumption and convenience. 

I was cleaning the pantry because we had a wee mousie in the housie!  I picked up the box of aluminum foil (which I try to use sparingly and recycle when it gets used). The roll of aluminum immediately fell out of the box exposing that both ends of the box were broken.  I remember this moment of frustration from many previous encounters with this box.  I am at a turning point.  Either I am going to ditch this nearly full roll and go out to buy a completely new one (which has the potential of being equally quickly broken)  or I am going to have to repair the box making it possible to use up the remaining foil. 

I immediately started weighing the value of my time versus just getting a new box.  By now you are probably rolling your eyes and maybe even you have stopped reading.  But let me encourage you to assess things in your own life in this same intentional way.  If I throw this box away I will at least put the aluminum to be recycled.  That recycling will cost effort, time, and money.  I do not have the sophistication to determine exactly the cost comparison, but between my time/recycling foil/getting a whole new box. What I do know is that if things are going to be sustained we need to add INTENTIONALITY and REPAIR TO THE repertoire of things we just take for granted.  We cannot continue to live for personal convenience and gain alone.


This weekend I was dying for a coffee.  It was pouring rain (the remants of Harvey), I had gotten wet and for the first time since last June, I felt chilled.  I pulled into Dunkin' Donuts.  I was ordering my coffee, when I realized that they put their hot coffee in Styrofoam.  OOOpps!  I quickly changed the order to iced coffee....not what I had envisioned and explained to the clerk WHY I had changed my order.  When she tried to hand me a straw with my iced coffee I pulled out my stainless steel straw and explained how bad straws are in our environment.  Then when I came home I contacted the website and suggested that they switch to paper cups for the coffee, and use paper straws....Again, it is a small thing, but the beaches are made of small bits of sand (and now thanks to us - PLASTIC!  
We must become INTENTIONAL, PEOPLE WHO REDUCE  REUSE, RECYCLE, AND REPAIR!

Retiring at 40!?

As we meet week to week to think about how our lives will change as educators and neighbors of Westmeade Elementary when we become the first environmentally sustainable school in Tennessee,  it is interesting to think first about how our lives need to change to make our planet sustainable and its people healthier.  Living simply has implications beyond just the junk that fills up our lives.  Our NWEI course book talks about the complex nature of our interaction with “busyness” work  and leisure.  

“Even as neuroscience is beginning to show that at our most idle, our brains are most open to inspiration and creativity – and history proves that great works of art, philosophy and invention were created during leisure time – we resist taking time off.  Psychologists treat burned-out clients who can’t shake the notion that the busier you are the faster you work, the more you multitask, the more competent, smart, and successful you are.”  

Our discussion seemed to center on how we might slow down, and a resounding agreement that multi-tasking is myth.  Since many of us are teachers, it was clear that we use the summer to decompress from the unhealthy kinds of busyness that the book talked about.  We were all surprised to learn that people in the mid-20^th century thought life in the 21^st century would be less hectic.  This fact brought some laughter.  After WWII, productivity, along with rising incomes and standards of living, led other economists to predict that by 1990, Americans would work 22 hours-a-week, six months a year, and retire before the age of 40.  

While accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1956, Dwight D. Eisenhower envisioned a world where “leisure…will be abundant, so that all can develop the life of the spirit, of reflection, of religion, of the arts, of the full realization of the good things of the world.”

We realize that these predictions were based a world which was quickly disappearing.  Following WWII the U.S. was uniquely positioned to sell its goods across the world.   As we helped war-torn countries re-establish their own industries.  As unions that had won high wages and benefits for workers were attacked and lost their power those who control corporate power were emboldened to require greater productivity with less reward.  The increase hours at work, fewer holidays, and significantly increased loads of work stripped leisure out of the equation.  In fact in 1975 50% of the GDP was wages, by 2012 they were 43.5

While we agreed that getting to this point was a complex and lengthy trip, so unwinding our consumerism and overwhelming dedication to acquisition over well-being  will  be complex and lengthy.  We took first steps last night.  We choose very small pieces that will make the whole.  Little things like always having the reusable shopping bags handy, to using stainless steel straws when only plastic are available are small things but if everyone does small things GREAT THINGS will be accomplished. Several of us decided to attempt some of the mindfulness exercises as well.  And I am thinking that it couldn't hurt to teach some of these concepts to young children. hmmmmm.

FAKE NEWS intentionally misleads

One of the sad things about this horrific political season is the spread of "fake news" cites.  These sites have taken in my friends of multiple political persuasions.  The really frustrating thing is that these fake news sites reinforce what we already WANT to believe.  Here is an example of what I mean.

Over the course of this distressing political seaon I have posted about my personal walk through the land mined terrain. I have not posted unless I fact checked, I have posted when I thought the post might be helpful for thoughtful consideration and discussion. One of the most disconcertaing things about this election has been the amount of "fake news sites" that have promulgated false information with the intent of stirring the pot of hatred and fear. My friends on the right and my friends on the left have been prey to these sites. If you would like to see more click here to read my blog with memes and videos and citations. 

To my friend who sent this awful video suggesting that Obama is trying to create a WORLD ORDER that would supercede the United States I wrote the following, "You are absolutely right -- he said these words. just not in this order or context I am posting a link to the Washington Post's article about this speech which has the full transcript. it is what he actually said ...not an edited version lifting words in a way that makes them say exactly the opposite of what he meant --- please read the speech so you can see just how people for whatever purpose can take a video and use it to make someone say something they never said."  There is also a link to the real un-edited footage of the 35 minutes speech in this article.

From the other side....

This website suggests that Pence said Michelle Obama is the most VULGAR 1st lady we have ever had.  He didn't!  Always fact check.  Try to look at things from both sides.Whenever possible use primary sources and ignore the rest!

An open letter to Paul Ryan and conservatives who think that feeding children for free at school is wrong.

Paul Ryan, a young leader, who holds family values dear spoke at the CPAC convention this year and attacked the government's feeding programs at schools.  My district last year offered free breakfast to ALL students (one way to keep the stigma of being a free and reduced lunch program kid).  Here is what he said.

He repeated a story Eloise Anderson, who serves in the cabinet for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, had related.  She once met a young boy from a poor family. And every day at school, he would get a free lunch from a government program. But he told Eloise he didn’t want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch — one in a brown-paper bag just like the other kids’. He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown-paper bag had someone who cared for him.
He went on to say that “the Left” doesn’t understand this desire for dignity, not just comfort.
He went on to say that “the Left” doesn’t understand this desire for dignity, not just comfort.

 Dear Mr. Ryan;
I don't like labels, but I confess, that you would label me as a liberal because I believe that working together (my civic understanding of government is just that) we can provide what a child needs which includes a full stomach.  I have worked with children all of my adult life, and I know that without a full stomach a child will have an empty brain. I acknowledge the idea that is expressed above, knowing all too well that a child desperately needs to feel that s/he is important to another living soul.  Mr. Ryan, stop suggesting that people who YOU label liberal do not understand dignity.  That statement only drives us further into camps that attack one another.  Teachers spend a lot of time focusing on a child's dignity whether they vote Republican or Democratic. The food is not intended to fill up the child's soul.  It is meant only to make the child comfortable enough to learn and find the support and friendship that is available in the school to fill his soul.

You see, Mr. Ryan, school is filled with people who's souls are overflowing. The child has to be open to receive that overflow.  Teachers, counselors, librarians, and others there have chosen a life of service to children.  They are conservatives, liberals, Christians, Muslims, Hindus and yes, even Atheists who know the value of love and offer opportunities to their young charges to grow in love and caring.  Children have a natural desire to help one another.  I have watched as they accommodate a child in the classroom who is homeless and acting out in destructive ways.  I have seen teachers and parents who bring clothing and caring to the school to support these children.

Mr. Ryan you are quite right.  A full stomach doesn't fill the soul.   That job happens after the child has a full stomach.  It happens when teachers, parents and children come together to provide the love that is missing in a young life.  NONE OF THAT WILL HAPPEN IF THE CHILD IS HUNGRY!  If we (the government-- we the people) feed hungry children it is not an evil, soul destroying event!  It is not a panacea for a societal problem.  It is an opportunity to intervene and offer hope.

An ear for truth, George Washington was the 8th president of the United States?

One of the joys of being an elementary librarian is awakening and nurturing the questioning skills that kids need to be good thinkers and good citizens. The  dark side of questioning is answering.  How can students obtain ACCURATE and UNBIASED information in today's technological information silos? 

This was the question when  my morning news team presented their Interesting Fact on the last day of school.  Neal  proudly announced that George Washington was not the first President, but rather the 8th. Usually, I see their script the day before broadcast, but in the chaos of the last days, I had not seen it until 5 minutes before air time.

I knew that Neal found this fact on the internet, (that is where all digital natives go) and so we looked together to check for veracity by googling his statement.  I did not believe it to be accurate.  I explained to him that during the time between the revolutionary war and the ratification of the constitution  (March 1, 1781, and April 30, 1789) we had the ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION which meant that the 13 colonies in most ways operated idependently. I was not sure that the position of "president" even existed.  But cetainly, the leader during this time would have had very limited powers.

As so often is the case, digging into history is complicated and a simple answer does not exist. The google search brought up ten articles which all concurred with Neal.  Beginning with Wikipedia. So we went to air with his "fact."   It was only later when I had time to do MY 'due diligence" that the truth was clear.  This illustrates why teaching about research and sources is crucial!   We need to discuss the value of crowd sourced reserch like Wikipedia (I am a proponent and editor).  But we also need to acknowledge its limitations. Let me describe how I approached this question. 

As a librarian I eliminated any of the articles that were ".coms" from initial consideration.  There are perfectly good dot coms but I wanted scholarly, refereed sources as well as the actual document itself.  That left just two of the ten sources to be viewed.  One was the Constitution Society.  Before I read their article I nosed around to see if I could find out if they had a bias.  This usually means checking a statement about who the organization is, its purpose, and goals, and determining where their funding comes from.  This group's self-description included the fact that it educates, and also litigates.  For me, that elliminated them from my initial run through (I already knew that they concurred with Neal) so I moved on. 

What propelled me to continue searching something that seemed overwhelmingly correct was the simple question, "Why would all our history books list George Washington, as our first President if this weren't true?"  That is a question I am sure the conspiracy theorists have an arcane answer for.

A really good article from the Department of State outlines some of the debate surrounding the articles themselves.  It turns out that John Hanson, was President of the Continental Congress in 1781.  In this position he was not The President for his powers were so limited he could not even appoint the secretary of state.  At least I knew now where the term "President" had come from.  But I needed more.  Did the people of his time consider him the president of the United States?

The definitive article on this issue came from Digital History, a University of Houston website with valuable primary sourced information and commentary by scholars.  It clearly illustrates the difference between the kind of research real historians engage in and what I was doing.  (They go to  primary sources, discuss among colleagues the opinions they are forming about their meaning, and rigorously vet their information prior to publication).  Here is a part of the article:

"It The Articles of Confederation created a national government composed of a Congress, which had the power to declare war, appoint military officers, sign treaties, make alliances, appoint foreign ambassadors, and manage relations with Indians. All states were represented equally in Congress, and nine of the 13 states had to approve a bill before it became law."   

The Articles created an alliance of thirteen independent and sovereign states who agreed to "enter into a firm league of friendship with each other" This sounds more like NATO than the United States!  In fact, in the Articles,  at the beginning of almost all the statements issuing power to do anything come the words, "No State, without the Consent of the united States, in congress assembled..."   So it was not surprising to find that John Hanson held the office known officially as "President of the United States in Congress Assembled" In other words he was the president of the Congress or its presiding oficer.  He had none of the powers we associate with our president.

 The University of Houston article continues, "Under the Articles, the states, not Congress, had the power to tax. Congress could raise money only by asking the states for funds, borrowing from foreign governments, or selling western lands. In addition, Congress could not draft soldiers or regulate trade. There was no provision for national courts.  The Articles of Confederation did not include a president. The states feared another George III might threaten their liberties. The new framework of government also barred delegates from serving more than three years in any six year period."

Indeed, going between the original Articles and then reading scholarly analysis helped me understand where all the 10 articles that Neal found went awry.  With today's internet being a place where anyone can publish information and look official, we must be more vigilant. I was confident I had solved the question at hand.  I could say that George Washington was in fact the 1st president of the United States, and that John Hanson held the office  known officially as "President of the United States in Congress Assembled"    I then felt free to explore the internet to see what I could learn.

Googling the phrase "John Hanson president," I discovered one site that confused John Hanson with the African American and asserted that Barack Obama was not the first African American President!Upon googling "John Hanson, first black president" 830,000 articles appeared!  Some of these eve had photographs of John Hanson!  (Photographs only go back to about 1840)  I did not go too deeply into this absurdity --- because it was clearly in the realm of conspiracy theory, but it illustrates again the difficulty in getting good sources for our students.  The idea that whatever we perceive as truth is truth is a dangerous one and we need to help our students learn to ferret out facts while they are young, so that when it is time for them to vote they will have an ear for truth, but as we have an ear for good grammar.

Commodifying Public Education: How did this happen?

Learn more about this here

A shout of jubilation went up as teachers heard the announcement that we would not administer the final part of the TN Ready test this year.  I did not join in the celebration. I will not celebrate until we defeat this culture that relentlessly continues the march toward the destruction of public education. 

Over the past 30 years I have watched as people use the words, of our founding documents (words that I believe in) to destroy the very things the documents set forth.  We could start with their edited version of the preamble ---they would turn that paragraph into two simple phrases: We the People of the United States in order to insure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense do ordain and establish this constitution of the United States. In their understanding this is the only purpose for government.   For a history of how this happened read this fine article by a Canadian, Dan Laitsch "Smacked by the invisible hand: the wrong debate, at the wrong time with the wrong people." 

While it focuses on education it exposes the subtle way in which words were manipulated by a group with an agenda.  Among the discarded ideals is that which states that everyone benefits from the success and education of all.  The idea which replaces it is that everyone must be accountable and responsible for themselves.  If they fail to get rich or get a good education or have access to healthcare or other services it is their fault because they made bad choices.  TRANSLATE everything that has happened in their lives is their fault.  I'm on board the personal responsibility train!  I spend a lot of my time as an educator helping kids become more responsible.  The problem comes for me when the interpretation is unrelenting and unforgiving.

This "neo-liberal economic philosophy" sees "Government" as an evil that should be limited whenever and wherever possible.  Government regulation is always bad because it decreases PROFIT. What would our world look like without government regulation and oversight?  Wealthy people whose money works to increase their wealth would fare well.  They would have access to everything they need in their gated communities.

For the rest of us, who "labor" for a salary or an hourly wage - not so much. HERE IS WHAT WE WOULD HAVE 

Food industry --- FOR PROFIT means --  no control over what is in the can you buy including pesticides and contaminants such as the little snake head in a recently opened can of green beans. 
Healthcare industry FOR PROFIT means -- continuing HMO-type care where you have less contact with a personal physician (who is limited to 15 minutes with you) and you are just a cog, a part, in a profit oriented system.
Insurance industry FOR PROFIT means -- they take your money BUT it is not pooled for your benefit, they will use it to hire people to deny your claims and keep you from getting money from the coverage for which you paid. This will increase their profit and pay their investors!
Education -- continued expenditures for publicly funded private schools - (charter schools) thousands of programs and software options over actual education expenditures.My school alone spends more than $12,000 a year on I-ready a software subscription which steals good education time and uses games to try to "improve" student performance on the test.  Thousands of tech companies eager to sell districts the latest and greatest gadgets (we have vendor fairs all the time so we can be exposed to the latest sales pitch)  Estimates of companies being able to garner billions in educational funds while my library languishes without proper space, furniture or computers for research is obscene!  Teachers should be replaced with programs which students can use to educate themselves -- gone is the common ground of what we as American's believe.....If you want to teach that the dinosaurs were put in the fossil record by Satan to confuse Christians --- you can do that in your private school -- but I resent my tax dollars going to that "education!"

Let's also think about some other areas where we traditionally share costs for mutual benefits -- Transportation - Museums---Parks and other public places are all headed for privatization with one goal in mind --  to make money --- We can stand by and watch the Disney-fication of our culture or we can elect people who are thinkers and who ferret out the truth rather than accept what the think tanks (propaganda mills) tell them!

If you want to understand how we got here and who has been driving the bus since the 1970's  read the article, It is long (25 pages) -- but some things cannot be said in 140 characters!

Bathrooms as Sacred Space where the Book of Common Prayer was the Readers Digest

We had one bathroom and next to the stool was a basket of reading material. I never questioned the oddity of that as a child. As an adult I do not think of the bathroom as the best place to read, but as a child I thought of this basket as a gateway to adult interests. There were always National Geographic magazines and Readers Digests. I liked the National Geographic very much, but it was big and the articles with pictures were long. Reader's Digest on the other hand was just the right size for a child, and it had jokes and puzzles in it! I adored Word Power and was delighted that it still exists.  It is where I built my vocabulary until I learned to write down and look up new words in the dictionary.  So despite the fact that my teachers eschewed the superficiality, light weight and skewed nature of the Readers Digest I was drawn to it. My brother and I often escaped to the haven of the bathroom at times when we were supposed to be engaged in our chores. Constipation was always a good rouse for avoiding the time of evening dishes.

This stalwart conservative-leaning publication was a cornerstone of my education. I had not read it for years, when it caught my eye as I waited in line at the checkout stand at my supermarket. Still Proclaiming itself in Times New Roman glory, with slightly altered format for the index, there it was with its intriguing articles. "35 extraordinary uses for ordinary things" was the title that caused me to purchase the once ubiquitous magazine. But what really snared my attention upon closer inspection was the article "The Darker Side of the American Lawn" It should be required reading this spring before anyone goes to the golf course, park or considers a trip to the local big-box purveyor for "lawn food!" Here are a few of the statistics from this venerable bastion of conservative thought ( in case you just thought this was another one of the tree-hugging, latte sucking articles).

• Americans have become obsessed with grass.  When you add up the country's 80 million home lawns and over 16,000 golf courses you get close to 50 million acres of cultivated turf in the U.S.
• Americans are spraying 67 million pounds of synthetic chemicals on their grass every year.
• More that 170 Canadian cities have banned lawn pesticides -- especially on public spaces.
• Denmark, Norway and Sweden have banned 2,4-D ( a common chemical -- often known as agent Orange in lawn herbicides)
• In 2009, the European Parliament passed laws banning 22 pesticides that can cause cancer or disrupt human hormones or reproduction. 
• Conservative estimates suggest that 72 million birds die in the U.S. of pesticide poisoning each year. 
• Wood Thursh is down by 48%, Bobwhites by 80%, Bobolinks by 90% and we almost lost the Bluebirds -- but thanks to recent efforts by individuals to provide nesting boxes and assist them they are slowly coming back.  

 It is important to note that not only do these lawn chemicals kill "weeds" like clover which naturally sets nitrogen in the soil, but their use requires the addition of artificial sources of nitrogen to be added which in turn run off into the lakes and streams causing other problems like algae blooms that in turn suck the oxygen out of the water causing fish and plants to die and creating huge dead zones. All of these events have cascading effects which often cannot even be predicted.

If we want to save our planet, its pollinators and ultimately ourselves we need to start putting in native plants that will make your yard a haven for caterpillars, butterflies and birds.  For us in Tennessee that means plant joe-pye weed, rudbeckia and other species like Black-eyed Susans that bloom all summer long, Button-bush, Butterfly Weed and swamp milkweed.  We need to put in vegetable gardens and experience the joy of fresh natural organic vegetables.  Consider feeding the birds until we get enough native plants for them to live on again.   Their populations have been decimated over the past decades of habitat destruction and poisoning. Don't eradicate a weed until you are sure that it doesn't happen to be the one plant a single species of butterfly relies on.

Read the rest of the article and learn how to bring back beneficial insects, plants and animals into our environment.  Read the article and let its information change your behavior.  and if you really must kill a weed -- skip the Round Up and use this natural formula.  

1gallon of vinegar
1 cup of salt
1 Tbsp. of soap

This simple spray works as well as the toxic versions -- just be sure to spray it on a dry day when it will have time to work -- if it rains it can become to dilute to have effect!

See the full PicLit at PicLits.com This is a great application for teaching kids parts of speech in a fun and creative way. Especially during poetry month, this would be a fun to let kids work on both poetry, parts of speech and imagery! They will love it. You do have to have an account to generate an embed code or save it and email it to someone. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this!

Unpacking the TN READY Communication from the TN DOE

Commissioner McQueen has published two pieces to try to calm the wave of bad publicity that is washing over the DOE on the basis of what parents are seeing and hearing from students and teachers about the paper TN READY test which replaced the failed computer administered version.

I first read her blog for parents: Classroom Chronicles which is an explanation for parents about the failure of TN Ready an attempt to calm fears about the paper tests.  She says, "We too are frustrated and disappointed by our inability to provide students with an online test this year and by the logistical difficulties. We have been working tirelessly to provide a positive testing experience as much as is within our control and to reduce anxiety."  Really?  Will the DOE have their salaries cut or be fired because of their failure on the testing front?  They tie teachers success and failure every day to things that are beyond that teacher's control! Why not apply the same standard to yourselves?

Then  Dr. McQueen provides a form for parents to give them a sense of significant participation.  The form however only asks how the parent would like to receive their child's test scores.   Parents are asked to weigh in on crucial issues such as whether to report data in smiley faces, arrows, or symbols!  This appears to be a simple way to make people feel that they are part of a process.  In truth, it is like asking a man on trial for familial abuse, "when did you stop beating your kids."

What I DO KNOW is this:  I know NO teachers who:

1.  think this test is a good measure of student learning 
2. participated in its formation. 
3. have ever felt free to participate in a frank conversation it with any forum where their names and places of employment are readily seen. 

The second Classroom Chronicles blog post is supposed to dispell any of the issues raised by students, parents and teachers.

She addresses the issues raised by a number of concerned educators that the content was not appropriate for the students.  The following is a quote which further illustrates just how far removed the people who designed the test are from children!

"A very small number of questions on Part I require students to have had exposure to other mathematical content that may not actually count toward their score. For example, students may have seen a word problem that mentions a concept that they will learn more about later – like angles or ounces– but students will not be scored on their knowledge of this content. These concepts may just be used to provide context for a computational skill (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). Additional questions may require students to pull from previously learned content knowledge. As this is content that is below grade level, it would not appear on the grade level specific blueprint."

Imagine back to your eight-year-old self.  Much of what your teacher is teaching is just not too interesting to you, but you know there is this TEST coming up and you really should care about learning this stuff because it is on the test and your teacher is stressed about how you are going to do and your parents talk about how if you don't do well on the tests it will ruin your life.  Imagine for a moment that you are now reading a test question in which something right there in the midddle of it suddenly looks like a foreign language.   Do you have the intellectual ability to read the rest of the question and calm yourself sufficiently to determine that the question is not about the DNA helix but is a simple addition problem?  You get my point.  Yes if it is asking you to use cm instead of inches to measure and you have in the standard learned to use inches and you are an adult looking at the picture of a little ruler next to the question in cm you will understand how to solve the simple problem.  BUT THESE ARE CHILDREN!!

Most of them do not have the experience in solving problems to know how to approach this.  They will feel a sense of panic and collapse under the weight of the foreign words "angles" alone!  Add to that that nowhere does it say in the directions we heard read to the children (remember the administrator can only read the directions --- they cannot offer explanations because that might taint the test) to help children understand the question is considered leading the child to the right answer. NOWHERE IN THOSE DIRECTIONS DOES IT TELL CHILDREN THAT, "Hey, some of these questions may be on stuff you haven't had and those won't even count or be graded!"  How reasonable is it to assume that when you cover your classroom walls to hide every possible thing a kid might use to do well on the test -- and everyone is in a lock-down version of life (guarding test booklets, pencils and answer books as though they were radioactive) Does anyone think that a child is going to consider for a moment that some of the questions won't even count?  REALLY?

Dr. McQueen goes on to explain how reasonable the actual test was.  NEVER mind that the answer document (they called it a document, in the directions- now that is a word kids use every day, right?) looked almost identical to the test document! The whole thing was confusing to children from beginning to end.  MOST especially the vocabulary used in the directions..From an adult point of view Dr. McQueen is quite right --- it would be difficult to get mixed up about what answer went with what question.  These are CHILDREN not adults and I, as a proctor, can attest to the fact that the 3rd graders I was with were confused.  My last point is simple.  WHAT ARE THE TESTS designed to do?  If it is to help us see where to improve our instruction fine I'm good with that, but tests are misused to judge children and teachers everyday. 

They discourage educational innovation and good practice because my colleagues are always worrying about the specific things that must be covered on the test.  So with the garden in full grow mode, with the wild creatures and native plants that inhabit the perimeter of my campus budding and growing, with the night sky waiting, and the life bursting forth all around, we will be in the classroom drilling instead of out in the world writing, reading poetry, planting, wondering, exploring, and asking those impossible childhood questions.

 I AM CALLING FOR AN OVERHAUL in how we hold PUBLIC SCHOOLS accountable.  I AM CALLING FOR AN OVERHAUL that lets teachers be teachers so they are able to do what they do best with children.  Yes, that may even look different from one teacher to another teacher!  YES, teachers are as individual as students. They don't all teach the same way, understand the same way or participate in the universe in a monolithic pattern of teacher behavior!    PLEASE Dr. McQueen, I know you are young and you think you have these things down --- but listen to some seasoned educators on this topic!  Are you listening!! 

What is a hero?

Third Grade wanted to merge two concepts for Black History Month.  Students could research famous African Americans and then measure them against a rubric of what makes a hero. I could not in good conscience do a simple webpage with the people on their list. So instead I tried to accommodate by broadening the site and creating a Good Citizen Rubric as well as a Hero Rubric.  Heroes come in all colors was the result as was the accompanying Symbaloo for African American History Month. 

In our current culture we conflate the hero with celebrity. We carelessly toss this word around and in so doing we we weaken its meaning and message. When we call everyone who has served in the military a hero we risk including skin heads, bigots and those who have committed war crimes on the same list with those selfless souls who have given their lives and bodies in the service of humanity.

If, as Campbell suggests, the hero myth is designed to lead us to our better selves then the hero returns home carrying something of  the treasure.  It is the  "treasure that has the power to transform the world as the hero has been transformed."

This is why we yearn to teach the hero story to our children.  We want the world to be a place where power is distributed and the well being of all creation is the ultimate arbiter of our actions.   Sometimes in a world where kids pick Beyonce, and Kanye West as their heroes I tremble.....

Taize service at West End UMC -Deuteronomy 11:26-28

"See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse— the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God." 

Perhaps it was the intersection of the year's end and reading the Magna Carta by Dan Jones that set me thinking about this text, more ancient than the 1215 'great charter.' Spending New Year's Eve at a Cathedral-like building singing Latin texts could have done nothing but add to these thoughts. That scripture coupled with Genesis 12:2
"I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing." informed my early Christian development.  I can only be blest to be a blessing if I am honoring God in my living. AND it is clear that this is the intention of God; that we bless his creation.
 
So here it is - Will we make 2016 (800 years after the Magna Carta) a year full of blessing or will by our passivity allow it to be a year of curses? Just how much are we captives of our collective past?  How much are we willing to examine to understand the reality rather than the myth of that past?

Medieval looking doors of West End UMC

One of the insights I gained from reading the Magna Carta is that the document has nothing to do with democracy in its original form.  As Jones points out,"One of the great paradoxes of the Magna Carta is the fact that the less relent most of its words become to modern life, the greater the reverence attached to its name. 'Magna Carta' is today used as a byword for all types of aspiration to freedom, liberty, and (quite erroneously) democracy."  But to deny that is also absurd.  The Magna Carta was the beginning of the wresting of power from the very foundations of Feudal society -- (the King and Church) and in that respect it does have something to do with freedom and democracy.

Since we now have both these things I am allowed to  rewrite the scripture above slightly. 

See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse— the blessing of democracy if you obey the commands of the Lord that you act out of intelligent, thoughtfully researched and true information for the common good.   The curse will be a return to slavery and the destruction of your home. If you disobey my command and act out of your feelings and what you want to be true refusing to look fully into your own darkness you will receive that curse.  

So if we act on this admonition, we try to live our lives in consonance with out beliefs.  It will cost us.  It will cost us more money to buy humanely produced, local, fresh produce and meat.  It will cost us the convenience of throwing everything away. It cost us in taxes if we take care of our world and its inhabitants.  It may cost us in friends who think we have lost our senses. It is not comfortable or easy to take up the cross that knowledge lays at our feet.  Receiving a blessing is not easy. The question is will I choose the blessing or the curse.

Students learn from the past in the present....

1st grade students have been learning about the pilgrims.  From their research they constructed an alphabet book using our computers and their hand illustrations. 

Learning about  something is not the same as experiencing and understanding it.  So our cleaver 1st grade teachers in conjunction with the library designed centers to let kids see what it would feel like to live in the 1600s.  First we turned out the lights and used candles (the oil lamp seemed a bit too flammable for comfort).  We started the morning in the garden harvesting root vegetables.  Back inside they learned to clean them, write with a real quill pen, sew using cards and shoelaces, take pop corn off the cob and prepare it for popping, and make butter.  They also got to go on a virtual field trip to Plimouth Plantation.

The Tennessee Agricuture Museum has a great box filled with things that would have been used in colonial America and the kids had an opportunity to handle them and ask questions.  After lunch the students got to sample the feast we made from their harvest that morning.  These children ate what I imagine was their first beets, and they declared them good.  We added Indian pudding made from cornmeal and molasses, apples, and homemade bread on which they liberally spread the butter they made.  Some liked the butter so much that they asked if they could just eat the butter!

We started the meal with a prayer that the pilgrims might have used and a chorus of "We Gather Together." It was a joyfilled day and one that the children will likely not forget.  This kind of learning is hard to measure and even more difficult to understand!  You can experience some of the things they did by using our  Live like  Pilgrim Page.


 

Paws for Reading

One of the joys this year in the Library is weekly visits by Otter our reading buddy.  He is part of a  national program, Paws for Reading , in which children read to a therapy dog.

The dog makes no judgment as to the fluency or accuracy of the reader, but the dog's human partner does.   I hear her hearty laughter at the silly stories that many children love to read.  The warmth of that laughter says,, "I am enjoying your reading. You are a becoming a capable reader and I look forward to hearing you each week."  Otter, after just a couple of weeks, recognizes his friends which also provides a positive message to the kids as they respond with joyful giggles, hugs and yes sometimes even a lick or two!

We are blessed with faculty members who find exciting things for their children.  This particular program was brought to us because of one such kindergarten teacher who loves animals and children.  Her persistence reaps benefits every Thursday as children cycle in and out reading to and loving Otter.  

Lest you think that reading to a dog is silly, let me point you to research found on the Paws website.

It’s well-known (and scientifically proven) that interaction with a gentle, friendly pet has significant benefits.

 Physical Health:

• lowers blood pressure
• improves cardiovascular health
• releases endorphins (oxytocin) that have a calming effect
• diminishes overall physical pain
• the act of petting produces an automatic relaxation response, reducing the amount of medication some folks need

 Mental Health:

• lifts spirits and lessens depression
• decreases feelings of isolation and alienation
• encourages communcation
• provides comfort
• increases socialization
• reduces boredom
• lowers anxiety
• helps children overcome speech and emotional disorders
• creates motivation for the client to recover faster
• reduces loneliness

 Reading: (PAWS for Reading)

• helps children focus better
• improves literacy skills
• provides non-stressful, non-judgmental environment
• increases self-confidence, reduces self-consciousness

What happens when I do reserach on the common core....the rabbits warren of research...

Thus far we have focused on the literature and sites which expose the Common Core as an evil. In this post I will focus on the actual common core standards and some examples from classrooms which demonstrate the common core in practice. Because of the breadth and depth of the core we will look at 1st grade to get a sense of what it is and what it is not. 1st the core sets standards but doesn't dictate curriculum. This gives each state, town, school a lot of latitude to teach those things that are near and dear in that region! Doesn't sound much like government control does it?

Since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and the appointment of William Bennett as Secretary of Education, monumental changes have driven the educational practice.  Bennett published "A Nation at Risk" in 1983.  This report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, a Reagan created commission, largely indicted our entire educational system. It was based on a perception that our educational system was not able to compete with education offered in other countries. Here is a brief history of the department of Education.

In no small part because of this frenetic pace of experimentation and change brought on by this report teachers can expect yearly changes is what they are to teach, how they are to teach, what measures are used to determine if they succeed, and the philosophy driving their teaching.  I can think of no other profession which has been subjected to this constantly shifting philosophy. 

One of the teachers who came to my school after graduating from a premier college of education, believed that she knew better than those older teachers how to teach has succumbed to this pace of change and the frustrating impossibility of keeping up.  She is starting to sound like one of the older teachers.  I did not hesitate to point this out to her since she used to readily stand in judgment of the poor practices of those teachers whose skills were out of date.

As I began thinking about this I had questions.  It is what happens when you do research.  Sometimes it seems like your questions are leading you down a rabbit's warren. You must follow these leads to increase your scope of understanding.  Ideally this is what the common core leads students to do.  The whole goal is to create curiosity and encourage sound development of a students ability to question, seek answers, and determine what the best choice is.  It also helps students learn that answers will continually be refined as new information presents.  What could be bad about that!?

Indeed this is the reason I support the core.  For the years following Sputnik when we had emphasis on math and science (sound familiar?) a push was born to modernize public education which culminated in raising the Department to a cabinet level position, which ironically is where it began in 1867.    One of the things the Core fuels in those who fear it is that the core is a Government takeover of education.  What it really means is the federal government is offering incentives (or bribes if you prefer) to work toward the overarching goals (standards) set by the committee which foes claim were not even educators.  After checking that out I learned, as those who support the core rightly suggest,  that they were educators.

Yes, actually the majority of those who wrote these standards were members of faculties of university departments of education.  That means that they were most likely K-12 teachers at one time, but in any case they were deeply involved in the quality of education and preparing teachers to teach!
In the next post we look just at the standards themselves.