Bite Size Memoir 2- Jinks and Japes

McParty.

This post is part of an ongoing small-memoir project by Lisa Reiter. To read other bite-sized memoirs from the project or contribute one of your own go to: http://sharingthestoryblog.wordpress.com/

Mr. McPartland was the kind of high school teacher that nobody knew what he was doing there, not eve himself. He was prone to long ramblings, "music days" and oral exams, all of which were awkward, to say the least, in a trigonometry class. Most days, he would chuck his keys at whichever of us he encountered in the hallway so he could arrive fifteen minutes late and then ignore us for the rest of the period. It got to be pretty boring.

So one day Josh gets this idea about climbing into the ceiling like that scene from The Breakfast Club, which worked, except he didn't really have anyplace to go. While he was perched up there checking it out Mr. McPartland finally came to class. I figured he would notice the open hole in the ceiling right away and so did everyone else, but he just came in, put the next weeks problems on the board, and started deriving some identity. Josh, meanwhile, was still trying to figure out what to do, not wanting to actually get in trouble for climbing into the ceiling. From my desk I could look up and see his arms and legs starting to shake with the effort of holding himself in position. And then, about forty minutes into class, he just gave way and came crashing back down onto his desk. Mr. McPartland almost had a heart attack, we all got in trouble, and he started coming to class on time. 

Sunday Jam

Play.

Most Sunday afternoons you can find me lurking with a rag-tag group of people that are alternately either twice or half my age, under the awnings that surround a small downtown building. On the outside, we look like we might be on break from our AA meeting or waiting for the cannabis clinic to open. None of us look like we should be hanging out together. There are teenage kids in jeans and t shirts, tall men in impeccable suits, and hunched hippies in deer skin jackets with long tassels. From the outside there is no reason for us all to be together, much less for the easy conversation and obvious camaraderie. 

Like most things, it's what's on the inside that counts. On the inside of this little building is the Sunday Jazz Jam, an all-comers welcome event that is headed by some seriously talented musicians and filled in by anyone who walks in the door and wants to play. This is not a place for divas or show boaters, though both show up and given their time in equal measure, this is a place for students. This is where you go to see how it's done by the kinds of musicians that play three gigs a week, and figure out your own style. This is where you go to listen to singers find their range, their own unique timing. This is a place to go to listen, to forget about the scene, and to return to the roots of the improvisational Jazz form.

It is a kind of Sunday service, and one that I have come to cherish. It is community, education, fun, and some damn good music. Check it out:

  http://thejazzstation.org/# 

Bite Sized Memoir I -School At Seven

Remember.

This post is part of an ongoing small-memoir project by Lisa Reiter. To read other bite-sized memoirs from the project or contribute one of your own go to http://sharingthestoryblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/bite-size-memoir-no-1-school-at-seven/

I remember learning words in phonetic groups; cat, sat, hat, mat and numbers by ones, twos and fours.

I remember standing at Miss Nancy's desk proving I could count and add together the shiny, polished stones she held in her palm correctly.

I remember too, the slow sounding out of words by her side; painfully slow, too slowly for my age.

I remember being able to form the letters with an always stubby pencil but not string them together into anything useful.

I remember watching my friends move forward through the books on the reading shelf.

I remember trying to guess the story from the pictures, desperate to connect them to the words.

I remember waiting in the hall with my parents for the teacher conference.

I remember hearing Miss Nancy explain how far behind I was, how other kids like me had learning disabilities, that they went to special ed classes.

I remember her pausing, looking at me, deciding my fate, and finally saying, "She's smart. She can do math. I think she's just waiting for something. Let's give her another year."

I remember, one year later, walking down the hall each day for reading class in the room three grades above mine, no longer waiting.

The Part-Time Racket

Work.

Portland State University is locked into a months-long labor dispute that focuses on the role of temporary and part time teaching faculty at the University. While the Oregon State University system averages about thirty percent part time staff, PSU is reaching towards fifty. No one, not the administration, the faculty, nor the students think more part time faculty results in a higher level of quality in education. And they are right, it doesn't. The part time teaching racket exists as an employment catchment for people with Master's degrees in particular, those that find themselves under-qualified for tenure track positions but over-qualified or too niche-educated for mainstream commercial jobs. From experience I can say that part time faculty are typically paid a flat fee based on in-class hours, a system that devalues extra time spent on curriculum development and grading. And in order to earn a living wage, and make the inevitable student loan payments, part time instructors teach many, many classes, sometimes at more than one campus. What ends up being created is a factory-farmed education. The students are numbers, the curriculum is simplified, attachment to the university fades, as does pride in one's vocation. The recent higher education boom has seen massive increases in infrastructure and technology at our universities, but little investment in the heart of education, the people. Are you an alumni? Tell your school how you feel about the role of part time staff. They listen. Or at least they should.

Higher and Higher

Baby.

Mike Rowe of dirty Jobs fame has launched a campaigned aimed at higher education and the myth that it is the only path to success and financial security. Rowe argues that university education is over-valued and creating a generation of unskilled workers with large amounts of debt at a time when vocational occupations are struggling to find qualified workers. I agree with him. I spent the majority of my twenties in degree programs and have an embarrassing amount of both education and student loan debt. And no, I did not go to a fancy private school I couldn't afford, I attended state universities, worked while in school, received scholarships, grants and teaching fellowships and still ended up with debt which, as unsubsidized loans, compounded quarterly the entire time I was in school. Oh, hindsight. 

That being said, I use my education and do not regret the time or work or even the expense. My particularly strange collection of degrees and certifications allows me to live a lifestyle of my choosing and gives me a broad range of possibilities for employment. But that is not the case for the average undergraduate with a simple two or four year degree in a non-trade program. And most university students these days take on far more debt than I have up front, even before the interest begins to compound. As universities rapidly expand and the shape of education evolves at the pace of technology rather than human development, traditional education provides less opportunity for the average student than ever before. 

And trade work is incredibly valuable, lucrative, and offers opportunities for self employment, creative work, and non-traditional lifestyles that far better address the needs of the modern family. We need to re-value our carpenters, electricians, artists, foresters, and farmers and redefine education, what we teach and how we teach it. 

References/Image:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/23/mike-rowe-of-dirty-jobs-speaks-about-hard-work-how-many-are-following-the-worst-advice-in-the-history-of-the-world/

http://mithunonthe.net/2011/07/27/thailand-2010-damnoen-saduak-floating-market-tour-cobra-show-leaving-bangkok/

Kids These Days

Canary.

I have worked with children for a long time in a lot of different circumstances, however most of the time my job has been to engage them in some kind of physical or outdoor learning experience.In the last three or so years I have made some generalizations and formed some thoughts about this new batch of children, those younger than 18.  Many of them are good.  This is about the rest of them.  Based on entirely anecdotal evidence and presented in full knowledge of the fact that I may well just be getting old and witnessing my own generation gap;

They seem to be highly medicated. They are lethargic, disinterested, and overweight. They are all going to have neck problems from never looking up. They drink caffeinated beverages.  They have a high rate of autism (I mean high in comparison to my grade school, which I am pretty sure was zero).  They do not play outside.  They are really hard to engage in focused activity.

Sometimes I feel like this is a real phenomenon, sometimes I wonder if this is how kids have always been just now we have names, diagnoses, and medications for it.  I notice also that parents seem to be somehow both more intrusive and ever-present in their children's lives, and also pretty checked out.  There are children I know who I rarely see look up from their phone or gaming device as they meander behind their parent.  

Perhaps these are just unfounded generalizations.

Perhaps I am just witnessing the adjustment to rapid, technology-driven social change.

Perhaps environmental quality and economic depression have taken their toll.

Perhaps children are like canaries and if they are, perhaps we should attend to their condition.

Photograph Courtesy of:

http://au.businessinsider.com/scary-kids-playgrounds-2011-11#fredonia-arizona-the-grand-prize-winner-ponderosa-park-sits-rusting-and-forgotten-1

A First Lady

Birdie.

Ladybird Johnson was a reluctant and unexpected first lady.  She was unsure of her abilities as a public speaker, and aware of her place well within the shadow of Jacqueline Kennedy.  She had an unpopular husband known best for ushering us into the Vietnam era and she stepped into her role as first lady under a cloud of public grief that would mark the beginning of decades of disillusionment and social change.  She was commonly referred to as  "wife in capital letters".  She wore a lot of yellow.

But. She also played an important role in the formation and implementation of the Headstart program, which today services more than 22 million children nationwide and was essential to the formation of the Redwoods National Park.   

We assume we know people, what they stand for, what they do, and what's important to them.  That Ladybird Johnson was one of the nation's early environmentalists may surprise us speaks to our tendency to pigeonhole people, and judge them based on their most public selves.  That she so quietly accomplished so much speaks to her ability to remain true to herself, regardless of her public obligations and personal challenges.

Do what you love.  Do what's important. You never know what you might accomplish.

References/Links:

To visit the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center Website:

 http://www.wildflower.org/ladybird/

Image:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Bird_Johnson

The PBS Biography of Ladybird:

http://www.pbs.org/ladybird/

Head Start:

http://www.nhsa.org/

Get On the Bus

hindsight.

In my 20's I bowed down at the alter of higher education. It was a ticket out of where I came from into the world of adulthood. For years, education remained a hallmark of legitimacy and success amongst my contemporaries, an essential in the development of an adult persona worthy of admiration and praise. As it turns out, what it isn’t, for most people, is a direct path to either a viable vocation or a sense of self definition and fulfillment. As it turns out there is no intellectual or financial shortcut to happiness or the pursuit of an authentic life. There is no end point, just the journey. Now, with all my tangible success as defined by modern society, I find myself out of pace with my contemporaries. The fruits of my previous labors have satisfied my early ambitions, and the expectations of society at large, but no longer satisfy my soul. For all the middle class comforts I may have available to me based on age, career, education, and situation, I appear to be unable to settle, either down, in, or for something less than a true manifestation of myself. I find myself, so to speak, unable to get on the bus. Ironically, I am returning to the University as a place of refuge. No longer a means to an end, education is now a way to practice and hone my craft, to live a life that satisfies my soul. I am often asked, with regard to my returning to school to dance, “And what will you do with your degree?” As a geologist, I was asked this question often enough, and was quite keen to answer it, with all my professionalism and all the things that make me look good on paper, to prove that my choices would serve a greater purpose, push me ahead, in to a new tax bracket, into a new house, a job, stability. I was keen to prove that the fruits of my labor would justify my path, that I would, in fact, be on the bus. Now, my answer is far more simple. What will I do with it? I will dance. I will not wait for outside fulfillment or validation, I am not working towards some future goal of happiness, I am manifesting it, right here, now, as I walk my path. I will dance as though no one is watching, and as for the rest, I’m not particularly worried about it.