Comments for Reaching...

Comment on ‘Cause You Got No Class! by rawdawgbuffalo

rawdawgbuffalo — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:10:47 +0000

it doesnt educate
and parents dont as a whole do either

Comment on ‘Cause You Got No Class! by TomH

TomH — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:12:34 +0000

“Writing computer programming code is language arts too”

I’ve been gently nudging him in that direction. He taught himself HTML and CSS well enough to make a nice site template for a girlfriend and he told me was going to learn Python this summer. He does get a thrill from pleasing people with his writing in both areas. Nice chatting with you. Take care.

Comment on ‘Cause You Got No Class! by quakerjew

quakerjew — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:17:24 +0000

Also, Tom.
I read a lot of your comments on sites we both visit. I think we share a lot of viewpoints on a lot of issues. Thanks for speaking your mind (and often mine).

Comment on ‘Cause You Got No Class! by quakerjew

quakerjew — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:11:49 +0000

Well Tom,
no wonder you’re up at all hours!
Just read “We Are Seven”. Thank you for that.
I thought your comment knocked over my fireplug, but reading that poem on top of it, well, here comes the fountain.
My dad told me he’d pay for me to go to school anywhere in the country I wanted to go, as long as I didn’t major in Art.
Art it was, then. He made my decision for me, but that’s the sort of ass I was at 18.
He was right about that. As he was about my learning to type. His ghost whispers,”I told you” every time I sit at the keyboard and ready my two fingers.
He was kidnapped and murdered eighteen years ago.

Last fall, a ten-year-old boy in my class lost his father (also named Tom). At the memorial svc. I saw a picture of the two of them shaving in the bathroom mirror -crumbled me to pieces.
I explained to the rest of the kids in the class what had happened, and the counselor recommended that we make sympathy cards. A little girl said to me, “I feel so sad for Nick. I don’t know what I would do if I lost my mom.”
Why she said mom and not dad, I don’t know. I told her that this sort of thing is so very rare. She shouldn’t worry. Nothing will happen to her mom.
I lied. Her mom was killed in an car accident a week later.
The “We Are Seven” poem underscores one of the selfish reasons I do what I do. Being around those people (elementary kids) is a fiercely beautiful thing.
So how to get your son to change his major?
Writing computer programming code is language arts too. I wonder if he could get involved in some of that during his first year, and gently turn his battleship toward a marketable course of study.
Garrison Keeler (sp?), another English major, has funny stuff to say about his brethren.
Thanks for the visit, Papa.
Hope to hear back.

Comment on ‘Cause You Got No Class! by TomH

TomH — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 05:13:48 +0000

My eldest son is going to college to study English this fall. He correctly identified that as his strong point but it’s hard for me to get excited about, more so since I don’t have a job right now, working on it. I read the poems you’ve posted and liked them OK. Wordsworth spoiled my poem reading forever with we are seven, I cry when I read that every time. Love your Blog, Tom

Comment on ‘Cause You Got No Class! by quakerjew

quakerjew — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:52:49 +0000

Some real terrorizing of teachers happens in those charter schools. The school is far more needy for the $ that each student represents.

Comment on ‘Cause You Got No Class! by quakerjew

quakerjew — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:45:19 +0000

Whitney, the testing thing is a crazy machine.
Funny thing how it has affected my academic life. I score unnaturally and inaccurately high on them. This gave my teachers & admin. (for they paddled me often) a false impression of my abilities.

Left me completely unprepared for college.
-
And OH OH OH AF!
I want to write about the poor little education pony that politicians ride into office. Something about Mr. Ed the talking horse – still rolling around in my brain.
“the best, most sophisticated bombs and military tech…” Damning truth.

Comment on Hello world! by quakerjew

quakerjew — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:23:18 +0000

Thanks for reading it, AF.
When I was 16 or 17, I found a cache of personal stuff I had written when I was 12 or 13. I threw it all out. My older teen self would’ve been mortified if anyone found that stuff.

I lived just long enough to regret many similar purges – like I’m trying to erase my footsteps. As if wiser folk didn’t already know that all that stuff was part of the package anyway.

My students are young enough to be (thankfully) transparent, but I want to believe that I’m not.
Like I’m in control of your perception.
Well, then everyone would love me.

Comment on Hello world! by A.F.

A.F. — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:37:29 +0000

“I’m gonna do some stuff wrong. I hope for forgiveness.”

Ha! Not laughing at you but with you! I hope for forgiveness every time I post an entry, and a lot of them I look at later and wonder what on earth I was thinking at the time and wonder what people must have thought and determine that anyone who commented must have done so because they just felt sorry for me I have been (knock wood) entirely blessed thus far not to have been visited by those terrible people who just aren’t commenting unless they’re calling the blogger an idiot or telling them off. I wish you the best with your blog. It looks great!

Comment on ‘Cause You Got No Class! by A.F.

A.F. — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:22:02 +0000

What bothers me the most is that every politician talks about education and no real steps are ever taken by legislators to empower teachers, improve literacy rates, reduce class sizes, effectively suit curricula to students’ individual needs, etc. So it seems to me that there is an undeclared but deliberate war on public education.

We never hear politicians say, “What we need is the best, most sophisticated bombs and military technology and the best means of preserving the awesome might of American based multi-national corporations…” Yet that seems to be where their sole focus is.