Mini manifesto

I was driving back from a meeting with a colleague and we were talking about the books that are taught in the public schools. I was railing against the current selection and the way it turns so many kids off to English and stands as a barrier to skill acquisition and love of reading.

"Well, what books do you think they should teach?" she asked.

And you know, I'd never really considered it - odd, given my profession and predilection for the written word - but it only took me a second or two to come up with my answer.

"They shouldn't." I said.

I think English should be taught with the materials of people's lives. I think reading assignments should include credit card offers and insurance plan descriptions and newspaper stories and speech transcripts and song lyrics and magazine articles. I recently read an article that talked about what happens when the mind finally becomes fluent in reading, and the ways in which that frees and activates the mind to do higher-order thinking; why should we focus on having students struggle through nineteenth-century novels when they could be building fluency reading something relevant to their lives?¹

I want students to learn about rhetoric and persuasion from analyzing the language of advertisements, to learn about meter and rhyme schemes from lyrics. I want them to learn from newspapers how to summarize events in a logical order, from political brochures how and when to use lists and bullet points, and to see in a business context how spelling, grammar, and punctuation are important. I want them to learn about why it is so important to read the fine print by reading the fine print, to learn about clarity and concise writing by writing news articles, reports, product specs, instructions. I want English to live up to its potential as a collaborative teaching tool by having students read and write about science, history, and art as well as literature, to have them learn how language and math can be combined to spin, obfuscate, or illuminate ideas.

I said as much.

"But what about the art, the culture, the shared heritage of literature?" my colleague asked.

My immediate response was, "I don't really care."

But that's not true, and I took it back almost instantly. Please remember that this comes from someone who holds a Bachelor's degree in English Literature and who has been an avid reader of fiction all her life. I can't not care about the beauty of language.

I thought about it for a bit longer.

"Literature and poetry are arts," I finally said. "They have immense worth and intrinsic value. I'd like to see them taught, but I'd like to see them taught like we see other arts taught."

Maybe you could get English credit for your English literature class. Or maybe you could get art credit for your Creative Writing class. Or maybe both for both. But they should be elective courses, like Art History, or Dance, or Advanced Photography. Fiction writing is a wonderful skill, and everyone needs help learning it when they start; but it's not a necessary skill that all students must master to succeed in life. How to read, analyze, and enjoy literature is a wonderful thing to know, something that gives me lasting joy; but it's not something everyone needs, and it's certainly not something everyone wants. I'm not saying fiction can't be part of an English course, but it shouldn't be all of an English course. It shouldn't even be most of an English course.

A little side note: I was sitting in a room with a bunch of educators who were blaming the death of students' communication skills on the rise of texting. And it's true, according to a recent Pew Internet and American Life Project report, that more and more students are having problems differentiating between social communication and more formal written language. Seventy percent of the students surveyed for the study admitted to using text-speak or emoticons in their writing for schoolwork in the past year.² As for students' use of email for communications with school faculty and staff, well, the less said, the better. But this is not the fault of the medium. It is perfectly possible, albeit a bit laborious, to type grammatically-correct and perfectly spelled text messages. Email, though this may be news to many, can be punctuated! One may even use full sentences, if one is feeling particularly daring. Young women in Japan have created an entirely new genre of literature by writing "mobile novels" on their cell phones during their long train rides to and from the workplace; five of 2007's top-selling novels in Japan (including numbers 1-3 on the list) were written in this fashion.³ A whole new genre! It may not be great literature, but that's impressive nonetheless.

I'm usually a bit of a skeptic when it comes to the tech-happy educators who say, "Why don't we let kids learn through the tools they already use?" and I still believe that that has its limits. I'm not saying kids should be writing their assignments on their cell phones, or turning in lab reports in txt spk. For one thing, a room full of high school students with their cell phones on and out? Educational? Well, for certain values of education, I'm sure, but not the ones we're concerned with here! What I do mean is that blaming the way the world works and the ways kids navigate it for their poor English skills is a losing argument. Maybe we should be blaming the way we teach English for having very little to do with the way the world works and the ways kids navigate it. Maybe we should teach them how to use the tools they already use in ways appropriate to life contexts outside teen socializing. Maybe we should be teaching the kind of English they need, the kind of English they will use.

When employers are surveyed about the things their incoming workers need, they invariably mention communication skills. Reading. Writing. Public speaking. Internal and external written communications. Documentation. Three of the top ten items in the "most needed" list of a 2006 Conference Board survey of employers were related to communication.⁴ (The others were related to professionalism, leadership, and other life skills; English was the only academic subject area to appear in the top ten at all.) Do we really think that knowing how to talk about symbolism in The Grapes of Wrath is going to teach our kids any of those skills? Let me tell you, I worked a lot of secretarial and other min-wage jobs after I got that fancy private-school degree before I re-learned how to use my language and writing skills in a business context. Even now, my informal and "chatty" style gets red pen from my colleagues on drafts here and there.

I don't want to teach, and God knows I'm not maligning the efforts of the brave souls who can face classrooms full of students for six hours a day, five days a week, nine months a year. I've searched my soul, and found that I am too selfish, too introverted, and too anxious to attempt the task. I'm just saying that when it comes to what we are, as a society, teaching? Perhaps our goals, our academic standards, and our curricula could use some radical re-focusing to address the real concerns of today's students and employers.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go edit a section of a large report on applied learning. And then go home and work on finishing Ulysses before Bloomsday.

---

¹Crain, Caleb. (2007). Twilight of the books: What will life be like if people stop reading? The New Yorker. Retrieved May, 2008 from http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2007/12/24/071224crat_atlarge_crain?currentPage=all
²Lenhart, A., Arafeh, S., Smith, A., & Rankin-Macgill, A. (2008). Writing, technology, and teens. Washington, D.C.: Pew Internet and American Life Project. Retrieved April, 2008 from http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Writing_Report_FINAL3.pdf
³Parry, R. J. (2007). It ws bst f tms, it ws wrst f tms: Japan's mobile phone literature. The Times Online. Retrieved May, 2008 from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3005052.ece
⁴Casner-Lotto, J., and Barrington, L. (2006). Are they really ready to work? Employers' perspectives on the basic knowledge and applied skills of new entrants to the 21st century United States workforce. New York: The Conference Board. Retrieved April, 2008 from http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/documents/FINAL_REPORT_PDF09-29-06.pdf

Mother's Day

So I say to the Squid yesterday, "Wanna go to the park?" and he says, "Yeah, yeah!" and we start getting ready. And then he starts saying to me, "Da pink! Da pink!" and I'm like, "What, the park?" and he says, "Da pink!" and then he goes and gets my new wig. I tried to put it on him, but he took it off and handed it back to me. So I wore the wig to the park. The other parents did not make eye contact like they usually do. Whatever, other parents. My kid asks for the pink, the pink he gets.

Campaign math

Dear Hillary Clinton,

Assuming you continue to rack up superdelegates at your current rate (not a realistic assumption, as I think a large majority will fall to whomever wins the popular vote) - you can get a grand total of only 152 superdelegates, even if Florida and Michigan are seated.

You need 328 more delegates to win, so superdelegates aren't going to do it for you.

Okay, so say you continue to win pledged delegates at your current rate. Will that do it? 47% of the remaining unpledged delegates is only 101, so no. That won't do it for you either. (152+101 = 253) What percentage of remaining delegates would you need to win? 81%.

Considering that you didn't win your own state - or your husband's - or any other state - by that kind of margin, I'm thinking it's unlikely.

So how could you possibly win this election?

Oh, that's right. Florida! Michigan! Where you pledged not to campaign, as did all the other candidates, and then broke your promise. Where Obama, who kept his promise, wasn't even on the ballot (Michigan) and didn't campaign (Florida) as his party had asked him not to do. If you could get those states included, you might, and I repeat might, be able to pull this off. No wonder you changed your mind after the results were in and argued for seating the delegates! But that kind of back-gaming the system (however stupid this whole stripping-of-delegates and eight-month-long primary process may be, and I'm not saying it isn't) will ruin the Democratic Party for decades to come. Deep, deep rifts in the trust of the party base, is what I'm saying here. It's not worth it. Hell, if this gets gerrymandered into a Clinton victory through some vile combo of the Florida/Michigan clusterfuck and superdelegate in-politicking, I may leave the party myself and go Green, even though I've been a lifelong Democrat.

In any scenario, it's still more likely that Barack Obama, even pulling his usual 49% of the remaining superdelegates (145) and 53% of remaining unpledged delegates (minus Florida and Michigan) (116), would easily exceed the 176 he still needs to win. (145+116 = 261)

Stand down, Hillary. The longer we fight each other, the more lead time we give McCain in the race.

About halfway through the month I thought, I should really make an interim post. So much has happened! And then I didn't and now I can't remember what I was going to say - it seems that he has always been this bright, talkative, person that he is now and that he was never any other way. Progress what? Progress who? But there has been progress, there has.

He's developed opinions, and the time of choices and options is upon us. If told what to wear, half the time he will refuse. So we offer him "this one or that one?" and let him pick, and so far so good. He's also gotten pickier about his food - he licks the peanut butter off his sandwiches instead of just eating the damn sandwich, refuses any pasta that I pack in his lunches, and makes specific food requests. Today at the grocery he leaned toward the cookie display. "Cookie cookie cookie!" he exclaimed.

"No, we're not buying any cookies today," I told him.

"Buy cookie!" he insisted. Thus is the begging-in-supermarkets behavior begun. I did not buy him the cookies, but I mourn the end of this golden era nonetheless. Soon I will be the woman dragging the weeping and inconsolable toddler through the aisles, grimly purchasing staples as he howls for marshmellows. Is it too late to crawl under the bed and never emerge?

He talks a blue streak now. Not only does he repeat everything we say (notable utterances immediately echoed by Squid, include "Oh, crap," and "Oh my god!") he makes sentences now, real ones of his own that aren't just parroting other people's phrases. Everything gets the definitive article - "the plane!" "the mama!" "the daddy!" "the cereal!" - and really, I can't imagine a clearer linguistic marker of the way toddlers see the world; it sort of encapsulates the immediacy and centrality of their own experience.

He talks a lot about potty things, as all two year olds do, and about the neighbor kid, who is nine months older and the Coolest Thing Ever, and about the dogs, bugs, the helicopter, and about cars and motorcycles and trains and trucks (VRUMMM! VRUMMM!). I heard him babbling to himself near the beginning of the month as I was washing dishes, and some of the sounds seemed familiar; I turned around and he was playing with the alphabet magnets he had gotten for his second birthday. Just for kicks, I leaned down and picked one up - "What's this?" I said.

"The ESS!" he informed me, delightedly. I boggled. I took him through the rest, and it turns out he knows about half his alphabet. I assume this is daycare's doing. He's also obsessed with numbers and counting - he recognizes the difference between written numbers and written letters, and can get reliably to "four" in the sequence before leaping to "six" and thence onward. I'm not sure he recognizes that numbers designate quantities of things, yet, but by the time that clicks in, he should have 1-10 at least. Wow, my little guy!

"Sorry, you okay?" is still a favorite phrase. I just heard him say it to his Daddy, totally at random. One day it was all he would say to me, for hours, and it really started to freak me out, but mostly he pipes up with it whenever someone has bumped into something or a game has gotten really exciting or changed pace. He's just very interested in decoding how other people feel, which is awesome - he is worried that characters in his books are "sad?" and he can tell me who is happy and angry, too, though I'm trying to get him to substitute "frustrated" for angry - "mad" is much easier to say than "frustrated," but frustrated is (IMHO) at the root of most anger kids experience, and I'd like to have that identification clear early on.

The new daycare called, and he'll have a spot there in July or August, which is awesome. They're an unpretentious play-based daycare (located at the YMCA, so convenient) that is full of a whole pack of kids near his age for him to rat-pack around with. His current daycare is run by a wonderful woman, but there are only one or two other kids there on any given day, and only one is his age. Not enough for a curious, active, friendly guy like the Squid. And the new daycare will take him even though he isn't potty-trained...and potty-train him! My co-worker sent her kids there and said they loved it and came out with alphabet, numbers, and dry pants...the Squid is almost there with both alphabet and numbers already, but dry pants would be a real coup.

He's also been spending a lot of time with Daddy, at the park and just around the house. As he says, "Yay, Daddy!" Tonight he made me sing the "C is for Cookie" song, only with "D is for Daddy" over and over and over. Our childcare situation has really equalized - I feel like we have a good division of labor, and that it skews my way as often as it skews Himself's - and I think it is reflected in the shift in the Squid's affections. Daddy is the one who takes him to the park and the airport! Daddy makes him oatmeal and talks to him about what he dreamed last night when he wakes up in the morning! Daddy is his buddy for playing in the backyard! Yay, Daddy! Himself often works from home in the morning, on conference calls, and half my a.m. Squidwrangling involves keeping him away from the office door, so that he does not knock at it incessantly and demand "Daddy!" or "[Himself]!" over and over.



He'll walk places now, preferring to walk over using the stroller, though hand-holding is still a negotiation. He'd like to be carried everywhere, but at twenty-nine pounds, not likely, kiddo. He can climb up to the slides at the park and slide down them All By Himself, and climb on some of the more tricky climbing structures as well, much to my trepidation. He's reached the toy stage of getting them all out and playing with them for fifteen seconds and then leaving them in the middle of the floor, but we're working on the concept of putting things back with some fair success. He has a stuffed monkey he sleeps with every night. Things are good.

As for la mama, I am tired. No, I don't know why, I sleep plenty (8-10 hours a night plenty), I eat fine. I've just been exhausted for a few weeks now for no good reason. Life is good, work is good, Squid is good, Himself is good. I'm just tired. I'm off my game as a result; I made it halfway to work this morning before realizing there was still someone in the back of the car talking about "the truck!" and had to turn around and take him back to daycare. I've googled "chronic fatigue" to see if it is a symptom of anything, but I'm pretty sure I don't have mono, and nothing else on the list looks real likely. I think what I have is a toddler. And a job. But I made a doctors' appointment anyway, because this is ridiculous.

Tonight I made the Squid a hot dog in the shape of an octopus for dinner. Himself called over to the Squid, who was playing in the living room, "Come eat your octopus!"

"It's a special kind of octopus," I added. "Not like calamari."

Himself looked thoughtful. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "It's kind of like trailer park calamari."