School is out.

I needed a break from the routine to plan and rethink strategies. We need a different look to the room, some different forms and rubrics and tests and worksheets. And I need some new music to teach. I've got a couple of thousand pieces of music to look at. I'll be taking some web design classes. Not sure that's what I want to do, but Mrs. G wants me to go along with her so I may as well.

The weather is hot in Georgia. We are hitting 90 in the shade everyday.

I'm on vacation.

It is memorial day. This day of remembrance always reminds of my boyhood friend Michael Turner. When I was eleven I joined the boy scouts with a group of my school friends. We were in elementary school. They were all pretty big boys except for me. I was little. There were enough of us to make a couple of patrols. Our group was wolf patrol, troop 414. The already established troop had other patrols and troop leaders. I looked up to a boy two years older who was our Senior Patrol leader. He led us in games, capture the flag for example. He taught me how to make a fire and helped me get my tenderfoot badge. I remember going to camp Burt Adams, which was later turned into a shopping mall, and to camp 175. We liked it there and went a number of times. My patrol members elected me patrol leader because I think they thought I would keep the group out of trouble and I reported to Michael. Those boys became so many different things. One is a lawyer now. One dropped out of high school. One went to Georgia Tech on a football scholarship. He was the starting center on the team for several years. I got a doctorate in music. In 1967, our Senior Patrol leader graduated from high school and immediately volunteered for the Marine Corps. He wanted to serve his country in Viet Nam. I didn't know he had joined, but I remember the day he died. The word went through the school in hoarse whispers from hallway to hallway. People were crying. His little brother, Dan, was younger than me, in my sister's class, and he had been taken home. At the end of the day we had an assembly to be officially given the news that Michael had been killed in action in Viet Nam. Just days before he had been there with us, sitting in those bleachers, cheering for pep rallies, whistling at cheer leaders.

I did not serve in the armed forces. I was granted a student deferment and the draft was ended just before my graduation. As time passed I thought about Michael, going to Viet Nam as a volunteer, and me, one of his younger scout brothers, staying behind, deferred. It became clear to me that in a way, he went in my place. Maybe not Michael exactly, but someone went in my place. When I was deferred, they went down the list to the next young man, someone who was not in school and could not be deferred. He went in my place, and perhaps he died. Even if he lived, his life has been ever changed. So I feel that it's Michael who went in my place. He never had a family, or had a career. He did not own a home with pretty flowers in the front yard. He has not known the joy of marriage and children and countless other relationships that bless our lives. I've been to Washington D.C. to stand in front of long black wall of names. I've reached up high overhead to touch Michael's name and then stood beneath it and cried. It was hard to find his name there. I was not the only person standing and crying.

Today his brother went to visit him up in Marietta. He goes every memorial day and helps put out the flags. There were flags on every grave, a whole cemetary of flags. 18,000 I'm told.

Michael, I think of you and your sacrifice often. I can't repay you, but I won't forget you either.

The Texas miracle. How did they have that dramatic improvement in Texas schools under Governor George Bush? He ran on that success, calling for teachers to be held responsible for student success. He used this as a focal point of his first election. What really happened?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/06/60II/
main591676.shtml

James should read it. It's the way the current preznit is successful in every endeavor.

http://www.youtube.com/results?related=
cup%20stacking%20record%20gland

I had to put a line break in this to make it fit in blogger so you can see it. You may need to take out the break between the "=" and the word "cup"! You just have to go to this website and play the cup stacking video of Emily Fox. You'll laugh yourself silly. Notice the person walking in the background. The video is not in fast motion. If you hit some of the other videos you'll find more of Emily Fox.

I call the names. Some one has to do it. I don't know exactly how it fell my lot. But a number of years ago someone came to me and asked me if I would and I agreed. I don't know why we have so many foreign students, but yesterday's graduation list included students from Lithuania, Japan, France, China, Mexico, Viet Nam, South Africa, Germany, and the Pacific Islands, to name a few. And I can't even figure out where Joo Noo Johnny is from. Thankfully there were some John Smith types mixed in to give me a break at times.

I don't think anyone thinks much about how difficult it is to pull off a graduation exercise, but it is a lot of work. Lots of chairs arranged in particular orders, choir and band rehearsals, soloist rehearsals, putting the program together, organizing the students into their regimented places and practicing the walk, setting up and testing microphones (the system is always out of whack at the stadium), building the platform, setting up the floral arrangements, contracting with the photographer, and the videographers, maintaining security on the grounds, having the EMT's standing by, working out a parking plan, hiring officers to direct traffic, writing the addresses, correcting the grammar, and practicing the delievery over the echoing loudspeakers at the football field. Oh yes, and writing out phonetic spellings for 329 graduates. Nothing's easy.

Hats fly. Flashbulbs blink. Tears run down cheeks. Trophies are held high. Laughter. Beaming parents. Thankyous. Then fade to black and . . .

start all over again.

English as an official language. Gay marriage bans. Illegal alien deportation. These are the trumped up in the media non-stories that we'll be hearing about daily on the TV to try and blot out death and dying in needless war in Iraq. Conservative Republicans have been disenchanted by all the horrible goings on by the party in power, to the point that they may not bother to vote in November. A disaster looms for the GOP if they cannont invigorate their base of support. They must talk about the murdous abortionists, those criminal fruit pickers, the perverted queers that want to destroy the family, and those people who dare to speak languages other than English, trying to fracture America.

We must continue to talk about, bad health care policies, record profits for drug companies and oil companies, record low taxes on billionaires, the end of privacy in America, sky-high energy prices, the most two-faced, lying administration in my memory, an administration that releases names of agents to the enemy, eaves drops on citizens, lies to the public about reasons for war, grants no bid contracts to cronies who then steal billions of dollars. There is no accounting by anyone for anything. The real scandal is that the media only covers these horrors for an evening then they cover Brittney Spears the next day.

Finally. Concerts are over. The senior class gave us $7000 today toward a piano for the new auditorium. That is fantastic, but unfortunately, it is just a rotten place to sing, so even when we get a piano there, we aren't going to like singing there. The Presbyterians are still letting us use their place however and it is a terrific hall so we'll just keep singing the advanced choirs there. Amazing how a good acoustic makes the groups way better. We must work toward having a better acoustic environment to rehearse in.

The senior class that is leaving is smaller than some we have had, yet there are some tremendous losses for me personally. Karl, Bryan S, Anne, Lauren, and Diana are all going to be music majors. Bryan M and Leah are also planning to study music at least as a minor. Jesse is going to GSU undecided, but both she and I think she is going to study voice eventually. She is a tremendous singer.

Karl is my best tenor soloist ever. Bryan my best male soloist ever, a baritone. Karl and Bryan are going on the honor scholarship to LSU. They are my seventh and eighth scholarship winners there in the past 6 years. There will be 5 of them there in the fall. Anne's parents are teachers at our school. They are amused at how she loves me. Often at the end of a long day, they cannot find her and so they come to the chorus room where she'll be bending my ear with something fantastic. We have been comfortable with each other since she was a bouncy 14 year old with braces and so I have adopted her as my other daughter. She had her picture taken with my two children at the last concert and told them that she was adopting them as her brother and sister. Lauren and Diana have enough music to make it through, but are not quite as shining stars. Fortunately the cupboard is not bare with their leaving. Morgan S, Morgan H, Ellen, and Carli are next years stars. Jason McCloskey, Chris Chabot, and Garrett Roberds are ringing basses, and Alex Couch a developing tenor. We'll be okay.

Today was the last day for seniors and we hauled out some old pieces in Singers and sang them. They did all right. The bell rang and the seniors began to cry. Tears were streaming down, and some were sobbing. I said "Come on girls. Life isn't over. You'll keep singing. You'll come back to visit. We'll keep it going for you." But Caroline looked at me and said, "But Dr. Green, we are not in the choir anymore. We aren't McIntosh Singers anymore, we're just visitors." Then we all cried. I told them they would always be McIntosh Singers. Some didn't leave until 10 minutes into the next period. Seniors kept drifting back in to sit since they were doing nothing in Math and Science and they just wanted to be back in the chorus room. At 5:00 Anne was there to tell me the latest. She's the Salutatorian and wanted my help with her speech. We looked at it but just couldn't focus on it today. She asked if she could come back tomorrow and I said "Sure."

Visitors. I meant to tell you about visitors. Our students come back. And even if they didn't hug you when they were here as students, they hug you on their return. They are full of stories of how they miss me, and how they didn't realize how good our program until they got to their college choir and nothing was nearly as good. They leave their visitor badges stuck to the cabinet wall, leaving a record of their return for all to see. About 75 badges are up there from this year. They don't interrupt when they come, they sit and watch the rehearsal.

I seem to have found just the right place for myself in life. It has taken awhile. I am lucky.

Does everyone realize that there was no immigration problem two months ago and that the whole faux "issue" is being trumpeted in the media by Republicans, not in order to solve any immigration problems but only, BUT ONLY, to draw attention away from WAR IN IRAQ, WAR IN IRAQ, WAR IN IRAQ, NO WMD, A LYING PRESIDENT, A CRIMINAL VICE PRESIDENT, OIL PRICES, DEFICITS, EARMARKS, CORRUPTION IN THE WHITEHOUSE, RIGGED ELECTIONS, THE END OF DIPLOMACY, LOSS OF ALMOST ALL OUR ALLIES.

Immigration is not an issue. It is a smoke screen

I just had a horrible thought. It looks like Karl Rove will be indicted this week and the Fitzpatrick investigation is turning to Dick Cheney. If both are indicted and forced to resign. . . oh no! the preznit will be left running the country. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCKKK!

And you thought things couldn't get worse.

Cold Day in May. It was a day of emotions.

We used to say "It'll be a cold day in May when . . ." On occasion, it gets pretty cold in May though. Yesterday we made a familiar pilgrimage, the two hour drive to UGA (strains of "Going Back to Athens Town" play in my head). I went the old familiar way through Conyers and Monroe. Conyers was a traffic nightmare on the return. Anyway, back on campus. That stirs up memories. Lots of memories. I was a student there for seven years, walking those paths everyday. It is a beautiful place.

Little Jenny graduated. There was the strain of a broken family. Uncle Carter on one end of the row with his new wife, Aunt Sue on the other end of the row, thankfully, without her new husband. That puts a stress on things that you can feel. When the introduction to Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" died away and the familiar strains of the melody began. . . Da_ah, dee da da, da_ah, da_ah. . . Carter began to cry. His litte Jenny was graduating from UGA. Our seats were in the shade and it was cold. The wind was artic and sent shivers through the crowd of unexpecting onlookers. Being a wise old man, I wore longjohns. That only meant I was less cold than the freezing crowd around me. An unusual moment was coming and I knew it. The Alma Mater was on the end of the program, and I always come to sing. I remember singing it on the field with the Glee Club at homecoming back about 1970, so it has been awhile since I learned it, and since it should be sung with warmth and vigor, I sang full voice, to the utter amazement of those non-singing alums around me. But hey, I sing. That's what I do. The family all laughed afterward.

It's no easy task to get into UGA these days. Hope scholarship was supposed make it easier for GA students to get to college. There have been unintentional effects of that scheme. The flagship school began to attrack many of the state's former emigrants to northern schools. These kids were smart and when there parents compared $40K a year for Cornell, or $7K a year for UGA, they said "I think you can get a pretty good education over in Athens." And we can buy you a house with the difference in cost! And so they stayed home. So Jenny bug is a smarty pants all right. Even though my children did not go there, it is nice to know that they both were accepted there.

At the end of the event I had the avuncular task of trying to locate Jenny's lost purse and keys in the vastness of Sanford stadium, chasing down security personnel, until Eureka! I found it. Nice save Uncle. I love Jenny. She has always smiled at me so and hugged my neck since she was a wee thing, and I was happy to rescue something for her. She wanted to go up and have her photo taken walking through the "Arches". (The gateway to campus). The tradition is that you walk around the arches as a student, only going through when you have finished the task. Jenny can walk through now. The granite stones are worn down from 100 years of footsteps of those who after exercising great patience have finally walked there. It is empowering to walk there. I never miss the opportunity to go through them.

And that was only the morning. In the afternoon we were back home watching our girls struggle in the state championship game for soccer. Alas, this year there was no championship for the girls in green and black. Only tears. But it is a team with only 4 seniors. These girls will be back with a vengence.

Then to make the day complete we drove up to the northside to hear the Davidson Chorale in Dunwoody United Methodist. It was a fine concert. Impossible program. Their director, Jim Dunnaway, sees no limitations when he looks at a piece of music. There are no challenges that he can't teach to high school students. No rhythms too difficult, no level of independence to complicated. Jim has no peer that I'm aware of. In fact, I have no idea what his rehearsal must be like.

On the other hand. Even though we would not attempt two Eric Whitacres, Dello Joio, a Bach motet and four NC Jazz tour de force pieces on the same program, EVER, my girls sound would be a dramatic contrast to them. Jim and I are committed to putting the two groups together next year at Spivey. They need to see each other face to face. Each group needs to know that there is another bear in the forest.

So after leaving home yesterday at 7 am, we returned finally after 10 pm, just in time to catch Jeff Francouer's two out, bottom of the ninth grand slam. I played it back on tivo fourteen times. It was such a joyful moment for the young number 7. I felt like it was '52 and we were watching Micky.

Why are my phone calls being recorded and monitored? I thought the domestic spying program was select and targeted. Wasn't it over seas calls that were being monitored? Is this an illegal search, authorized by the preznit? Will we actually know when fascism takes over the United States?

On another note. During the preznit Bush administration, my investments have made $25,000. Only problem is, with an 8% return during those years I'd have made $90,000. They tell me the economy couldn't be going better and it's all because of the tax breaks that rich Americans are getting. How exactly is that going to help me retire in a few years?

Our public school girls whipped those number one ranked private school girls this evening. We lost a big group of star seniors last year, but this win puts them in the state championship game on Saturday. Oddly, I thought the losing team was fabulous, but our girls could score and defend and they won.

Some observations about making schools better. I write these because I’m so amused with the politicians and how they seem to have the answers for better schools boiled down to catch phrases.

Jim Wooten in the Atlanta Journal said a couple of weeks ago that reducing class size was not the answer. I wonder how much teaching Jim has done. He is also an advocate of reducing the number of administrators. He says that schools are top heavy with overpaid do-nothings. Having been in the classroom awhile, I can tell you that class size is critical. And having plenty of administrators is critical too. I’ve noticed that there are levels of teaching efficiency that pass away when class size is over 25 and again when it is over 40. I teach high school, so these numbers are likely different at other levels.

Jim is also big into all the Republican answers, which seem to be: 1) forget about teacher pay raises, they make plenty and private schools do better with less pay; 2) do away with certifications, any degreed person can teach; 3) vouchers are needed to subsidize my friends’ private schools; and 4) fire teachers of under-performing students (student failures must be instructional failures); 5) give merit pay to teachers who produce good test scores). I won’t bother addressing most of this crap.

I would suggest that radical school reform would include a lot more money—not a little more money—a lot more money.

I imagine different looking schools. Class sizes are no more than 15. Everyone can ask questions and have them answered. There is never so much noise that people don’t hear the teacher. No one is far away from the teacher. The teacher can evaluate student progress on each application in a minimum of time, ensuring forward progress for all. Who gets this treatment now? Only the Advanced Placement and the Special Education Classes. Why not everyone? There are extra rooms for special applications. Perhaps there should be rooms without desks, or hard chairs, just cushions or pillows and such. Like the computer lab, they would be available on a sign up basis.

Rooms should be finished out differently. Who lives in a space that is white concrete block, with no window treatments, or even. . . no windows? Our school children and prisoners at the jail live this way and that’s about it. Adults in business wouldn’t stand for living in such a setting every day. You can talk about maintenance, cleanliness, and fire codes till you are blue in the face and you just won’t be facing the facts. Humans like certain kinds of spaces. Soft and warm spaces, not hard and cold spaces, colorful spaces, not bleak spaces. When you imagine the fancy private schools, what spaces come to mind? Uh huh, I see them too. Wooden floors, wooden trim work around the doors and ceilings. Windows looking onto the quad. Grand windows in the staircases. And outside? Grass, stone buildings, arches, covered walkways. The visual space we work in has tremendous affect on what work we are able to do. Schools are pitiful spaces to learn.

Technology is woefully inadequate for schools. What business asks its employees to go down to the computer lab and sign up when they need to get on a computer? Why do we have textbooks to carry around when 1000 times more information could be on student laptops? The end of book bags and all book bag problems. Why aren’t there smart boards (computer interactive screens) in every classroom? We simply don’t take learning seriously.

As for teacher pay, it starts too low. It pays well enough after 25 years. But the beginning years can’t compete with industry at any level. This is a government scam. The government leadership shows teacher pay on the high end and says, “See what kind of money you can make?” But the accountants know that half the new teachers won’t make it to the fifth year, where the pay first starts to go up. It’s no accident there are no raises at all until the fourth year. Over 1/3 of the teachers have quit by then and you never have to pay them! Raising beginning teacher pay would draw in more candidates to choose from. Taxes aren’t too high. In fact they aren’t high enough. It’s not that we spend too much on taxes, it’s that the economy operates at such a low level that the tax burden is difficult. The tax burden is not difficult on the rich. If we educated our population at a much higher level, it would raise everyone’s standard of living.

Imagine things a different way. The Republicans say taxation is a weight that holds down the economy. The Democrats say provide for the poor and elderly no matter the cost.

Dr. G says: Educate the children. A truly educated workforce will invigorate the economy, find new economic horizons, and raise the standard of living of the world. That’s how to fight terrorism. Education. That’s the answer to illegal immigration, opportunity in every homeland so every father and mother can feed their child without fleeing to another country. Tax more. Spend more. Not on Highways, dams, presidential libraries, and stadiums, but on education. With enough money we have small classes, administrators to enforce discipline, salaries that compete with industry and adequate classroom supplies and technology.

Admittedly, part of the last paragraph is borrowed to summarize, from NYC educator’s comment section on May 5, the Nice Man Cometh.