Reading First: Another Cookie Cutter Curriculum

It is my understanding that congress has recently voted to decrease the President’s budget request for Reading First and that subcommittees in both the House and Senate have voted to cut the program altogether.

As a teacher and a parent I’m frustrated and disgusted with what No Child Left Behind and its programs like Reading First are doing to education, which is especially repugnant in light of a recent investigation that has shown financial links between certain publishers and Reading First officials. Reading First makes a mockery of teaching and learning by putting real reading last instead of balancing comprehension with decoding. If anything, the scales should tip in favor of comprehension--I have never heard someone finish a good book and say, “You’ve got to read this book—you’ll just love sounding out the words!”

Sarcasm aside, I believe that measurable standards of excellence and accountability are needed, but cookie cutter curriculums and high stakes testing are not the answer. I’ve seen studies that show the greatest achievement gap in literacy is found among adult members of poverty, and if we are to improve literacy rates, we need to start now, by improving the lives of poor children, taking care of their schools, hiring first-rate teachers to teach them, and putting books they love to read in their hands, their schools, and their libraries.

If you agree with me on this issue, please speak out. If you don't agree with me, I hope you'll reconsider your position, and in the meantime, I’ll see about starting up some bake sales to raise money for books for kids.

Any blisters I get from cookie cutters will be apropos.

Bush and His Economic Stimulus Package

My sister Kelli sent me some info recently about that 9-11 conspiracy theory that won't go away--the one that says our administration was in on it. Since believing in my government is no sacred cow to me, it wouldn't surpise me one bit to find out the hijackers were backed by our country's leaders somehow. That being said, I checked things out at Snopes Dot Com, and it came back as an urban legend. But the skeptical side of me wonders, "Well... who's behind Snopes Dot Com?" Whether or Bush and Company were behind nine-eleven, what they have done SINCE then just makes me SICK!

To get a broader perspective, let's go back in time a little bit, back to Jimmy Carter's presidency. He was from Georgia, where one of their main products was peanuts. While he was president the price of peanuts went sky high. Never did come down, and the once-poor-peanut farmer got rich. How convenient. And then there were the Arkansas chicken price hikes while Hill and Bilary ran things. To continue the pattern, evern since Bush and Cheney have been in office, the price of petroleum just keeps going up. now that we're getting the Economic Stimulus Tax Rebate, look where it's gonna go--in the oil man's pocket. How convenient--about the only economy that's gonna get stimulated is the personal economy of the oil man. Hard times for him? Nope, just a whopper of a hard-on that he can take all the way to the bank. The Economic Stimulus Rebate is nothing less than Viagra for Exxon.

It's demoralizing and scary to see what's happening with the economy. I guess the A-Rabs didn't need to hijack airplanes or invade us with weapons of mass destruction to bring our nation down--Between them and our own oil industry, they've managed to hijack and terrorize the the barrel loads of black gold instead, and where is Our Commander In Chief? Oh yeah, he's busy keeping the surge of young men going to Iraq where they can die for a democracy that isn't even wanted, while here at home our ecomony sags so badly that our fighting men have little more than a piss pot to come back to. Bush is sticking it to our soldiers while his big buddies in the petroleum industry are sticking it to us with their dicked up, erected prices. It's nothing but a frenzied, dieselized orgy for all those oil people, and I never have been into group sex.

Maybe 9-11 was a conspiracy designed and carried out by our own people, but since that didn't bring the nation to its knees, they went to Plan B--they're gonna cripple us at the gas pumps. You can bet a few loners will be left standing, and those are the conspirators. You'll know who they are--they'll be hoisting a bulging bank bag in one hand and their phallus in the other.

Talk about a stimulus package.

Woodshed at Winter's End

Weathered pine planks house a bark-bottomed blackness
where snow-pressed strands of October grass
rest in steep recline.

Split fir once filled the darkest corner, barred the threshold.
Not today. Dwindling ever down with the waxing
days of March.

Sawdust coats the snow-seeped path, hides black earth beneath
where spring's budding blades
pose unseen.

© Connie Fletcher 2008

The Game of Life

The following poem was written by my colleague and good friend...

The Game of Life
By John Baker

I am a race car driver.
I’m a dead beat dad.
I’m a defense attorney.
I’m a Wall Street cad.
I’m the produce manager at the IGA.
I get intelligence for the CIA.
I spend other peoples’ money.
I’m a lobbyist.
I sell real estate in Phoenix.
I’m a five-finger discount hobbyist.
I’d like to introduce you to my best friend Ben,
Or my other green-back buddy, Mr. Jefferson.
I’m a politician, since the day I was born.
I make homemade movies, some call porn.
I am the fabric of American society.
I am the dirt, the grit, the guts,
The pale underbelly.

I’m the bane of your existence—
You and your wife!
Without me you’d have to go out
And get yourselves a life.
You better not deny it, you’d be me too
If you weren’t afraid of criticizing
The red, white and blue.
You might as well admit it,
We’re one in the same.
As long as you sit there watchin’
While I play the game.

I’m an orchestra director.
I work at the mint.
I teach social studies.
I can’t seem to quit
Smokin these cigarettes,
And drinkin’ the shit—
Diet Coke, Frappacino, Rock Star and beer—
They say it’ll kill you,
But that’d mean I wouldn’t be here…
So, see you later, so long, what’s-your-name.
Go sell yourself for a dime,
and I’ll do the same.
I’m a software designer.
I roll pretzels in the mall.
I speak Spanish with my amigas,
while I vacuum your hall.
I’m a construction worker
I run a warehouse fork lift
And in the summers I’m a fisherman, if you catch my drift.

Brenda's CD

My sister Brenda released a CD in 2006. Our sister Kelli has recently scripted this eloquent CD release statement...

In quiet of the early morning, before the birds begin their song, she listens. In this still silence, stories reveal themselves in a flowing rhythm and unforced rhyme. These are stories that deliver the emotions of a special place, blooming awareness, private heartbreak, aching tragedy, beckoning hope, soulful yearning and sweet belonging. In her debut CD, Who's Foolin' Who, Brenda Hanson couples these stories with fresh melodies that flow as naturally as the stories came to her and we are treated with 17 tracks that give us a unique experience. While staying close to her bluegrass and country roots, Brenda allows each song to tell its own tales, and each making. Like the birds, Who's Foolin' Who breaks out in song with calls and answers creating an inviting blend that makes you glad to be awake. In the end, that quiet stillness is but a dream and the new day longs for its song to be sung. Like the birdsong, her singing is unstoppable and breaks through the darkness and quiet with an urgency to be a part of the becoming day. Her song expresses itself accordingly. The result is a unique blend of vocals and even some "out of the box" instrumentation. She dazzles us with her true voice, her own guitar and banjo talent, a brilliant cast of musicians, and welcomes her cherished family to share in the singing and music song is precise, simple, complex, mysterious, and we are gifted with an experience as old as time and as new as the dawn.

While searching for information about the origins of the Easter Bunny I came across "Breakfast with Pandora," a blog written by an Episcopalian Christian Humanist, who is also a mythologist and educator. He had just what I needed. One of his blogs a few days later led to Hugo Schwyzer, "...eponymous blog of a community college history and gender studies professor..." If you love to languish in well-crafted, provocative writing, then both blogs are worth your perusal.

Last week I was busy with WASL testing and a chickenpox-ridden teenager. But I did manage to work in some bluegrass jamming at the local tree sale and conservation fair on Saturday. More WASL testing this week and probably an unannounced observation by the principal.

Oh! Big decision last week--I'm going after my national certification for teaching... probably in Social Studies-History for early adolescence.

First Day

What do hick chicks muse about?

Hick chicks muse about family and home, about what matters and what doesn't. Being with friends matters. For example, last night I went to see Oklahoma with my mom and some other lady friends from the small school where we work. First we dined at Cafe Al Mundo and conversed with a lusty gusto to match our meal--bold and spicy comments about life, laminators, and love. Then on to the play where love is what mattered to Curly and Laurie. And Will and Ado Annie. And the Persian Peddler. And Jud. And love mattered to Aunt Eller.

In fact the quest for love seems to drive most human strivings. I saw it in Oklahoma last night--Curly chasing Laurie. Will chasing Ado Annie. Ado Annie chasing everything, just like some of the young bodies in my junior high classroom. They think they're chasing love, but as I blog away on this first day, I suspect that all those hormones chasing hormones are more about power than love. Honestly, most of the time it seems like love is about making someone "yours" or making "your someone" do just what you want.

Whoa. Now didn't this just take a cynical turn? It's only the first day for this blog, but instead of Hick Chick Musings, maybe the title oughta be Hick Chick Cynic. Or maybe that oughta be my byline or logo. Huh. I'll have to muse on that.