Friday Questions
Forget the VCR; Friday's a good day for questions:

If chess is so good for the mind, why don't more schools incorporate the mental challenge into their day?

Why do I get the feeling that Apple is rolling out more system products...with a price tag?

What would it be like to live on the Island of Sodor?

Copy Talk: Kids these days, Pulling Fire Alarms, Smell of sawdust
A Poem

Legs hooked on bars like monkeys
Gravity pulling hair and blood down to solid earth
Squeals, "You're it!"s, and sawdust on shirts
Where are the kids these days?

Bike adventures, expeditions to Bennett Peak
A fire alarm pulled with no one around
Baseball games with no scores
It's a shame about kids these days!

Grammar Lessons, Book Reports, Poetry Recitations
Copied Outlines from scarced-pictured History books
Dodge ball, Multiplication drills, multiple choice tests
They don't know how to learn, kids these days!!

Mork and Mindy, Dallas, Happy Days,
Love Boat, Fantasy Island, M*A*S*H
But certainly we won't watch Soap and what's this MTV?
They watch trash TV, kids these days.

For 25 cents I made copies at Longs Drug store
I think it was a page from an Astronomy book
The duplicate was a bit fuzzy and faded
It was damp and slow, but I had my copy.

Oh Gravity, pull Me to earth and wipe the sawdust off my shirt
I've never had to pull a Fire Alarm for real
The Duplicate of my Happy Days 20 years ago
Is not clear to kids these days.

Tuesdays and Media Literacy
So Tuesdays are inevitably scarier than Mondays. Mondays has a really cool song...Tuesday is when everything hits.
Like 2nd hour.
[Scene: One warm well-lit classroom with desks arranged in groups of four. White boards are on the north and south walls; posters of inspirational folks who've done cool things plaster the west wall. Cabinets are on the east wall with a computer, printer, and various organized piles on a counter.TEACHER stands by the doorway]
[A bell goes off and in a few minutes enter STUDENTS]
Teacher [to STUDENTS]: Hey!
Students: Hey, Where do I sit? Munch. Ready for the game? Book? Sigh.
[Bell rings and TEACHER walks in]
Teacher: Good morning!
Students: Hey! Talk. Magazine. Game tonight?
Teacher: Go ahead and get out your books to we can read for a bit here.
Students: Yep! Book? Game tonight. Nice shirt.
Teacher: Where's your book?
Students: Book? No Time. His fault. Game!
Teacher: Your responsibility!
Students: Sins of the few. Book? Talk. Me.
Teacher: Tomorrow: No Book="F"
Students: Laugh. Talk. Game. Oh.
[Scene: After class, Teacher]
Teacher: Man, I said all those things you're not supposed to say, but I was frustrated. I don't think that the educational crisis is exclusively what is being taught or even how it's being taught. I wonder if Wong was right; I wonder if a school is a reflection of society and that one can't outdo the other.
[Teacher sighs, removes his glasses and puts them back on]
Teacher: Tomorrow's Wednesday.
[Bell rings]

Snow's melting and yet the back door is locked. Perhaps the custodial staff forgot that detail. I don't blame them: winter break is over and the slap of Monday is stinging...really hard.

I fumble for my keys badly juggling too many artifacts from good intentioned "catch-up" school work.

Haven't look at any of it until this morning when I packed the papers, books, and ideas for revision. I traded those items for a bit of peace, joy, and hope with my family.

Man, it's cold!

"Hey, Eugene," he says.

Keys drop and I sigh as I remember that voice--that peace, joy, hope killer, the one that lurks in every school building being reheated for its audience this winter morning.

"How's your break?"

Almost sounds friendly and smart and logical--very popular during late summers with journalists and especially keen during the road leading up to Tuesdays in November. Better deal with it now.

"Hey to you," I muttered.

"Don't forget about the meetings this week," he reminds me.

Monday will go fine today. We may be in survival mode today...it's Tuesday I fear.

Study finds focus on testing hurts education

Rigorous testing that decides whether students graduate, teachers win bonuses and schools are shuttered, an approach already in place in more than half the nation, does little to improve achievement and may actually worsen academic performance and dropout rates, according to the largest study ever conducted on the issue.