Reading life review: September

Books read this month: 6 7
Books read in 2011: 93 94

■ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
Fiction. The "Girls Rule!" Book Club read this beautiful classic -- savored it -- in September. It was a re-read (five? six? more? times now) for me, and I maintain that this old-fashioned favorite still works and works well. (Look for a chapbook entry in the coming weeks.) We love to complement our book club selections with a family film night, but I'm having a dickens of a time tracking down a DVD of the 1945 film, directed by Elia Kazan. Keepin' my fingers crossed, though.

■ 101 Things I Hate about Your House (James Swan)
Non-fiction. This silly book, which suffers from a grievous lack of both substantive and copy editing (a reflection of the publisher (HC 1) or the state of publishing in general?), gave me nothing new or bold to think about in terms of home decor. Hand towels? Soap? Really? Not recommended.

■ DMZ: Volume 9: MIA (Brian Wood)
Graphic fiction. If I remember correctly, this volume took quite a critical drubbing but I enjoyed it.

■ The Leftovers (Tom Perrotta)
Fiction. Perrotta's (Little Children, The Abstinence Teacher) latest "suffocating anesthetic of the suburbs" take on the aftermath of a rapture-like event has earned mixed reader reviews, although critics liked it: NYT review here; Los Angeles Times review here. I think it's worthwhile, if not his best. Interested but unsure? Check out Terry Gross' author interview: "After The Rapture, Who Are 'The Leftovers'?" (NPR, August 25).

■ Barns of Illinois (Larry and Alaina Kanfer)
Non-fiction. Gorgeous photos and engaging text from a husband-and-wife team. Published by the University of Illinois Press in 2009.

■ Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work (Tim Gunn)
Non-fiction. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The Misses and I absolutely and completely ❤ Tim Gunn. As you might imagine, then, passing this little gem back and forth, reading aloud bits in our best "That's a lot of look!" voices, and marking our favorite passages with Post-Its have been a real source of delight for us. No, the writing isn't perfect, but Gunn is such a genuine personality that the reader simply appreciates his anecdotes and related suggestions as wisdom from an experienced and generous teacher. You'll find excerpts here and here. Don't miss the related videos in the sidebar of that first link. With any luck, I'll offer a chapbook entry on this book, too. Until then? Highly recommended.

Added later:
■ Before I Go to Sleep (S.J. Watson)
Fiction. Is the fact that I forgot that this was the first book I finished in September a review of sorts? That's probably not fair, though. Sleep is a much-hyped, overpraised, but, in my opinion, simply adequate thriller that depends wholly on a reader's suspension of disbelief to work. I didn't regret the time I spent with it; I think I just expected... more.

"Half of today’s teenagers don’t read books—except when they’re made to."

From "Texting Makes U Stupid" (Newsweek, September 11):

According to the most recent survey by the National Endowment for the Arts, the proportion of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 who read a book not required at school or at work is now 50.7 percent, the lowest for any adult age group younger than 75, and down from 59 percent 20 years ago.

Back in 2004, when the NEA last looked at younger readers’ habits, it was already the case that fewer than one in three 13-year-olds read for pleasure every day. Especially terrifying to me as a professor is the fact that two thirds of college freshmen read for pleasure for less than an hour per week. A third of seniors don’t read for pleasure at all.

Would you look at that group?

Pretty durned nice, eh? It's a 60-cm target face at twenty yards. And remember: We're new to this. More, up until last week, we shot once weekly. (We're doing three days now.) So. Nice job there, right? Which of the following archers do think pulled it off?

The answer is... none of the above!

After two errands and a delicious lunch, Mr. M-mv took the women to the range for five groups of four yesterday. (Ordinarily, we'd do ten to twelve groups of three or four, but my shoulder has been giving me a tiny bit of trouble, and I didn't want to overdo it, especially since we're shooting more.) He took some neat photos of us, and then, as we were wrapping up, I offered him my bow. "Try it with the new arrows."

Last week, he had used my bow with the somewhat lame arrows that were included in the otherwise terrific kits that came with our bow package, and they were much too short for his draw. At Coach's suggestion and Mr. M-mv's encouragement, the Misses and I recently invested in much higher quality carbon arrows that the local archery shop measured and prepared for us. Sweet! But Mr. M-mv had been loathe to try them last week, insisting that they were our "special" arrows -- and they are, but he's the special guy who ensured that we can have such things, right? Right.

"Really," I insisted. "Try it. They're awesome." Well, it goes without saying, but so is he. No warm-up. No lessons. No coach. Just thwock, thwock, thwock, thwock. And what an altogether satisfactory group.

Yeah, we women were pretty impressed. Heh, heh, heh.

Added later: And, no, you most certainly should not wear a bulky, oversized cardigan to archery practice, but I was freezing yesterday.

Climbing atop one of my favorite soap boxes again

From "Unpaid student loan debt looms as national crisis" (The Kansas City Star, September 23):

Still, mounting student loan debt is very tough to cope with. Borrowers can be financially handcuffed to loan payments for years to come. For those with default checkmarks on their credit reports, the outlook can be particularly bleak.

No doubt, borrowers are feeling strained. They’ve fallen behind on their payments because they’re unemployed or earning little. For many, there’s simply too much debt and too little income.

But in some cases, grads have also managed their finances poorly.

Ayup, particularly to that last bit.

From the conclusion:

Otherwise, the best way to deal with the federal loan program is to try to avoid it as much as possible. Some suggestions:

•Readjust your mindset. Many parents and students think highly selective schools with outrageous prices mean status, identity and guaranteed employment after graduation. The reality: There are many good schools that may offer what you’re looking for at affordable prices.

•Go with the free money. Looking for merit-based aid, which doesn’t require repayment and rewards students with good grades and test scores? Then apply to schools that offer generous scholarship packages.

•Tap Grandma. If the grandparents want to help out with tuition and can afford to do so, take advantage of their generosity.

•Graduate early. Earn college credit through advanced placement classes in high school. Also, test out of entry-level classes in college.

Apart from "Tap Grandma" (NEVER!), I've been singing this song for a looong time, folks. Anybody listening?

Happy Banned Books Week!

You'll find more information here and here and a related M-mv entry here.

Semicolon hosts "The Saturday Review of Books." Consider participating this week.

Fine Art Friday

Reclining Woman (1922)

Fernand Léger, French (1881-1955)


Note: I took the image above during my recent trip to the Art Institute.

Knicker knots

Several years back, it caused many a twisted panty and no small amount of teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing when I posted the February 29, 2008 Wall Street Journal article, "What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?" to a homeschooling message board. The article simply asserts that "well-trained teachers and responsible children" are the key to that country's educational success.

There had been a similarly angst-y flurry a few months earlier, when I posted The Economist's "How to be top," which asserts, "The quality of teachers affects student performance more than anything else."

In fact, the title of my post comes from the second article:

Begin with hiring the best. There is no question that, as one South Korean official put it, “the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.” Studies in Tennessee and Dallas have shown that, if you take pupils of average ability and give them to teachers deemed in the top fifth of the profession, they end up in the top 10% of student performers; if you give them to teachers from the bottom fifth, they end up at the bottom. [Emphasis added.]

Why the knicker knots? you wonder. Because I posited that the same could be said about homeschooling -- that is, for the most part, the endeavor will only be as successful as the parent-teacher.

I was reminded of these two articles (and the irritation my insistence on drawing analogous conclusions about home educators inspired) yesterday, while reading a lengthy discussion about homeschooling and using resources and teachers in co-ops and other settings.

Allow me a related aside, okay?

The priest who led the Pre-Cana group meeting my husband and I attended nearly twenty-six years ago, asked the participants to divide themselves roughly in half. A dozen couples scooched to one side of the room while the rest of us remain seated. "Yeah," he said. "That's about right. That's about how many of you will be divorced in ten or so years."

I am sure each of us smugly believed that we would not fail in our marriage. And now, all these years later, I am just as sure that many did.

Those, quite simply, are the odds.

The reactions to the original post in the above-referenced message board discussion reminded me of the reactions to the priest's pronouncement -- right down to similar points about how discouraging it was, on the cusp of marriage, to be discussing divorce. "Shouldn't you be encouraging us? Why are we talking about failure now, before we even say, 'I do'?"

Um, if not now, then when? After you've failed?

No. At the beginning of the journey is the best possible time to learn that there may be rewards, but there may also be failure. How can you reap the former and avoid (or, at the very least, recover from) the latter? Let's talk about that sooner rather than later, eh?
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For about fifteen years, I've maintained that I am the opposite of a homeschooling evangelist. In short, I don't think everyone can do this. I don't think everyone should. And I most certainly have met people -- in person and online -- that I fervently wish weren't attempting this since they, their children, and the stereotypes they perpetuate are the reason my family rarely announces that we homeschool.

That's not a popular position, of course, because it's not all daffodils and sunshine and "You can do this!" It's not particularly encouraging or affirming. But sometimes, the kindest thing is the truth, and the truth is not everyone who decides to attempt this thing will be good or even adequate. You see, it simply is not enough to love your children. It's not enough to design a school room, wallpaper your homes in books, buy memberships to museums, and collect curricula. Nope. You must also teach, and to teach well, you must be capable, smart, engaged, and certain.

The wonderful Marva Collins Collins wrote plainly but enthusiastically about the call to teach well:

Many of us can be excellent for a day, but we find a lifetime of excellence to be just a bit difficult. Good teachers leave their egos and problems at the door each morning. They become so immersed in the children they teach that they forget time, problems, who they are, or what they can't do. They believe that they exist for their students. They hear with their hearts, they see with their souls, and they teach with their conscience.

Parker J. Palmer also defined the essence of teaching well:

Good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves. The methods used by these weavers vary widely: Socratic dialogues, laboratory experiments, collaborative problem solving, creative chaos. The connections made by good teachers are not in their methods but in their hearts -- meaning heart in its ancient sense, as the place where intellect and emotion and spirit and will converge in the human self.

Let's face it: Palmer is describing a level of expertise here, isn't he? You can't, after all, "weave a complex web of connections" if you don't possess information and experience -- expertise.

This is, of course, why teaching the upper grades is difficult -- which is why we must introduce our students to other teachers, other learning settings. Many may be able to teach with excellence and heart in the elementary grades, but only some can do so in the secondary school grades, and then, only in some subjects. At that point, it becomes critical to identify resources -- virtual schools, co-ops, dual enrollment programs, community mentors, or, if nothing else is available, the local high school -- for the subjects in which we are unable to weave a complex web of connections. Oh, and by the way? This is a good thing socially, too, since some (not all, but some) homeschoolers and their parent-educators seem to have a tough time adapting to conventional classroom habits and expectations.

So, how are you doing?

Just as the students of the good and wonderful teachers we remember from our own school years did not all enroll in a "big name" college (or in college, at all), did not become prodigious accumulators of wealth or heroes on the battlefield or whatever, our own students may not, either. So if success in this endeavor will not be measured by where / if they attended college or what profession they enter, by what will it be measured?

I thoroughly believe that if you are doing this thing well -- with excellence and heart -- you already know the answer to that question.

Good luck, folks.

Shakespeare for all ages and stages

The following entry, first published on 9.30.2006 and last resurrected on 2.02.2010, is culled from archives. You'll find a collection of M-mv entries on Shakespeare under the "Bardolatry" tab.
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A few years ago, L. wrote to ask for advice about teaching her children Shakespeare. "I will be learning right alongside my children. In your opinion, what is the best way to do this?"

I've answered this question before, several times, on [insert home education message board name here]. But I was also able to find a version of my answer in the M-mv email archives: Nearly four years ago, MDH wrote, "I have a ten-year-old daughter. [...] Do you have any recommendations for the first work for her to read?"

My reply (reworked for inclusion here) offered recommendations and briefly described our approach.

A reply, then.

One thing I've pounded home, here and elsewhere, is that the introduction to Shakespeare should be as much like Shakespeare's intended experience as possible -- that is, his plays were meant to be seen and heard, not read. (I heartily disagree with our dear Mr. Bloom on this point, by the way. And that's okay.)

In keeping with the idea of meeting Shakespeare on his own terms, then, a live performance is generally superior to a film. The Misses M-mv met the bard in Kenneth Branagh's Henry V ("O Kate! Nice customs curtsey to great kings"), but they fell in love with him (yes, at six and eight) during a Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. A rappin' Puck. A show-stealing Bottom. The grace and wonder of that stage. The fact that the actors met the audience in the lobby. They became hooked -- for life.

But if a live performance isn't possible...

Or if you think your students are not quite ready for the experience...

Branagh's Henry V is a terrific place to which to begin because, well, quite simply, it's easy to follow and exceptionally well done. The plot is uncomplicated, so one can focus on the language, which is exquisite. At the gates of Harfleur, most of us experience (or have already experienced) an "Ah-ha!" moment of the most wondrous sort: I get this! This is amazing! What's next? Shakespeare is great!


Other film intro possibilities
Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet is an adequate introduction. A Midsummer Night's Dream featuring Kevin Kline isn't bad. As an introduction, though, Much Ado about Nothing is better, in my humble opinion. Again, the Branagh production. A mild caution: There is the briefest of nudity in the opening sequence and sexuality is openly (though discreetly, if that's possible) expressed during the scenes in which Claudio is duped into thinking Hero is impure. And speaking of caution, mild or otherwise: The battle violence in Branagh's Henry V may be unsuitable for some young people. You know your child better than I do.

My son's first film adaptation was actually Julius Caesar, with Jason Robbards as Brutus. He adored it. Our experience became the stuff of an article I sold, but this play probably isn't the best way to begin for most people. Besides, my son was already hooked: The year before he had attended a CST production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (a different production than the Misses).

Another possibility would be Twelfth Night, with the incomparable Ben Kingsley as Feste.

Now, then.

Prior to watching a live or filmed performance, we read aloud from an abridgment (e.g., Charles and Mary Lamb, E. Nesbitt, Beverly Birch, Bruce Coville, Adam McKeown -- the latter two being particular favorites here). This gives us the basic plot and, often, the key subplots. (Most recently, we've done this (again) with Hamlet.) Then we watch -- sometimes more than one performance, often more than once.

And then we read the unabridged play to the accompaniment of a quality audio production. Oh, how well we respond to the language when our reading is aided by the audio!

Naxos, Caedmon, and Arkangel are all quality sources for audio productions. Now, despite my unabashed lust for The Complete Arkangel Shakespeare, our absolute favorite audio productions are Naxos (King Lear, King Richard III, and The Tempest), Caedmon (Twelfth Night), and BBC Radio Presents (Hamlet). Check with your librarian to see what you can borrow before making an audio purchase. In fact, your library may also have many of the film adaptations I've recommended.

So -- retelling, watching, reading while listening. As often as you need and/or like.

Why our English teachers did this in reverse order remains a mystery, no?

As far as I'm concerned, this method works well for adults, too. There is no reason why someone late to the table should miss this meal. I would add only that older students and adults will likely appreciate a more detailed synopsis of the play prior to watching, this in addition to an engaging retelling/abridgment. Master M-mv and I heartily recommend Shakespeare A to Z; The Essential Reference to His Plays, His Poems, His Life and Times, and More.


Other ideas for "teaching Shakespeare"
■ Use their toys.
The Misses M-mv were onto something when their Ken nodded to Barbie and assured her that nice customs curtsey to great kings. Using Barbies or Little Ponies or puppets or whatever to illustrate plot twists or illuminate intent... well, that's just child-like genius at work. Harness it to help your young viewers understand the intricacies of A Midsummer Night's Dream or the intrigue of Hamlet.

■ Keep a chapbook.
Master M-mv and I keep chapbooks devoted to our Shakespeare studies. We copy passages that "speak" to us and share our entries. How fascinating to see what someone else deems worthy of preservation.

■ Learn the language, naturally.
Family M-mv memorizes wide swaths of Shakespeare through repeated viewings and readings (i.e., "listenings"). Obviously, too, the nature of a family-centered learning project (as opposed to a more conventional learning environment) allows for many, many everyday conversations that are colored by bardolatry. (See this entry, for example.) Well, what we use, we own. It's really that simple.

And, as I've written before, Shakespeare need not be hard at all, Fintan.


"It just isn't important in today's society."
L. wrote, "Also, why do you think it is important to read Shakespeare? I have been told by a few folks (homeschoolers!) that it just isn't important in today's society. I disagree, but can't really articulate why. My 'gut instinct' just isn't enough of a reason."

Well, actually, "gut instinct" may be plenty of reason, but I can see why one might think this an inadequate response in conversation. As I wrote to L., though, I honestly don't know what to say to folks who could, in seriousness, maintain that Shakespeare -- the inventor of the human -- is unimportant. Nothing I said, however well articulated or carefully stated, would deter them from that (misinformed) position. And, as I grow older, I find that I'm less and less inclined to fight against such ignorance. A bemused sigh and furrowed brow might be all you can offer when confronted with -- well, I typed such fools but realized that some of you might find that too harsh and dismissive, so I'll go with people who hold that view.

Heh, heh, heh.

I also suggested that L. take a peek at this entry. There is, I am certain, something about the pursuit of excellence that some people simply. don't. get. But life is short, and the struggle to win over the ignorant is, in my experience, futile. I'd rather discuss Hamlet than attempt to persuade someone of Shakespeare's value.

***

In culling through the archives for related entries, I found this passage:

At 6:15 p.m.
While waiting for brother, the Misses M-mv identified in the is-it-already-night dark sky Cassiopeia, Perseus, Cygnus, and Pegasus and discussed Bruce Coville's retelling of Hamlet with a sort of matter-of-factness that staggers me.

You see, I was late to the table -- for astronomy, for Shakespeare, for Latin, for physics. But I arrived. Finally. I arrived. And I am eating -- with my hands, sometimes, to cram it all in. And so, I cannot help but be amazed, staggered by students three decades younger who absorb the complexities of Hamlet with such seeming facility.

They are so very, very lucky.


Summary
1. The introduction to Shakespeare should be as much like Shakespeare's intended experience as possible -- that is, his plays were meant to be seen and heard, not read.

2. A live performance is generally superior to a film, but if that is not possible or practical, a quality film will work.

3. To prepare for a live or filmed performance, read an abridgment.

4. Then watch -- more than once, if practical; more than one production, if possible.

5. After that, read the unabridged play to the accompaniment of a quality audio production.

6. Read abridgment. Watch production. Read while listening to audio accompaniment.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Read. Think. Learn. Discuss.

7. Other ideas include using toys to simplify plots, keeping a chapbook, and natural memorization through regular use of the language.

8. This method works well for adults, too. There is no reason why someone late to the table should miss this meal.


Bibliography
It's incomplete, really, but the following list represents books titles that have been helpful in my own studies. These are the books to turn to -- after the abridgment and the performance and the reading/listening. (The ol' M-mv mantra: Wash. Rinse. Repeat.) I've boldfaced those I keep close.

Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare (Volumes One and Two).
Barton, John. Playing Shakespeare: An Actor’s Guide.
Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.
Boyce, Charles. Shakespeare A to Z; The Essential Reference to His Plays, His Poems, His Life and Times, and More.
Brown, Ivor. Shakespeare.
Burgess, Anthony. Shakespeare.
Carter, Avis Murton. One Day in Shakespeare’s England.
Chrisp, Peter. Welcome to the Globe! The Story of Shakespeare’s Theater.
Crowl, Samuel. Shakespeare at the Cineplex: The Kenneth Branagh Era.
Epstein, Norrie. The Friendly Shakespeare: A Thoroughly Painless Guide to the Best of the Bard.
Fallon, Robert Thomas. A Theatergoer’s Guide to Shakespeare.
Garber, Marjorie. Shakespeare, After All.
Goddard, Harold C. The Meaning of Shakespeare (Volumes One and Two).
Gollub, Herman. Me and Shakespeare: Adventures with the Bard.
Green, John and Paul Negri. Great Scenes from Shakespeare’s Plays.
Greer, Germaine. Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction.
Kermode, Frank. Shakespeare’s Language.
Kott, Jan. Shakespeare Our Contemporary.
Lomonico, Michael. The Shakespeare Book of Lists.
Morley, Jacqueline. Shakespeare’s Theater (part of the Inside Story series).
Norwich, John Julius. Shakespeare’s Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337–1485.
O’Dell, Leslie. Shakespearean Language: A Guide for Actors and Students.
— . Shakespearean Characterization: A Guide for Actors and Students.
O’Toole, Fintan. Shakespeare Is Hard, But So Is Life.
** Saccio, Peter. Shakespeare’s English Kings; History, Chronicle, and Drama.
Silverbush, Rhona and Sami Plotkin. Speak the Speech! Shakespeare’s Monologues Illuminated.
Smith, Bob. Hamlet’s Dresser.
Stanley, Diane, and Peter Vennema. Bard of Avalon: The Story of William Shakespeare.
Van Doren, Mark. Shakespeare.

** Master M-mv and I also recommend The Teaching Company's courses Shakespeare: Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, taught by Saccio. Skip the DVDs; opt for the CDs. Unlike Shakespeare, Saccio is meant to be heard, not seen. Heh, heh, heh.

20 yards. 60-cm target face.

I think I may be getting the hang of this.

Note: Blame the lame image quality on my just-the-basics-ma'am phone.

Some days are just like this, no?

Woman, October 1934
Joan Miró, Spanish, 1893-1983

Note: I took the image above during my recent trip to the Art Institute.

And a few more cool links

Practical advice on overcoming fear of public speaking:

■ "The Silent Crowd" (from the blog of author Sam Harris):

Of course, many people have solved the problem of what to do when a thousand pairs of eyes are looking their way. And some of them, for whatever reason, are natural performers. From childhood, they have wanted nothing more than to display their talents to a crowd. Many of these people are narcissists, of course, and hollowed out in unenviable ways. Where your self-consciousness has become a dying star, theirs has become a wormhole to a parallel universe. They don’t suffer much there, perhaps, but they don’t quite make contact here either. And many natural performers are comfortable only within a certain frame. It is always interesting, for instance, to see a famous actor wracked by fear while accepting an Academy Award. Simply being oneself before an audience can be terrifying even for those who perform for a living.

And two from M., an original and card-carrying member of M-mv's best and perfect audience:

■ "Teach Your Child Self-Discipline without Tiger-Parenting Her to Death" (from Big Think):

Two things that are intuitively obvious to most parents – the importance of teaching children self-discipline and the educational power of fun – are also unusually well supported by science. Tiger Parents and Teddy Bears, rejoice! Here’s a middle ground you can agree on in good conscience: play-based learning that will help your child grow into a capable and happy adult.

■ "Focusing on Focus" (Wired's "The Frontal Cortex," September 6):

The key is strengthening what psychologists call “executive function,” a collection of cognitive skills that allow us to exert control over our thoughts and impulses. When we resist the allure of a sweet treat, or do homework instead of watch television, or concentrate for hours on a difficult problem, we are relying on these lofty mental talents. What we want to do in the moment, and what we want to want, are often very different things. Executive function helps to narrow the gap.

Researchers have found that varying personal levels of executive function have a profound impact on nearly every aspect of life.

Cognitive decline

From "Secrets of Aging" (The Scientist, September 2011):

Cognitive decline at older ages is marked by gradual loss in the ability to retain new information or to recall the past. Although many other changes occur during the aging process—impairment in range of motion, speed of gait, acuity of vision and hearing—none of these factors are as central to one’s personal identity as are one’s cumulative experiences. For me, it seemed that understanding memory, and how it changes with age or disease, was the key to understanding the aging brain.

"Art and medicine have parallel histories."

From "The fine art of medical diagnosis" (The Guardian, September 10):

Seen through [Professor Michael] Baum's eyes, the entire National Gallery looks more like a doctor's waiting room: Monet's paintings, which grew darker and darker until his cataracts were operated on and his works brightened again; Van Gogh's disturbed canvases, which suggest madness induced by syphilis; and the works of Renoir, which were completed despite the fact he was crippled with rheumatoid arthritis and could not lift a brush above shoulder height. "We have works by the world's best painters here and they tell us so much about the human condition. Rather than take away from that, science and medicine actually add to this appreciation," says Baum.

Hat tip: Girl Detective (who also sent me a link to "The Kid Should See This.")

This piece reminds me of a wonderful resource I used in my work as researcher and writer for [insert educational publisher's name here]: The Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database.

Saturday in Chicago

So I took the train into Chicago yesterday -- my first solo adventure in ages, let alone since my surgery. Aunt M-mv picked me up at the Ogilvie Transportation Center, and we headed to the Art Institute, where we wandered the Modern Wing and American paintings before having a lovely lunch. A few pieces that particularly caught our imaginations:

■ That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door), 1931-41 (Ivan Albright)

■ Inventions of the Monsters, 1937 (Salvador Dalí)

■ Woman, October 1934 (Joan Miró)

After lunch, we walked in Millennium Park for a bit. The photo above was taken in front of "the Bean." Yes, I'm furrowing my brow and looking as clueless as the couple in everyone's new favorite YouTube clip. But I love this image, anyway.

And how's this for juxtaposition?

Aunt M-mv and I when we were just wee lasses.

Get in the picture, friends. Get in the picture.

Semicolon hosts "The Saturday Review of Books." Consider participating this week.

"More than ever before, ideas, opinions, objects, buildings and behaviour have become existential decor."

From "PoMo: Everybody's doing it" (The Independent, September 12):

Postmodernism duly arose in an uncoordinated blitz of individualistic artistic and intellectual objections to the more or less failed idea of rationalised lives and environments. The novelist Martin Amis warned us that postmodern people "over-existed". Our postmodern, supposedly self-designed lives are embedded in these modes of over-existence. We've accepted the commercial, social and semiotic propellants that have ensured over-consumption in the guise of entertainment. Blizzards of imagery and opinion form a chimera of endless, conflicting possibilities without beginning or end; we seem to crave maximised senses of fractured movement, overlay, ennui and nowness. Paul Greenhalgh, director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich, has an illuminating take on postmodernism. Speaking of its original design genetics, he says: "People wrote supportive and indignant manifestos about the intellectual standing of figurines, tiaras and napkins. It was as though everything that had been denied the right to seriousness in the visual arts for 60 years was now fighting for – and winning – space. We all confidently celebrated our lack of confidence about things: suddenly, it seemed, none of us knew exactly what was beautiful or everlasting; or if we thought we did, none of us were prepared to say so."

So much of this is applicable to parent-teachers.

From Nancy Flanagan's blog at the Education Week site, Teacher in a Strange Land, "Ten Alternative Tips for New Teachers":

Expect to make hideous mistakes. Expect to have crushing disappointments. Expect to feel like quitting, at least a dozen times. Expect to anticipate vacations with pathetic longing. And know that veteran teachers also experience these things--just ask them.

Hat tip: Joanne Jacobs.

The trouble with homework

From September 10's NYT:

The quantity of students’ homework is a lot less important than its quality. And evidence suggests that as of now, homework isn’t making the grade. Although surveys show that the amount of time our children spend on homework has risen over the last three decades, American students are mired in the middle of international academic rankings: 17th in reading, 23rd in science and 31st in math, according to results from the Program for International Student Assessment released last December.

In a 2008 survey, one-third of parents polled rated the quality of their children’s homework assignments as fair or poor, and 4 in 10 said they believed that some or a great deal of homework was busywork. A new study, coming in the Economics of Education Review, reports that homework in science, English and history has “little to no impact” on student test scores. (The authors did note a positive effect for math homework.) Enriching children’s classroom learning requires making homework not shorter or longer, but smarter.

Fortunately, research is available to help parents, teachers and school administrators do just that. In recent years, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists and educational psychologists have made a series of remarkable discoveries about how the human brain learns. They have founded a new discipline, known as Mind, Brain and Education, that is devoted to understanding and improving the ways in which children absorb, retain and apply knowledge.

Umbrella skeleton

Another Summer Gone *

Another summer gone,
gone past the hills where the autumn smoke begins.
The boardwalks are empty now.
A chill settles in.
No minstrel came along to sing me a song of love gone wrong.
No wand'rer came my way to pass a day.
Another summer gone.
Now only leaves and torn paper blow where couples strolled the dunes.
Alone in the sky,
the moon is growing old.
Another autumn, another winter, another summer has come and gone.
The boats are chained, their sails are furled;
and the pavilions echo where the dancers twirled.
No wand'rer came along to sing me a song of love gone wrong.
No lover came my way to pass a day.
May heart's a ragged stray,
and it has followed long, long years some road I cannot name.
In soft summer nights the tears are all the same.
Another winter, another waiting, another summer has come and gone.

* Words by David Eddy; music by Willard Straight. The composition, a rhapsody for mixed chorus and piano, was a favorite of the conductor of the chamber choir Mr. M-mv and I sang in during high school. I always loved the piece, which is copyrighted 1960.

"So, if you want an education, the odds aren’t with you."

As I've said before,"Oh, how I ❤ Mark Edmundson!" From "Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?" (Oxford American, August 22):

Education has one salient enemy in present-day America, and that enemy is education—university education in particular. To almost everyone, university education is a means to an end. For students, that end is a good job. Students want the credentials that will help them get ahead. They want the certificate that will give them access to Wall Street, or entrance into law or medical or business school. And how can we blame them? America values power and money, big players with big bucks. When we raise our children, we tell them in multiple ways that what we want most for them is success—material success. To be poor in America is to be a failure—it’s to be without decent health care, without basic necessities, often without dignity. Then there are those back-breaking student loans—people leave school as servants, indentured to pay massive bills, so that first job better be a good one. Students come to college with the goal of a diploma in mind—what happens in between, especially in classrooms, is often of no deep and determining interest to them.

Two more related entries here and here.

Semicolon hosts "The Saturday Review of Books." Consider participating this week.

For typomaniacs

From "Fond Of Fonts? Check Out 'Just My Type'" (NPR, September 1):

"Good type is instinct born of experience," Garfield writes. He takes us back to Johannes Gutenberg's 15th century innovation for casting reusable letters to produce cheaper books, but makes clear that Steve Jobs' inclusion of a menu of fonts in his earliest Macintosh computers — thanks to a course in calligraphy he took at Reed College in the 1970s — was nearly as revolutionary.

Thanks to Girl Detective, I've added another book to the unsteady stacks of reproach. Heh, heh, heh.

Related entries here, here, here, and here.

Shakespeare links, anyone?

From M., an original and card-carrying member of M-mv's best and perfect audience:

■ Who wrote Shakespeare's plays – and does it matter?

■ Sixty Minutes with Shakespeare

“We prepare children to learn how to learn, not how to take a test.”

From "Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?" (Smithsonian, September 2011):

There are no mandated standardized tests in Finland, apart from one exam at the end of students’ senior year in high school. There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between students, schools or regions. Finland’s schools are publicly funded. The people in the government agencies running them, from national officials to local authorities, are educators, not business people, military leaders or career politicians. Every school has the same national goals and draws from the same pool of university-trained educators. The result is that a Finnish child has a good shot at getting the same quality education no matter whether he or she lives in a rural village or a university town. The differences between weakest and strongest students are the smallest in the world, according to the most recent survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “Equality is the most important word in Finnish education. All political parties on the right and left agree on this,” said Olli Luukkainen, president of Finland’s powerful teachers union.

Ninety-three percent of Finns graduate from academic or vocational high schools, 17.5 percentage points higher than the United States, and 66 percent go on to higher education, the highest rate in the European Union. Yet Finland spends about 30 percent less per student than the United States.

Related entry here.

Happy back-to-school!

And, hey. Get in the picture! (Related entries here and here.)

By the numbers

4
The number of walks we took this holiday weekend: two on our regular route through the neighborhood, one on a new route through the neighborhood, and another at one of the county's conservation areas.

28
The number of photos I took on the walk through the conservation area, including the three in this entry.

3
The number of games we played this weekend: Set, Uno, and Sorry! Games of strategy are awesome, but games like these allow for more conversation and laughter (while, yes, being a little easier on brains in relaxation mode).

12
The number of episodes in Season 3 of "True Blood."

12
The number of episodes of Season 3 of "True Blood" I watched this past weekend. Heh, heh, heh.

0
The number of books I finished this weekend. What, with all of that walking, game-playing, and, yes, "True Blood"-watching, I considered myself ahead when I made it through the week's newspapers and magazines on Sunday morning.

1
The number of books I began this weekend. Tom Perrotta's The Leftovers is simply terrific.

0
The number of times the air-conditioning has been on since last Thursday. What bliss to open every window in the house and let that fragrant, "it's-almost-autumn-air" waft through.

9
The number of graph-paper notebooks I picked up at Target Sunday night. Seven of them were on clearance for a dollar or less. The back-to-school section was reduced to heap of boxes on one shelving unit. They're already making way for Halloween, but, heck. It was the Sunday before Labor Day. Has back-to-school season really concluded?

Do you send letters or packages by mail?

From "Postal Service Is Nearing Default as Losses Mount" (NYT, September 5):

Missing the $5.5 billion payment due on Sept. 30, intended to finance retirees’ future health care, won’t cause immediate disaster. But sometime early next year, the agency will run out of money to pay its employees and gas up its trucks, officials warn, forcing it to stop delivering the roughly three billion pieces of mail it handles weekly.

The causes of the crisis are well known and immensely difficult to overcome.

Mail volume has plummeted with the rise of e-mail, electronic bill-paying and a Web that makes everything from fashion catalogs to news instantly available. The system will handle an estimated 167 billion pieces of mail this fiscal year, down 22 percent from five years ago.

Cloud Cult

As I've said before, Girl Detective sends me great links: Cloud Cult.

Semicolon hosts "The Saturday Review of Books." Consider participating this week.

The rumors of summer's death...

... are true. The season doesn't end until September 23, but summer, the event, ends on Monday.

The leaves have been falling for more than two weeks, the light has been changing -- slowly, subtly -- for two weeks longer than that, and even though it will be hot, humid, and decidedly August-like for the next two days, the weekend, Tom Skilling says, will be cool.

Yes, summer is dying.

So, like Frederick, we are storing up its last bits for that cold January morning when everything goes gray with an all-at-once-ness that makes everyone else gasp in sad surprise.

Won't you join us?

Take a long walk.

Throw rocks in the lake.

Drive with all of the windows down.

Sing along with the car radio. Even (perhaps, especially) at stoplights.

Play Sorry! under the shade of the silver maple.

Eat cherry or grape tomatoes. Whole. POP! SQUISH!

Buy corn at the farmer's stand.

Let the kids push you on the swing.

Observe ants.

Chase lightning bugs.

Ride your bike.

Pick wildflowers.

Store up the sun against the bleak midwinter.

And celebrate summer.