The Atlanta Racketeers

In Atlanta today 38 educators and administrators must turn themselves in to authorities after a three year investigation into cheating on standardized tests. Many more have already made deals with the prosecutor. These educators are being indicted under the RICO or racketeering statutes. The cheating was apparently pervasive and came directly from the Superintendent. A 15 year old student who attended one of the elementary schools involved spoke on the radio about the cheating. She and her mother complained that the student's education was compromised because of the cheating and that now the student struggles to work at grade level. She laments that she'll always be tainted by the fact that her scores were altered.

Let's examine this more closely keeping in mind that cheating is wrong and not an example we want to set for children.  Firstly, NCLB imposes severe penalties on schools and districts that don't show improvement. The federal government's algorithms for measuring improvement are extremely complicated and a school that scores well overall may be penalized because one subgroup, say, second language learners, didn't improve as much as they "should" have. There are financial penalties for districts and other penalties for individual schools. The punitive atmosphere created by NCLB encourages cheating by putting tremendous pressure on teachers and administrators to make sure students have the highest scores possible.

As a teacher I proctored my share of standardized tests. I walked around my third grade classroom making sure that everyone was on the right page, not writing in the test booklet, and not skipping any questions. Strolling around the room I could clearly see students marking wrong answers to questions they knew. How discouraging to watch competent students make careless mistakes! How tempting to walk by and silently point to the right answer. But I never did and I eventually stopped walking around during the tests to alleviate my own frustration. Of course I knew that the next year I could be called on the carpet for those test scores. In fact there were many years my entire school was berated for our students' test scores because  one subgroup or other  failed to make the progress demanded by NCLB.

Racketeering, conjures up mobsters, not teachers and administrators. Racketeering is a charge levied against those who engage in fraudulent or dishonest business dealings for financial gain. I'm dead certain that none of those charged were personally enriched by changing students' test scores. Their school district had a lot to gain by scoring well on tests but personally teachers and administrators did not. Charging the employees under RICO seems a stretch, it's what the feds use when they've got nothing else.

Lastly, the 15 year-old girl on the radio. The unasked question: would anyone have changed her scores if she had been proficient and making good progress? The fact that she is still lagging behind her classmates points to her continued lack of academic achievement five years after the scandal. My suspicion is that her scores were changed precisely because they were low.  I don't know how it works in Atlanta but here in Orange County all students have access to the curriculum and teachers provide instruction based on daily performance not last year's standardized tests. Those tests are but one indicator, albeit a poor one, of academic progress.

It's wrong to change test scores, to cheat but we must examine the policies that produced an atmosphere where cheating was thought of as an acceptable means to an end. NCLB created a culture of punishment in education. Who doesn't want to avoid punishment? Especially for something, over which you have no control. No teacher anywhere can "make" a student read carefully, think critically, or care about a test in which they have no stake.

I feel for those educators in Atlanta who bought in to NCLB and let it distort their judgement.

Bible Babies

Mississippi. Just the name conjures up images of swamps, slavery, poverty, and ignorance. At least for those of us who have never been there. All we have is movie images and the state's own history to guide us.  Actually it is a leader in a couple of dubious areas. It leads the nation in teen pregnancies, not really an honor. Estimates are that 70% of Mississippi teens have sex before they graduate from high school. Mississippi is also our most religious state counting active church membership and affiliations. Looking at the effect of religious beliefs around the world, that is also a questionable distinction.

At first glance one may think these are not related. One would be wrong. Not long ago  Mississippi finally passed some legislation requiring sex education in high schools.  Signed parental consent forms must be turned in for every student participating. Schools have a choice of two curricula: abstinence and abstinence +. Abstinence + means that contraception is mentioned and condoms are demonstrated, well almost.

Problems have dogged the program from the beginning.  Some schools don't bother to send out consent forms. Some ignore the law. Students have been told that condoms don't work and you'll get AIDS and die if you have sex so abstinence is the only way. Sexually transmitted diseases are omitted from the curriculum. So despite the fact that 70% of teens are having sex, Mississippi legislators, educators, and parents choose to rely on religious tenets.

The Bible, always a great method of contraception, preaches abstinence. Makes sense since way back in biblical times that was the only failsafe way to avoid making a baby. Condoms were in use but were certainly not as comfortable or reliable as they are today. Believers today in Mississippi churches are advised not to have sex before or outside of marriage because of moral issues but really when there was no contraceptive devices those rules were meant to stabilize society ensuring support for women and children.

Here's the question the good people of Mississippi ought to be asking themselves: How is this Bible/abstinence thing working for us? Umm, not so much. Here, in the deep south, religion is actually perpetuating the behavior it condemns. Refusing to educate their children about sex on religious grounds is producing the exact results one might expect. Ignorance is certainly not bliss, in Mississippi it's babies.

Scapegoats

Teachers and their unions or associations make great scapegoats for what the U.S. populace perceives as the poor state of education. As teachers, especially elementary teachers, have been asked to do more with less over the last 20 years criticism from politicians, community leaders, and parents has skyrocketed. A profession that in years past was respected, is now met with derision and claims of mass incompetence. Educators who have decided to leave the classroom and take administrative positions get in on the act berating their faculties for whatever deficiencies they can find while asking teachers to do ever more for their students.

If indeed there is a crisis in education today it is convenient to blame teachers. That lets a lot of others off the hook. The first group it lets off the hook is parents. Poor parenting is one of the root causes of low student achievement, ask any teacher. No one dares point a finger at parents. No one dares to ask, "Are Johnny's parents helping him at home and making sure he gets to school on time?". No one asks why parents do not feed their children, make sure they get enough sleep, or learn English. Students' first teachers are their parents and the losses that stack up from 0 to age 5 are nearly impossible to make up.

The other group let off the hook is students themselves. Society refuses to acknowledge that students have a choice.  By the age of 8 children can decide how to behave and whether to put forth their best efforts. Furthermore, they can tell you if and why their work is poor. Students must take responsibility for their own learning. Teachers can present the material standing on their heads, on SmartBoards, with videos, whatever, but if students refuse to engage there is little teachers can do.

Money. The root of all evil according to some but certainly a crucial part of a quality education. Education has never been fully funded. Facilities, textbooks, supplies, and modern technology all require money that is never available. We have enough  money to spend four years repairing a stealth bomber but not enough to educate our children. Our leaders can blame teachers rather than themselves for starving education of the money required for a quality system. If our representatives had to work in the kinds of environments and with the kinds of tools teachers do, they would grant themselves plenty of funding to upgrade their workplace.

Blaming teachers takes heat off of the politicians and bureaucrats who approve and write the standards, make the testing rules, and of course decide the budgets. If children fail to achieve mastery of the standards with the approved methods perhaps the standards and methods should be re-evaluated. The Common Core standards were initiated and approved by a gathering of states' governors. While these standards may be fine, why are career politicians making educational policy? Why are career politicians dictating how material shall be presented in the classroom? Those same people decide how much money schools can spend and how it can be spent. Using teachers as political scapegoats allows politicians to avoid the blame for underfunding education. Teachers and their unions are directly responsible for schools' lack of funds with their huge salaries and pensions. That's the message put out there by our elected officials.

Poverty. There it is, the huge elephant in the room that none of our representatives wants to seriously address. Most children living in poverty are not going to achieve the same kind of academic success as their middle-class counterparts. Until this country acts to bring the millions out of poverty, no new standards or methods will be able to lift student achievement to the levels desired. No lunch or breakfast program is comprehensive enough to alleviate the deficits caused by homelessness, lack of early childhood experiences, or changing schools every few months. A pastry in the morning isn't enough to compensate for poor nutrition or absent parents.

Parents, students, lack of money, education policies dictated by politicians, and poverty. These are some of the causes of low student achievement. Hold them accountable and then teachers can actually do their jobs. Blaming teachers is easy but not at all productive.

New Standards, Old Books

Recently the Los Angeles Times ran two days worth of editorials praising the new Common Core standards developed by state governors. The editorial staff likes the idea that the new standards emphasize problem solving and writing. They like the fact that the new standards are touted as an improvement over the last 10 years or so of teaching a mile wide and an inch deep.

I cannot disagree with any of that. So much of my teaching career was taken up with teaching a skill one time in the school year and never repeating it that I wholeheartedly agree with adding depth to the curriculum. Teaching kids to think is also a wonderful objective. Many of today's school children find thinking and problem solving require just too much effort. That seems to be the attitude of many parents as well who find raising responsible children requires too much effort.

The problems with the Common Core are not the standards themselves but the way they are being implemented. As is usual in education, the way the new standards are implemented is like testing pasta for readiness: throw some at a wall and see if it sticks. Since no materials are aligned with the new standards  teachers are asked to create curriculum and materials. Most teachers aren't trained in curriculum development and are certainly not paid to do it.

The Los Angeles Times editorial makes much of teachers' opposition to these new standards. Well, who can blame them? Again teachers are asked to embrace a new program without being consulted or provided the materials critical to implementing a new program. No textbooks have been written to align with Common Core. It is unconscionable that teachers are required to teach a curriculum with no textbooks. Let's ask surgeons to operate with steak knives. But in education it is always thus.

The editorials also comment on teachers not liking change and that older teachers who have been doing the same thing for years just want to keep on doing it. Who are the people who write these editorials? Firstly, teachers probably change what they do more than anyone else.  Every year some new program comes along requiring new training and ways of teaching. Secondly, older teachers have seen and implemented more changes than younger teachers and are more able to identify what works and what doesn't. All new educational programs have components that are substandard, just ask any teacher. Experienced teachers more easily identify these components and modify them to increase their effectiveness.

Let's wait until Common Core textbooks and materials are in all the schools before we criticize teachers for being less than enthusiastic about standards for which they now have to write curriculum.

Old Dogs

            Mickey is an old dog about whom I’ve written more than once, usually in concert with other family dogs. He is a miniature American Eskimo, a huge white 14 year old hairball.  He weighs in at 23 pounds which, as you will see, has become a problem.  Age has affected Mickey in some physical ways but has not affected his personality. Basically he hates people, especially people in his backyard. The ankles of the guy who cleans the pool and the gardener are both targets for his vicious attacks. He has attacked the ankles of friends of ours despite our pleas to stay in the house, don’t turn your back on him, and never try to pet him.

            But here’s the thing about Mick today, he is now mostly blind and deaf and weirdly doesn’t always recognize us which is a little odd considering we’re the only people he’s ever liked. He’s also pretty gimpy with arthritis. Walking, running, and going up and down stairs requires some concentration. Regardless, he still gives the pool guy a run for his money when he enters and leaves the yard threatening to bite holes in his net since he can’t quite get a bead on his ankles anymore.

He can’t find his dog food unless it’s right in front of him but he can sense the squirrel cavorting on the back wall and scare it up a tree. In the house he doesn’t know where I am even if I’m talking to him, unless I wave my hand in front of his nose  but somehow “sees” me through the window  when I come down in the morning to feed him. He even tells time, beginning his ‘feed me’ yips precisely at 4 pm every day.  

Open the front door and Mickey won’t venture outside. I think there are two reasons for that. The first is that it requires negotiating 3 steps to get there and other is that he can’t see what’s out there. Just like lots of old people his world has become very circumscribed. He cruises the backyard and the downstairs of the house. Beyond that he’s not taking any chances.

Worst of all Mickey is crazy, demented, senile, nuts, whatever you call it when an old dog loses his mind. I’ve had a few old dogs but never one that was senile. My vet says there are supplements to try, but forcing pills down the throat of a 100 year old dog seems a little harsh. It’s hard enough to find ways to get his daily pain pills down.

Mickey lives outside. He likes it that way. He comes in the house to see if he can cadge some food but if none is forthcoming stands at the slider waiting to be let out. Out is where he is most comfortable in his fur coat and also where the trouble starts.  Our yard includes a pool, some grass, concrete, and most importantly a raised deck at the shallow end of the pool. Two shallow steps lead up to the deck  which is also framed with a short wrought iron fence. 

Bear in mind that Mickey has lived in this yard his entire life.  We haven’t changed anything. But suddenly, for no particular reason I can discern he has become flummoxed by the two steps and the deck. He gets up on the deck, I don’t know how, and can’t get down! I look out the kitchen window and there he is running back and forth along the fence and around the deck unable to get down.

            I come out of the house and call to him and even go over to the steps but nope, he’s not coming down.  Those are steps to the great unknown and he’s not about to set even one paw on them.  I try to convince him to come close enough that I can grab his collar and gently pull him down the first step. But he’s on to me now that I’ve done it a couple of times and  backs away when I come toward him. My only recourse is to pick him up, one arm around his rear, the other around his chest, and set him gently below the steps.  He is then deliriously happy and runs off to the water bowl to celebrate his freedom.

However, he is heavy and bulky and not always cooperative. So between his girth and my own arthritic knee it’s a chore getting him up and down and set down gently. I wish I could teach him how to walk around the pool to get back to the patio but this is one old dog who’s not learning any new tricks.

Text to Self

In the course of reading, reading anything at all really,  we make connections between the text or reading material and ourselves. Unfortunately, not all of these connections are productive or positive.

This morning the LA Times carried a story I've followed about a man and his dogs. Out in the Antelope Valley two pit bulls attacked and killed a woman out for a walk in her neighborhood. The man had 4 pit bulls and knew they were dangerous but did not make sure they were fenced in.  In fact the dogs routinely roamed the neighborhood scaring the residents. The two dogs were euthanized, the owner faces criminal charges, and the other two dogs are being rehabbed for adoption.

I've kept track of this story only because I read the paper every day, not because I go looking for it. It's also a story that sticks in your head.  There are so many dogs out and about and so many owners who think their dogs don't require leashes that it's easy to identify with this story.

This morning I put on my pink and blue Nikes, my headphones, and my shades and headed out to walk the neighborhood exercising my arthritic knee. Upon leaving the house I noticed two large dogs roaming the street. I don't know what kind of dogs they were and I didn't recognize them. One had a collar. They looked like boxer/pit bull mixes but I don't really know. Since they were sort of hanging around one house I thought perhaps they belonged to the neighbors.

I continued to walk across the street and they started to show some interest in me and began moving toward me. Normally I'm not afraid of dogs, but am cautious about strange dogs. I'm not stupid. However, with the article about the murderous pit bulls fresh in my mind I turned around and headed back toward my house. Honestly I thought about going on, about how ridiculous I was being but I stepped back anyway. What a wuss!

In the not too distant past I purchased some pepper spray online to defend myself and my dogs against other aggressive dogs. I'd had a couple of close calls with unleashed dogs. But I stopped carrying it and had to do a quick search of my cupboard to find it. It was behind my recipe box, a green cylinder with a red spray button. I made sure I remembered how to use it and left the house again.

This time the dogs were closer to my house and one trotted over to follow me down the street. He gave up after a few yards and turned around to find his friend. I walked swiftly down the street and around the corner and when I got back the dogs were gone. Probably back in their yard.

Did I feel foolish? Kind of.  As far as I know no one around here has been mauled by a dog in at least 10 years. Like lots of horrific news stories I took that one and applied it to myself.  In that I'm not alone. Newspapers, TV news outlets, and other media would have us believe that the world is a very dangerous place. In fact our society is far safer today than ever before. We are not likely to be kidnapped, stabbed, shot, or mauled by dogs.

Every time we make a connection between ourselves and the horrors reported by the media we are incited to fear our fellow man - or dogs as the case may be. Caution is a good thing. Being alert to one's surroundings is also smart. But letting that caution morph into fear and affect our actions isn't so smart and it's pretty stressful too. Thinking of ourselves as prey will not make us safer just more anxious.

Birdless in Huntington Beach

Moving to Huntington Beach from Torrance some 20 years ago required some adjustments.  My yard in Torrance was filled with roses, camellias, and gardenias.  We had a vegetable garden that grew luscious tomatoes and crisp peppers. In other words, we had great soil. This house sits on soil contaminated by oil.  It's hard dense clay and no matter how many times you amend it that wet clay seeps up and takes over. So when we moved here our gardening days ended.

However, we were rewarded by a backyard full of songbirds. The carrotwood trees we planted along with the ficus tree provided food and shelter for an abundance of birds. Redwing blackbirds and tricolor blackbirds were regular visitors to both the trees and our bird feeder. We also had the requisite sparrows building nests under the eaves of our patio. Once or twice we had a large gorgeous yellow headed blackbird on the back wall. Small hawks came to hunt sparrows who hid out in the ficus tree until the hawks got bored. Cormorants occasionally roosted, wings spread, in the trees as well.

After a few years all of the blackbirds were driven out by European starlings an aggressive non-native bird from...you guessed it Europe! The reedy banks of the lake in Central Park a block away which were home to the blackbirds were also taken over by the starlings. The starlings did come every year to eat the red seeds of the carrotwood trees which pop out of hard shells in the spring. They did such a good job that we never had seeds on the ground only the hard shells.

This year, for the first time in 20 years, we have no birds at all in our trees. The carrotwood trees dropped their seeds and shells in abundance only to be swept up and put in the trash. A trip to the park reveals a modest population of great-tailed grackles, a new addition to our area, but no starlings or blackbirds. There are mallards, Canada geese, and cormorants living there. Occasionally a mallard couple will try to take over our pool or a hummingbird will zip by but that's it for backyard birds.

I haven't consulted the Audubon Society to discover the reasons for changing bird populations but I can't help but think that the absence of native birds in my own backyard is a subtle but notable sign of environmental damage. It feels empty and silent in my yard now even with the cars passing by behind the wall. The birds connected me to the natural world while living in world of concrete and slump stone.

Life's just not the same without birds in the yard.

Ur / gent: adj., requiring immediate action or attention

My urgent care provider opens at 8:00 AM  which I don't consider early since it's called urgent care which implies one needs medical attention before or after one's regular physician's hours. That day I'd been waiting anxiously at home since 5:30 AM. I arrived promptly at 7:55 for reasons which shall remain confidential and are unrelated to this post. I was the second person in line (8:01 to be precise) and we both had to fill out new patient forms. So far the two of us were neck in neck in the race to be seen.  But at 8:00 AM there were only 3 people staffing the facility, 2 clerical workers and a health assistant, the guy, in this case, that takes your weight, blood pressure, etc. I know this because I followed them in. The other patient and I waited in silence for over 30 minutes after turning in our paperwork. Sometime after that a young man, the doctor, I presumed  and the man for whom we were waiting, strode into the office and disappeared through the inner door. Then more waiting. Turns out he was a physician's assistant, no doctor ever showed up.

As I sat there I thought, albeit a little irritatedly, about the meaning of "opens at 8:00". The comparison between my job and theirs struck me. (I know I'm retired from teaching but I haven't developed amnesia!) Here, the staffers stroll in getting themselves settled before calling a name. No rush.  And the person we're here to see doesn't even roll through the door until well after the posted opening time. Nothing "urgent" about this scene. No one is in a hurry except the patients. And as civilized adults we just wait and wait and wait, accepting apologies for having to wait so long just grateful to be seen after 1 1/2 hours!!!

Teaching is a little different as you well know. For one thing 8am is not that early. If school starts at 8am, faculty and staff have to be there 20-30 minutes beforehand and most arrive even before that. Teachers must "settle in" before their "clients" arrive not afterwards. Neither can we just saunter in 30 minutes after school starts. Try to imagine a long line of kids waiting calmly and quietly on the blacktop for their teacher to arrive. Nope, I'm not getting a visual of that.

Once our clients arrive they immediately begin clamoring for attention, no waiting quietly to be seen one a time. Instead they insist their needs and wants be met at once each jockeying to be first. And so it goes for the entire day, 25 -36 children in one room, each one demanding a teacher's undivided attention at some point. Mixed in with those kids are a few who require constant attention. Sometimes an emergency arises with a nosebleed, vomiting, or a child who conveniently forgets to come back from the restroom prompting a search and rescue operation. And let's not forget the ringing of the telephone with non-essential requests from the office in the midst of all this. It's like doing triage while performing surgery.  A teacher's day begins at a run and ends with a sprint toward the finish line.

So from all appearances, despite protests to the contrary I'm sure, urgent care providers don't really understand the meaning of the word urgent. I wish I could explain it to them.

First Excursion

Where the rivers meet the sea.

Mangroves – the word sounds a little dangerous, like a flesh-eating forest maybe. I looked it up and a mangrove is simply a tree that lives with its roots underwater. Pretty simple. A mangrove swamp is just a lot of those trees.  So we took our first tour in the southern Pacific  part of Costa Rica through the mangroves. I know I thought it would be a lot more interesting than it was. In the mangroves a little goes a long way. But on our way out we stopped by a tiny island inhabited by birds.

Frigate birds

bird island

The sea was choppy and the ride out was rough. I’m sure I was at least three inches shorter by the time we got to the mangroves. Every time the boat rode a wave up I came down hard.  I could feel my vertebrae

compressing. Frigate birds roosted on the island as well as sea eagles and black vultures.  Interesting but let’s get out of this chop!

Enter the mangroves where the ocean meets fresh water. High tide marks are clearly visible on the trees. At first it seems as if the mangroves are simply large rivers lined with trees but further exploration up the rivers reveals a different world altogether.

Hanging roots

The rivers narrow and the exposed tree roots reveal a natural world more fantasy than science. Some roots hang from above while others create a piece of art curving over and over in endless repetition. Birds flit through the swamp and tiny hermit crabs skitter across the dry roots. Caimans hide in plain sight waiting for a chance to slip into the water.

Juvenile caiman

Quiet is the word for a mangrove. The river moves slowly out to the sea and rises and falls with the tide.  Insects do not buzz and there are few animals in the narrowest canals of the mangrove. With the roots exposed and dead looking the silence is eerie.

Artistic roots

Tangled roots in a narrowing canal.

School Daze

Since 1994 I have worked at a school that somehow missed most of the wear and tear of other schools of its vintage. (1965) In many ways this was the result of teachers who worked their entire careers at that school and were solidly invested in it.  The school had a new stage with curtains a few years back.  Old carpets that had come unstuck from the cement were replaced and all of the carpets were cleaned every summer. The teacher’s lounge was repainted by a teacher and blinds installed. The classrooms were spacious and well cared for with windows on one side.

We had a beautiful library filled with books of all kinds enabling kids to read, research, and learn how to use a library. Primary students had story time on the rug there.  Upper grade students could find books supporting their interests in science, history, biography, or fiction. Frankly, it was one of the gems of our school supported by many teachers, librarians, and parents over the years.

The school also boasted a wonderful computer lab with a computer for every child and internet access for all. Students learned to keyboard, do research and create graphic presentations there. They learned about the power and dangers of the internet while writing blogs and doing research. Lessons in English, early reading and mathematics were also available. Here was a place where real life skills were taught every week. Teachers decided to make keyboarding important and many students left our school with skills far beyond those of their teachers, ready to write and publish reports with graphics of every kind. The faculty fought to retain our computer aide who kept the lab clean and the machines running. We didn’t always have the most up-to-date equipment being a small school with little federal monies but what we had was used daily and repaired when broken.

When a “modernization” bond was passed our school packed up and moved to another site. Although a decade newer than ours it looks much the worse for the wear. Regular rooms have but one small window in the door and most of the campus is crowded with aging portables rusting and crumbling from the outside in. Of course all portables lack sinks contributing to the squalid and temporary feel of them. The library there is organized according to an outside reading program and bears no likeness to a real library, the kind students will encounter later in their academic careers.  The computer lab too is small with too few computers for our now large classes. Clashes with the “new” school’s computer aide over curriculum have been largely resolved sometimes by using the lab when our aide is there.

So we’ve all made adjustments. Students bring commercial wipes for their hands, water bottles, and paper towels. Many teaching materials remain in boxes for lack of storage. In my class good students must give up their recess in order to go to the library. The rest simply don’t go, there is no time in the library schedule for my class to go. So no lessons on how to use a library and no books for them to borrow. Sad.

The modernization going on at our school consists of making changes to conform with the Americans with Disabilities Act such as flattening the thresholds to classrooms, removing cabinets under sinks and reducing the teacher’s restroom to just one handicapped stall. Perhaps a new heating system? No one really knows or if they do it’s a state secret. It does seem odd to me that at one school cabinets are being removed for wheelchair access under the sinks while at the other, sinks don’t even exist in classrooms.

But now the other shoe has finally dropped. Our lovely school will be used to house other schools due to be modernized and we will combine with our current site to form one large school. Granted, having to move all our materials once again would be burdensome but at the end we would be back in our nice neighborhood able to take advantage of the amenities like sinks, a fully stocked library we helped create, and a working computer lab for which we also lobbied. The educational environment we created along with our community is gone. We can’t recreate it at a site that’s never been ours.

Oh, and yes the teachers are great at our “new” school and working with them is terrific but teachers spend the vast majority of every day in their classroom with children or working there alone after school. And just because working in a decrepit portable with no sink and inadequate storage may be the norm in California that doesn’t mean teachers have to like it.

It’s a damned shame.

From Wild to Wilder

On to Drake Bay via San Jose

Tortuguero, Caribbean Sea and canal

San Jose from the air

That's what the guide said to us as we left Tortuguero for Drake Bay and Corcovado National Park on the southern Pacific side of Costa Rica. We packed up for another boat ride across the canal to meet our plane. It was barely sprinkling when we took off for San Jose.  After a short 25 minute flight we landed at San Jose to change planes for another 40 minute hop to Drake Bay.  Unfortunately the air turbulence was pretty intense during that 40 minutes and a few members of our party required airsick bags. But what fantastic views out of windows.

Beach landing

The airstrip at Drake Bay is surrounded by green fields and we were met by a driver and a few barking dogs. He threw the bags on the top of the van and we hopped in for a short ride over the hill  down the main street of Bahia Drake to the beach where we waded into the water to board the boat to the Drake Bay Wilderness Resort. Frankly, beach landings are pretty much the standard in this part of the world. The drivers back the boats up as far as they can onto the beach and you scramble in or out as best you can trying not to be knocked over by the small swells or step on a big rock. Try not to lose your shoes, backpack, hat, or whatever else you've brought along.

Drake Bay Wilderness Resort boasts a dock so no beach landing there. It also boasts a good deal of sunshine and not much rain so we anticipated some drying out. What fools were we! Down in the south the humidity is considerably higher regardless of the sunshine. And of course it does rain, especially at night which really bugs the howler monkeys for some reason and their noise making can be heard a mile away. Humidity does have an upside: no need for moisturizer, anywhere. On the flip side the sheets always feel a little damp and your bathing suit never drys unless you lay in the sun letting your body heat dry it. You can try to hang your clothes out to dry but 3 days later nothing will have changed. Ah, but there was a solution. The resort had washers and dryers and washed and dried your clothes for free, even your shoes. I didn't know about the shoes until we left so I came home with really stinky shoes.

Drake Bay croc

Mural in our room

The resort can be reached by hiking from the town across the river or by boat. It sits on rocky spit of land surrounded by water and jungle.  The actual bay is home to a couple of crocodiles and some shorebirds.  A crystalline river snakes out of the jungle to meet the ocean here. Toucans are abundant if not always visible. Our rooms are like small cabins, again with no glass in the windows just screens and shutters to keep out the light and the bugs. Built of renewable Costa Rican hardwood with porches and painted murals inside they are charming and comfortable. The views to the ocean are only slightly obstructed  by flowering plants and palm trees. Hammocks rock gently in the breeze and the pool is salt water.  Lunch is served at the bar overlooking the pool and the ocean. Every afternoon the chairs that line the rail around the bar area are filled with people reading while the tables accommodate families playing games or even checking email.

A spoonbill of some sort, never did get
his name.

When we arrive we get a list of the activities available to us and since we're there for 6 days we have at least 5 activities included.  Our meals are paid for, including wine with dinner. We can order drinks from the bar after 3:30 in the afternoon which are not included but cost little in comparison with U.S. prices. So after getting the 411 we unpack and get together to decide which activities interest us. The rest of the adventure begins the next day.

Drake Bay Resort - ocean side

A Jungle Christmas

All I wanted for Christmas (actually all I always want) was a trip to the unknown, a voyage, an expedition. A place far from concrete, the internet, and commercials. A place of peace and discovery. Somewhere to rest my eyes on the beauty of nature. So with family in tow I traveled by plane and boat to the Costa Rican rain forest. We traveled to places unreachable by road. Canopy covered outboard skiffs ply the canals of Tortuguero on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica and move people and supplies in Drake Bay on the southern Pacific.

Rain on the river

Tortuguero 

On the boardwalk

In Tortuguero, known for the green sea turtles who lay their eggs on the beach there, we stayed in rooms built on stilts connected with covered boardwalks.  Screens instead of glass cover window openings, nothing to keep out the sounds of the forest growing around us. Rain poured from the sky in torrents at night prompting loud complaints from the howler monkeys. The metal roofs intensified the sound of the rain and one night a monkey cavorting on the metal roof woke everyone at 1:30 leaving us wondering what in the world was going on. We took a boat tour up the canals of Tortuguero National Park to see wildlife. It takes a very good eye to spot animals in the rain forest. The forest there grows right down to the water, dense and green. We started in sunshine our guide pointing out birds and plants and continued in a downpour clad in thick army green ponchos. When the rain finally ceased and we pushed back our hoods many of us were quite wet. You'd need a poncho sealed to your face and neck with duct tape to be completely dry.

Muddy boots

Mud, mud, and more mud. Sticky, thick, slurping mud. We donned rubber boots for a trek through the forest surrounding the lodge. We didn't see many animals, our slopping around wasn't very quiet. Our guide proceeded confidently through the mud along the trail stopping to tell us about the trees growing above and around us. Their adaptations for growth and reproduction  in near constant rain are fascinating. Their roots are tall yet shallow and spread out around the tree to keep it anchored in place. On the ground we trudged through and around ankle deep mud trying to keep our boots on. Our feet made loud sucking sounds as we pulled them from the muck toes curled to keep from leaving the boots behind. The sky was clear then but the dripping of water from leaves continued sending rivulets of water down our backs or faces. In fact the constant dripping left me unsure about  the weather. Was it raining or was I just walking under some trees?

A little blurry but....

During the rainy season, we were there during the "dry" season, the sea turtles come ashore to lay their eggs. No pictures or ponchos are allowed and tourists must be quiet as possible. But during the dry season those eggs hatch and the baby turtles race unerringly toward the surf to be swept into the vast ocean. To hell with watching the mamas lay eggs, our guide rounded us up and we caught a boat across the canal to the beach. The babies were hatching! We hurried down the beach in time to see a nest of new turtles scrambling up from their sandy hole and dashing to the sea. For this experience you need only watch where you step, turn your flash off, and be amazed. We took pictures and video and oohed and aahed like proud new parents. We warned each other not to step back or to be still. Those babies weren't deterred by the deep footprints we left in the sand nor the three foot sand cliff that stood between them and the sea. Falling off the cliff they'd land upside down exposing their white undersides, right themselves and scoot toward the water to be swept away. I was giddy with excitement and wonder. In less than 30 minutes the nest was empty and the turtles were at sea. What a truly awe inspiring experience.

This was why I'd come. Wonder, awe, peace, discovery.

Let the beatings begin!

When the school year started out our school score was down (gasp) 30 points.  That means the complex equations used to measure school success spit out our score at 30 points less than last year. The worst ever anywhere in the history of NCLB, at least that's the way we on the staff were presented with the information. At the first real staff meeting our administrator beat us up albeit with a smile in her voice.  To call morale low is an understatement.

In order to push scores up we are now subjected to unannounced visits from everyone including, but not limited to principals, assistant superintendents, and superintendents. Fine, come in my room whenever you want but at least have the courtesy to refrain from interrupting a lesson and some feedback would be appreciated. Our bulletin boards, something the district considers a holy grail and sacred cow(maybe a sacred cow holding the holy grail) will be subject to intense scrutiny to make sure they conform to district guidelines. There will be no deviation from district curriculum ever, for any reason. These steps guarantee that students will learn more and thus be better able to pass tests. I know I learned a whole lot from bulletin boards when I was in school. Who needs a teacher when you have huge charts on the walls?

But wait - seems the state made a MISTAKE! Yes, a big giant boo boo imagine that! Our school  dropped FIVE points NOT 30 and our hispanic population always a topic for staff meeting discussions (which could be construed as a civil rights/prejudice issue) actually showed good growth, a goal of ours for years.  Our administrator knew about this for over a week before a memo was issued informing us of the "good news". Oh and the memo also relayed how impressed an assistant superintendent was to see how our boards reflected much better adherence to curriculum than last year. Really, that's their criteria, bulletin boards.  That's their check to make sure we're being good little boys and girls and following the rules. I guess we didn't put up enough crap last year to convince them that we were doing our jobs. Because our test scores did say that we had done our jobs. For example, my partner and I taught all the fifth graders math last year and every student except 3 scored proficient or advanced. We even had one student with a perfect score. Pretty damned good work!  But no pats on the back without some smacks to the head is the attitude of the district.

 Of course no meeting was held to celebrate, no praise for a job well done (we did drop 5 points to 827- 800 being the goal and we are still in Program Improvement - figure that out). Just a lousy memo after most of the staff had been informed via the grapevine and many of us had been on the state website days before to see for ourselves. Leadership is AWOL.

So as my husband says,"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

A Fairy Tale

Not long ago in the vastness of time, a little girl was born in a valley in the the most powerful kingdom of its time. She was one of many born during these years. The little girl lived in house with her parents and siblings. She wore dresses to school and changed into play clothes when she got home. Her neighborhood was full of children both boys and girls and they all played together. These were the innocent days of a childhood not cut short by work as childhood had been for her grandmother a  few decades earlier. The little girl’s parents both worked hard to provide her and her siblings with experiences they had never had. The mother of the little girl was the only mother on her block that worked. Because of that, the family did things of which most of her friends never dreamed.

As the little girl became a teenager she began to be aware of injustices in the mighty kingdom and a terrible war that raged beyond the kingdom’s borders.  At the dinner table each night the television news reported riots and unrest on college campuses and body counts from the war. She learned that women didn’t have the rights and opportunities that men  did although her parents told her she could do or be anything she wanted. 

Over time the powerful kingdom was forced by its subjects to correct injustices and to end the bloody war. For many years women rose into positions of power and peace ruled the land. The little girl grew up and had a daughter of her own whom she taught to be smart, independent, and cognizant of her rightful place in society.

Sadly, by the time the daughter was grown, times had changed. The kingdom was again mired in a decades long  war far beyond its borders and there was a movement by the rich and powerful to turn back time, to limit the civil rights of all the kingdom’s people.  Women were  targeted by those whose religions preached the supremacy of men. 

Would-be kings harkened back to what they identified as the golden age of their kingdom.  They pointed to low crime and happiness in a society where everyone went to church and mothers stayed home with their children. How wonderful it used to be before teenaged girls got pregnant and women went to college and on to jobs displacing men from their rightful role. If only mothers would stay home again and raise their children with a firm and godly hand the kingdom could once again enjoy the idyllic times so many remembered.

But these were lies the would-be kings told the people. They knew the people had forgotten or never learned about the injustices and crimes carried out by the king’s ministers when the little girl was small. The prejudices and rights violations that marked that era were conveniently forgotten. The dukes and earls that ruled the many royal states began to proclaim the end of certain rights especially for women. Incredibly the people applauded the reactionary policies comforted by the lords’ assurances of better lives for all if injustice for some prevailed. No one rioted in the streets or demonstrated or seemed to care about the coming end of liberty and justice for all. 

Just as the little girl had become an adult infused with hope for the future she now grew old disheartened by the return of prejudice and unjustice in a kingdom once revered for its freedoms.  The greedy lords of the kingdom grew richer and more powerful than ever, despoiling the land and disenfranchising the citizens. The little girl, now old and forgotten hoped to live long enough to see the people again rise up and demand that peace and justice rule the kingdom once again. How long, she wondered, would it take?

Stop and Go

I recently conducted a little experiment while driving around my city. Firstly I should admit that I am an opportunistic driver. I take advantage of every green light, especially left hand turn arrows. That may change the route to my destination but it beats waiting at a red light.

I decided I would try an alternate strategy to see if it made any difference in the time it takes to get around town. So this week I calmly drove the speed limit and adhered to my usual route to and from work and the gym and other places. I listened to a book and breathed and generally drove as if I had all the time in world.

Here's what I discovered: I was stopped at every red light from my house to work. Driving the speed limit I never hit green lights. It took 5-10 minutes longer to get to work which is 6.2 miles from my house. This week I have spent what seems like hours waiting at red lights burning $4.50 a gallon gasoline. On the up side I've had time to check email and text while at red lights. I never did that before because I was actually driving. Boredom  turned me into iPhone junkie almost overnight. I'm thinking this is not really a good thing.  I've also been able to listen to lots more of my audio book while waiting for lights to change. A mixed blessing given the books I've downloaded recently.

Obvious to me at least, the city does not time the lights to encourage an even flow of traffic. At least it doesn't if you drive the speed limit. Now, if I drive in my usual style looking ahead at lights and trying to hit green ones I can avoid lots of wait time. However, in order to hit the greens I have to drive five to ten miles OVER the speed limit, ten being the key to avoid the most red lights. Even then I squeak through on yellows sometimes. Perfectly legal.

If I were a conspiracy theorist I might imagine that the city wants me to speed so they can collect revenue from speeding tickets. But I've never gotten a speeding ticket so that theory is out. Maybe they want me to stop at all the mini-mall corners and look at the shops. Nah, too many lights are in residential areas. I can't really figure it out except to conclude that traffic engineers are, to put it bluntly incompetent.

Next week I'm calling off my experiment. I don't like spending so much extra time in the car, I hate listening to the radio, I hate driving slowly (I grew up in the age of V-8 engines with horsepower), and waiting endlessly at red lights just makes me irritated, harshes my mellow if you will.

Vroom! Vroom!

Death by HMO

Yesterday at a small community hospital in South San Diego, a 49 year old woman was left to die by her HMO.


She was admitted to a medical floor and then transferred to ICU after doctors discovered that she had a bleed in her brain. Things started to go wrong immediately. It was apparent that the woman needed a neurosurgeon and more specialized equipment than this small hospital could provide. She needed to go to a bigger hospital immediately if she was to recover.


Starting at about 11:00 am doctors at the hospital began calling their colleagues at other San Diego hospitals to find a bed and treatment for her. Physicians at the other hospitals were ready and willing to take her immediately. Everyone at the hospital from the CEO to the ER doctors worked all day with her HMO and other hospitals to get this woman to a large fully equipped facility so the bleed in her brain could be stopped. Hospitals would be found, only to have the administrators ultimately refuse claiming they didn't have a bed.  Scripps Hospital, a prestigious institution, kept them hanging for FOUR hours while the bleed in the woman's brain spread, killing her slowly. Meanwhile fifteen members of her family looked on and waited, seemingly unaware of the severity of this woman's illness and unable to negotiate the health insurance maze to advocate for her.


Finally at about 6:00 pm, after hours of frenzied calls by the staff at the community hospital, a transfer was approved. By this time she was in critical condition and every minute counted. She was loaded into an ambulance and transported. She faced a long drive since the new hospital was miles away. But by this time, the woman who had been alert and talking at 11:00 am was near death, unconscious and unresponsive. 


What happened to this 49 year old woman could happen to anyone with a for-profit medical insurer.  Her HMO waited for 7 critical hours to approve transfer and treatment at an appropriate hospital. Doctors at other hospitals were willing to treat her, administrators, focused on the bottom line, were not. Ironically, if she had no insurance, she would have been better off. If she had come into the ER instead of landing on the medical floor she would have been transferred immediately to another facility upon diagnosis.  In either of these cases, those other hospitals would have been required to treat her with or without her HMO's approval.


A  serious crime was committed here. More than one person, not a computer, not a faceless institution but actual HMO personnel and hospital administrators, denied this woman the treatment for which she paid and was entitled. But far worse, those persons knowingly participated in the death of a woman for profit. Given the information supplied throughout the day by hospital doctors, both the HMO and the hospital administrators knew how critical the woman's condition had become. And still, they delayed letting her languish untreated until it was too late.  Someone, anyone, should tell the family that they need a lawyer to sue the HMO for conspiracy to commit murder and murder with special circumstances because that is surely what they did. Her death wasn't caused by negligence but by a delay intended to avoid paying for services. Murder for profit. That's our health care system. 

Summer in the City

New York City never takes a break, sleeps, or slows down. Last week NewYork sweltered in 90+ degree heat partnered with typical summer humidity. That number doesn't begin to tell the story of the Big Apple in the summertime. I spent the 4th of July in NYC having arranged to meet a friend from Minneapolis there and stay with her at her daughter's apartment.  Her daughter was in Hawaii so we or rather my friend was taking care of the dog.

Her daughter's apartment is in a huge 43 building complex built in the 40's called Stuyvesant Town near the East River. The grounds are gorgeously landscaped with mature trees, huge blooming hydrangeas, fountains, playgrounds, and gardens. Strolling through Stuy Town you can imagine yourself at quite a distance from NYC. Walking the dog through the gardens the traffic seems barely audible.  The paths are shaded and clean, a cooling breeze ruffling the trees. Stand next to the huge fountain and enjoy the refreshing mist or play in huge water fountains designed for just that purpose.

Leave the grounds and New York City gets right in your face. At 90+ degrees it's like stepping into a 350 degree oven and closing the door. The heat from the asphalt shimmies up your skirt while the sun bakes your face.  I don't know where "they" get the air temp to report but it isn't from a thermometer at street level. The sidewalks, buildings, and cars gather the heat and reflect it back at pedestrians. Along with heat comes the humidity which only increases your discomfort.  I can imagine that before Manhattan was filled with skyscrapers breezes brought the residents a modicum of comfort but now the buildings block air flow superheating the city.

The heat causes more than sweat. On an outing one night to Big Gay Ice Cream our route took us down a particularly unsavory street.  Trash bags piled on the curb gave off all manner of revolting odors.  The smell wafting back to us of the man walking 10 feet ahead  was reminiscent of men's locker rooms after a tough game.  Truly the most disgusting, stomach turning smell was the sewer gas drifting up from god knows where.  I doubted whether I could eat ice cream, gay or not, after walking several long blocks enveloped by such a repulsive miasma. Fortunately, we turned off 1st Street down a darker, tree lined street where the air was significantly improved. We did manage to eat ice cream, soft serve with key lime curd, graham cracker crumbs and whipped cream! Mmmm...delish!

Let's face it, in addition to the nearly unbearable heat, the City is also noisy and dirty.  Cars honk, ambulances whine, and the sidewalks are spotted with permanent dirt.  After walking around the City all day and riding the subway you are smelly, crusty with salt and dirt, and exhausted from the assault on your senses. You crave a cool quiet escape from the summer in the City and a chilled glass of Chardonnay. Which is just what we had.

Well, maybe more than one glass, it was really hot after all.

The Godless

There are lots of things you should never say, our right to free speech notwithstanding. Everyone knows you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater or joke with the good folks at the TSA while waiting in a security line at the airport. And there are a variety of words that shouldn't be used in public if you want to keep all your teeth. But those aren't the sorts of comments or words that concern me.  Those relate to safety and common courtesy. There are other dangerous words one dare not utter in mixed company.

Liberal, atheist, democrat, socialist, universal health care.  Bet you thought I was going to list anatomical words. No, these other words are far more dangerous depending on the company you're enjoying.  We're living in a time where merely speaking your mind can lose you friends, invite ridicule and contempt, and cause loud arguments. The worst one is "atheist".

 We live in a society dominated by religion.  It wasn't always this way.  I remember when one's religion wasn't a litmus test for character or morals.  Going to church was a private affair relegated to Sundays and not discussed in school or during elections (the Kennedy election being an exception). Now our political leaders must profess and demonstrate their religious beliefs. Although we plainly see how polarizing and destructive religion is in the rest of the world we are unable to see that the same thing is happening here.  The right to freedom of religion has come to mean the right to foist your beliefs on other people whether in the form of a creche on public property or teaching the christian creation myth in schools.  What happened to freedom from religion, the right to hold your own beliefs without having  those of others thrust upon you?

I'm an atheist, not an agnostic, an atheist.  I don't believe in a god, a higher power, or whatever you want to call it. I've tried a few times.  I went to church with both of my grandmothers, on my own as a teenager and I took my children to a church when they were old enough.  No matter what, I couldn't make the leap, the leap of faith in something I could neither see, hear, nor feel. I do believe in many other things I can't see like viruses and radio waves because I can experience their effect.  But god, no.

Professing to be an atheist is like being a leper, it drives people away.  I don't usually tell people that I don't believe in god when the subject arises. It provokes anger and contempt which  never fails to surprise me.  Why does anyone care what I believe? And why are they so angry about it?  I'm not furious because some people are Catholic or Jewish or Muslim. I don't try to change their minds or insult them. But somehow atheism is the ultimate evil. Atheists must lack morals and integrity, we must be ignorant and sinful since we don't believe in god. Of course we are all going to hell as well, despite the fact that we don't believe in it.  For the religious it seems the only reason to behave morally is the threat of punishment. Alternatively, you can ask for forgiveness and all will be well in the hereafter.

In fact I am a generous, moral person with a good sense of right and wrong.  I don't need the threat of hell and damnation to be fair and kind to others. I believe in secular humanism, that humanity is capable of morality and self-fulfillment without a belief in god. In fact if we look at religion in both a contemporary and an historical context I would argue that religion actually prevents humanity from fulfilling its moral potential. The brutality humankind has inflicted on itself in the name of religion has plagued the western world for more than 2,000 years and continues to do so.

I'm outing myself, I don't believe in god and never have. I've never been ashamed of it but it always seemed like too much trouble to deal with the fallout of admitting it.  I  ask  that the religious afford me the same right they exercise, to believe as I choose and to respect that right.  I'd also really like some freedom from religion wherein the various religious beliefs of others do not bleed into public domains where they cause division and separation.

RESPECT is a wonderful gift to give.

Good Morning!

This'll be quick. I have a houseful this morning with The Boy and his Girlfriend and the the Big Dog. X-tra small dog sleeps in a crate in the house and has to be let out every morning and guided, yes guided, to the grass to pee. My husband is very good about this but I am lazier and don't like to walk out and wait while she pees and the Little White Dog goes crazy for his breakfast.

I got up early and let  XS  out of her crate and outside, dumping kibble in both dogs' dishes. The Big Dog sleeps in the garage so he was still snoozing. As  LWD wolfed down his kibble XS jumped onto the low brick planter and peed on the bricks! What nerve! Knowing dogs the way I do, I went out with a tea kettle of water and washed the bricks. It was futile and I knew it but I had to do something.

Sure enough it wasn't long before I caught LWD lifting his leg on the side of the planter. As if one can erase the scent of dog pee with a little water!  Next up, you guessed it, the Big Dog.  Now there is a rather large puddle of pee on the patio, isn't that nice?

Just another beautiful day at the kennels.

Confessions of a Book Junkie

You've all seen that bumper sticker: So many books, so little time.  That's something I struggle with.  I've got Anne Tyler's new book partially read on my Kindle.  I started the Steve Jobs biography in hardback, real paper. My iPod is loaded with a 55 hour historical romance The Fiery Cross,  Fool by Christopher Moore, and A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown by Julia Scheeres. I've started all of these books.  I'm farthest along on the historical romance but am increasingly enthralled by the story of Jim Jones.  And wait, I also have In Cold Blood partially read on my iPad.

I don't know what this says about me. Before I had so many options for reading I might be reading 2 books at a time but this is ridiculous. The worst offender is the Kindle, I can download any book in seconds.  Finish one, download another a minute later. I have more trouble with my Audible library.  I can spend a hour or more trying to find just the right book and come up empty. The subject, the narrator, they have to be a good match. Oh, and then I read the listener reviews, that often kills a book for me. But still, notice I have three on my iPod even though I pay for only two per month.

There are so many interesting, compelling, and entertaining stories out there I just can't resist them.  Instead of getting all of them at the same time I should probably make a list and just go through the list one at a time. But the backlog would be enormous because I hear about great new books all the time. The way I currently read, I can get through lots more books because I can listen to them whilst driving, waiting for appointments, exercising, or doing other boring mundane tasks. The print style books are good for bedtime, sitting outside relaxing or when my feet hurt from standing all day.

If I'm honest I have to admit it: I'm an addict, a junkie. I don't think there are any Books Anonymous groups out there  to help with my addiction either. Just clubs that cater to people like me. And they're not even worth joining. Seriously, one book a month and they call themselves "readers"? Ha! I don't think so.