An honest to goodness tragedy

Once upon a time (around 2009) there was this small southern county school system by the name of Cheatham County, and it wasn't perfect. But it tried to provide the best possible education for its students. The people who worked at the board of education were sincere in their efforts. The principals and vice principals and counselors at the 12 schools--from elementary to middle and high schools--were sincere in their efforts. And the teachers--several hundred of them--were sincere in their efforts.

Many of these people were local people--some born and raised in the county. Having attended the very schools that they were now leaders and teachers in, they were particularly well suited to lead because they knew the people that they had grown up with and because they had a vested interest in the welfare of the county in which they lived.

As I said, things weren't perfect (they never are), but the little school system had run fairly smoothly and successfully for many, many decades. It had weathered a lot of what the state department of education sent them and was working through the latest curriculum snafus and testing of its students. It was functioning as best it could under the circumstances (mandates from the state and the federal government and an ever-changing society).

Then for some reason, its six elected board members got the idea that it would be beneficial to bring some "new blood" into the county. So they hired a new director of schools from outside the county--a big shot from the state department of education. A person who knew nothing about the small county or its people nor did he care to know them (nor as it turns out, did he care about them). One would have thought that he would spend his first year getting to know the county, but no! Immediately, he began to make drastic changes.

The man that the board hired was a typical politician who began to hire many of his "own people," people he seemed to have owed favors to, also from outside the county, to fill significant educational positions within the county. He made room for his former colleagues and buddies, regardless of their qualifications and often at significantly higher salaries than those they replaced.

It was as if he were playing jacks with the teachers and principals and vice principals and board of education employees in this small southern county, with their livelihoods and with their lives. As a part-time, job-share teacher, I was one of the first in his game to be forced out. I had wanted to teach for a few more years, but he immediately did away with all part-time, job-share positions. He didn't even know who we were or what kind of teachers we were.

He continued his carnage for several more years. In his game, he would toss out the names of local school leaders and teachers to be laid off, moved, or replaced as if they were jacks on the county map. It was obvious that he was making room for his "own people." And it appeared that he was following the advice of a few of our board members, some of whom seemed to have had long-time grudges to carry out or favors to repay.

This director of schools would make changes that didn't make any sense, such as transferring or demoting long-time, beloved principals. For example, he took a long-time, successful K-4 principal and sent her across the county to be a high school principal! Several of the county's principals and vice principals were placed back into the classroom. In such cases--and there were dozens of these cases of teachers, counselors, administrators, and board of education employees--it was as if he were setting people up to fail or trying to force them to quit. But those that stayed accepted their change of position and worked as hard as they knew how to do. For the good of the students.

Naturally, the people in this county were used to trusting their local leaders, so they were woefully confused. A fog of fear permeated the whole school system. People were afraid that they would lose their jobs. Most who spoke out about the situation had already been fired, demoted, or chastised.

Meanwhile, many of the teachers, like rats off a sinking ship, began to find themselves jobs outside the county. Then the director himself quit in 2012--much earlier than his contract with the board stipulated--and he named his temporary replacement--one of his political cronies--who was later hired permanently by the hapless board.  Setting the county up for still further carnage. Luckily, many of those that that first director brought into the county are leaving!

That first director's legacy to the small county was a scrabbled and scattered and scared school system, where speaking up against arbitrary decisions is anathema, where those still left in the system are just barely holding on to their sanity, where teacher and employee morale is depleted, and where decisions seem to have been made with little regard for the good of the students.

The county's only hope is to reinvest in its own people--and to choose its leaders wisely--from the elected board up to its director of schools. Its only hope is to once again hire local leaders who will make wise decisions. It will take many, many years to undo the harm that has been done by this past board and that particular director of schools--many more years to undo than it took to destroy the small county school system--but it must be done--for the good of the students.

The best housemates ever!

I live with two housemates. And I can't believe that I didn't mention them on my "about me" page! They are an extremely important part of my life!

One is named Jude. He's the three and one half year old Aussie shepherd pictured above. The other is a 100 pound golden retriever named Bisquet (that's my fancy way of spelling Biscuit!) She's golden, not red, and she's just over seven years old.

Bisquet is my third golden, but Jude is my first Aussie. Bisquet is really, really sweet, and she's the neighborhood's favorite dog.

Jude is so sweet and smart that I have him in basic dog obedience as the first step to training him to be a therapy dog! Hopefully, next year at this time, he and I should be heading out to visit hospitals and nursing homes.

They are both house dogs. And generally whatever room I am in, that's where they will be, especially the little Aussie! At night, Bisquet sleeps on the floor beside my bed, and usually, Jude is at the foot of my bed. Bisquet snores something awful, but in contrast to my former husband, her snoring somehow soothes me to sleep.

The first dog that I had as an adult was a little toy silver poodle named Sarah. She was another really smart dog. We went to dog obedience together, and she won the yellow ribbon, third place in her rather large class!

After Sarah, we got our first (and favorite) golden retriever, Spice. At first, there were two golden puppies, Sugar and Spice, named by my daughter Ellen. Sugar was blond, and Spice was red. Then Sugar disappeared, and there was only Spice. We went to obedience school, too, and boy, was he smart and well-behaved! How I loved that dog! We hiked so many miles together. As he aged, he got congestive heart failure, and it broke my heart to have to put him down.

Then there was the little miniature tri-colored dashound that we named Dapple. He was Ellen's dog, which she got when she was about eight or nine. But because I regularly fed, watered, and walked the dogs and eventually Ellen went off to college at age 17, he became my dog.

Then I got a little cairn terrier that I named Finn, after Huck Finn.  He proved to be quite a hand full with a mind of his own and a bite to match.  After several years, I gave him away. Later, I got another golden retriever named Bella, but she attacked Dapple, so I had to give her away, too.

Now I'm quite happy with Jude and Bisquet. They get along so well together and couldn't be better housemates.They gently wake me up every morning and are so happy to greet me when I come home. No matter if I've been gone for a few minutes or a few days, they get so excited that I am home.  And boy, are those dogs helpful when the eight month old granddaughter eats and gets more on the floor than in her mouth!

I always say that when I die, as I walk down that autumn path, the first "people" that will come to greet me will be Spice with Sarah and Dapple following close behind. What a greeting that will be! Then I will know that I have indeed crossed over and arrived in heaven!

Technology--part II

One can be a technophile or a technophobic, or in my humble opinion, a technofool! One word means to have a love of technology, another is to have a fear of technology, and the last is to be foolish (as in the stupid sense!) about technology.

Now that I have your attention, I must admit that I made up the last word--"technofool," but I wanted to make the point that our American culture isn't always wise in the use of technology.

If I were in charge of the world, we would begin teaching the proper use of technology in elementary school around the third grade and then weave it into the curriculum--perhaps in the odd years--getting more and more sophisticated about what we teach concerning technology as the kids get in high school.

Of course, first we, as a society, have to decide on the proper use of technology. And we need to decide on some truths about technology. Let's start with the basic question: What is the purpose of technology? Does technology always make our lives easier or better?

No, technology doesn't always make our lives easier. When we got computers in education, we teachers were told that they would really help in averaging our grades. But at first, we had to basically create our own grading programs--sort of like writing your own computer program!  That was hard to do.

Then years later, the school grading system became more standardized, but the schools kept changing computer grading programs every other year, so that we teachers had to keep learning a new program. That was hard to do.

At one point, I just wanted to go back to the calculator and hand-written report cards! They were easier to do!

Secondly, technology doesn't automatically make things better just because it is technology.
There is now a grading program which reports continual grades to parents. Sounds good, doesn't it? To be able to just log in and check your kid's grades. But those grading programs can be misleading because teachers aren't constant grading and recording machines--we do stop to plan lessons and to teach on occasion!-- and because a major project or test grade could skew the average rather dramatically.

Before I retired from teaching in 2010, the really "in-thing" in teaching was presenting information on PowerPoint presentations in the classroom. So most teachers were using or converting their information to PowerPoint, but really how boring for the students to go into classroom after classroom to PowerPoint presentation after PowerPoint presentation!

Of course, not long ago we had gone from chalkboards and overhead projectors to white boards.  And now it's on to big TV screens and to smart boards. But really, technology hasn't made good old basic teaching and learning any easier. It still takes plain hard work and time and effort, which technology may have actually harmed in us.

For instance, whether I am presenting the concept of "using transitional words in essays" on a chalkboard, an overhead projector, a white board, or in a PowerPoint presentation, whether the words are in a textbook or on a computer or TV screen, the students still have to buy into the idea of the concept's importance, to work hard to grasp the meaning of each transitional word, to commit to memory some of the words, and to transfer the learning into their essays. It's all the same basic idea!

Finally, using technology for technology's sake or just because everyone else is doing it is just plain foolish! Technology should be used to make things easier or better or to improve or simplify things in some way. If it complicates things, then don't use it.

For example, if a smartphone simplifies or improves your life, then by all means, use it and pay its monthly bill. But if it causes you to feel pressured to constantly be checking your email or Facebook or whatever or if you can't afford it, then that is complicating and stressing your life, so why not just go back to a vintage phone and check email at your desk computer? Simplify your life!

One of our greatest thinkers, Henry David Thoreau, encourages us to "Simplify, simplify." He further questions us, "Why should we be in such hurry and waste of life? . . . The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation . . . A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. . . Why should we be in such a desperate haste . . . and in such desperate enterprises?" I believe that Thoreau would call much of our technology "desperate enterprises" of a desperate people.

We are constantly bombarded by technology--much of it is good and helpful--but some of it is just a waste of time and our precious lives. Our brains are still greater and more powerful than any computer if we but use them to find wisdom in our use of technology. Thoreau further tells us, "It is the characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."

In my next post about technology, I will suggest a curriculum for our schools to thread into their classes from elementary through high school, from safety to good manners. It is a real need in our changing times.

It's never the same trip twice!

Back twenty years ago, I began going on white water kayaking trips to southwestern North Carolina, to Wesser, NC, near Bryson City.  It's God's country, believe me.

On the road to get there, you see vistas of those old smoky, misty blue-layered mountains, and in the medians and along the roadsides, bright yellow and orange flowers wave and smile at you.  By planting flowers, NC has created some really pretty roadsides.

The mountain vistas and the bright flowers and the anticipation of reaching the Nantahala River make those last long curvy 50 miles go by rather swiftly.

At first when I traveled to this area, I stayed in cabins with my daughter and friends, but then later I began to camp.  My first experience ever in camping! Friends and I soon discovered the most beautiful campsite in the world.  We called it waterfall campsite.  It's one of my favorite places on this sweet earth!

The campsite is behind a bluff; it is circled by a tumbling mountain creek; and about mid way around the creek, a waterfall from atop a mountain cascades into the creek.  In May, there are mountain laurels, and in June, there are rhoddies blooming and trailing their white and pink blossoms in the creek waters.  It's a mystical place--something out of a fairy tale.

My last time there had been on my 60th birthday.  I remember it well because some of my favorite friends were there to help celebrate--Linda and Linda and Sarah and Holley.  Then things changed--as they always do--and all of a sudden, I had not been to the waterfall campsite in four years!

But always in my heart, I heard its call.  To quote from  Yeats' "Innisfree," "I will arise and go now, for always night and day/I hear lake [creek] water lapping with low sounds by the shore;/While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,/I hear it in the deep heart's core."

I went back this past weekend with a new friend, who was new to this area of the country.  And it was another magical trip!

We couldn't camp at waterfall campsite.  The camp ground owner had closed that particular site several years ago because it was getting too trampled, but we could visit the site for day use.  We camped just down from the campsite on another beautiful site near the creek.  Late pink and white rhoddies were still blooming!

It was blessedly cool in the mountains.  We supped that first night on black bean wraps, enjoyed good conversation, and tucked into our tents to watch fireflies through the flaps.  Next morning dawned with blue skies and sunshine.  I got up first and put the coffee on.  We sipped our coffee and talked some more.

Then off to the Tuck River in Dillsboro.  With the recent rains on the 4th, it was running high.  The wave trains were often over our heads as we paddled through the rapids!  What fun!  My new friend Kathy turned out to be an excellent kayaker, and nobody in our group swam!

After the river, we went into Bryson City for a hot late lunch.  Later that afternoon, we hiked high into the mountains on the Appalachian Trail for a couple of miles and spied dozens of different types of mushrooms--big and small, white, brown, orange, and red ones--before heading back to our campsite.

That night, Kathy and I ate spaghetti and meatballs around the campfire and shared some more of our lives with each other--both past and present.  Our second morning there, we woke to the sound of rain on our tent tops, and grey skies prevailed.  Because Kathy had thought to bring a canopy to put over our table, we stayed dry as we drank our coffee and feasted on blueberry pancakes. The blueberries had been freshly harvested from Kathy's father's vines!  It was the best breakfast I had ever had while camping.

The weather didn't improve by much--there were moments of intermittent sun but mostly overcast skies and a light, somewhat warm rain.  We were supposed to run the Nantahala River that day.

As you can guess, Nantahala is an old Native American word.  And it means "river of the noonday sun." The Nantahala River runs through a deep gorge and is the coldest river that I kayak!  Deciding not to run the cold, cold Nantahala River, we headed to the lovely blue-green warm Fontana Lake for some kayaking roll practice. We shared our lunches and picnicked by the lake.

After that, Kathy had to drive home, and I got to stay another night and dream about our almost perfect weekend.  I'm confident that next time we will get to run the Nantahala, but this was another magical, mystical trip for me!  Thank you, Kathy, for being such an appreciative and like-minded spirit!

Technology--how do you define it?

Some might think that the word technology only has to do with computers and electronics and such.  But in my mind, it means scientific advances that make our lives easier and/or better.

My absolute favorite technology is running water--commodes flushing, sinking running, and taking showers.  Oh the joy of a morning shower--it is can be a spiritual experience--washing away yesterday's detritus!

The reason I'm thinking of technology is that I want to get better at it for my blog.  For example, I want to be able to put pictures on my blog--like this:

See I did it!  That's my nook tablet--something that most people would recognize as technology.  It's actually a small computer.  I paid some huge amount for my Nook, only to discover that I do not like reading books on computer screens.  I don't even have wifi at my house because I decided that I would only be on my computer at my desk.  Old fashioned, I guess, but I haven't regretted it yet!

Except for writing my blog, answering a couple of important emails, and reading a few significant blogs, most of the rest of the time that I spend on the computer--like on facebook--feels like wasted time to me!  I'm sorry if that offends any of you avid fb fans!  Of course, sometimes, we need to waste time!

Oh by the way, as far as technology goes, I still have a vintage phone--not a smart phone.  Presently, I don't want to check my email or read blogs on my phone. From my phone, I only want to call, to talk, to leave a message, or to text a short message when appropriate.  Yes, I do text!

Back when answering machines got popular, I really liked that particular piece of technology.  With answering machines, one didn't have to run to answer the phone when in the middle of doing something.  In the recent past, we didn't carry our phones around with us!  As a matter of  fact, we couldn't because the phones were not mobile; they were attached to the wall.  (Before answering machines and caller id when we answered the phone, we didn't even know who was on the other end!)

Wow, I have lived through a lot of technological changes--especially with the phone!

When I was a kid in the 50s, I remember getting our first TV.  Of course, the screen was smaller than the screen on many desktop computers today, it was black and white, and it was set into a big wooden box piece of furniture.  As I recall, often my whole family would sit around the TV at night and watch a show--usually of my father's choosing.  So we watched a lot of westerns!  Dad had his special recliner chair, and the rest of us filled in wherever.  I believe that I often sat on the floor near the TV, which mom said would ruin my eyes!  Sure enough later in my early teens, I needed glasses, but my guess is that that was why I sat so near the TV in the first place!

Anyway, my dream for my blog is to buy an inexpensive digital camera and learn how to upload pictures to my computer and my blog posts.  I haven't bought a camera since I got my Canon Rebel years ago.  It still takes really great pictures, which I usually have put on a disk nowadays, but I guess that's not the "immediate gratification" of having pictures readily available to upload to my blog that a digital camera will give me.

Hey, I think that I'll try to transfer a picture or two from some of my recent Canon disks to one of my blog posts to figure out if I can accomplish that small feat.  Maybe I won't need that new camera, after all!

The title of my blog, Pretending to Be Grown Up

Why am I calling my blog Pretending to be Grown Up?  Well, actually that's also the working name of my memoir, which I began to write last autumn, 2012, and which I am planning to share with you on this blog.

And here's the reason I'm thinking about calling my memoir by that title:  that little girl that you see on the header of my blog, of course, is me, around age 3 or 4, and always I feel her (young Laura) inside of me.  At some significant points in her young life, she felt betrayed by some important people.

So I feel that she (I) never really grew up--but sort of froze in time--waiting for someone whom she could love and trust..  Naturally, I looked for that love and trust in a lot of wrong places and in some of the right places.

(When I was a child, the game that I played most often was "teacher."  I was the teacher and my dolls and stuffed animals were the students.  I played this game for hours on end.  So naturally, I followed my dream and became a teacher.  By the way, because of my family's moving around with my Dad's job, I went to a dozen different schools as I was growing up, so I got to experience a lot of teachers!)

One of the right places where I did find love was in my classroom with my students.  I was a high school English teacher for nearly 40 years.  It was there that I could be myself, my "adult" self, and feel pretty good about myself.  It was there that I got to trade in the dolls and stuffed animals for real live students! Even though at times I was "pretending to be grown up,"  I played that adult game rather well.

But sometimes at school, the child Laura would emerge.  For some reason, she was particularly vulnerable around the other teachers and around parents--around other adults!  That's where she got hurt the most.  Interesting.

The Second Half of Life by Angeles Arrien is an amazing book that I am reading now.  Arrien talks about how African folklore tells us that we have five faces: child, youth, adult, elder, and essence.  These faces (or masks or roles) are created by family conditioning and by cultural imprinting, among other things.

The book points out that we may have over-identified with some of these roles and may even confuse a certain role with who we actually are.  For me, as an adult, I had over-identified with being a high school English teacher.  All too quickly in my early 20s, I became experienced, trustworthy, and responsible.  And at times, I think that for good or bad, the community in which I lived also over-identified me with that role.

But I am so much more, as are we all, than just that one face or role.  I am more than just a teacher.  And now in my elder stage of life, I have been given the opportunity (the time and health and where-with-all) to discover who else I am or who I really am.

Time to go back to make amends to the child and to the youth that I once was and that I, too, may have neglected, criticized, or betrayed.  Then I can stop pretending to be grown up, stop being my false self, and grow up fully, at last.  As the book suggests, I can blend together my five faces and know the radiance of my true self.  If we are willing to do the soul work, we all can come to know the face that we had before we were born.  For that is who we truly are!