Humble Pie
I'm definitely ready for summer vacation--not that I'm desperately tired of school, but I'm ready to tear into some projects I need to do at home. Also, my brain seems ready for a punch to the the reset button. I know that because I've forgotten too many things recently. Most of them weren't disastrous--just embarrassing.
The other night we went to LaVernes to do our bit with the Minister's Appreciation activity our Wed. eve. committee planned. All of us were assigned to show up at one of our ministers' homes to help with whatever work project they wanted help with. The ladies were to bring snacks to eat together afterward. We bought chips to take--a totally stress-free contribution, right? Not quite. Hiromi bought two $4.00 bags of chips late the evening before, after he attended the last community concert of the season. (I stayed home to preserve my sanity during the hectic last week of school.) He bought the chips before we had gotten hold of the person who was organizing the snacks, but after I had tried to call her to inquire about what was needed. She caught up with me the next morning at school to say that chips would be fine--which was good, since that's what we had already bought. So that problem was taken care of. EXCEPT that we forgot to take the chips. I was too embarrassed to confess. We also forgot to take lawn chairs as we had been asked to do. I never even got that request conveyed to Hiromi--already out of mind when I jotted down the list of things to take.
Yesterday morning I was the first high school staff person to make my end of the year speech. Only after I listened to the other speeches did I remember that I should have made many more grateful expressions to other people--students, fellow-staff people, parents, etc. I had already conveyed some of those sentiments to students, and had said nice things about those other people TO my students, but, in front of the year-end crowd--nothing of the sort. Embarrassed again.
This morning I got prepared to record the announcements for the day as I do every other month at church. Only this was Linda's month to do so--not mine. This wasn't a very public mistake, but a reminder that my forgetter was still in good shape.
I did remember to take the chips to the school picnic, and I did remember to go visit my mother tonight, taking some of my loveliest irises, and a loaf of bread I had baked.
**********************
The German class from school, with Wes and Jean Ann at the helm, plans to leave tomorrow morning for Steinbach, Manitoba, to visit a German immigrant community to practice their language skills. They have about two days' driving to get there, two days to spend there, and two days to return home. I'm glad they have a chance to do this. Joel and Shane both got to make this trip when they were in high school.
**********************
Joel and Hilda went to CO for the weekend to visit Shane and Dorcas.
**********************
Hiromi and his sister connected again last night with their mother and brother in Japan via Skype. As always, Mother Iwashige fussed about Hiromi's beard. I can tell what she's saying, even if I can't understand her, because she strokes her chin when she sees Hiromi's image and talks to him. "It's her pet peeve," Hiromi's sister said last night. "It's no use explaining. She wouldn't understand." Beards are considered acceptable in Japan mostly for artists, retired men, and anyone important enough to not have to answer to anyone else. Other people are expected to fit into society by being clean shaven.
Mother Iwashige looked really good for 95, although her skin is wrinkled and her eyes are pale. She still speaks with a strong voice. It sounds like she doesn't get out of the house much anymore. She had apparently been to the hair dresser last week and gotten her hair dyed. It was neatly coiffed and black this time, but white when we saw her image several months ago.
**********************
During the last week of school, my food production class went to see Roman Miller's garden. Everyone was impressed with the sheer size of the market garden--probably close to 5 acres. Roman starts his transplants himself, and had done most of the outdoor planting himself as well, using only hand tools and a strange little motorized cultivator he bought once at an auction. I'm sure he works it at least once a year with his farm tractor too. I overheard one of the students say "This makes my garden look pretty manageable." My thoughts precisely.
**********************
One parent has a suggestion for a change for the food production class. "Give it more credit," he said.
"I'd love to," I said. "Do you know how state schools deal with credit for practical courses?"
"No."
"Basically, academic activities are awarded credit in a one-to-one ratio of credit to hours spent each day in class--on that subject. Labs are awarded only half the credit per hour--a 1:2 ratio, in other words. Our school follows the state schools' pattern in this regard. I wonder sometimes if this makes sense. Could we, for example, decide what we value most and award credits accordingly?"
"I think we could," he said.
I often feel frustrated that this question has never really been considered, as far as I know. It seems like the most logical of approaches to the administration of a school we have the freedom to run as we choose.
We do award practical classes credit in a 1:1.5 ratio, which is an effort to recognize that these classes are a mixture of lab and class time. But our reference point is always the state's assignment of value to each kind of activity--not a reflection of our community's needs and values.
One of the issues to be considered would certainly be whether a diploma from our high school would be considered valid for admission to good colleges. I seriously doubt that this would be an issue. I know, for example, that people with no high school education have attended Yale University, and people who were homeschooled often have no problem with college admission. The "monster" that people have made college admissions offices out to be seem to me to be almost as illusory as the Man of La Mancha's windmills.
*********************
This time of year I always have another rogue thought: Why couldn't our church education program plan to have one graduation ceremony a year, with each student participating only once--whenever they exit the system permanently? I suspect it would put a damper on the idea of sneaking out of school after tenth grade, and the occasional decision to check out after the completion of eighth grade--as though getting this far is a triumph to be celebrated. (I'm sorry. I know it's not a "nothing" to finish eighth grade. I just put it into the "reasonable service" category--not the star-in-your-crown category.)
If the decision to leave high school before completion seems warranted (and I think it is sometimes), I believe it would be appropriate then to celebrate what has been accomplished. Right now people who complete tenth grade have only an eighth grade diploma in hand to show for their efforts. The permanent records are buried inside the fire-proof file in the school office, of course. People who choose an early exit are obviously not expecting to go on to college, and the whole community could more actively support whatever alternative plans they hope to pursue, if they knew about it. I think doing so would encourage more purposeful planning when early exits are chosen.
In short, I'm proposing an honorable exit for everyone, and a minimizing of what I consider an outdated routine--an eighth grade graduation ceremony.
*********************
While I'm on the subject of school . . . I often wonder at something else. Why do we make people who don't intend to graduate from high school follow a course of study exactly the same as they would do if they did intend to graduate, and then abort the process halfway through? Why couldn't we make sure that those people especially get a chance at the parts of our program that will assuredly be the most useful to them after they leave? If they want to spend most of their time on electives, for example, instead of the more traditional academic courses, what compelling reasons can we give for insisting on the traditional courses--algebra instead of child development, for example?
I have the uneasy feeling that a lot of what we do boils down to convenience in running a program--a mass production model of education, in other words, invented and maintained by people who had/have underlying values very different from ours. With a servant stance for everyone involved in school administration and teaching, I think other possibilities could be considered.
*******************
I'm currently enamored with roses--especially the ones that can be grown outdoors, producing blossoms that last ten days in a vase. A series from Kordes, a German breeder, seems to fill the bill, according to an article in Growing for Market. The author also recommends some of the David Austin roses, which almost universally have an old-fashioned cabbage rose appearance and a delightful fragrance. However, they are less winter-hardy than the Kordes roses, which have less fragrance. None of the Kordes roses listed have a pretty pink color, and the David Austin ones include this color. The article lists about a dozen of the author's favorite varieties--winnowed from trials of over 300 varieties.
Hiromi and I have different tastes in roses, I've discovered. He likes the tea rose shape in pale, blushing colors. Those are OK, but I like the sweet-smelling voluptuous, colorful, and old-fashioned-looking roses too. Hiromi mistakenly believes that "my" kind has been excessively tampered with in breeding. I think the reality is that "his" kind is possible only because of breeding that has produced roses quite unlike their wild parents. None of this is really very important, of course, unless we actually decide to buy rose bushes and have trouble deciding what to buy.
********************
I am not setting an alarm for tomorrow. I'll probably still wake up at 5:30, but if I decide to stay in bed to think, I can do so without guilt.
The other night we went to LaVernes to do our bit with the Minister's Appreciation activity our Wed. eve. committee planned. All of us were assigned to show up at one of our ministers' homes to help with whatever work project they wanted help with. The ladies were to bring snacks to eat together afterward. We bought chips to take--a totally stress-free contribution, right? Not quite. Hiromi bought two $4.00 bags of chips late the evening before, after he attended the last community concert of the season. (I stayed home to preserve my sanity during the hectic last week of school.) He bought the chips before we had gotten hold of the person who was organizing the snacks, but after I had tried to call her to inquire about what was needed. She caught up with me the next morning at school to say that chips would be fine--which was good, since that's what we had already bought. So that problem was taken care of. EXCEPT that we forgot to take the chips. I was too embarrassed to confess. We also forgot to take lawn chairs as we had been asked to do. I never even got that request conveyed to Hiromi--already out of mind when I jotted down the list of things to take.
Yesterday morning I was the first high school staff person to make my end of the year speech. Only after I listened to the other speeches did I remember that I should have made many more grateful expressions to other people--students, fellow-staff people, parents, etc. I had already conveyed some of those sentiments to students, and had said nice things about those other people TO my students, but, in front of the year-end crowd--nothing of the sort. Embarrassed again.
This morning I got prepared to record the announcements for the day as I do every other month at church. Only this was Linda's month to do so--not mine. This wasn't a very public mistake, but a reminder that my forgetter was still in good shape.
I did remember to take the chips to the school picnic, and I did remember to go visit my mother tonight, taking some of my loveliest irises, and a loaf of bread I had baked.
**********************
The German class from school, with Wes and Jean Ann at the helm, plans to leave tomorrow morning for Steinbach, Manitoba, to visit a German immigrant community to practice their language skills. They have about two days' driving to get there, two days to spend there, and two days to return home. I'm glad they have a chance to do this. Joel and Shane both got to make this trip when they were in high school.
**********************
Joel and Hilda went to CO for the weekend to visit Shane and Dorcas.
**********************
Hiromi and his sister connected again last night with their mother and brother in Japan via Skype. As always, Mother Iwashige fussed about Hiromi's beard. I can tell what she's saying, even if I can't understand her, because she strokes her chin when she sees Hiromi's image and talks to him. "It's her pet peeve," Hiromi's sister said last night. "It's no use explaining. She wouldn't understand." Beards are considered acceptable in Japan mostly for artists, retired men, and anyone important enough to not have to answer to anyone else. Other people are expected to fit into society by being clean shaven.
Mother Iwashige looked really good for 95, although her skin is wrinkled and her eyes are pale. She still speaks with a strong voice. It sounds like she doesn't get out of the house much anymore. She had apparently been to the hair dresser last week and gotten her hair dyed. It was neatly coiffed and black this time, but white when we saw her image several months ago.
**********************
During the last week of school, my food production class went to see Roman Miller's garden. Everyone was impressed with the sheer size of the market garden--probably close to 5 acres. Roman starts his transplants himself, and had done most of the outdoor planting himself as well, using only hand tools and a strange little motorized cultivator he bought once at an auction. I'm sure he works it at least once a year with his farm tractor too. I overheard one of the students say "This makes my garden look pretty manageable." My thoughts precisely.
**********************
One parent has a suggestion for a change for the food production class. "Give it more credit," he said.
"I'd love to," I said. "Do you know how state schools deal with credit for practical courses?"
"No."
"Basically, academic activities are awarded credit in a one-to-one ratio of credit to hours spent each day in class--on that subject. Labs are awarded only half the credit per hour--a 1:2 ratio, in other words. Our school follows the state schools' pattern in this regard. I wonder sometimes if this makes sense. Could we, for example, decide what we value most and award credits accordingly?"
"I think we could," he said.
I often feel frustrated that this question has never really been considered, as far as I know. It seems like the most logical of approaches to the administration of a school we have the freedom to run as we choose.
We do award practical classes credit in a 1:1.5 ratio, which is an effort to recognize that these classes are a mixture of lab and class time. But our reference point is always the state's assignment of value to each kind of activity--not a reflection of our community's needs and values.
One of the issues to be considered would certainly be whether a diploma from our high school would be considered valid for admission to good colleges. I seriously doubt that this would be an issue. I know, for example, that people with no high school education have attended Yale University, and people who were homeschooled often have no problem with college admission. The "monster" that people have made college admissions offices out to be seem to me to be almost as illusory as the Man of La Mancha's windmills.
*********************
This time of year I always have another rogue thought: Why couldn't our church education program plan to have one graduation ceremony a year, with each student participating only once--whenever they exit the system permanently? I suspect it would put a damper on the idea of sneaking out of school after tenth grade, and the occasional decision to check out after the completion of eighth grade--as though getting this far is a triumph to be celebrated. (I'm sorry. I know it's not a "nothing" to finish eighth grade. I just put it into the "reasonable service" category--not the star-in-your-crown category.)
If the decision to leave high school before completion seems warranted (and I think it is sometimes), I believe it would be appropriate then to celebrate what has been accomplished. Right now people who complete tenth grade have only an eighth grade diploma in hand to show for their efforts. The permanent records are buried inside the fire-proof file in the school office, of course. People who choose an early exit are obviously not expecting to go on to college, and the whole community could more actively support whatever alternative plans they hope to pursue, if they knew about it. I think doing so would encourage more purposeful planning when early exits are chosen.
In short, I'm proposing an honorable exit for everyone, and a minimizing of what I consider an outdated routine--an eighth grade graduation ceremony.
*********************
While I'm on the subject of school . . . I often wonder at something else. Why do we make people who don't intend to graduate from high school follow a course of study exactly the same as they would do if they did intend to graduate, and then abort the process halfway through? Why couldn't we make sure that those people especially get a chance at the parts of our program that will assuredly be the most useful to them after they leave? If they want to spend most of their time on electives, for example, instead of the more traditional academic courses, what compelling reasons can we give for insisting on the traditional courses--algebra instead of child development, for example?
I have the uneasy feeling that a lot of what we do boils down to convenience in running a program--a mass production model of education, in other words, invented and maintained by people who had/have underlying values very different from ours. With a servant stance for everyone involved in school administration and teaching, I think other possibilities could be considered.
*******************
I'm currently enamored with roses--especially the ones that can be grown outdoors, producing blossoms that last ten days in a vase. A series from Kordes, a German breeder, seems to fill the bill, according to an article in Growing for Market. The author also recommends some of the David Austin roses, which almost universally have an old-fashioned cabbage rose appearance and a delightful fragrance. However, they are less winter-hardy than the Kordes roses, which have less fragrance. None of the Kordes roses listed have a pretty pink color, and the David Austin ones include this color. The article lists about a dozen of the author's favorite varieties--winnowed from trials of over 300 varieties.
Hiromi and I have different tastes in roses, I've discovered. He likes the tea rose shape in pale, blushing colors. Those are OK, but I like the sweet-smelling voluptuous, colorful, and old-fashioned-looking roses too. Hiromi mistakenly believes that "my" kind has been excessively tampered with in breeding. I think the reality is that "his" kind is possible only because of breeding that has produced roses quite unlike their wild parents. None of this is really very important, of course, unless we actually decide to buy rose bushes and have trouble deciding what to buy.
********************
I am not setting an alarm for tomorrow. I'll probably still wake up at 5:30, but if I decide to stay in bed to think, I can do so without guilt.
posted by Mrs. I at
8:54 PM
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