The mosquitoes are coming. I know it.

Name whatever this winter should be called.

I bought bug spray today.  Yup.  Off! Family Care, smooth and dry insect repellent.  I found it at Food Lion. I know the mosquitoes are coming.  The daffodils bloomed in February; I know the flying insect air force is coming to sting me soon.  I needed Off! for March that I usually don’t need until May.

Something is wrong with this winter season.  I keep finding live lady bugs in my house meaning it should be fall, not winter.  I see daffodils abloom, meaning it should be spring not winter.

To me, it would be a lot easier if the date seasons begin and end stayed the same every year, and we just rid ourselves of words like “equinox” and “solstice.”  They confuse me.  Maybe, maybe, I should have paid better attention in Earth Science class. Then maybe – and that’s a big maybe – I would know the difference between solstice and equinox.

Regardless, if asked, I’m not sure I can tell you the difference between an equinox and a solstice or when any season begins.  So, let’s just say about the 21^st of a given month.

Supposedly, 2011 winter began in late December and will peter out to a soon end sometime round March 21^st.

Supposedly.  I think that the 2011-12 winter never came.

I haven’t seen winter.  Last night, some snow fell and made for a beautiful, white-tree crusted morning that became munched on by warm temperatures and hot sun.  That would be a “hmmm” in my book.  In any given year, we cancel and reschedule at least a dozen winter sport games due to inclement weather.  This year … one.  That’s another big “hmmm” in my book.  I never spent a sleepless night this “winter” worrying about having to cancel school.  Give me a “hmmm” for good gesture.  (It repeats my “hmmm” theme.)

Face it.  We haven’t had a winter.

NAME QUEST.  I’m looking for the best name that we should call this 2011-12 winter.  I’m thinking: “fing” – a mixture of f-all and sp-ring that completely negates winter.  But, my wife says that’s ridiculous.  So, I’m turning it over to you.

I’m giving you until Sunday, February 26 to come up with the name we should call this 2011-12 supposed winter.  To lend justice to your creative and thoughtful maneuvers in the coming week, I will assemble an illustrious jury to examine each and every submission.  We’ll announce the winner on February 29 – leap year – an exceptional day to honor an exceptional non-season.

Give it your best and send the name we should call this 2011-12 non-winter to Liz Patterson at lpatterson@madisonschools.k12.va.us for review.

The winner will receive a $25 gift certificate to Yoder’s and $25 gift certificate to the Deli.

Matt

P.S.  No local, state, or federal dollars will provide this award.  It’s privately funded, of course.

P.P.S. I just found a moth outside.   Buy some insect repellent … soon … the bugs are here …  now.  We're in fing.

What We're Talking About #2

Archery

I remember in middle and high school doing archery in P.E. classes.  The bow colors were not so much orange, green, and blue as much as they were ice cream colors … meaning the orange, green, and blues looked more like they were mixed with milk.  So, I tend to remember them as ice cream colors, not all the way orange, green, and blue as much as creamsicle, pistachio, and blueberry.

And, I remember plowing the bows into the ground under my armpit trying to attach the string from one end to the other.  The P.E. teacher made us do it before every class and at class end made us armpit them again to release the string just so the next class would have to repeat the exercise.  I’m sure this was to teach us a lesson, but I don’t know what to this day.

The P.E. teacher yelled … a lot … about safety, and rightfully so I realize this many years later.  She expected us all to enjoy shooting targets and nothing else.  Errant arrows sometimes found themselves plunged in the football field.  The P.E. teacher always made us go get them – while everyone, bows down and P.E. teacher just about standing atop them, watched.  I prefer to remember it as the walk-of-shame for not being able to hit the mark or as close to it as possible.

As part of me thankfully remembers her staunch safety-first demeanor and expectation, the most of me remembers that the P.E. teacher expected us to love archery.  Some did.  Most didn’t.

She did.  And, she was good at it, amazingly good at it.

I liked shooting arrows – so much so that I got bow and arrows as a present in middle school and enjoyed it immensely until I found something else to distract me.  I should have stuck with it.

(I texted my mother last night and asked where my old set is thinking I might take it up again.  She hasn’t responded, meaning that she threw it away -probably at the same time she threw away my baseball cards and comic books.) 

So, a few weeks back I learn that there are students at the middle school who want to start an archery club.  Super, I thought.  Love the idea and think we need to find my former P.E. teacher to instruct.  As I remember her, I’m sure she can still nail one at 80 yards, bull’s eye, at  80 years old.  No doubt.

We are talking about modern competitive archery in Madison Schools. 

If we trust Wikipedia:

From the 1920s, professional engineers took an interest in archery, previously the exclusive field of traditional craft experts.  They led the commercial development of new forms of bow including the modern recurve and compound bow. These modern forms are now dominant in modern Western archery; traditional bows are in a minority. In the 1980s, the skills of traditional archery were revived by American enthusiasts, and combined with the new scientific understanding. Much of this expertise is available in the Traditional Bowyer's Bibles.  Modern game archery owes much of its success to Fred Bear, an American bow hunter and bow manufacturer.

So here it is.  We are discussing adding archery as a component in the 6-12 P.E. curriculum and adding archery as an after school club.

We discovered that there is an organization, the National Archery in Schools Program, www.nasparchery.com, that promotes what might be a dying sport.

Designed to teach International style target archery in physical education class 4th-12th grades, core content covers archery history, safety, technique, equipment, mental concentration, core strengthening physical fitness and self-improvement. Before presenting the 2-week archery course, teachers undergo
an 8-hour National Archery in the Schools Program® Basic Archery Instructor Training Program.

We discovered on the Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries site, www.dgif.virginia.gov :

The National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) was featured as the theme of the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation breakfast for the Members of Congress and their staff on October 3, 2007 at the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Ten students from Hidden Valley High School in Roanoke, Virginia, demonstrated their shooting skills and the Eleven Steps to Archery Success with NASP equipment.

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries conducts NASP training for school teachers who are interested in offering archery as part of their curriculum. Virginia currently has over 100 schools that are offering the National Archery in the Schools Program.

We discovered that we have adult target archers in both the middle and high schools who are employees and may be willing to be club sponsors.

Imagine Madison as the known house of competitive target archery, preserving an excellent sport, good physical activity, and winning state accolades.  

Here’s to the middle school students who have an interest and asked a question.  We hear you straight on. 

Bull’s eye of an idea, I think.  Thank you.

What We're Talking About #1

I’m going to spend my next several blogs talking about what we in the school division are talking about.  Talking is good.  Some of our ideas float back to when you and I were in school.  Some float forward.  Whatever direction, we think these ideas should be out there - talked about.

Not sure if anyone noticed, but there used to be two huge satellite dishes … one at the high school and the second at the middle school.  One sat partially hidden behind big bushes facing 29 and the other atop Wetsel near the track.  They sat quietly and unused for many years – looking like big white koi ponds perched on sticks and uselessly not holding any water.  Our best guess is that they went in somewhere around 1990; we know we removed them in the summer 2011.

Once upon a time, they were used for state-of-the-art technology advances – 1990s satellite broadcasting news and programs and even digital class instruction into the buildings for student benefit.  Of course, today, satellite dishes are but bigger than a plate and certainly nowhere near the 12 foot across monstrous things.  News happens on cell phones.  And, classes have become virtual, no longer relying on satellite downloads converted to videotape.

Part of it all in those days was something called Channel One.

If we can trust Wikipedia, here’s their story:

Channel One was founded in 1989 and began with a pilot program in four high schools before its national rollout in 1990, with original anchors and reporters Michele Ruiz, Hicks Neal, Mark Carter, Kathy Kronenberger and Brian Tochi. It was founded by Christopher Whittle, a business executive based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Primedia purchased Channel One for approximately $250 million from Whittle in 1994.

In December 1987, Channel One's parent company, Primedia, classified its Education Segment, which includes Channel One Network, as a "discontinued operation" and announced that it was "exploring strategic alternatives for" the businesses in that segment.

I was teaching around the Channel One era and worked in schools where there was great community upset that the we were forcing kids to watch commercials and maybe-propaganda in the midst of little community input on what children should learn.  Back to Wikipedia:

Channel One has been controversial largely due to the commercial content of the show. Critics claim that it is a problem in classrooms because it forces children to watch ads, wastes class time, and wastes tax dollars. Supporters argue that the ads are necessary to help keep the program running and lease TVs, DVRs (Head-End Units) and satellite dishes to schools, as well as commercial-free educational video through Channel One Connection. In 2006, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported that research indicated that children who watched Channel One remembered the commercials more than they remembered the news.

Another criticism, noted by Media Education Foundation's documentary Captive Audience, is that very little time is dedicated to actual news and the majority of the programming is soft, sensationalistic "fluff" with corporate marketing and PR tie-ins to promote products and services, arguing that it further corrupts the school setting with consumerism.

Quite honestly.  I learned writing this that Channel One is still around; honestly, I thought it died long ago.

Broadcasting.  That’s what I call it.  The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), however, carefully funnels it into three neat and orderly high school classes:

• Communication Systems
• Digital Visualization
• Imaging Technology

We are talking about offering a broadcasting class at MCHS in 2012-13 with the intent of exposing children to a rich communication curricula that quite honestly could benefit not only other students in every grade but also the community at-large.  What we offer would be within the VDOE guidelines.

We see the class products unfolding three-fold:

1. High school students would produce 60-second sound bites on breaking news – the football game recap, the 5^th grade field trip to Civil War battle site, the spelling bee, etc. 
2. High school students would produce a weekly broadcast on local, state, national and international news to every student in the Madison schools. 
3. High school students would produce 15-minute documentaries on Madison history and tradition – the history of the Clore family, apple butter making at Graves, the people who initiated Taste of the Mountains, the Camp Varsity traditions, etc.

This broadcast could be recorded and placed on the division website for the community and world to see – without commercials.  Student-made, school-family enjoyed.

The benefit: student-made, broadcasting and technology skill development, K-12 student education, community benefit.  Importantly, students would benefit from excellent communication skills and also a career skill.

But, what intrigues us the most?  Memorializing Madison for future generations to see … without corporate marketing, PR tie-ins to promote products and services, and corruption of the school setting with consumerism.  Children could always come back as adults years later, remembering their work and Madison connection.

We like talking about it.  Madison-made.  Student-centered.

Pure digital.

Burn the Old Sofa

The sofa and loveseat died.  My wife and I bought them after we moved into our house in Winchester over a decade ago, before my daughter was born.  Buying them was a three-month traumatic experience.  You see, we never agree quickly – it takes loads of time.  Our everyday tableware, eight months.  A new comforter, a good six store visits.  Wall paint, at least four trips to Lowe’s. 

They were plain, the sofa set.   I got my deep cushions for Sunday lazing, but she got her loose pillows for back support and everyday comfort.   Denim.  Durable.  Dirty slipcovers.  Slipcovers for three dogs who think they belong on the furniture demanded common washings over a ten-plus-years because of dirty paws and snow-covered backs and every other complaint for why one shouldn’t have pets.  We washed the slipcovers - a lot – so much, that after a decade they didn’t zip, stuffings all juggled and jumbled and jarred, with seats with uneven bumps, only to be doubled-down by the fist-punching.  And, there were holes.

The set died eventually of wear and age.

After getting into the furniture store slipping passed the salespeople a week ago, I went deep, and the wife went near.  We were both looking for the touchdown score. Thirty minutes later we discovered that we agreed on four.  Pass another thirty minutes of sittings and even layings-down, stretched out thinking about lazy Sundays, we got it down to three, then two, and then one. 

One.  In an hour, we actually agreed on a sitting set.  Exuberantly, we bought the thing especially after salesperson told us it could be delivered in less than a week with the store also hauling away the torn, damaged, no-longer-zippering slipcovers.

So, the kid cried as we left the store.  I didn’t plan on that.

I guess Superman had his cape, Linus had his blanket, French fries always have ketchup, and my daughter had her sofa.  Steady, easy, the old reliable security devices provide assurances of what has been always done.  Anyone who knows me knows that I have my blue coffee cup – chipped and cracked and looking hideous, it’s been with me since 1999.  Steady, easy, security-giving – what’s always done every day.  I expect my blue cup every morning chocked full of java and whatever grime grows since it gets cleaned but once a week.

The kid wanted hold on to the old sofa.  Steady, easy, security-giving, and a thing of what’s-always-been-done.  “But, it’s our sofa!”

Driving home, I remembered a 103-degree temperature and staying up all night with the daughter as she slept on the denim set.  Photo-proven, every holiday is remembered and celebrated for holidays sofa-sitting.  Subsequently, the drycleaner’s bill-proved-true ascertained the dog-with-virus who yakked all over the sofas … repeatedly.  Birthdays, friends-over, memories burned.  In all of it, the slip-covered blue denim set remained, rightfully so, a constant.

Even I wanted to hold on to the set driving home that day after we bought the new thing - assigning the old set to the dump.

I got my daughter to sleep on the denim sofa when she was but a wee bit; I designed a world-class curriculum on that sofa that took my previous school division to the top in the nation; my wife and I sat, contemplated, and decided to accept the School Board’s offer to come to Madison on that sofa – completely a most-right decision.

Sometimes, old things of the past must go.  No matter how much we resist change, it is inevitable. 

I remember a school division superintendent back in the 90s who commonly said, “If it isn’t broken, make it better.”  His thinking, I believe, suggested that things must always change because the world around us does.

Some things remain and some things must change.  It’s all compromise, maybe.  The sofa left my house on Saturday; the love seat stayed – albeit in another room.  Regardless, in all, things must change.  And, in it all, some tears and sadness came coupled with something new.

The rising tide lifts all ships … the clock ticks … sands fall.  High expectations mean that change comes no matter the steady-easy.  In education we resist change.  Proof?  We still have the same educational system we did 20-30-40-50 years ago.  Breaking from the comfort zone is trial-filled and has to happen to thrust us forward, I think.

Sometimes, we just need to toss the sofa and get up and move.

Matt

P.S.  A rising tide at WVU in Morgantown probably means raising sofas to burn – a thing they do on football nights.  It means, I think, there can be celebration in change. 

Greetings

A few weeks back, Forbes Magazine released its Top Ten Christmas Movies of All Time.  I chuckled in the car all the way to work as the radio jock methodically ran down the list from ten to one.

I didn’t laugh as much as when I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago a few years back when I giggled myself through one room then promptly flew out the front door before I was asked to leave.  There was a pile of dirt on the floor that purportedly symbolized rotting culture and a wheelbarrow filled with popcorn that was supposed to make me think of greed.  The HVAC duct propped up against a wall conjured up man’s hope through trial-filled journey; then, I found the string of Christmas lights (plugged in) and draped on a nail about 10 feet up.  It symbolized our “commercial needs in a decaying society.”

Who knows what the other rooms held.  I will never know – because I am obviously a non-expert in these culturally nosed-turned-up things.  So, I ran out of the museum, quickly and near hysterical with laughter. 

And also, I’m not an expert in Christmas movies either it seems.  Here’s Forbes list:

Ten.  1951 adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

Nine.  1947 original telling of Miracle On 34th Street

Eight.  Gremlins

Seven.  Elf                     

Six.  The Bishop’s Wife

Five.  A Christmas Story

Four.  1941

Three.  The Nightmare Before Christmas

Two.  Brazil

One.  The number 1 Christmas film of all time,  Die Hard

The Number One Christmas movie of all time, Die Hard was chosen because it includes “every redemptive struggle about family and personal evolution and good versus evil, all wrapped up in a big shiny box with a bow made of explosions and bullets. There’s Christmas, and then there’s Christmas with punching terrorists in the face and winning back your entire family — which do YOU prefer?”

I’m nearly speechless.  Truly. 

Right now, I could rent 1941 – but no family should.  I could rip off all the lights on the tree in order to fight the “commercial needs in a decaying society” only to replace them with old-fashioned real candles on a near-totally desiccated Frazier fir -  a tree only the likes of Egyptian mummification experts could manage – but I fear my house would go up in flames symbolizing “an idiot’s gesture to prove right a contemporary artist’s objective.”

Truth-be-told, maybe there’s something to the Christmas Story’s famous line: “you’ll shoot your eye out, kid.”  I’m giving that one serious thought so I don’t have to read anymore sludge.

We finished watching Christmas Vacation a bit ago; my kid put cookies on the same plate and milk in the same cup we have all her life (and, I hope she’ll use the same plate and cup with her children someday); and, the carrots are sitting on the front porch.   With the exception of occasional bark from the family’s self-believing ferocious dog who thinks she can take on the marauding skunk in the backyard, the house is quiet.

Kid in bed, we’ll wrap the last minute things we should have done days ago – but quite frankly, I enjoy the last-minute time with my wife before Jimmy Stewart’s 1946 It’s a Wonderful Life hits the DVD, sans bullets, explosions and terrorists.

I just saw that Forbes yesterday released an article: "Five Great Christmas Movies That Aren't Christmas Movies" making silly even sillier.  Ignoring the contradiction of the article's title, I can't help but believe that Forbes should have buried this piece in the pile of dirt on the floor of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago symbolizing "rotting culture" after seeing the suggestions.

Which do I prefer?  My kid will greet tomorrow with smells of blueberry muffins, sights of peppermint stirring sticks dunked in hot chocolates, and family peace.  This "symbolizes" nothing that will ever appear in that top ten list or any contemporary museum.

Season's Greetings, Madison.  Warmly,

Matt

To make silly even sillier, I just saw that Forbes yesterday released an article:  “Five Great Christmas Movies That Aren't Christmas Movies.”  Ignoring the contradiction of the article’s silly title, I can’t help but believe that Forbes should have buried this article in the pile of dirt on the floor of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago symbolizing “rotting culture.”

Plains of Spain to Madison Mountains

I went to college in the 1980s with a gal named Lisie Franklin.  She’s a better friend than I am – making sure to email at least twice a year, mostly wondering if I will make it the Alumni Weekend.  Something always comes up as I never make it where I should go.  I rely on her annual email at Thanksgiving knowing it’s my birthday.

There’s good and bad about being a Thanksgiving baby.  The bad is that no one ever wants to cook a birthday cake at Thanksgiving – translation: I grew up knowing that a candle would always be jammed into a pumpkin pie for my birthday.  The good is that there was always a family reunion at my birthday.  The better is that people, like Lisie, always remember my birthday across so many growing years because it surrounds a holiday.  I like feeling the connection to the past with a card, email or phone call.

I get my semi-annual email from Lisie – or Lisita as I call her because we traveled to Spain together some 25 years ago.  Some folks play forward a quick “hola” (hey) or “felices cumpleanos” (happy birthday) or “te echo de menos”  (I miss you).  Lisita sends me a detailed update on her life (la vida), carefully asking questions (preguntas) about me, my wife (esposa), my job, my family (la familia).  She always remembers my daughter’s (mi hija) name and asks about her.

Esa amiga (this gal) was an amazing collegiate athlete (atleta) earning all-American status for her accomplishments on the competition field in both field hockey and lacrosse.  Gifted in so many ways and an amazing person to know, even today some 25 years later, I remember Lisita.

La recuerdo  (I remember) en 1986 el mismo (the same) como hoy (today) en dia, con carino (with fondness).

Hace muchos anos (many years) que esudiamos (we studied) en Madrid, Salamanca, Sevilla – ya, recuerdo Lisita y las horas (our times), caminando paso a paso (walking step by step) en las parques (parks), los monumentos importantes (important monuments), y los cafes de la Plaza Mayor y la Puerta del Sol.

Lisita, te echo de menos (miss you very much).  Voy a hacerlo mejor (better) este año (this year). Te prometo (I promise).

I think back on all the places we went then and after graduation.  Maybe Dr. Seuss was right in Oh, the Places You’ll Go!:

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)

KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!

My friend Lisie now lives on a mountain in Idaho.  Obviously, I live in the beautiful mountains about Madison.  Go figure.  Who’d have guessed where we’d end up when we studied in the 1980s on the plains of Spain only dreaming about where our lives would lead.

Likewise, I hope our Madison students dream big – including all the world locations they may travel, lives unrolled, ending up in the most unexpected places – maybe back home in Madison or the plains of Spain.

Hat, Not Hate

I jumped at the chance to stop on I-81 driving home from Roanoke on “Black Friday.”   Excuse: the kid asked for French fries – being Thanksgiving weekend, the wife and I agreed– then, we felt guilty buying her fat and sodium. 

We need to be better parents around holidays, not giving in so easily.  Saying “no” always makes us feel like better parents, anyhow.  I love my daughter and her want of fries. But saying “no” would have missed an excellent opportunity that I soon learned.

Real excuse to stop: I needed to a stretch and escape the car.

At one of these fast food-convenience store-gas stations-shopping marts we had it all.  The kid got fries, the wife got a bottle of water, the family car got fueled up, and the wife’s grandmother got a pretty candle thing with a Virginia cardinal on it for Christmas.

In the restroom I found on the ceiling graffiti that said, “Hate was here.”  I tried to figure out how tall the person was who could reach the ceiling with a sharpie marker to clearly write, “Hate was here” on the ceiling tile.  Message sinking in, what type of person writes “Hate was here” and thinks that’s acceptable anywhere?

Back in the 80s, on wooden tables and benches, I remember eating at a terrific restaurant that encouraged folks to cut in comments about whatever.  I always sought out the table that read, “Eat the rich” - finding it amusing for whatever reason.  Certainly, I didn’t believe that anyone really wanted folks to engage in cannibalism to devour the wealthy – it was more of a political statement.  In my entire goings there, in all my eatings, I never saw anything that was obnoxious, rude, or took me aback.

Fast forward about 25 years and I found on the ceiling of an interstate stop, “Hate was here” and was shocked.

What type of person defines himself as “hate” and what type of man thinks it’s OK to be defined as hate?  I can’t, even now, find any political jest in it nor any sarcasm nor any cultural alarm for whatever self-purported social issue, raising awareness as was the case in my 80s restaurant. 

I feel sorry for the person who would write that nastiness, forcing people like me to see a caustic view of life.

Many years ago as a school administrator, I found a bomb threat in a bathroom that read, “Bumb at 10.”  Of course, no “bumb” went off at ten or any other time.  I learned that sometimes people scribble junk without thinking through the impact of their words and spell stuff badly.

While I’m sure my “bumb” threat person just had a poor spelling skill, I’m also sure my “Hate was here” offender had the same poor spelling forte. 

He meant to say, “Hat was here.”  His buddies probably nicknamed him “hat” because of his love of head-gear, and I want to believe that he got his graffiti all wrong by adding an “e” to hat.

Three things. 

First, here’s to the person who wanted the world to know about his love of hats.  I respect your opinion but don’t agree with it.

Second, here’s to whatever 6’8” traveler scribbled “so is love” that I saw next to “Hate was here” in the rest stop.

Third, I don’t feel guilty in the least for vandalizing a men’s restroom by blackening out an “e” while perched precariously on the side of a toilet making sure the world knows of cool-cat “hat.”

There’s a blessing, I think, in an unexpected stopover for fries or for whatever.  Life happens giving us time to think and act.  And, a chance to make a mark.

I think as professional public educators, we should help kids understand that it’s not OK to hate.  Not sure if it’s our job how to teach them to love – because I think that's a parent’s job – I’m certain it’s wrong to hate.  And, I think, as a community, we should tell kids that hate is wrong, leaving parents the responsibility to teach values and love.

Hat, I’m with the other guy before me who wrote “so is love.”   People will know that “hat” stopped on I-81 and so did “love.”  I hope you find love, err, “luv” … you need it, brother, as well as a better education that teaches why hate is wrong and listening to your parents who were charged with love’s importance, among other things.