When I was just a sprout, back when middle school was "junior high," I had a friend called Brem who, among other things, was Bill Medley to my Bobby Hatfield. That's right, aging Boomers and guilty oldies radio listeners, the Righteous Brothers. We would belt out their hits, to the annoyance of our teammates, in the shower room at Blue Collar Junior High in Westside, Michigan, after practice for whatever sport was in season - football (halfback/quarterback), basketball (forward/guard), track (high jumper/half-miler). We both wore blue and gold letter jackets with a B on the front, even though there was no varsity club in junior high school. In the summer we played softball (left field/second base) in the rec. league. We knew the same girls (cheerleaders, natch), rode our bikes with the same gang of budding delinquents, and we both had Mr. Gutman for social studies.
You may recall Mr. Gutman from a previous post - a memorable and influential teacher who loved his work. Well, it was my phone conversation with Mr. Gutman that prompted a long-shot subscription to classmates.com that, lo and behold and saints be praised, landed a hit. Brem was listed, and he answered my e-mail. Tentatively at first, probably wondering if I was selling insurance or looking for a date or a loan. The last time I saw him was the summer I transferred to Michigan, when I was still excited about college, and he was not. I remember him talking about taking the police academy entrance exam, and I thought, oh no.
So, 34 years later, I get a blast from the past from the desk of Sgt. Jack Bremenhoffer (name changed to protect me), Crime Scene Unit, Westside Police Department. We exchanged a few brief catch-up notes. Brief by my verbose standards, anyway. My first one ran nine paragraphs: school here, school there, moved here, moved there, met Gven, two kids, taught here, taught there, moved to the suburbs, edit textbooks. His self-disclosures, while less wordy, have been poignant. All-league in football, no scholarships; went to NMU, learned how to drink, not to study; took the civil service test and the job; had a great time single, met wife at work; played softball until this year, shoulder surgery, knee surgery, osteoarthritis, two kids, college to pay for. The next exchange told me about the mutual friend (and best man at his wedding) who moved to Chicago, the one who got heavily into drugs, and the one who came back from Vietnam and joined the Zulus motorcycle club. I remember him riding his brother's 650 Triumph around their back yard when he wasn't on his ten-speed.
Which brought it all back to where I started. My call to Mr. Gutman had been prompted by a question in my Wednesday night men's group about mentors, and Brem's back-story addressed another men's group question about street gangs, prompted by a Dispatch column wherein "Teenagers join gangs because it gives them a sense of belonging and group identity....They feel they belong because they share the excitement, symbols and rituals of the gange, are accepted as insiders and believe they really care for each other." Something resonated.
Forgive me, Brem, if you'd rather I didn't disclose all this, but we did have kind of a gang mentality - tame and suburban, but in the same spirit. And we all went our separate ways, so I won't be surprised if Sgt. Bremenhoffer doesn't become a constant e-mail correspondent. But I also wonder whether a beer and a ballgame would bridge at least some of those changes. Not sure.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Bad fences make good neighbors
There was a fence there when we moved in almost two years ago. Actually two fences, one shaky thing with horizontal boards with a knee-high gap along the ground on the north side, facing Joe and Brenda's yard across Plum Street, and another pretty solid split-rail fence on the south side bordering Bill's back yard. Neither one was aesthetically pleasing or solid enough to contain a dog.
Our first summer in the house, I made a point of reconstructing the northside fence, adding extra posts, cutting the 12-foot horizontal boards into 6-foot verticals, moving the gate, extending both ends around pine trees, and adding a second gate from the carport. It became a creative challenge to re-use existing materials (call it a freegan fence), and while the result is far from perfect, I guess it will do.
In our second summer, it is clearly time to enclose the south side with a similar "privacy" fence, substantial enough to keep Dali the dog in the yard without a chain and enough of a visual screen so we don't necessarily see everything Bill is doing and vice versa. Not long ago, the plan started to gell, and this week I began putting posts in the ground for real.
The plan calls for more six-foot fence along the front portion of the south side closest to the house, with a stretch of 4foot fence toward the back, where the vegetable garden, garage, and woodpile form a kind of utility area. So far so good. I've had quite a bit of scrap lumber stacked back there since we (actually Gven) completely re-did the living room and dining room walls and floors. Now I get to re-use those materials, waste not want not, and get a new fence out of the deal!
My inventory shows that there's just enough lumber for the 4-foot section, and then I'll have to go buy some boards. Last weekend a small miracle occurred, and as I was driving up Indianola Ave. visualizing the 4x4 posts I would need, I saw one lying by the curb - a brand-new 8-foot fencepost waiting for me to toss it in the truck and take it home. So, irrationalist that I am, I think I'll hold off on that trip to Bargain Outlet and see if I can come up with (creatively visualizing now) about 160 6-foot 1x6s in need of a good home.
Our first summer in the house, I made a point of reconstructing the northside fence, adding extra posts, cutting the 12-foot horizontal boards into 6-foot verticals, moving the gate, extending both ends around pine trees, and adding a second gate from the carport. It became a creative challenge to re-use existing materials (call it a freegan fence), and while the result is far from perfect, I guess it will do.
In our second summer, it is clearly time to enclose the south side with a similar "privacy" fence, substantial enough to keep Dali the dog in the yard without a chain and enough of a visual screen so we don't necessarily see everything Bill is doing and vice versa. Not long ago, the plan started to gell, and this week I began putting posts in the ground for real.
The plan calls for more six-foot fence along the front portion of the south side closest to the house, with a stretch of 4foot fence toward the back, where the vegetable garden, garage, and woodpile form a kind of utility area. So far so good. I've had quite a bit of scrap lumber stacked back there since we (actually Gven) completely re-did the living room and dining room walls and floors. Now I get to re-use those materials, waste not want not, and get a new fence out of the deal!
My inventory shows that there's just enough lumber for the 4-foot section, and then I'll have to go buy some boards. Last weekend a small miracle occurred, and as I was driving up Indianola Ave. visualizing the 4x4 posts I would need, I saw one lying by the curb - a brand-new 8-foot fencepost waiting for me to toss it in the truck and take it home. So, irrationalist that I am, I think I'll hold off on that trip to Bargain Outlet and see if I can come up with (creatively visualizing now) about 160 6-foot 1x6s in need of a good home.
Monday, June 27, 2005
Blogito ergo sum
I blog therefore I am.
I blog the fact that I am a person, which is a blogging thing, which blogs this information now. Blogging that fact determines, as well as records, the fact of my blogging, the fact that I blog and what I blog, and therefore of my being the blogger of said facts.
The truth-claim contained in the blog that I blog represents the 'I am' of the blogger, true or false. I choose which facts to include - and which to exclude - in the blog, which represents only a partial - and therefore slanted - account of any topic I choose. How can such a tiny sliver of the possible facts surrounding such a tiny sliver of the possible topics available to such a tiny sliver of personal experience be 'true' - except as a sample of the many 'true' statements that could be blogged.
Selecting which facts to blog about which topics is the game. Topics suggest themselves while the blogger reads, eats, practices taiji, builds a fence; facts line up under said topics, confirming or negating their blogability. Mental notes are made (hmm, I oughta blog that) and either written down or not. Titles are chosen, sometimes fueling the blogging and sometimes just lying there lifeless for days, finally succumbing to deletion. Occasionally a first draft makes it to the light of day, but more often a mere sprout of a blog sits there, saved, until repeated attention fleshes it out so it's ready to stand on its own.
If a blog is posted on the site, and there's nobody there to read it, is it published?
I blog the fact that I am a person, which is a blogging thing, which blogs this information now. Blogging that fact determines, as well as records, the fact of my blogging, the fact that I blog and what I blog, and therefore of my being the blogger of said facts.
The truth-claim contained in the blog that I blog represents the 'I am' of the blogger, true or false. I choose which facts to include - and which to exclude - in the blog, which represents only a partial - and therefore slanted - account of any topic I choose. How can such a tiny sliver of the possible facts surrounding such a tiny sliver of the possible topics available to such a tiny sliver of personal experience be 'true' - except as a sample of the many 'true' statements that could be blogged.
Selecting which facts to blog about which topics is the game. Topics suggest themselves while the blogger reads, eats, practices taiji, builds a fence; facts line up under said topics, confirming or negating their blogability. Mental notes are made (hmm, I oughta blog that) and either written down or not. Titles are chosen, sometimes fueling the blogging and sometimes just lying there lifeless for days, finally succumbing to deletion. Occasionally a first draft makes it to the light of day, but more often a mere sprout of a blog sits there, saved, until repeated attention fleshes it out so it's ready to stand on its own.
If a blog is posted on the site, and there's nobody there to read it, is it published?
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
The man who mistook his highlighter for a banana
A place for everything, and everything in its place, that's what I always say. Or, it's opposite, "Does this have to be here?" which I really say more often. Like when the laundry basket is strategically placed right in the middle of the path I take to grab my hat in the morning or hang it up at night. Or someone's purse and books and keys and coffee cup and opened mail are strewn over the kitchen table, effectively removing it from use. Or every chair in the living room is occupied by bags of videos, empty yoghurt bowls, sewing projects, home decorating magazines, yoga mats, library books, tee-shirts, shoes. Or half a dozen loose CDs on top of the stereo, cases somewhere else. Aaargh! Randomness drives me crazy.
Call me a neatnik. Make fun of my desk drawer with tidy compartments of carefully sorted paper clips. Hear my confession: I'm not more organized than anyone else (well, maybe some) I just have a harder time finding my way around without the crutch of an orderly, put-together environment. There, I've said it. I have a problem. I'll join a 12-step group. My name is Sven, and I'm a categoriholic.
You know that family of siblings in the movie (and novel) The Accidental Tourist? William Hurt and his brother and sister have this neurological condition that makes them easily lost, disoriented, confused when navigating the realms of airports, foreign cities, their own neighborhood streets, kitchen cupboards. They require that things they encounter be mapped, listed, and labeled so they know what to do with them. A mild form of the Oliver Sacks symptoms where the names and uses of things get crossed in the brain's synaptic wiring, and consequently the man mistook his wife for a hat.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this issue, which is probably one of the symptoms, except that it's aggravating as hell and something I will either have to systematically work out or simply learn to accept, though neither prospect seems likely. Meanwhile, my beloved and fiendishly cruel family members have lots of ways to drive me crazy by putting bowls on the plate shelf (or vice versa), leaving the hammer, pliers, or screwdriver on the floor of the bedroom (which is NOT where it belongs!), or moving my cheese.
Call me a neatnik. Make fun of my desk drawer with tidy compartments of carefully sorted paper clips. Hear my confession: I'm not more organized than anyone else (well, maybe some) I just have a harder time finding my way around without the crutch of an orderly, put-together environment. There, I've said it. I have a problem. I'll join a 12-step group. My name is Sven, and I'm a categoriholic.
You know that family of siblings in the movie (and novel) The Accidental Tourist? William Hurt and his brother and sister have this neurological condition that makes them easily lost, disoriented, confused when navigating the realms of airports, foreign cities, their own neighborhood streets, kitchen cupboards. They require that things they encounter be mapped, listed, and labeled so they know what to do with them. A mild form of the Oliver Sacks symptoms where the names and uses of things get crossed in the brain's synaptic wiring, and consequently the man mistook his wife for a hat.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this issue, which is probably one of the symptoms, except that it's aggravating as hell and something I will either have to systematically work out or simply learn to accept, though neither prospect seems likely. Meanwhile, my beloved and fiendishly cruel family members have lots of ways to drive me crazy by putting bowls on the plate shelf (or vice versa), leaving the hammer, pliers, or screwdriver on the floor of the bedroom (which is NOT where it belongs!), or moving my cheese.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Happy Farmer's Day
Thanks to Burb for jogging my memory. I come from a long line of farmers. My dad, Chas Golly III, grew up on a farm, went to college, joined the Army Air Corps, and served stateside teaching aircraft repair during WWII. Grandfather Les Golly (Chas II) farmed outside Rochester, Minnesota, as did great-grandfather Chas Golly I. It was great-great-grandfather Golly who migrated to Minnesota from Nova Scotia, where there are still quite a few Gollys.
Long story short, Dad got out of there at the first opportunity. After the war, he and my uncle ran a restaurant in Spring Grove, and when he was 31, the year I was born, he saw the possibility of making more money selling insurance in the Rochester office of Metropolicy, a big company that was getting bigger. He stayed with the same company for the next 31 years, until he retired the year his grandson Jess Golly (Chas V) was born. So much for the begats and the begots.
Dad was ambitious, and he believed insurance was a way to help people be secure in the material world. He was a successful salesman in Rochester and an even more successful assistant manager in LaCrosse. He moved up to be an underwriting consultant and then a district manager in Detroit - still essentially a teacher-coach - organizing teams of salesmen to ensure their own financial success by insuring the lives and assets of other people. He really enjoyed the contact with people, breaking it down so the clients would understand what's in their interest. He collected a million stories, and he liked to think he was "doing well by doing good."
I remember him getting up early to study for the CLU exams (like an advanced degree in insurance) day after day, year after year, because he wanted to do well. He didn't just want to pass, he wanted to be the best at what he did, and he was justly proud of those diplomas hanging on his office wall. When the entire business changed and the territory was reorganized, he became the campus recruiter for much of the midwest, interviewing college seniors for potential jobs with Metropolicy.
I sent him a card for Father's Day, of course, and besides how the kids are doing, most of what I had to say was how the tomato plants are doing, the peppers, the beans, and the strawberries we picked from plants that he and Mom brought us last summer. He's always had a few tomatoes, a few rose bushes, pumpkins, you name it, and a bunch of geraniums growing in planters. Check out our house - geraniums in window boxes, hostas all over the place, apples falling pretty close to the tree.
So Sunday, I'm sitting on the patio in Methodistville talking to Jess Golly on the phone. He's working with MoreGardens Coalition planning a summer camp for neighborhood kids to learn about plants and soil and birds and mammals and insects and worms and fungi and all that cool stuff in their community garden in the Bronx. Jess is telling me about the cheese they made, the cider they pressed, and the mulberry wine they're making. And I realize that there's more continuity between us than I thought.
Long story short, Dad got out of there at the first opportunity. After the war, he and my uncle ran a restaurant in Spring Grove, and when he was 31, the year I was born, he saw the possibility of making more money selling insurance in the Rochester office of Metropolicy, a big company that was getting bigger. He stayed with the same company for the next 31 years, until he retired the year his grandson Jess Golly (Chas V) was born. So much for the begats and the begots.
Dad was ambitious, and he believed insurance was a way to help people be secure in the material world. He was a successful salesman in Rochester and an even more successful assistant manager in LaCrosse. He moved up to be an underwriting consultant and then a district manager in Detroit - still essentially a teacher-coach - organizing teams of salesmen to ensure their own financial success by insuring the lives and assets of other people. He really enjoyed the contact with people, breaking it down so the clients would understand what's in their interest. He collected a million stories, and he liked to think he was "doing well by doing good."
I remember him getting up early to study for the CLU exams (like an advanced degree in insurance) day after day, year after year, because he wanted to do well. He didn't just want to pass, he wanted to be the best at what he did, and he was justly proud of those diplomas hanging on his office wall. When the entire business changed and the territory was reorganized, he became the campus recruiter for much of the midwest, interviewing college seniors for potential jobs with Metropolicy.
I sent him a card for Father's Day, of course, and besides how the kids are doing, most of what I had to say was how the tomato plants are doing, the peppers, the beans, and the strawberries we picked from plants that he and Mom brought us last summer. He's always had a few tomatoes, a few rose bushes, pumpkins, you name it, and a bunch of geraniums growing in planters. Check out our house - geraniums in window boxes, hostas all over the place, apples falling pretty close to the tree.
So Sunday, I'm sitting on the patio in Methodistville talking to Jess Golly on the phone. He's working with MoreGardens Coalition planning a summer camp for neighborhood kids to learn about plants and soil and birds and mammals and insects and worms and fungi and all that cool stuff in their community garden in the Bronx. Jess is telling me about the cheese they made, the cider they pressed, and the mulberry wine they're making. And I realize that there's more continuity between us than I thought.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Chip's ordination
Went to a friend's ordination as a minister Saturday night. My idea of a big night on the town. It was cool. A little wordy at times, but church is like that sometimes, especially in the verbocentric Bostonian tradition of Emerson, Channing, Parker, Garcia and Hunter.
Chip himself didn't say that much, all the verbiage came from his mentors in the Unitarian Universalist ministry, who, of course, had lots of nice things to say about him and his "calling". The G-word came into play a little more than I would have preferred, but hey, they didn't consult me.
The choir did a nice job on a song called "The Wheel" that Chip requested. I'd never heard a 50-voice choir do a Grateful Dead song before (sorry, no extended guitar solos, no dancing vagabonds in the aisles, no cloud of smoke in the rafters), but the arrangement really worked, and it sounded great in that big space. Apparently they're still talking about Chip's Dead-inspired sermon in the little Illinois town where he did his internship.
The wheel is turning and you can't slow down,
You can't let go and you can't hold on,
You can't go back and you can't stand still,
If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.
Won't you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn't you try just a little bit more?
Won't you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn't you try just a little bit more?
Round, round robin run round, got to get back to where you belong,
Little bit harder, just a little bit more,
A little bit further than you gone before.
The wheel is turning and you can't slow down,
You can't let go and you can't hold on,
You can't go back and you can't stand still,
If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.
Small wheel turn by the fire and rod,
Big wheel turn by the grace of God,
Every time that wheel turn 'round,
Bound to cover just a little more ground.
The wheel is turning and you can't slow down,
You can't let go and you can't hold on,
You can't go back and you can't stand still,
If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.
Won't you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn't you try just a little bit more?
Won't you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn't you try just a little bit more?
Chip himself didn't say that much, all the verbiage came from his mentors in the Unitarian Universalist ministry, who, of course, had lots of nice things to say about him and his "calling". The G-word came into play a little more than I would have preferred, but hey, they didn't consult me.
The choir did a nice job on a song called "The Wheel" that Chip requested. I'd never heard a 50-voice choir do a Grateful Dead song before (sorry, no extended guitar solos, no dancing vagabonds in the aisles, no cloud of smoke in the rafters), but the arrangement really worked, and it sounded great in that big space. Apparently they're still talking about Chip's Dead-inspired sermon in the little Illinois town where he did his internship.
The wheel is turning and you can't slow down,
You can't let go and you can't hold on,
You can't go back and you can't stand still,
If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.
Won't you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn't you try just a little bit more?
Won't you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn't you try just a little bit more?
Round, round robin run round, got to get back to where you belong,
Little bit harder, just a little bit more,
A little bit further than you gone before.
The wheel is turning and you can't slow down,
You can't let go and you can't hold on,
You can't go back and you can't stand still,
If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.
Small wheel turn by the fire and rod,
Big wheel turn by the grace of God,
Every time that wheel turn 'round,
Bound to cover just a little more ground.
The wheel is turning and you can't slow down,
You can't let go and you can't hold on,
You can't go back and you can't stand still,
If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.
Won't you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn't you try just a little bit more?
Won't you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn't you try just a little bit more?
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
On cross-training
Addendum to MacKenzie's Laws:
A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of playing some rugged street basketball with a dangerous bunch of characters who sometimes hang out at the Hoff Road Park courts, and I had a GREAT time, the endorphin buzz lasted about a week, and I even managed to escape with all my limbs intact, more than I can say for another member of the group who had a run-in with Stan "Hatchet-Man" Sobiech. While my mind and heart are soaring in the aftermath of an hour of roundball, my knees and shoulders were just sore. Clearly, you need to do this more than once or twice a year to come out pain-free.
So I'm having a normal conversation with my daughter, Helga Golly (I think she looks like Andrew Wyeth's friend and model, the lovely Nordic Helga, but I'm biased), which seems to be happening more and more these days, now that she's home from college for the summer for the first time, since the last two years she was up at Camp Ho Mita Kota counseling all the young diabetic kids in the arts of archery, testing blood sugar, and avoiding poison ivy, and Helga is reacting to her workout with Judd, the personal trainer at the Yoga Factory over on East Broadway in beautiful Olde Methodistville. Sore muscles - it's what you get after a good workout.
So I went into my spiel about another moderate workout being the best recovery from your previous workout, something like: If my legs are tight from running, I do yoga to recover; if my lower back is tight from yoga, I do qigong; if my shoulders are tight from qigong, I do taiji; if my knees are tight from taiji, I ride my bike; if my neck is tight from biking, I hang upside down; if my arms are tight from hanging, I run. That about covers it. Then if I'm exhausted from whatever I've done today, I...
And Helga says, "Sleep." Which is true. I went to a kick-butt Vinyasa Yoga class last night that wrung me out and hung me out to dry. I tried to keep up with the 40-something teacher and the 30-something students, all women, but at one point I started to lose it and had to fold myself up in child's pose (don't know the Sanskrit name) breathe deeply and rest before continuing. To my great relief, one of the other people in the class also did a child's pose or two when she had reached her limit, so I wasn't the only one out of my league in Vinyasa-land.
By the end of the 90 minutes, I'm drenched, relaxed, and satisfied, with just enough energy to ride my bike the half-mile home and sit out the rest of the evening on the patio, enjoying the cool breeze before falling asleep two hours before my accustomed bedtime. For once, no need or desire to cross-train. Just the need to practice more Vinyasa to be able to do Vinyasa. Like basketball or anything else, once in a while won't cut it.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of playing some rugged street basketball with a dangerous bunch of characters who sometimes hang out at the Hoff Road Park courts, and I had a GREAT time, the endorphin buzz lasted about a week, and I even managed to escape with all my limbs intact, more than I can say for another member of the group who had a run-in with Stan "Hatchet-Man" Sobiech. While my mind and heart are soaring in the aftermath of an hour of roundball, my knees and shoulders were just sore. Clearly, you need to do this more than once or twice a year to come out pain-free.
So I'm having a normal conversation with my daughter, Helga Golly (I think she looks like Andrew Wyeth's friend and model, the lovely Nordic Helga, but I'm biased), which seems to be happening more and more these days, now that she's home from college for the summer for the first time, since the last two years she was up at Camp Ho Mita Kota counseling all the young diabetic kids in the arts of archery, testing blood sugar, and avoiding poison ivy, and Helga is reacting to her workout with Judd, the personal trainer at the Yoga Factory over on East Broadway in beautiful Olde Methodistville. Sore muscles - it's what you get after a good workout.
So I went into my spiel about another moderate workout being the best recovery from your previous workout, something like: If my legs are tight from running, I do yoga to recover; if my lower back is tight from yoga, I do qigong; if my shoulders are tight from qigong, I do taiji; if my knees are tight from taiji, I ride my bike; if my neck is tight from biking, I hang upside down; if my arms are tight from hanging, I run. That about covers it. Then if I'm exhausted from whatever I've done today, I...
And Helga says, "Sleep." Which is true. I went to a kick-butt Vinyasa Yoga class last night that wrung me out and hung me out to dry. I tried to keep up with the 40-something teacher and the 30-something students, all women, but at one point I started to lose it and had to fold myself up in child's pose (don't know the Sanskrit name) breathe deeply and rest before continuing. To my great relief, one of the other people in the class also did a child's pose or two when she had reached her limit, so I wasn't the only one out of my league in Vinyasa-land.
By the end of the 90 minutes, I'm drenched, relaxed, and satisfied, with just enough energy to ride my bike the half-mile home and sit out the rest of the evening on the patio, enjoying the cool breeze before falling asleep two hours before my accustomed bedtime. For once, no need or desire to cross-train. Just the need to practice more Vinyasa to be able to do Vinyasa. Like basketball or anything else, once in a while won't cut it.
Monday, June 06, 2005
Education is habit-forming
This phrase has been banging on a door in my brain for weeks. Kind of a cute play on words, suitable for bumper-stickers, like a slogan for a progressive advocacy group or draconian "reforms" (think Hugs not drugs, No Child Left Behind, etc.). But no, what I really have in mind is a Theory of Everything, a la formalism, pragmatism, behaviorism, positivism. In rough outline:
1. Childhood training frames lifelong behavior and attitudes. (Duh)
2. If reading, making art, music, movement, problem solving, etc., are commonplace in childhood, then those abilities will be exercised and extended in adulthood. (Double-duh)
3. The "content knowledge" and "skills" - the stuff that can be tested and quantified - are retained only if the adult keeps reading, keeps making art, etc. Use it or lose it. So the real education is in forming the habit of doing things - listening, questioning the premise of an argument, trying out new stuff, playing, doing algebra - not just taking in information.
4. So practice, practice, practice. Which we all do, all the time.
5. Those who practice reading and memorizing text form the habit of reading and memorizing text. Those who practice improvizing rap lyrics become improvizers of lyrics. Those who practice shouting down or interrupting whoever is in the room get promoted to management.
Whoa. Sorry for the global mind trip from belaboring the obvious to universal karmic generalization. Like everything is totally everything, ya know? Must be some kind of post-midlife bump in the road that I'm trying to process. Blog as shock-absorber.
There is nothing new here, you will notice. Maybe what I'm getting at is a re-emphasis on the neglected epistemological category of dispositional knowledge (tending to...) - as well as propositional knowledge (knowing that...) and procedural knowledge (knowing how to...). Those latter two are the familiar "content" and "skills" that are most easily measured, so they become important by default because schools have to justify what they do with hard numbers.
I'm reminded of a respected education professor at OSU whose catch-phrase "positive approach tendencies" (PAT) summed up a highly structured, goal-directed approach to teaching and learning. Briefly, if you set up the conditions that make early successes highly probable, people will feel rewarded by getting the right answer and want to do it again. Of course, the devil is in the details, so you can condition people to do any number of mindless or destructive things. Or you can train them in the skills to read, compute, etc., but they might never pick up a book, even though they can.
What am I saying? Aside from the feel-good, motivational sound of "education is habit-forming" (Baseball fever...catch it!), lies a circular argument about practice that no one is likely to copyright, patent, or bottle: if reading the book (playing the game, watching the video, talking the talk) becomes a habit, then it was educational; if it was an educational experience, it became a habit. Neurons fired in an unused quadrant of the brain, and each time they fired made it more likely that they would fire again, so neuron pathways were blazed and networks developed with other neurons. Inversely, no habit, no education. Know habit, know education. Oooooh, another bumper sticker!
1. Childhood training frames lifelong behavior and attitudes. (Duh)
2. If reading, making art, music, movement, problem solving, etc., are commonplace in childhood, then those abilities will be exercised and extended in adulthood. (Double-duh)
3. The "content knowledge" and "skills" - the stuff that can be tested and quantified - are retained only if the adult keeps reading, keeps making art, etc. Use it or lose it. So the real education is in forming the habit of doing things - listening, questioning the premise of an argument, trying out new stuff, playing, doing algebra - not just taking in information.
4. So practice, practice, practice. Which we all do, all the time.
5. Those who practice reading and memorizing text form the habit of reading and memorizing text. Those who practice improvizing rap lyrics become improvizers of lyrics. Those who practice shouting down or interrupting whoever is in the room get promoted to management.
Whoa. Sorry for the global mind trip from belaboring the obvious to universal karmic generalization. Like everything is totally everything, ya know? Must be some kind of post-midlife bump in the road that I'm trying to process. Blog as shock-absorber.
There is nothing new here, you will notice. Maybe what I'm getting at is a re-emphasis on the neglected epistemological category of dispositional knowledge (tending to...) - as well as propositional knowledge (knowing that...) and procedural knowledge (knowing how to...). Those latter two are the familiar "content" and "skills" that are most easily measured, so they become important by default because schools have to justify what they do with hard numbers.
I'm reminded of a respected education professor at OSU whose catch-phrase "positive approach tendencies" (PAT) summed up a highly structured, goal-directed approach to teaching and learning. Briefly, if you set up the conditions that make early successes highly probable, people will feel rewarded by getting the right answer and want to do it again. Of course, the devil is in the details, so you can condition people to do any number of mindless or destructive things. Or you can train them in the skills to read, compute, etc., but they might never pick up a book, even though they can.
What am I saying? Aside from the feel-good, motivational sound of "education is habit-forming" (Baseball fever...catch it!), lies a circular argument about practice that no one is likely to copyright, patent, or bottle: if reading the book (playing the game, watching the video, talking the talk) becomes a habit, then it was educational; if it was an educational experience, it became a habit. Neurons fired in an unused quadrant of the brain, and each time they fired made it more likely that they would fire again, so neuron pathways were blazed and networks developed with other neurons. Inversely, no habit, no education. Know habit, know education. Oooooh, another bumper sticker!
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Making the world safe for fascism
The current "wilsonian" presidency of the oligarchy, by the oligarchy, and for the oligarchy continues to go about the business of world conquest unabated by bothersome checks and balances. As any hierarchical organization knows, a monolithic top-down management structure is the most efficient way of manipulating other people to do what those at the top want done. Build an office complex. Extract minerals from public land. Make a war of conquest happen. Recent history demonstrates that successful managers silence, remove, or discredit anyone who disagrees with them. Discussion and debate are a waste of precious time that could be spent turning national forests and resource-rich countries into factories for making commodities that can be sold back to the lucky natives in free markets controlled by said managers. You got a problem with that?
Dissent = disloyalty = treason.
And it appears that the incredible money-making machine is succeeding in concentrating enough wealth in few enough hands to persuade a majority of the 535 members of Congress to help them pack the federal judiciary with like-minded authoritarian, racist, fundamentalist team players. How? Convince the people at the bottom of the pyramid that their material livelihood depends on giving more wealth and power to the wise imperialists at the top of the pyramid (economic argument). Convince the people with little time or inclination to analyze ideas that their value system is somehow threatened by other people with different ideas (religious argument). Convince everyone that they are physically endangered by strange people with strange names wearing strange clothes living in strange places far away (security argument). Then "starve the beast" by taking services from the many, giving the revenue back to the few, and continuing to feed the machine.
I realize this short rant leaves out a lot, and nothing is ever as simple as my immediate, angry spin. But occasionally I have an urgent need to connect the dots that line up a certain way, leading me to draw certain disturbing conclusions, despite the many other dots that may not fit the pattern. Please feel free to counter-spin.
Dissent = disloyalty = treason.
And it appears that the incredible money-making machine is succeeding in concentrating enough wealth in few enough hands to persuade a majority of the 535 members of Congress to help them pack the federal judiciary with like-minded authoritarian, racist, fundamentalist team players. How? Convince the people at the bottom of the pyramid that their material livelihood depends on giving more wealth and power to the wise imperialists at the top of the pyramid (economic argument). Convince the people with little time or inclination to analyze ideas that their value system is somehow threatened by other people with different ideas (religious argument). Convince everyone that they are physically endangered by strange people with strange names wearing strange clothes living in strange places far away (security argument). Then "starve the beast" by taking services from the many, giving the revenue back to the few, and continuing to feed the machine.
I realize this short rant leaves out a lot, and nothing is ever as simple as my immediate, angry spin. But occasionally I have an urgent need to connect the dots that line up a certain way, leading me to draw certain disturbing conclusions, despite the many other dots that may not fit the pattern. Please feel free to counter-spin.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Get over it
Or not.
It's one of those phrases that carries ultimate authority, as if it's everyone's obligation, at all times and in all situations, to "get over" whatever comes up. It's a trump card. Whatever it is that's bothering you, saying those magic words of transcendental tough-love is supposed to reduce the impact or import or stress or trauma of anything.
Lost an argment, cat, job, or election? Get over it! Insulted by a co-worker, friend, public official, or hardware store employee? Get over it! Still lamenting your treatment by your parents/siblings, your geometry teacher's success in convincing you to hate math, or the westward movement's extermination of native Americans? Get over it!
I'm sorry I'm not a Buddha. Just like the people who are quick to remind me of the futility of my reviewing life's big and little injustices, I really ought to take a deep breath and "move forward" rather than "dwell on the past." Did you every notice how the importance of moving forward and not dwelling on the past is voiced by persons caught violating House ethics rules, federal trade regulations, environmental protection laws, or the Geneva Conventions? Better yet, change your name to Altria and buy time on NPR, that'll make it all better (insert smiley face here).
Clearly I have some anger to work through here, and hey, what's a blog for? (Answer: one part critical manifesto, one part emotional catharsis, one part friendly news and notes, one part spiritual weather report.) But I keep coming back to the fact that not everything is to be gotten over. I was reminded May 4 that some events - not all - deserve to be remembered and rehashed and reinterpreted over and over again indefinitely. And I'll probably revisit this topic, too, because I'm not over it yet.
It's one of those phrases that carries ultimate authority, as if it's everyone's obligation, at all times and in all situations, to "get over" whatever comes up. It's a trump card. Whatever it is that's bothering you, saying those magic words of transcendental tough-love is supposed to reduce the impact or import or stress or trauma of anything.
Lost an argment, cat, job, or election? Get over it! Insulted by a co-worker, friend, public official, or hardware store employee? Get over it! Still lamenting your treatment by your parents/siblings, your geometry teacher's success in convincing you to hate math, or the westward movement's extermination of native Americans? Get over it!
I'm sorry I'm not a Buddha. Just like the people who are quick to remind me of the futility of my reviewing life's big and little injustices, I really ought to take a deep breath and "move forward" rather than "dwell on the past." Did you every notice how the importance of moving forward and not dwelling on the past is voiced by persons caught violating House ethics rules, federal trade regulations, environmental protection laws, or the Geneva Conventions? Better yet, change your name to Altria and buy time on NPR, that'll make it all better (insert smiley face here).
Clearly I have some anger to work through here, and hey, what's a blog for? (Answer: one part critical manifesto, one part emotional catharsis, one part friendly news and notes, one part spiritual weather report.) But I keep coming back to the fact that not everything is to be gotten over. I was reminded May 4 that some events - not all - deserve to be remembered and rehashed and reinterpreted over and over again indefinitely. And I'll probably revisit this topic, too, because I'm not over it yet.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Back to the garden
"Maybe it's the time of year, and maybe it's the time of man, and I don't know who I am, but life is for learning."*
No, definitely, it's the time of year. It hit me like a ton of bricks a couple of weeks ago. A few flowers started coming up out of the ground (I still can't believe they do that all by themselves! Evidence of intelligent design, or just botanical intelligence?), so I was wondering what would come back strong and what wouldn't. Then, of course, the weeds came back strong, because they're weeds. Which is my cue to leap into action, because of my nordic peasant blood, midwestern protestant upbringing, and control issues. So I've been steadfastly weeding beds on the weekend, filling the wheelbarrow with dandelions, maverick grass, and other pesky intruders, and dumping it on the compost to be of use someday. All part of the cycle. Build up, break down, move around.
"I'm goin' down to Yazger's farm, gonna join a rock and roll band, gonna get back to the land and set my soul free."*
What's really been fun is going to Local College's Equine Science facility (horse barn) out on Old 3C, loading up Hank the truck with year-old manure, and unloading the rich, dark stuff on the garden. This year's black-eyed susan, lavender, iris, beans, tomatoes, and peppers will be the beneficiaries of last year's horse feed. The immediate impact is satisfying, adding a layer of organic matter to the low mounded beds. And the long-term impact will be even better.
"I dreamed I saw the bombers flying shotgun in the sky, turning into butterflies above our nation."*
I'll give progress reports periodically as I recover from the repetitious movements of bending, lifting, and carrying. Pretty soon I need to get some veggies in the ground. Not being a grow-your-own-seedling gardener, I'll bring home some packets from the selection on the long tables at Local Nursery, plant the tomatoes a little too close together, as I always do, and start nurturing next year's batch of homemade salsa.
"We are stardust, we are golden, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden."*
Me gusta el jardin!
*heartfelt cliches courtesy of Joni Mitchell
No, definitely, it's the time of year. It hit me like a ton of bricks a couple of weeks ago. A few flowers started coming up out of the ground (I still can't believe they do that all by themselves! Evidence of intelligent design, or just botanical intelligence?), so I was wondering what would come back strong and what wouldn't. Then, of course, the weeds came back strong, because they're weeds. Which is my cue to leap into action, because of my nordic peasant blood, midwestern protestant upbringing, and control issues. So I've been steadfastly weeding beds on the weekend, filling the wheelbarrow with dandelions, maverick grass, and other pesky intruders, and dumping it on the compost to be of use someday. All part of the cycle. Build up, break down, move around.
"I'm goin' down to Yazger's farm, gonna join a rock and roll band, gonna get back to the land and set my soul free."*
What's really been fun is going to Local College's Equine Science facility (horse barn) out on Old 3C, loading up Hank the truck with year-old manure, and unloading the rich, dark stuff on the garden. This year's black-eyed susan, lavender, iris, beans, tomatoes, and peppers will be the beneficiaries of last year's horse feed. The immediate impact is satisfying, adding a layer of organic matter to the low mounded beds. And the long-term impact will be even better.
"I dreamed I saw the bombers flying shotgun in the sky, turning into butterflies above our nation."*
I'll give progress reports periodically as I recover from the repetitious movements of bending, lifting, and carrying. Pretty soon I need to get some veggies in the ground. Not being a grow-your-own-seedling gardener, I'll bring home some packets from the selection on the long tables at Local Nursery, plant the tomatoes a little too close together, as I always do, and start nurturing next year's batch of homemade salsa.
"We are stardust, we are golden, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden."*
Me gusta el jardin!
*heartfelt cliches courtesy of Joni Mitchell
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Building a Rhythm
The North Unitarian Universalist Drum Circle (NUUDC) LIVES! Hey, if we called it the North Unitarian Drum Ellipse, it would make a cooler pagan acronym. On the third monday in april, a bunch of people and a bunch of instruments gathered in the back room of the church in Lewis Center to make some noise.
It was a small group, about six adults and three kids to start, that expanded to 14 as folks drifted in during the next hour, across a wide range of ages of men, women, boys, girls, musicians and novices. We talked very little, although a couple of people really wanted to talk more, and started with very simple rhythms to see (hear) what developed. It was a lot of fun.
This week, on the third monday of may, we met for the second time, and not as many people showed up, as one might expect. Just Jerry was waiting with his plastic buckets when I got there, and Episcopal Dale arrived shortly thereafter with his collection of percussion instruments. Jackie and her two kids and their two friends showed up next, followed by Mary Ann and her husband Mark in the wheelchair. So we were a circle of ten this time, not bad for beginners.
The kids were all over the place, of course, trying out all the wood blocks, tambourines, snare drums, big Irish bass skins, triangles, claves, a tree-trunk slit drum, and what have you. The boys got into some violent drumming on an empty plastic milk jug. The girls were somewhat more focused. The adults mostly picked up on whatever rhythm the kids generated, and then it grew, changed, swelled and diminished improvisationally. Once or twice we really had something going that enveloped the whole room.
Can't wait till the third monday in june.
It was a small group, about six adults and three kids to start, that expanded to 14 as folks drifted in during the next hour, across a wide range of ages of men, women, boys, girls, musicians and novices. We talked very little, although a couple of people really wanted to talk more, and started with very simple rhythms to see (hear) what developed. It was a lot of fun.
This week, on the third monday of may, we met for the second time, and not as many people showed up, as one might expect. Just Jerry was waiting with his plastic buckets when I got there, and Episcopal Dale arrived shortly thereafter with his collection of percussion instruments. Jackie and her two kids and their two friends showed up next, followed by Mary Ann and her husband Mark in the wheelchair. So we were a circle of ten this time, not bad for beginners.
The kids were all over the place, of course, trying out all the wood blocks, tambourines, snare drums, big Irish bass skins, triangles, claves, a tree-trunk slit drum, and what have you. The boys got into some violent drumming on an empty plastic milk jug. The girls were somewhat more focused. The adults mostly picked up on whatever rhythm the kids generated, and then it grew, changed, swelled and diminished improvisationally. Once or twice we really had something going that enveloped the whole room.
Can't wait till the third monday in june.
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