Beaches

Our family flows toward the Atlantic each summer with our rafts, sunscreen and spawn. We go there to study our familial three R's, to relax, reconnect and recollect. Memories of past trips to the beach are filed in my head going back to when I used to hide True Story magazines under my mattress to be secretly studied with my cousins while the grown-ups drank beer and played cards in the swaying cottages we'd rent in places like Ocean City, Maryland and the Outer Banks.

This year (as in the past 3) we have trekked all the way to Oak Island, NC. I'm not sure how many of us were there in total, the extended family has a lot of extensions. But in our bank of four cottages we had twenty-one sun-toasted surfers.

Beyond celebrating the sun and the sand, we also celebrated my Uncle Bill and Aunt Sophie's 65th wedding anniversary with cake, barbeque, and two cannon blasts that rocked the iced tea right out of my cup.

Scottie (3) learned to ride waves, Steph (6) learned to body surf, Ben (7) learned it takes patience to fish on the pier, Thomas (2) couldn't get enough of the waves running headfirst, getting blasted in the face and popping up with a smile, wanting more. Danny (3) sat in his chair or played putt putt on the par 2 course his mother Kelly made for him. Frank (15) built Frankopolis, the deep sea fishing expedition brought in 200 lbs of fish now in freezers in OH and VA to be retrieved like a warm memory on cold winter nights. Sara Kelly (7 months) just bided her time till next year when the water will come to tickle her newly walking toes. And the grown-ups?

We rode waves of gratitude.

NYC

Everything in NYC is bigger, faster, brighter. After a day's work in Brooklyn, Louisa, Kelly and I supped at a little Italian (yummy) place and went to see Spring Awakening, which would later sweep the Tony Awards. Here's the truth -- I didn't love it. I liked it. But I wanted to LOVE it. One thing for sure, it made me want to return to the city immediately and see 4 more shows.

This picture is of Kelly and Louisa singing at a Karaoke place on Times Square -- what you can't see is that their performance was plastered on one of those mile high neon signs. They did Kelly Clarkson very proud -- and me too.

A Long Way Gone

Just back from a Janet Allen Institute in Florida. The skies were blanketed heavily with what looked to be rain clouds but turned out to be clouds of smoke. Florida is on fire, and you can smell it everywhere, even in the hotel room. Made me add a line to a poem about the environment about Florida catching fire.

I don't know if it was the smoke, the book I am reading (great book about boy soldiers in Sierra Leon, A Long Way Gone, see link above) with its vivid imagery of eyes dripping blood and children lost to bullets and cruelty, my general state of tiredness or staying too much up on the news, but I read too many dark poems in my set. That's twice I've done that this spring, here and in IL. I couldn't sleep last night worrying about it. The set and my state of mind that put me up to it.

At 4AM I was up walking Suzi through the quiet breaking dawn, listening to birds and trying to find my happy place. At this point I think I need a map and a guide to find it. One place I'm certain NOT to find it is on CNN or in a newspaper.

I need to move away from machines and take a shower of sun.

IRA Toronto

Once a year reading teachers from all over gather at the International Reading Association meeting -- this year in an attempt to fulfill its name, the conference was moved across the border to Toronto -- a town with great theater, efficient public transportation and terrific restaurants that just happens to be in Canada. I wish more people would have come, the number of attendees was way down. Was it the passport requirement? The fact that it was later in the year? The fear of the unknown?

Who knows. But I do know that those 200 or so who attended the 11th annual, newly revamped, IRA Poetry Olio were treated to a funny and poignant reading by two leading children's poets, Jane Yolen and Lee Bennett Hopkins. Only two people who have known one another for years could have pulled off the perfectly timed but totally unrehearsed, thoroughly delightful show. Surrounding them were other poets, but it was Jane's and Lee's performances that stole the show.

And I don't think that either one of them would classify themselves as performance poets, thereby confirming what we all know -- or should know -- anytime a poet gets in front of an audience with a poem in hand or in heart and recites it aloud, it is indeed a performance. No news to these two pros who have done more to entice kids into reading than anyone can measure with some 500 books between them.

Allan Wolf and I hosted the event while Micheal stage managed and Ginger West lent muscle and a calming influence. Joining us was Jim Blasingame in cowboy persona, always good for a hoot 'n holler. Them cowboy poets always know how to stir-rup the emotions and then rein them in at just the right time.

Lots of free books and door prizes. It was a grand night for all. See y'all next year in Atlanta where the featured poets will be (hopefully and if the creek don't rise) Ashley Bryant and Naomi Shihab Nye.

Mother's Day Proclamation

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Julia Ward Howe, 1870

And sometimes they steal your heart . . .

It's that time of year when every kid, teacher, custodian and fraying folder starts crying RECESS. Summer break is breathing hot and heavy on the other side of June 1st and everyone wants to answer the call. Assemblies are restless, teachers are checking their watches and writing workshops slip (skip?)into silliness without even mentioning underwear.

And then there was James. He looked to be maybe 10, a carrot top neatly trimmed, narrow shoulders and a metronome rock. He sucked his fingers and rocked through the assembly and afterwards slid away from his aid to rush the table and grab my idle microphone. His aid came quickly and kindly, "no, no, James, that's not yours." She held his hand to lead him to the door of the gymnasium, pausing to talk to a teacher. James was straining at her hand, reaching toward the table. Rocking. I took the microphone over and put it in his moist fingers. He felt it all over, not grabbing, but insistent. After a minute, it was time to return to his class. I took the microphone back and he pointed to his heart, two quick taps and then pointed at the microphone, universal sign language for "give to me." The aid said, "you already held the microphone, James." He tapped his heart again and pointed. I held it out for him to stroke again.

His aid finally encouraged him out of the gym as others were coming in for the next show. James followed, lurching and rocking as she held his hand, one more longing look over his shoulder.

Totally non-verbal. Reaching for the magic of that voice maker microphone and taking my heart away in his pocket.

and again . . .

Yesterday at an elementary school came this question from a fifth grader, "have you ever written a poem about the idiot president?"

Excuse me?

He smiled impishly. A few around him proclaimed the Bush to be the greatest president of all time (all time to a nine-year-old is a somewhat limited perspective.) Others laughed madly.

The fact that these elementary school kids even make a connection between poetry and politics is AMAZING given the degree to which all the poetry offered to them is homogenized almost past the point where one can recognize the writing genre. In elementary schools the poetry books are shelved with the joke books.

Today at another elementary when I was grilling the kids to name poets they know, one boy offered up the name Phyllis Wheatley. Accustomed to a constant stream of Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky responses, that one stopped me dead.

Who did you say?

"Phyllis Wheatley. She was a slave . . ."

Sweetheart, I know who she is -- I just can't believe YOU do. Kudos to your teacher!

There are some significant poetry connections being made in Birmingham, MI. Very cool.

Do you write politcal poems?

The eighth graders were restless this afternoon. Every poem inspired a volley of verbal fire with the cannons to the right of them, cannons to the left. Not at all sure that I was connecting with any of the 250 of them crowded onto the library floor. Questions and answers went better than the presentation -- thoughtful questions (maybe they were listening?) and then one student from the way back: Do you ever write political poems?

I was immediately transported back to a conversation I'd had at a polite gathering of poets in Cleveland a couple of weeks ago. Professor One was bemoaning the fact that Nikki Giovanni had actually written a poem for the Virginia Tech family. "I call this Polaroid poetry," he haughtily declared. "What she should have done is find a poem from the past and read that one at the memorial." I questioned this as did another poet standing in attendance at his proclamation. Another professor chimed in, "yes, I don't believe in political poetry at all."

My friend said saomething along the lines of "Eh? You kidding?" She was more polite than that, but direct. "No," he continued -- political poems may possibly be written but not until maybe 100 years after the event. It takes that long to get perspective."

One hundred years later? Who cares 100 years later? No wonder so much poetry is seen as irrelevant if that is the academic attitude toward contemporary commentary in the form of poetry.

I questioned professor #1 citing Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry on child labor and how that was read in Parliament and helped to change the laws. He looked at me blankly and then he looked over my head to see who else had entered the room. That was the end of the discussion.

Times of crisis (is a massacre a political event?) are exactly the right time to reach for poetry -- to call on our poets to put attempt to put words to the feelings we share. I thought calling on Nikki Giovanni was EXACTLY the right thing to do and that she was able to offer verbal comfort, encircling the wounded with her verse.

Do I write political poems? Yes. And I will continue to do so. In a world where every activity from schools to bees to peace have become political hot potatoes -- how can any writer not be political? In fact, I have a goal. I want to write a poetry book that gets banned in schools for being politically forthright. I'm bored with getting banned for being satanic and anti-familiy values and some of the other goofy things I've been labeled.

Poets are supposed to stir things up. It's a proud tradition that apparently our eighth graders recognize as being important, if not our "scholars."

Washington Post, NCLB, & Charles Waters

Yesterday, I read an article in the Washington Post that said that the Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion reading initiative at the center of NCLB on allegations of financial conflicts -- meaning people on the committee chose their own programs despite weak or non existant research on the capabilities of those programs (DIBELS among them).

"That sounds like a criminal enterprise to me," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House education committee."

Also in the course of the article (linked above) is this quote: "Despite the controversy surrounding Reading First's management, the percentage of students in the program who are proficient on fluency tests has risen about 15 percent, Education Department officials said. School districts across the country praise the program."

Eh? Which districts? Those who are too scared of having their funding cut off to be honest? In the libraries and halls of our schools, one hears a different story.

NCLB is criminal on so many different levels, it's hard to narrow it down to just the issue of financial gain for the Reading First comittee. Please see the email I received a couple weeks ago from another poet taking the poetry into schools, Charles Waters.


Sara,
I just had to e-mail you to tell you this story that happened to me on Tuesday. So I'm in the library in the poetry section when I meet this 9th grader who is trying to find "Romeo and Juliet" for a book report that's due by Friday. When I asked him why he waited so long to start doing research on the play he said "She gave us the assignment yesterday." I thought immediately to standardized testing I guessed to myself that the teacher is rushing to get through the curriculum so quickly to get ready for the test that there's no time to actually teach the material thoroughly. The kid told me he tried to read the play but found it all to be "jibber jabber." There was no Spark Notes or No Fear Shakespeare or any books in the library that I felt could help him understand the material better and suggested he go to the librarian for help; but he said she was busy and just pointed him in the direction of where a copy of the play was at. I then suggested going to the bookstore to get the Spark Notes or No Fear books (by this time his father arrived on the scene) and by the look on his face he didn't have either the money or inclination to go Barnes and Noble which was practically across the street to get the book or books needed. I asked the kid (whose name I'm sorry I didn't ask) if they do in fact do standardized testing at his school and he said yes they what's called the F-CAT or something like that and he had to take it soon. If I had had the money I would have bought to books for him myself. I was so frustrated that I needed to rant to someone who would understand this and I thought of you because I'm a loyal reader of your blog and know you've seen these kind of things up close and would understand. I'm mad at our current administration for their ignorance knowing that one of the main causes for this, I'm disappointed in the librarian for not helping this child out more with his problem and I'm highly distressed that this poor teacher is having to rush his or her lesson plans and as a result the students are suffering academically and emotionally, it breaks my heart and I don't know what to do about it. Any thoughts? Thanks for reading my rant, I feel better having wrote it and god bless poetry forever.


All the best,
Charles

sad week

This was such a sad week -- I was in a hotel all last week where the story of the killings at Virginia Tech dominated my room in a constant moan, continuing after I had turned off the news. Even the walls were weeping. So tragic, words fail. And the bloodiest week in Iraq. Too many lives lost without the benefit of commemorative snapshot eulogies on the Today Show.

Wednesday, USA today listed the tragic events young people had witnessed since 1986, captured in exquisite visual detail on their TV screens: Challenger Disaster, Columbine, Tsunami, Katrina, 911 -- it was a formidable list. Missing on the list ENTIRELY was the Iraq War. Missing. Not mentioned. How is that? The one event that has dragged its bulging baggage of death and destruction through the news over (just say) a student's entire middle or high school experience is not worth listing as a tragedy? How is that? Is it too political to even mention that death in a war zone is just as final and just as tragic as death by waves, winds and mad men?

Here in Mentor, the HS is dealing with a home grown crisis. Three students at the HS have committed suicide this semester. Two in the past month. Three young people so stripped of hope that they saw no future in living. 75% of the students called in sick on Friday due to threats of violence at the school promising to make Columbine look like nothing.

How do we nurture our young people and show them hope? Lectures? Counselors? Motivational Speakers and pre-packaged anti-bullying programs? Are the answers buried in statistics in math texts? On multiple choice proficiency tests? Science class is getting a little spooky all by itself what with global warming and all, too scary to look there. Like the Hookies who turned to Nikki Giovanni for consolation, it may be time to come back to poetry -- a place to not only express our feelings, but actually identify them. Poems written by the students themselves, to share and to listen.

I was reminded of what Marilyn Manson said in Bowling for Columbine when asked what he would have said to the shooters if he'd had the chance: "I wouldn't have said anything, I would have listened." Brilliant observation.

I don't think we can lecture kids into hopeful thinking, but maybe we might be able to, with a kind guiding hand providing gentle directional corrections, listen them into it.

Blessings to all who departed this week. The world will miss your voices.

Jack in the Pulpit?

I remember when my daughter Kelly was getting married, her husband to be, Brian, wasn't all that thrilled about going with her to pick out china patterns and such. But he was emphatic about her not going alone because he was afraid he would wake up the day after the honeymoon sleeping on ruffled sheets and eating off of flowered plates. Not that uncommon of a male stance on household decor. In fact, how couples pass the picking out the china phase of marriage might be a reasonable predictor of broken plates to come.

Which was why I read with some wide-eyed surprise in the Chicago Trib. this morning about a glass urinal intended for home installation in the shape of jack-in-the-pulpit flower. I can't imagine any man picking this apparatus out for himself thinking that is the recepticle he wants to address upon returning home from the garage, freeway, or rugby match. Not just an oh-my-gosh moment in a restaurant or sports bar, but installed at home. And that was before I saw the $10,000 price tag.

I am not a man nor an expert on uninals, but I do know what a jack-in-the-pulpit is and I'll never look at one the same way again. They are an endangered flower in my area, but I'm not sure screwing flushable glass scultures of them to the wall is the best route to saving them from extiction.

This accessory was nestled in the silk pillows of an article about some Chicago residents who had just installed a 6,000 foot recreation wing on their house.

Maybe it was the movie we rented last weekend, Turtles Can Fly, about Iraqi children before the start of the war who made a meager living disarming and reselling land mines. Or maybe it was images from Darfur. Or was it the last Oprah show I watched? But something in me shouted that the world is out of whack.

Southeast Primary Intermediate School

First of all -- I LOVE when teachers have kids think of questions for the author in advance. Of course we NEVER stick to the questions on the index cards, but it gets kids to thinking beyond what kind of car do I drive and did it hurt to get my ears pierced. Pre-thinking makes at least some of our discussion time afterthoughts, which tend to make a better learning experience than random thoughts. Although, some of those are fun, too.

Since more than one of the questions had to do with form poems, I have to guess that was a topic of discussion in Mrs. Macejko's class. I love Clint's question and immediately envisioned a haiku sitting atop a limerick at an odd angle, like a jaunty hat. I asked Michael and he said that mixing the two would be like eating corned beef with chop sticks.

My afterthought is this:

The Japanese poem called Haiku
to the Limerick said, "how do you do?"
Each kept its design
then flashed a peace sign.
Both declined to blend in a stew.

Rucker Middle School Lancaster, SC

Ever go looking for one image and find another? I've had that happen countless times with poetry -- I start out writing about one subject and it twists and turns and backflips into something totally different. Photography is supposed to be more straight forward. Point and shoot. Right?

Not when there's a joker in the front row who sneaks his peace sign in front of the delicate heart necklace which was what I thought I was pointing and shooting at. And when I came home and found the necklace missing behind the hand, I said, "shoot!"

But then I got to playing with the photo and though this image isn't what I thought I wanted, it turned out pretty cool. So a grudging (okay, happy) thank you to the joker in the front row at Rucker.

And thanks to the Leigh and the rest of the library staff for the wonderful day. And I made another new acquaintance -- the inn and innkeeper at the Kilburnie Inn at Craig Farm (see link). A splendid, restful restored inn. Southern hospitality at its very best.

More from Fremd

Writing is a team sport. I know we don't mostly think of it that way, but what is a piece of writing without an audience? This realization came back to me as I read at Fremd this week. Tony Romano, one of the English teachers at the school and a very soon (April) to be published novelist told me how he had just about given up on getting published had it not been for the caring support of his writer's group and friends, especially Henry Sampson and Maria Mungai. It reminded me how important those first readers are for any work that I create, how friends and family all have a role in every one of my published (or still in the drawer) pieces.

And then there is the first airing for poetry before a live audience. I took the opportunity at Fremd to read from two unpublished manuscripts I am very excited about. First the book of love poems written with Allan Wolf, working title Informally Yours. Those poems are mostly written in form (sonnets, villanelles, tankas). Then I switched to poems from another manuscript, Could It Happen Here?, poems for teens on serious world topics, rumors spawned by a school shooting, 911, the war in Iraq, genocide, pollution, suicide.

Would the HS kids go for modern sonnets? Would the ironic parts make them smile? Would the tragic poems bring an emotional response? It all seemed to work as I rehearsed the night before, but I did feel a flutter of panic right before I was introduced and was tempted to switch back to the tried and true. But I stuck with the program.

The audience was more than receptive, laughing and silently absorbing. It was an educational, rewarding, affirming experience for me. I came home with marks on the papers -- rhythmic edits I will make based on how the piece flowed off the page and through a microphone. But mostly I came home filled with the patience needed to continue through the submission and waiting part of the publishing equation.

Thanks to all my friends at Fremd. I know the teachers and booster club work hard on this event to bolster the student's writing skills. I hope they know how these events also benefit the writers.

Ted Kooser at Fremd High

He says he was a geek in school -- not athletic or a band member. He thought he would become a poet to make himself stand out, carrying heavy books under his arm to enhance his biceps. He wore costumes. Finally after posing as a poet for some time, he decided he would actually try writing some poems. Now the immediate past U.S.Poet Laureate, we can all be glad that this was one kid who pursued his dream.

At 67 he grew up before television was served with dinner every night as a side dish. He was not distracted by gameboys and American Idol. He worked for over thirty years in the insurance industry, indulging and nurturing his writing habit every morning at 4:30 AM, before work. He is old enough to have over heard stories of the blizzard of 1888 and now to have written about them in short, first person narrative poems. He reads to us his valentines to the world, his snapshots of real life, a sensual poem about an ironing board, a poem with an empty purse. He likes poetry because he is a precise person and a poem is something that he can work to perfection, a piece of writing so tight that not a comma or word can be changed without diminishing the poem's impact.

So many who have achieved so much less have such a greater opinion of themselves. He is a compact man in khakis and a tweed jacket. His eyes are kind and searching, honestly looking for answers to questions. I told him that I love quoting from his book, The Poetry Home Repair Manual in teacher workshops and he smiles and says he's glad. As a human being he is well crafted, like a fine poem. His perspective is deep and rich.

I felt honored to shake the square hand that has produced such fine poetry read today without an extra layer of dramatic interpretation. Pure words recited in a common conversational font.

Surrender?

Okay. I'm still obsessing. (see previous post) It's 4AM. My brain is balled up in a fist and I can't get it to relax.

This weekend Michael and I drove to Indiana University which is not in Indiana, it's in PA. We went to Dr. Lynn Alvine's birthday party -- which was lovely. Had a great dinner then breakfast and drove home. We traveled mostly state routes rather than the interstate, taking us through Youngstown. At one point we drove through just the kind of neighborhood that freeways were designed to help us fly over. Boarded up businesses, vacant homes drooling gutters with windows broken out and curtains flapping in the icy winds. Peeling paint and broken steps, trash for lawns and doors hanging loose -- each a metaphor for what once was secure and now has become unhinged.

This neighborhood is not unique to Youngstown, you can find one painfully like it in any major city, although the departure of jobs has hit NE Ohio hard in the bread basket.

How easily we overlook this evidence of our society's despair and accept it as part of the urban landscape. Abandoned buildings unclaimed by anything natural -- even the ground doesn't want them back. We drive by them on our way to the theater, passing by on our way to share dinners with friends. We look at their gape-toothed facades and hope the buildings are uninhabited, when we think about them at all. Mostly, we just slide past or more frequently fly over.

I am left tonight with the vision of those curtains flapping in surrender and wondering how we can possibly accept the presence of these places as part of us. And hoping (hoping) on this single digit night that all those structures are indeed uninhabited as I unclench and crawl into my warm bed.

Misguided, Misspent

Thirty misspent minutes. Running out the clock until 11PM, Michael and I watched a fraction of a blood dripping, roller coaster crashing, skin burning teen horror movie. Finishing up a couple last rows of knitting, putting the dogs out -- I wasn't really watching, it was just ON. But I couldn't get to sleep with those horrible images in my head. I was obsessing. All the literature says to move if you are sleepless in bed and obsessing. So, I moved to the computer in my office to read the news to clear my brain.

Bombings. 50% chance we cannot save the polar ice caps. Senate fights. Worst mistake in U.S. history. Troops lost to their families. Returning wounded are being neglected at Walter Reed. Even Brittany looked frightening. There was no humorous relief, only one horrifying image compounding the next. And then a story about some misguided IBM employee caught cruising an appropriate web site (he claims) to get images of Vietnam out of his head who is suing his former employer for firing him because he is addicted to the computer. He wants to be protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act for his obsessive compulsive disorder. Eh?

And while I shook my head at the silliness of his lawsuit, I plunged into successive games of computer solitaire. One might say -- obsessively -- still trying to clear my head of horrifying images so I could get some sleep.

There is some kind of parallel to be drawn there, but I am too tired to figure it out.

Too cold for gloves?

In Oxford, MI. In the middle of a major blizzard. Cold hands. I stop by the local K Mart to buy gloves. I am more than familiar with K Mart's stock of gloves stock. More than I should be. I bought my first pair of the season (black with fake fur and thinsulate lining) in early December. Lost those right away. Very quick. Even for me. Bought the second pair in late December. (blue with fake fur and thinsulate lining). So I went into K Mart to buy my third pair for the season and there were none. Not only were there no black or blue gloves (with or without fake fur lining) there were no warm gloves, only the little thin things with matching scarves made somewhere in China that doesn't know what mid-western cold is all about. So I crossed over to the men's department. No gloves AT ALL. Finally I found an employee -- usually more rare in large box stores than gloves in July. Or, make that gloves in February.

Where are the gloves?
There are these. (she points to the tissue paper gloves)
No, the gloves you had earlier in the season.
Like, ski gloves?
Yes. Ski gloves.
I just put them away. They are all in the back room in a shopping cart.
And the men's gloves?
All put away.
I know that you have to do what they tell you to do at the main headquarters, but has anyone looked outside? There's a blizzard.
She shrugged, sighed and said she had to make ready for spring goods. She also stepped out of her corporate ordered role and took mercy on my cold hands, leading me to the back room where I found yet another pair of blue gloves lined with fake fur and thinsulate. This time half price.

I felt as if I had rescued them from death row. Where do gloves go when bouquets of sleeveless tops arrive in all their pastel splendor? Well, one pair came back to the hotel with me. Saved, not by a blizzard but by a non-characteristic bout of assertiveness on my part and a little kindness on the part of the woman in the blue smock.

Doesn't it feel good to know we are revamping our schools to adhere to a business model? Like business knows what it is doing. Right. Sometimes it seems I am always working with (mostly) women who are working around some arbitrary, misinformed, ill thought out direction from some administration totally out of touch with the blizzards blowing and drifting about in the real world.

Williamsport, PA

Williamsport, PA is the birthplace of the Little League. Proudly smiling from the trophy case at Jackson Elementary was this snowman made of baseballs, the perfect metaphor for a baseball town in chilly February. I spent two days at Jackson -- one day with the students and one with the teachers. Warm and receptive, it was a great visit.

The day before I visited the kids at Stevens Elementary, and between the two schools, I feel like I made some real friends in Williamsport. Everyone was so nice there -- even the kids bagging groceries. Seriously. It's a great place.

T REX! Sue and Jane

Ben reaches out to grab the teeth of a T Rex at the Cleveland Natural History Museum. As the sign says, looking down the throat of what was probably the largest animal to ever roam the planet isn't something too many did and lived to tell about it during Sue's 20 years. She's traveling with her companion, Jane and stopped off here for a few growls. Last weekend we took the Lufkin branch and this weekend the Weist branch of the family to stand in awe.

Dinosaurs are the original rock stars. They are even older than the Rolling Stones, most have had a lot of work done, have had to resort to performing to recorded music and people still flock to see their bones having only a fantastical memory of how it was back in the day. Having died tragic, mysterious deaths just adds to their legend. They are totally and perpetually cool.

The biggest of the two, Sue, was probably about 20 when she fell into a pile to be discovered millions of years later. Jane was only eleven. Both had broken bones that had healed with lumps and no access to aspirin. Ouch. Below, Danny begins to get a grip how strong those jaws really were.

Beatnik Snow, Man

You can't get much cooler than a snowman in a beret and a yellow leopard shirt stickin' to the grey skies with uplifted arms. No sun? Who needs it.



Came home from South Carolina to find this cat jiving in the front yard, Frankensteined to life by none other than my stepson Frank. Dog food for eyes and half a wry smile, he was just hangin' out gardenside, getting his freeze on and welcoming me home sometime after midnight.

White Knoll Middle School

White Knoll Middle looks like your typical school from the outside. Bell, flag pole, parking lot. You get the picture. But unless and until you go inside, you have no idea what a happenin' place it is.

And these kids, they are alive with poetry, writing, literacy, checking books out of the library and questions! Lots of questions. Questions are good, questions mean students are engaged in learning.

Here's one question that really got me thinking. It was posted to my blog and asked at an assembly: "If you had sons instead of daughters, would you still have written so much poetry?" Wow. I've been tossing that one around in my head for two days, sorting poems in imaginary piles of yes, no, and maybe. And I think the final answer is, yes, for the most part the poems were in me. They were unleashed by watching my children grow up, kind of my letters to them from the kitchen table. BUT, if I had had sons only, some of the topics of the poems might have been different. Boys can be just as upset about getting glasses and braces as girls, but they might be less inclined to want "red hair and ten pounds less of me by Friday." Some of the reoccurring themes of my poems would have been the same -- independence vs wanting to fit in, being honest about feelings and trying to decide what is really true, those themes don't belong to either boys or girls. Those are themes of human existence and of each of us trying to find our best way to live. For me, poetry as helped direct me on my path in life.

Thank you to Ruth Edwards and Nancy for working so hard to prepare the kids. The lesson plan Ruth developed was brilliant and certainly got everyone into investigative reporter mode, which lead to (you guessed it) most excellent questions.

This is truly a special school. After 9/11 the school raised (are you ready?) $500,000 to buy a new firetruck for one that was destroyed in NYC. Can you imagine raising that kind of money? And people think that kids just care about designer tennis shoes. Ha! Posted on the wall is a clipping from People Magazine quoting one student: "'We're all Americans," says 13 year old Chase Hilliard, explaining why he pitched in. "Being up there, you may be Yankees. But you're our Yankees.'" That made me laugh, being a yankee and all. Encased in glass in the lobby is a piece of the destroyed firetruck that White Knoll Middle School students worked so hard to replace. Wiow. It was chilling to see and and a heartening story to hear.

The Dogs Ate My S.O.S. Pads!

This is a picture of Hector (big dog) and Suzi (little dog). They come from totally different hoods. Hector is from East 185th Street in Cleveland and has a lot of what you might call street smarts. For instance, he was homeless and looking for a place to hang out and when he saw a Home Depot he must have thought that that was the place to shop for a new home, because we met when he chose my leg out of all the other shoppers to lay his wet nose against while I was shopping for wingnuts, hence his name: Hector Wing Nut Rodriguez. He is a kind and gentle big brother to Suzi, who came from the other side of the tracks so to speak.

Suzette Creme Fromage is her full name, or Suzi Cream Cheese. (That name came from a Frank Zappa song as a suggestion from Michael and it fits perfectly). Also, Suzi was my mother's name. She has a long pedigree of champions, is only 4 lbs and believes she is not only a princess, but boss of the house and probably the world. Her breed is a papillon. Papillon is french for butterfly and that fits because she has butterfly ears and she thinks she's all that because of them. The word is that this is the type of dog that Marie Antoinette carried with her when she lost her head.

But as a perfect example of how different breeds, from different neighborhoods, indeed different countries, with different pedigrees and expectations do indeed have similar tastes, they conspired against the authority (me) pulled a box from under the cupboard and gleefully started sharing a meal this morning while I was brushing my teeth. All very understandable.

But S.O.S. pads?

Building a tolerace for fruitloops

I don’t think there exists a parent who has ever stood civilly in line at the grocery store who has not (at least) once sworn to abandon some obnoxious, not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, back-talking, self-conscious, can’t plan beyond lunch teenager while at the same time buying Fruitloops. Kick that lazy butt to the curb. Give up on the greedy, destructive self-centeredness. Why parents don’t give into these impulses is a mystery born less out of nobility than resign and exhaustion.

I think, the more one travels to visit the bedrocks of more established societies in places like Europe, China, Japan and the Middle East, one becomes more acutely aware that the USA is very much an adolescent society. We just can’t seem to get control of ourselves, voraciously hungry for more, more, more with no trained eye for where, where, where or how, how, how. Doesn’t matter. The world and its resources were made to serve us. We want what we want and we want it now. America is a spoiled brat that taunts anyone who is different than the Barbie Doll, G.I. Joe, J.D.Rockefeller ideals put in our heads as children.

When I was in treatment for my mother’s alcoholism, the woman who ran the center (whose initials were G.O.D. iconic-ally enough) said that “maturity is being able to accept that everyone is not like you.” In the U.S., we just aren’t there yet. And all these suspicions the collective harbors toward “others” appears to give us a justifiable excuse to bully them, warped as only the adolescent mind can twist reality, free of empathy and consequences. Here we too often see things in strictly black or white, not standing still long enough to see the truth hiding in the dusky shadows between.

But as the myths of adolescence prove to be untrue, so does the myth of “aged to perfection.” Forget it. Older societies are also imperfect. Why? Because they are made up of human beings who are in every way flawed. I have a line in a poem about adolescence that moans, “no one told us, who would settle, who would fly, and who, (and who?) would melt.” As a grandmother I still have not outgrown being annoyed by the fact that NO ONE TELLS US HOW THIS WILL ALL TURN OUT. Not at 15, 25, 35, 45, 55. How maddening is that? No wonder there’s road rage.

Way back when in ‘67, I thought I’d know by now. Surely, by 2007 I’d know. But I don’t. I don’t know which person or country will settle, fly or melt and to borrow from a more recognized and certainly more mature but no less self-centered poet, “it goads me like the goblin bee who will not state its sting.”

Ultimately, all we have is one another. Adolescents are obsessed with appearances; caught sitting next to the wrong person at lunch would be a horror worthy of an internal if not external chain saw massacre. Her table (team, gang, clique, school, town, nation) is the best and it is infuriating that the others exist at all and for SURE she can’t be caught associating with THEM.

But as we mature, knowing that there are other people and other ways doesn’t make us so angry. In fact, it’s pretty cool to travel independently and look through windows tasting of the nourishments prepared by others and then bringing home samples to share, clustered where we are most comfortable, with the ones we hold dear.

Too early in the year to be so far behind

And you know what? Even thought this blog "nags me like the goblin bee that will not state its sting" (thank you emily) I haven't found time to write. I don't even know what to write about first. Maybe first I better go back and catch up on the trip to Croatia, which was amazing. And the visit with friends Kathy and Steve which was rambling and enriching in everyway possible. And then there was the visit to the International School in Zagreb where the kids wrote moving poetry and performed but I didn't have my camera so I don't have any pictures :(.

So, maybe I'll post some pix from Croatia and hope that a few of them tell the story. I'll back date them to try and make sense out of things. But then, jumbled up is usually just as good. Memories are like fruit salad, it really doesn't matter what order you eat them in, just that you savor each bite.

Trieste, Italy and beyond

When we boarded the Croatian Airlines flight from Frankfurt to Zagreb, all these men started boarding who were quite tall, high cheek bones and narrow eyes -- just like Michael, whose grandfather came from Croatia. It was as if we had found his tribe. Cross the border into Italy and genetics takes 6-8 inches off of the men and then places them all on motorbikes with the idle set on breakneck. Trieste also had a Christmas fair, great yarn and the best cocoa that I've ever tasted. I wish we had had more time to explore. Here we are in a coffee shop with our friends Kathy and Steve. I wouldn't say that the cocoa I was drinking was thick, but you could practically stand a spoon up in it.

On our drive up to Trieste, we stopped off to see the tallest Church in Istria, the 18th century Svetog Blaza. The guidebook said that it howed a great collection of religious relics and other treasures. But mostly we stopped there for a viewing of the Vodnjan mummies, the bodies of important dead clergy, displayed in glass cases and supposedly impervious to decomposition. Surreal, but not something one encounters in Toledo. We knocked on the church doors, but no one answered. Finally, someone in the almost deserted square suggested that we try knocking on the door of the home of the priest. He assured us it would be okay, so we ventured down this narrow, cobblestone passageway (I think residents might consider it a road) and knocked. Knocked again. One of the shuttered windows swung open and as if from a coo-coo clock a head emerged. She was barely tall enough to see out the window, but as she shook one arthritic finger it was as if she were saying, "you may not see our dead today." And then she slammed closed the shutter. The priest may live at this address, but clearly she was the one in charge, so we did not see the dead.

On to lunch in Porec, a charming sea side town where we had the best lunch of the trip. Why do we put up with such inferior food in this country? Fast food isn't even worth mentioning, although an outlet exists on every corner. One step above that you have the Applebee equivalents where the food is all prepared in Kansas or somewhere and shipped to be thawed out in less than 20 minutes. And we eat this, when the alternative is food prepared with ingenuity and unimaginable variety at local small eateries. I wasn't once tempted to order a chicken Caesar salad as the lesser of all evils and even though we ate well, I actually lost weight while abroad. We need to get our groceries in order.

I regret not having pasta in Italy, which means I have to go back -- and soon.

Pula, Croatia

Croatia does dark like West Virginia does dark. Real dark. Mountainous dark. Winding two lane roads through total blackness. Dark. So when we finally reached the outskirts of Pula after passing countless exclamation point signs and 20 (you read that right) tunnels en route from the airport in Zagreb, we really felt like we'd accomplished something. Those exclamation point signs have no explanation, by the way. They just appear beside curves and construction sites as if the road is agrees with the travelers and is screaming "Wow" as they pass.

But, then we had to connect with Kathy and Steve who were living in a no number house on a no name street. Thanks to a cell phone connection, we rounded curve after curve on what appeared to us to be a bike lane instead of a road and made one last sharp right hand turn at the church and there they were, standing beside the road wearing their best, warm but shivering Cleveland smiles.

The unfortunate thing was that the house was temporarily out of oil for hot water and this was Sunday and we were still in the same clothing we had left Cleveland in on Friday. But, hey. On vacation, right? We went to the open air fish market the next morning. Pula's main industry is fishing and tourism. Lucky for us we were not there in high tourist season, so we had more of a real life experience. Kathy had managed to master enough Croatian to negotiate our fish and vegetable purchases, so we were fat city that night for dinner. Anybody know what those green pointy thingie's are on the vegetable table?

We also made our initial acquaintance with the town of Pula, which has been a port of some renowned since ancient Roman times. Istria, the little part of Croatia where we were visiting, has alternately been part of Italy, Austria-Hungary, Yugoslavia, but appears to best like being simply Croatia. You know how in the US if a city building is 50 years young it is labeled too old and often torn down? Not in Europe. To them, recycling is not just a recent fad. They've been conserving and reusing for centuries. We were to discover ancient churches and fortresses, narrow cobblestone streets, all still functioning very nicely without the benefit of vinyl siding or plastic window frames. By far the most amazing site was the remains of a Roman Colosseum.

I have to say something here about Adriatic Blue. We don't do blue justice in Cleveland. Lake Erie blue is too often a tinted shade of gray. This is not photoshopped in anyway, this is the blue that was. Rich as it was enriching.

"The bags never leave Paris"

That little figure in the purple fleece is me standing in front of our hotel in Franfurt, which was not intended to be a stop on our way. This was not the easy part of the trip to Croatia. This was the smelly, expensive part. In fact, Michael wanted to burn that fleece. This was the part where our flight misconnected in Newark and we were re-routed through Paris on Air France (which I later heard has the nickname Air Chance) and they lost our bags for 4 days. We had a nice night in Frankfurt compliments of the airline and meandered along an outdoor Christmas market eating schnitzel and cocoa. Turned out this would not be the only outdoor Christmas market, we encountered one in Zagreb, Croatia and Trieste, Italy among other charming towns. Sometimes tragdies aren't as tragic as they seem at the time. Except for the part about how we had to buy new connecting tickets to Croatia which put a little dent in the credit card.

Frankfurt is very visitor friendly. Europe does public transportation so well. We took a train straight into the heart of the city to find our hotel and trained back to the airport in the morning to catch the plane to Croatia. Later in the week when we visited the International School of Zagreb, as the other students were writing about conflicts in their lives, I wrote about the lost bags. It should be pointed out here that students at International Schools are often seasoned international travelers) When we all shared our writing, one student shook her head empathatically as I read my poem and said sadly, "the bags never leave Paris."

Unfortunately, she was so right. Well, not never. But 4 days is a long time to wait for your clothes while wearing the same purple fleece.

yesterday, today, and tomorrow

Tomorrow we leave for Croatia. I haven't been obsessing about it until today. The clothes are in the bag, housesitting arrangements in place, meeting plans and reservations confirmed. The only variable is the weather. Nothing to be done about that, so no use worrying. Right? But as I hear the wind body slamming itself against the house and shooting ice crystals like buckshot into the windows, okay, I worry.

Yesterday was such a full day, it's amazing I'm even standing today. First a 4+ hour drive to Parma, MI to meet my new little pal, Suzette. She can't actually come and join the family until closer to Christmas, but I sealed the deal with the breeder. She is a papillon and (don't tell her) a runt. Cute as a bug. Hope I can handle the puppy training. Another worry to put on the stack.

Yesterday I also talked to Birmingham, MI teachers and media specialists about poetry in preparation for my visit to their schools in April. It was a great session and it is a pleasure to be working with old friends again. Barbara Clark, the head of the media for that district, first hired me for a district visit back in 1994. I remembered as I pulled into Covington School parking lot that I was wearing the exact same leather coat I had purchased to celebrate my visit way back then. When I saw Barbara, I couldn't help telling her, "you bought me this coat." It has taken me years to develop a sense of community in this job. My community is supportive and strong, if somewhat far flung.

Today was all about packing and getting the house ready. I wonder if houses miss us when we are gone. There will be someone here, but not the same throb and jive of the daily familiness. The refrigerator is down to bare wire, fruit basket empty. My bathtub will miss me, I'm certain. We like to relax together, bonded by transient, fickle steamy water. Maybe we should share a little goodbye soak. Always a good way to ward off the worries.

What a difference a syllable makes

"Mankind will need to venture far beyond planet Earth to ensure the long-term survival of our species, according to the world's best known scientist, Professor Stephen Hawking. " And how did he say this, exactly? He hasn't been able to speak for years. He said it by twitching the muscle under his right eye and activating a voice simulator. Here is a man that is literally all brain. I guess I always kind of knew that, that he was all brain, but I stumbled over his professional title when I read today's article about him. He is a cosmologist.

Do you realize that he is one syllable away from hair foils and pedicures? A rather puny degree of separation there. cosmologist -- cosmotologist.

Today wasn't as productive as I would have liked. Yesterday I managed to get a new YA manuscript into the mail and today I took a good long walk and just about got blown away. Not by the power of my thoughts, by the wind which let us know it has had entirely enough of this mild weather business and it has come to take over. It crossed my mind to just sit down and blow the entire day off except that I kept thinking of Hawking and while he didn't necessarily inspire me to board a rocket to another dimension, he did motivate me to get out of my desk chair and face the winds of change.

Saluda Trail Middle School, Rock Hill SC

I had the best time visiting Saluda Trail Middle School. Please Please if you read this click on the school name above and hyperlink to the site where the kids have posted their poems. I don't even want to think about how long it took to put up this grand site, but I can tell you it is very cool.

The day started with a teacher workshop because it was a delayed start for the kids. The teachers were great and tried their hands at writing poetry all across, over and around the curriculum. Congrats to them for working outside their comfort zones. Then I performed two assemblies, but that wasn't the best part. The best part was reading the poetry written by Saluda Trail students and seeing them perform. I don't think I have EVER been to a school that was more pumped up by their own writing and performance. I came home with a DVD of their voices, pictures of their bulletin boards, a T shirt and some of the warmest, bestest memories any visitor could hope for. And on their website you can read energy poems from science class, poetry from Spanish class, percetage poems and even poetry from (get this!) computer class! The poetry was everywhere.

Actually, what I always hope for is that my visit inspires kids to express themselves through their own writing and performance. What was especially cool at Saluda Trail is that not only had the kids been inspired to write, but the teachers got them stoked before I got there so I could see the results of their work. Lucky me.

I came home to the birth of the grandbaby and then NCTE followed closely by Thanksgiving company so I am late posting this, but that does not diminish my excitement one single bit. Thank you so much to Carolyn Moore for making the connection. Wow.

Sara Kelly Lufkin

Born November 11, 2006 at 4:59 pm. Weight: 4 lbs. 9 oz. (tiny baby!). She joins mom and dad (Katie and Doug) and her big sister Steph and brother Scott (aka Scooter).

She was anxious to make her arrival and check-in several weeks early, but Sara Kelly is eating and breathing at the same time and I'm sure, dancing in place.

I say I am sure because although she is living and breathing a mere few miles from here, I HAVE YET TO SEE HER AND HOLD HER! This is a minor tragedy for me, but a good thing for her as I have been sick sick for over a week and no granana would go and breathe germs on such a precious little bundle. I will undoubtedly make up for lost time as soon as it is safe for her to camp out in my arms.

Lights blue-bright, I squint

and hear a familiar voice.

This is life outside.

Warm Up Joy

You have to give respect to get it!
Be the best you can be!
Fairness!
Play by the rules, be a winner!
Giraffe heroes stick their necks out for the common good!

The gymnasium at Rockcave Elementary School is papered with inspiring banners, all ending in ballooning exclamation points. I was particularly drawn to the talking giraffe urging kids to stick their necks out for the "common good," which was kind of quaint in our "me first" society. Cool. Continuing to browse the banners, waiting for the kids to arrive and the assembly to start, I noticed a white board with hand written directions. Reading from the bottom up, it said
10 sprints
coffee grinders
windmills
and the first line, which I read (from across the room) to say, "Warm up Joy."

I wasn't sure what a coffee grinder was but I know a sprint and a windmill is pretty self explanatory -- but what about this "warm up joy?" How cool is that? Not only has this school NOT followed the current trend to cancel gym class for phonics drills, but they are encouraging JOY.

Joy! Just the word lifted my spirit through the gym roof.

It didn't even bother me too much when I realized I had misread the white board and what it actually said was "Warm up Jog." Didn't matter, the subliminal message stuck.

If I did not go into elementary schools, if I did not talk to elementary school children and hear their writing and see their pride and excitement, if I just read and believed the reports on children that I read in the newspapers, the reports from the greedy testing companies with feeder, scripted programs sold to schools to support their tests and the published achievement (or lack of achievement) numbers, I would believe those reports and never experience the daily, private, joy of kids learning together.

So, here's the question -- how do we slip more uplifting subliminal messages into our stressed out, over-tested, underfunded schools?

Why Education is Useless

“Tradition encourages us to think that those who are book smart are lacking in street smarts. We are inclined to think that even if [intellectuals] hearts[s] are in the right place, their heads are in the clouds.” Daniel Cottom

I was researching and wandering the aisles at the library downtown Cleveland Public Library Branch on yet another cold, rainy Saturday afternoon when a homeless man at a nearby table woke from his nap with a start. “Where am I?” he asked, looking around.

I doubt that he viewed that as an existential question, but if he had looked at me he might have seen through my reading glasses a precise reflection of the same emotion, lost as I was in a forest of pedagogy. In fact, we might have engaged in some discourse around the topic of “where am I” except his head promptly dropped back into the cave of his arms, sound asleep. I know this posture, I’ve seen it in many classrooms.

Shelves of books on learning and teaching strategies boasting advanced degrees on their spines inhabit this well-lit library. I say inhabit because frankly, they don’t get out much. From the Idiot’s Guide to Home Schooling (doesn’t one preclude the other?) to graphs and scientific studies written by the well-educated and well-intentioned, it appears that the paths between and around student desks are well-traveled, mapped by educators dating back to Aristotle.

I looked from the shelves back to the homeless man and thought, what do all these high-minded words have to do with the reality of that man’s life? Beyond that, with the reality of the lives of the grocery store clerks, police officers, parents and gum popping teenagers of the world? Some of these authors are icons of their field, famous among teachers, but unknown to the (can I say it?) real world. These educators are never on MTV, the cover of People Magazine or My Space. As Frank McCourt pointed out during an appearance on Leno, he never would have been invited to the Tonight Show when he was just a teacher. Teachers don’t get that much media attention unless they behave in a manner that forces their districts to urge them to seek other career opportunities. Not only do most regular folks not know these pedagogical pundits, they are frankly suspicious of them. Bunch of “effete intellectual snobs,” to quote former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew.

My eyes scanned the shelves in my own practiced brand of researching that I call, Random Meandering, the most evident characteristic of which is its inefficiency, and I picked up a book titled Why Education is Useless, by some college professor named Daniel Cotton. I don’t know him, but he is a university type, therefore I’m suspicious. I sat down with the book expecting him to be pompous and me to be bored. How’s that for prejudice? I mention this to show how pervasive the hostility toward the educated really is. I felt it and I’m an educator. Good grief.

But I have to say, the Introduction of Why Education is Useless is worth checking out at your own library. It provides a classic example of motivation through opposing argument and is helpful if you have ever lifted your head up to look around and wondered (bellowed?) “Where am I?”

It is also very quotable and well-documented -- an excellent research find. It is just this kind of random success that encourages me to keep wandering aisles. Not sure if that is good or bad, but it is certainly more rewarding AND time consuming than shopping databases.

Keystone State Reading Association

Lots of old friends at this meeting -- but not as many new faces. I have no hard numbers to back this up, but like many reading conferences lately, this one seemed smaller and more sparsely attended. Is it the economy? Is it that schools are too tied in knots over NCLB that there is no time for letting teachers go hear about new ideas? Is it because NCLB not only mandates what kinds of classroom materials teachers can use and curriculum specialists can buy but how professional development money is spent (must be on "scientifically" proven methods?) More and more teachers must pay their own ways to conferences in addition to paying for their own subs. That's rough in this tight economy.

In every spare minute, I'm chipping away at my new manuscript with Allan Wolf. This is going to be a fun one. At least I'm having a lot of fun working on it.

SNOW on the way home from PA -- real snow rounding the curbs and tree limbs and slushing up the streets. Amazing.

DIBELS

I thought this test was a joke when I first heard about it -- but it is far from funny. Dr. Goodman has approved this article for sharing -- seen here in part. Since the article's first publication, the investigation of the committee that sanctioned this test has concluded that those who were to profit directly from this test's sale to thousands of schools were in fact the very same people who approved its use.

Read an article from the Washington Post entitled "Billions for an Inside Game on Reading"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092901333.html

Read entire article by Ken Goodman http://sdkrashen.com/pipermail/krashen_sdkrashen.com/2006-January/000382.html

Exerpt from an article by Ken Goodman on DIBELS --

"There are many things wrong with DIBELS.

It turns reading into a set of abstract decontextualized tasks that can be measured in one minute. It makes little children race with a stop watch.

It values speed over thoughtful responses.

It takes over the curriculum leaving no time for science, social studies, writing, not to mention art music and play.

It ignores and even penalizes children for the knowledge and reading ability they may have already achieved.

Reading is ultimately the ability to make sense of print and no part of DIBELS tests that in any way. In DIBELS the whole is clearly the sum of the parts and comprehension will somehow emerge from the fragments being tested.

On top of that the sub-tests are poorly executed- the authors do badly what they say they are doing. Furthermore the testers must judge accuracy, mark a score sheet and watch a stop watch all at the same time. And, to be fair, testers must listen carefully to children who at this age often lack front teeth, have soft voices, and
speak a range of dialects as well languages other than English.

Consistency in scoring is highly unlikely among so many testers and each tester is likely to be inconsistent.

And lets add that DIBELS encourages cheating. There is a thin line between practicing the "skills" that are tested and being drilled on the actual test items, all of which are on-line to be downloaded.. With so much at stake why wouldn't there be cheating?

In summary DIBELS, The Perfect Literacy Test, is a mixed bag of silly little tests. If it weren't causing so much grief to children and teachers it would be laughable. It's hard to believe that it could have passed the review of professional committees state laws require for adoption of texts and tests . And in fact it has not passed such reviews. There is strong evidence of coercion from those with the power to approve funding of state NCLB proposals and blatant conflicts of interest for those who profit from the test and also have the power to force its use. A ongressional investigation is now underway into these conflicts of interest.

In training sessions for DIBELS, teachers are not permitted to raise questions and are made to feel that there is a scientific base to the test they lack the ompetence to understand. It is, after all, The Perfect Literacy Test."

Ken Goodman, Professor Emeritus
Language, Reading and Culture,

St. Thomas Aquinas Literacy Storytelling Festival

Stories are the bridge between who we are and who we used to be. Listening to the other presenter's stories, I'm drawn to cross those bridges with the teller, to put my trust in the teller's hand as he/she reminds me of who I once was, other crossings flashing by on fast forward.

I'm still stuck thinking of the tragedy in Lancaster. Of how the Amish community just said no to the media circus, to revenge and retaliation and what a contrast that is to the rest of the worldview. How can we build more of that attitude in our kids? Our collective memory bank is jammed with aftermarket stories of hatefulness and revenge from movies, videos and TV, the everyday drug of choice. The gridlock is so honking loud, it is hard to give ear to REAL stories, stories that most often hum with gentle compassion. I worry we are paying the price for this in our society, of the piles and piles of violent drama. Smarter people than I have done studies on this. But still we tune into murder and mayhem to (get this) relax.

I am grateful for a life that interrupts the broadcasted purple stream of vengefulness with real stories and poems. The kid who said, the teacher who made a difference, the librarian who took time. These are the kinds of stories that coax me out of bed in the morning and tuck me in, turning off the TV, saying everything will be okay.

Thanks to Michael Shaw for inviting me to this beautiful place and giving me the time to remember the power of story.

Wattsburg Elementary , Erie PA

This is a happening place, students were active in a common area making little literacy bags to hold their books and their journals and pencils. NO DIBELS at this school, hooray! Toward the end of the day, at the beginning of a writing workshop with the second grade, one girl looked at me and said, "You look tired."
"I am sweetie, I guess I better put my lipstick on."
A second girl responded reassuringly, "You'll be okay if you comb your hair."
I've been laughing about it ever since.

Also, I received a fun poem from a second grade teacher, Stacey Mattocks -- no, she was NOT grading papers during the assembly (highly discouraged) -- she began shaping a poem (very much encouraged). Michael wanted to know where I was stashing the cash if it was true that I make her entire salary working a few days a month. I wish! I also sometimes wish for a retirement program and health insurance, but that's another story. Here's Stacey's poem, which I was honored and delighted to receive.

We had an author come to our school today.
I hit my knees and just had to pray --

Cuz I've sat through these dry, agonizing assemblies before.
I guess I'm prepared to endure one more.

Had to drag my class to the auditorium and find each child a seat --
Waiting for this Sara Holbrook whom we were supposed to meet.

She came out on stage with a microphone in hand,
To my surprise she wasn't even that stuffy, boring or bland.

Soon I felt a tiny giggle start to bubble within
Then a real live laugh, a few snorts and then a big grin.

Her enthusiasm for poetry was so inspiring,
I started to play with some words on a page and it wasn't even that tiring.

She probably only has to work a few days a month -- golly gee
To make my whole year's salary.

Now I'm convinced!! A poet I'll be . . .
No more lesson plans or paper correcting for me . . .

After all, I'm a Sara Holbrook want to be!!!

Watch out for me, I'll be signing books too,
After all, I found out today that poets are really cool.

by Stacey Mattocks
2nd grade teacher

Southeast IRA

Breakfast with Poets -- Brod Bagert and me. Many in the audience were more familiar with Brod than with me, so I did a little overview of how I got started writing and the theme of each of my books, along with a few exercises for writing across the curriculum. It was an exercise in speed talking to squeeze all that into 30 minutes. Then Brod entertained and showed why he is good at tricking kids into reading. Thanks to the teachers from Baton Rouge who drove me in the driving rain to the convention center! The audience was warm and generous. We then went on to chat with teachers and sign books. I was like a zombie by this point with 2 hours of restless sleep and Brod took me out to lunch to introduce me to rice and beans and Popeye chicken.

The area is still trying to find footing after Katrina. As Brod and I were in line at the chicken joint, he struck up a conversation with a local. In two sentences they determined that Brod was from New Orleans and the conversation became "where were you when the storm hit, how bad was it in Mobile, flooding or wind damage, how long were the waters up, were you on the eastern or western side of the swirl?" I could tell it was a well-practiced conversation of questions as the two survivors retold their stories to one another. I suspect this is an important part of healing, the telling and retelling. How many years will it take for the sharp edges to fall away? Most stories take on jokes after a year, but not this one. The tragedy is too heavy.

At the end of the day I was loaded into a teacher's car for the drive to the airport. In the front seat was Eloise Greenfield. Ms. Greenfield is like the Louis Armstrong of children's poetry, which is to say, she is an icon. Her work is played with enthusiasm in schools everywhere. Other poets "cover" her poems as models of how to do it right. Did I make dazzled or dazzling conversation with her? Did I tell her how much I loved her work and gush over her shoulder? No. The car was warm from the southern sun, was running on empty and immediately fell asleep in the back seat. All I can hope is that she has no idea who that sleeping poet, probably smelling faintly of fried chicken, was in the back seat. Arugh.

Circling for a landing

This post is for all the people who have ever said: You get to travel, that must be so much fun!

Monday I left Cleveland for Mobile via Houston at 9:30 AM EST a little late -- 30 minute delay. Big deal. But we went into a holding pattern due to storms, and we circled until we needed gas (about 2 in the afternoon) which we took on in New Orleans. Back in the air, we circled Houston and wandered south for a while, finally putting down at 4:30 Central time (5:30 EST) after having been in the air 8 hours for a 2 hour flight. The Houston airport looked like a disaster relief station with travelers sleeping all over the floor. Due to pure luck, I had called and gotten my flight changed to the only uncancelled remaining flight to Mobile. At 7:30 PM they loaded us onto the plane where we sat idling on the runway for two more hours, finally landing in Mobile at 11:45. After I finished filing my missing luggage report, I went to look for a cab at 12:30. Cabs stop running in Mobile at midnight, so the airport security cop called and awakened a cabbie (filipina with a y'all southern drawl) who took me and four other weary travelers to our different hotels. Well, first she took me to an all night Walmart so I could buy some clothes and toiletries for my 7AM breakfast speech, arriving at my hotel at 3AM. By 3:30 I was in bed, wake up call set for 5:30AM.

I didn't want to mix this account with my VERY positive experience at Southeast IRA, so I am making separate entries. Road warriors all have travel nightmare stories and frankly get tired of telling them and hearing them. I'd put this one in my top 10, but not frightening or at any time dangerous (like stupidly driving through the night, which I have done a couple of times). Still, it was nice to return home on Tuesday without a hitch.

Freedom of Dress

Last night on Bill Mauer, he said that he didn’t think he should have to talk to women who were wearing a burqa, it is so fourteenth century and basically they are doing it only because men want them to. First of all, he meant abaya (black with headscarf) not a burqa (blue, total cover). Does he not talk to nuns who wear habits because it is so previous century? How about Amish, Mormon or Orthodox Jewish women who cover their hair? Some sects of Muslim women wear artistic silk scarves that frame their faces beautifully. Does he find that offensive, too?

Maybe he shouldn’t talk to women who have bare midriffs and wear navel rings and push up bras – they look like belly dancers (how fourteenth century is that?). Let's face it, they only do it to please men. God knows, no woman ever put on a push up bra for comfort or convenience.

Is “freedom” then defined as being free to please men however we want to? And if we don't please them with our dress, they won't talk to us? Yish.

I don't care if Mauer really felt that way or if he was trying to provoke a response from his hostile panel. Whichever. Shame on him for such a prejudicial remark.

OELMA

I admire librarians for their self-motivation. Often working solo, they quietly keep the shelves current and in order so that the rest of us can paw through the stacks and then they put it all back together again. At the annual meeting of the Ohio school librarians I ran into an old friend, Kay Wise. She was a teaching librarian for enough years to retire, then she went back to another school library and finally retired for a second time. And there she was at the meeting, attending sessions and learning what's new. Now, that's self-motivation.

I need a little self motivation. Maybe if I hang out with enough librarians it'll rub off.

Great meeting. Friday the 13th turned out to be not so bad afterall. Well, my books didn't arrive at the meeting, which was sad. Snowed on the way down to Columbus, though. Brrrrr.

Lancaster, PA

The day was sunny and 80 degrees, the smell of cut grass. At precisely 10:45AM, one week from the tragic shooting at the small Amish school in that town, the principal at the modern high school came on the loudspeaker to remind us to pause in remembrance. It was so impressive how the Amish community came together to support the family of the shooter, a milkman, a quiet family man, who apparently lost his mind. In so doing, they gave us all a lesson in anti-anger. So often it seems as if we live in an enraged society. It's as if there is no such thing as "mildly annoyed" any more, everyone is screaming mad. And as any movie or TV watcher knows, there is only one legitimate response to preserving one's dignity when screaming mad -- Die Hard-AK 47-viedo-game-blood-splatter-road-rage vengefulness.

If there is ever a case that would justify really becoming "screaming mad," it would be gunshots to the heads of innocent young girls. But the Amish don't watch that much TV and vengefulness is not the Amish way. Surely they must have felt some anger along with their grief, but they willed their faith and their sense of reason to prevail. In so doing, they shut down the media circus and took care of one another, comforting the spiritually and physically wounded instead of losing themselves in angry screaming and revenge.

As a result, no talking head on cable was suggesting that all milkmen get arrested and locked up at Gitmo without charges. No one invaded the milkman's home and shot his wife and kids in revenge. There were no bombs dropped on his neighbors because of their religious affiliations. The community came together to lay to rest the dead and then razed the building. But no more lives were ruined, compounding the tragedy.

There were some calls for increased school safety, but as a frequenter of many schools, I will say that I get buzzed in through expensive security all the time. Why? Because I don't look threatening, I suppose. I was at one school in Western PA once where there had been a shooting just prior to my visit. When I asked about the plywood-for-windows decorating theme, the teacher told me the story of a man entering the building and shooting wildly and missing everyone (thankfully).

"But you have such modern, sophisticated security systems here," I said.
"Oh, yes," she agreed. "But it was the secretary's husband. We knew him, so we let him in."

And, except for the case of the tragedy of the Chetchnian rebels, the fact is the shooters are always known to the victims. Had there been a security system at that little one room school, I'm certain they would have let the shooter in. He was their milkman.

What is the proper response to the actions of madmen? Raze the site, start fresh, and comfort one another as human beings. Yes, check out the security systems, but realize all the locks and buzzers in the world can't always protect us from insanity. Hope lies in our sense of community, for in that we find support to begin each new day knowing that the world, it's weather and inhabitants, is for the most part ungovernable.

And take a lesson from the old ways of the Amish -- a little less media, a little more faith, a lot less vengeful anger and more forgiveness does not add up to weakness -- it is strength and true dignity.

Voda

My word for the day. On pretty much of a whim, Michael and I just booked a trip to Croatia in December. We will be visiting Steven and Kathy Smith, artist/poet friends of ours who sold everything and moved to Europe. We are more friends in spirit than friends who got together frequently, but you can't help catching their spirit of adventure. Check out their blog http://www.walkingthinice.com/. Anyway, other poets have lent them a house in Pula, Croatia for three months and we are traveling to visit for a few days. On the shelf is a Croatian dictionary from a trip we had to cancel at the time of the Iraq invasion. I am going to try and learn a few words of Croatian and my first is "voda." Means "water." I'm thinking about putting little signs up around the house as I have seen in classrooms to help kids associate words with images.

I'm also in the process of breaking in a new computer. It's like making a new acquaintance -- I have to tell it everything, from my favorite fonts to my mother's maiden name. I have to feed the history of my life in poems into the databank and hang all my family photos in the picture gallery. And at this point in life, when I've been over all these stories so many times, you would think that I wouldn't forget things, but I do and I have and I keep going back to the old computer to yank the fillings to imbed in the cavities of this new voracious monster.

So, when we go overseas to meet up with Kathy and Steven we will do so in a home with no phone, no high speed connection, no television. Very little information pre-installed. We will be navigating the new software of friendship and have to (be blessed to?) create each day from scratch, no pre-designed templates.

It will be good to leave the machines behind, I'm thinking. Yes, it will be good. Dobar. Tomorrow's word.