So said a “spokesperson” for the Michigan Department of Education. I’m not going to identify or quote him because, as usual, mlive.com is making it so hard for me to find the blasted story online that I have given up. I don’t have all night, fer kee-reist, and I don’t want to enter my zip code, birth year and gender every blasted time I try to go to the NEWS on your site!!!! But seriously. Emergency? I know what an emergency is and this is just not one.

I guess most people are probably talking about Al Gore today (ho hum) but here in The Great Lake State, the big kerfluffle involves the MEAP (Michigan Educational Assessment Program) test. Apparently a newspaper reporter in Jackson published some information about one of the writing topics and now the gods of education are thundering around about making some kids retake the test. I do have a link to the reporter’s blog. I sincerely hope he doesn’t feel compelled — for any reason — to take it down.

Let’s get our priorities straight here.

When Lizard Breath was in 4th grade, she came home from school after a day of MEAP testing with the happy news that she had gotten all of the math questions right. Now, there’s nothing wrong with Liz’s brain but math is not her favorite subject and I was a little surprised at how confident she was that she had achieved such a high level of success on that section of the test. And I knew that the tests had to be sent out for scoring, so how could she already know her score? When I questioned her about it, she said that the teacher had checked her answers. Say what? That stopped me short for about a split-second but it’s been a heckuva long time since I’ve taken a standardized test and I guess I just figured it was okay for the teacher to look at a kid’s answers. Life went on and I pretty much forgot about that conversation. Gonnnnnnng!

A few years later around MEAP test time, I got a call from the dictator principal or the PTO prez or whoever (I was on the PTO board) asking me to come to a meeting at the school that afternoon. It was a hastily arranged meeting, I had no idea what it was about, and I was kind of ticked off because it was Liz’s birthday and I didn’t need anything more to do that day. It turned out that Liz’s old 4th grade teacher had been *caught* helping her students with the test. I don’t remember the gory details but I think there was something about taking the tests home and marking the errors with post-it notes. As you might guess, that veteran teacher was almost immediately bounced out. “Medical leave” was the official story. Roight.

A lot of people were pretty horrified. I think I was probably horrified. Mouse was in 4th grade that year but she was in the other class (whole ‘nother topic). But I also empathized with the teacher. Of course she shouldn’t have been cheating! But why are our teachers under so much stress to produce students who can pass standardized tests? Our public school teachers have a heavy load to bear. Overcrowded classrooms. Kids with “special needs” or whatever it is they’re calling it these days. Goals to meet and constant constant constant assessments to make. No child left behind. All this with dwindling resources. Oh! And if a first-grade student is crying because her mom has to work and dropped her off early to day care and she knows she won’t see her mom again until the end of the world (6 PM for a little kid), you can’t give the kid even a simple, perfuntory hug. “I care about you.” Because you just might get labeled as a child molester. Sheesh! And don’t get me wrong. I know that there are *plenty* of kids who really do have special needs. I just don’t see why so much of the brunt of dealing with those needs has to fall on the schools and the teachers. But people have written books and books and books on all of this so anything I have to add is not new.

The teacher I’m talking about was in the business because she loved to teach, cared about kids, and wanted them to learn. At an age when most teachers are just counting the days, she teamed up with another teacher and created an award-winning experimental multi-age classroom and curriculum that catered to different learning styles. Was she afraid that if the students’ test scores weren’t high enough, her pioneering program would be cut?

Priorities? We have human beings here. Kids who are more or less prepared to learn academic type stuff, maybe a bit weighted toward the “less” end of the spectrum just because kids usually don’t like being cooped up in classrooms for hours on end. A teacher who, after a very long, successful career, makes a really stupid mistake and leaves her job in disgrace, rather than stay a few more years and have a nice retirement party. The students in her class had to deal with losing their teacher and adjust to a new one. And then we have pieces of paper. State bureaucrats who haven’t been in a classroom since the dark ages. Sorry, this stuff makes me mad.

I think what Liz’s teacher did was wrong but I think this whole standardized test thing is being blown out of proportion. Academic integrity is important. As a student, I don’t steal other people’s work. I don’t see the point. If I didn’t work hard and sometimes struggle to do my own work, I wouldn’t learn anything. But, for Kee-reist. The students in question here are 5th and 6th graders! This was an error made by adults. It seems like an innocent one to me. There may be a small handful of kids in the subset of test re-takers who actually read the newspaper and might get an advantage. There are probably a few more whose ever-hovering parents have alerted them to it. But most of these kids are probably as happily clueless as Liz was that day so long ago. Whether or not they know what’s on the test in advance, they’ll write what they want to write. Or they’ll look out the window. Or whatever. People, This is one blasted test. These are 5th and 6th graders. Don’t drag them into this 21st century morass we call “security” or whatever. My daughter is almost 23 now. She’s a successful college graduate. NONE of that has anything to do with her probably inflated perfect score on that 4th grade MEAP math test umpteen million years ago. These are children! Let it go. Let’s move on.

This test crap is not an emergency! What is an emergency is that children and teachers these days are not being given the chance to form their own learning communities without the hands of various government agencies stirring the pot. And it goes without saying that our teachers need more support. Of every type.

If I had my druthers, we’d can most of the standardized testing and give the kids a whole lot more unstructured time for running wild in the great outdoors.

I have two fantastic classes this fall and the one I’m going to talk about today is my Adobe Illustrator class. When I enrolled in the class, I basically knew how to do two things in Illustrator. One was black and white website architecture diagrams and wireframes and the other was cute little 3D-style aminals and things. That’s a slight exaggeration. I can always figure out how to bumble through just about anything by using The Google. But, at this point in my life, the structure and challenges of a classroom setting force me to do what I’d probably slack off on if I were totally on my own.

So, it’s late and without further ado, here’s a prodject (uh, I do really know that isn’t how you spell “project”) that I did really well on. I’m actually doing well with the class even though I think of myself as one of those “I don’t do art” people. I credit the teacher. But I’m working hard and will have to continue on that track to keep up my grade. Anyway, here is Muksaslooie! Click to enlarge. G’night.

Okay, I ranted and I got that out of my system. Now you get something more fun. Mouse sent a link to a youtube video. I hope it’s okay to post this. Another student took it and posted it to Youtube. I don’t know who, but Youtube *is* public. 🙂 That’s Mouse in the blue shirt and off-white/beige pants. Love you, Mouse! Grok grok! Hey Mousey! Me ‘n’ Squeaky want a nice cow so we c’n ride downtown. Grok grok. So bring one home. Grok grok. Squeaky sez she wants a cute li’l brown one. Grok grok.

I hope I stop shaking before I have to go to class! I pulled warily into the overcrowded WCC parking lot just after noon today. I managed to get past parking lot A or whatever it is without somebody pulling out of one of the rows right smack in front of me. I went to make the left turn onto the road that passes parking lot D, which is where I usually park at the end of the row right across from the bench at the edge of the pond. So I won’t forget where my vee-hickle is. And yes Mouse, I had my turn signal on. I did not have a stop sign. There was nobody coming from the opposite direction. I had the right of way. So why in the HECK was there suddenly a HUGE behemoth of an SUV heading straight for the left side of my cute little blue honda civic with a yellow flower stuck in the blower? Hmmm? Because some nincompoop of a young woman was RUNNING A STOP SIGN! I honked. She stopped about two feet away from me. I yelled, “YOU HAVE A STOP SIGN!” She gave me a snotty, “I’m sorry.” Sorry? That just doesn’t cut it. Lady, who in the HECK gave you a driver’s license? And do you ever think to look DOWN when you are driving? Because people like me with small, FUEL-EFFICIENT vee-hickles are sometimes down here. And sometimes we even have the right of way! I’m sorry but this is about the third time an incident of this sort has happened to me in the WCC parking lot this fall. Another time, a kid made a left turn right smack in front of me. “I had my turn signal on!” he yelled. Yeah, but don’t you have to wait for oncoming traffic before you turn? How do these kids get their licenses? How can they afford to buy such gigantic behemoths and how can they afford to fill them up with gas? Why can’t people put their damn phones and iPods down and pay attention to the road? Sorry, I guess I’m done now.

I never knew Ezell’s name until today, when he was featured in the Planet A2 Snooze. But I’ve been encountering him since that first fall three years ago when I began taking classes at our own *excellent* Washtenaw Community College.

I didn’t meet him that very first day. I thought that I had carefully calculated how long it would take me to get there five minutes early for class and then I ended up being five minutes *late* due to a freeway backup at that awful US23/Washtenaw interchange. Never again! The teacher who taught that first class was terrifying! The rules took up half the class. I couldn’t figure how to turn my blasted computer on. Class participation was required. Yikes! I sat there through half the class wondering what I had done to myself! Maybe if I had encountered Ezell on the way into the building, I’d’ve felt better about it all. I dunno.

Somehow, I was able to adapt to academia after thirty years or whatever the heck it’s been. I have now taken umpteen million classes from that terrifying teacher. I thrived on coding and Photoshop and writing umpteen million page papers. That first teacher is absolutely one of the best and I (and other students) actively seek her out! She challenges her students and doesn’t put up with any crap but she’s also fair and actively encourages student-teacher dialogue.

Anyway, I didn’t run into Ezell that first day but in the early weeks of school, I saw him often. Our conversations were for the most part limited to stuff like, “hello, it’s a beautiful day!” And I agree with him that rain, snow, and cold are as beautiful as any sunny, warm spring day you could conjure up.

And then there was the beautiful, sunny, warm fall day when I couldn’t conjure up my vee-hickle! I had droven the green Honda that day and there were about a million green Hondas in the parking lot but mine had a green and silver pinwheel in the back window, so you’d think I’d be able to find it. Not. I was walking around and around the gigantic parking lot and getting panicky and thinking about how I really didn’t want to have to deal calling the police about a stolen car and whatever that might entail.

By the time Ezell found me, I was fighting back tears. For me, this wasn’t any kind of ordinary day. It was the day that we were taking Lizard Breath to the airport to take off for her study abroad sojourn in Spain. Just to make things as bad as they could possibly be, Liz and I had had a rather ugly, “I hate you” style argument late the night before. We had already gone beyond that and now I know that that kind of stuff often happens just before a major change in coordinates like that. Between mama and baby, that is. I tried not to go into that space before Mouse left for Senegal but I can’t say we never got there. Just maybe not the night before! But still.

Anyway, Ezell told me where my car was and he was right and I had the distinct impression that he had seen me park it that morning. But that was okay. I guess he must’ve known I needed some help. More help than I usually need. He also said something about, “God bless.” I am not religious but I felt like somebody was looking after me that day. Thanks, Ezell. You kind of remind me of my dad in some ways…

Just when you think you have absolutely, posivitely, utterly NOTHING to blahg about, and you are about ready to throw in the towel, your computer makes a little dinging “You’ve got mail!” noise. Whatever noise you’ve told your computer to make. You think, “oh, it’s just spam or list/group email.” But you look anyway. And BINGO! It’s your cousin. In a TOILET PARADE!

My cousin Jay is an engineer for the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District, which is somewhere around Seattle. I have probably asked her the details of her job about ten brazillion times but I am not an engineering type person and I can never remember. If I have everything totally wrong, I hope she’ll correct me. I do know that she’s an expert about water and soil and mud and clay and toilets and god only knows what else. Although my cousin Jay is female (married, two college kids), I would *never* call her a “lady engineer,” at least not in any kind of a serious way. A high school friend of mine who turned into an engineer — a good one, no doubt — used to call herself that. Jay is simply an engineer and “good” is the only adjective needed. I once chauffered tagged along with Jay as we she tried to figure out how to save the family land from one o’ them thar shark real estate developers. That whole story is too long for this post but suffice it to say that, under Jay’s direction, I made MS Word do things I had no idea it could do. And I am pretty much a power MS Office user. And then we beat up on copy machines at Kinkos. To this day, when I’m fighting with technological beasties, I find myself quoting her: “be smarter than the machine.” I try. Sometimes I win and sometimes I have to call in my own personal engineer. Sigh.

Anyway, that’s Jay there in the front, waiting on her toilet for the parade to start. For reasons I cannot remember, I used to call her “Nurse Octopus” when we were kids. She was two years younger than me (and her sister Pooh) and played with my little brother and I was a BRAT (!) so my intentions could not have been good. But we all grow up, don’t we?

I didn’t really want to go down to Lake Erie Metro Park (LEMP) today. Or anywhere else for that matter. I really didn’t have time. I have a ton of coding to do for one of my internships and I have an Illustrator project that I’m struggling to get started on even though I’m excited about my topic. It was supposed to be a work weekend. I did get some stuff done but not nearly enough. But it’s a long weekend for those slackers over at the EPA and some people were running out of things to do, so we drove down to the park to hike around. I think it’s been a couple of years since I last got down there.

When I think about LEMP in an intellectual sense, I can’t figure out why I like it so much. At first glance, it seems to be an unlikely place to find, well, nature. The park site is an old marsh filled with leftover industrial material. It’s an urban park with a golf course and large expanses of well-manicured lawn. Paved roads with frequent police patrols. A wave pool. A busy motor boat launch that’s HORRIBLE for launching canoes and kayaks but they make you use it anyway. Large sections of the flat trails are paved and hikers have to share with cyclists and roller-bladers. Train whistles mingle with the sounds of waterfowl and crickets and the near constant shwooooooossssssshhhhh of descending passenger jets comes from above. The Monroe cooling towers are visible from just south of the park. You get the idea.

Despite that unpromising description, nature thrives. The park also includes forested areas, marshy grasslands and big lotus fields. Wildlife abounds and the park is particularly popular with birders who congregate near the boat launch during the spring and fall migrations. And of course that’s all not to mention the Lake Erie shoreline. So different from familiar old Lake Superior but gorgeous in its own right. And, I dunno, I just *like* it there. Maybe it’s just that it’s next to a great lake. Whatever it is, somehow this seemingly unlikely place always soothes my spirit.

We walked our usual route from the boat launch to the marina to the nature museum, around the museum nature trail and back to the boat launch. I think we do about five miles or so. We saw other walkers and some cyclists but there was plenty of space for all.

We were finished with our urban hike. We were HOT, TIRED, hungry and thirsty. We were sitting on a bench near the boat launch looking out onto the shimmering water. A somewhat cool breeze was blowing. We could just barely see the outline of a freighter in the distance through the haze. The birders’ entourage was in full-swing organization of a picnic barbecue lunch. I didn’t want to leave. For the first time in my life, I wanted to crash someone else’s party. That’s about all I have. I need to drag myself out to the kitchen. And I have *got* to decide how I’m going to approach my Illustrator project. Click here or on the pic for a very lightly captioned slide show.

The scissors return! There’s one pair of little pink-handled ones that didn’t make it into the photo shoot and I’d bet dollars that there are even more around here. Oh yeah, the kitchen shears are missing too. I don’t mean I can’t find them. They wisely elected to stay in their assigned spot in the Small Knives Etc., kitchen utensil crock.

Way back in the dark ages when we first moved into this house, I’ll bet I might’ve moved maybe four or five pairs of scissors. Kitchen shears (not the ones I have now, I’ve lost several pairs of those along the way). Sewing scissors — I think I had two big pairs of Fiskars and maybe a pair of small embroidery scissors. And fingernail scissors.

But y’all know how it goes. You get some kids and they get old enough to be trusted with sharp instruments and things start disappearing. I remember when Lizard Breath was about three and she had a cute little pair of pajamas with paper doll style bears on it. I was in the next room and I heard her say, “It will be all right.” Of course I thought, “What will be all right?” and a few minutes later, she came to me scissors in hand, showing me the little cut she had made in her pajamas. Paper dolls were just too tempting. And here’s where we get into the twilight zone. Because I just dredged out that little pair of pajamas (see the pic) and neither the GG or I can find *any* kind of a cut or hole *anywhere*!!! I did find evidence that Mickey and his gang have been partying in the box where the pajamas were stored, overdosing on chestnuts or whatever they are, and raising a ruckus. I am *not* cleaning that up tonight. It’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Eradicating hantavirus is one of my favorite chores. But I *swear* I remember that pajama-cutting incident?!? Lizard, do you remember it?

Anyway, finding a pair of scissors, *any* pair of scissors gets to be a challenge. Even a pair that might not be perfectly suited to the job at hand. Oh, they may reappear a couple times a the decade when somebody (Moom, usually) decides to dredge out a bedroom or two, but eventually, it’s just a lost cause. So, knowing you are effectively throwing money down the toilet, you end up going out and buying *more* scissors. Which, in turn, get borrowed. The cycle goes on and on. Until. Everybody has left home and you have finally picked yourself up and dusted yourself off and clambered out of whatever hole you were in for 20 years. Your scissors all come home again. Scotch tape too but that’s not quite as photogenic.

I have a lot of scissors. I could outfit a girl scout troop. Or pass them out as party favors. If Eddie Scissorhands is ever in need, I can fix him right up. What I think I *will* do is put a little scissors basket or crock in every room of my house. I’ll put some pens and scotch tape and stuff in there too. Then, wherever I am, if I need scissors or whatever, I’ll have them right at hand. There will be a force field around each basket and I will program it to recognize only my DNA and if you do not have my DNA, the basket will emit a concentrated eau de skunk odor directed straight into your face. 😈

So, do y’all have any scissors? How many?

I could be at The Ark tonight sitting in the audience listening to The RFD Boys. I’ve heard of them but I don’t really know their music. I guess it’s some kind of folk or bluegrass or something. Not my favorite but not the worst either. I like a rather eclectic range of music these days. Celtic, for sure. Folk on Sunday evenings. Various sorts of jazz at various times and places. Zimbabweyan mbira, especially when my cousin plays it. Native American stuff. Taiko drumming. A little klezmer sometimes. And yes, even a bit of country and bluegrass stuff. Classical. I have an interesting relationship with classical music. My favorite classical music is not the golden oldies, big orchestral or operatic works from the classic and romantic periods. Oh, I like a little of that too. But I much prefer more esoteric stuff, if you will. Solo and small ensemble works, interesting newer compositions. And I like flute music that I’ve played umpteen million times because I can finger the notes in my mind along with the recording. Heck, if when I make mistakes, nobody can hear them! The problem is that I do not like to sit through concerts. Never have. Even on the best of nights, I get twitchy when I have to sit there wedged in between all kinds of other people. When I can’t get up and walk around or work on my computer or my unfinished prodject. I just cannot sit and give my undivided attention to the stage. No matter how good the music is or how talented the performers. I get twitchy. And then I get sleepy and I have to prop my eyes up for about the second half of the show. I’m like that with plays too. I was a backstage mom in a very real sense of the phrase. As one of my favorite producers used to say, “Backstage is a play!” And it was true. There was always just as much drama going on backstage as onstage. Or more. Comedy and sometimes a bit of tragedy too. Anyway, we walked downtown for dinner at Conor O’Neil’s tonight and then the GG went to volunteer at The Ark and I walked home as the sun went down. It’s pretty hot here. The small plate I had at the restaurant has left me feeling a little leaden, even after a three mile walk home. I’m sitting here with ice cold wet washcloths around my neck wishing I could just go jump in Gitchee Gumee to cool off. Hmmm, seems like I was in this particular boat once at the beginning of the summer too.

Lemme see, it’s Thursday night and I just got home from class. Well, actually, I got home, washed my feet, poured a ‘hattan, and read the Planet Ann Arbor Snooze. It’s late and I don’t have a topic, or at least I didn’t until I read the Snooze. So:

• A 17-year-old Yorkie who has a back leg that drags is home, thank god. Some teenage thugs managed to steal him from a garage sale his owner was having. They stopped by to ask if any guns were being sold. Guns at a garage sale? Kee-reist, get real! They spotted the Yorkie and one of them was heard to say, “those dogs are worth a thousand dollars.” Or something like that. Next thing, the dog was missing. Two women saw said thugs TOSSING HIM BACK AND FORTH as they walked down the street. They retrieved the dog by threatening to call the police and he is now safely home. Who are these kids and where are their parents? What is wrong with people that treat aminals like that and let their kids grow up to do the same?
• Laptops and wireless connections in the classroom? Why is this a problem? Students surf the Internet instead of listening to the lecture? Some of my favorite instructors IN THE INTERNET PROFESSIONAL PROGRAM have a unique way of solving this problem. They announce during the first class — in no uncertain terms — that any use of computers (or other electronic devices) during the lecture is VERBOTEN! And then, when some poor, misguided student forgets the rule, they are REPRIMANDED! Hello? Kids, you are in school to listen to the teacher, fer Kee-reist. You are PAYING to listen to the lecture. Or someone is PAYING FOR YOU! By far, a large majority of teachers are dedicated to teaching and KNOW MORE THAN YOU DO! Put the blasted computer (or whatever) away and listen. I promise you that if you survive to get into the advanced classes in your program and you present yourself as an active, engaged learner, those same teachers will relax those rules. Just a bit. Like tonight when we were looking at the State of MI portal website and we encountered “wigglers” (say what?) and I knew it was okay with the prof if I googled “wigglers.” You prob’ly don’t want to ask. 😉
• I am conflicted about the whole thing about prospective employers going out to myspace and facebook profiles to aid in their decision about whether or not to hire someone. On one hand, I have heard of some really egregiously awful (not to mention incredibly stupid) things being posted out there in the so-called Web 2.0 world of social networking. On the other hand, I do not see why a crazy picture of some drunk college students at a party should be cause to not hire. I will bet dollars that the same people perusing these sites have a few drunk party moments in their history. Do they really just want to hire only straight-laced, buttoned-down, Puritan-style folk? Kids are kids. Y’all were once kids. Don’t forget that.
• I am sick of driving around this town. I can handle the old folks who are not as quick as they once were. I can handle the truck drivers trying to navigate sometimes impossibly tight turns. I cannot handle the perfectly coiffed bottle blonde airhead soccer mom types cutting me off in HUGE SUVs while they blather on and on and on and on to, well I dunno who, on their blasted cell phones. HANG UP THE BLASTED PHONE AND DRIVE! And teach your beeyootyful bottle blonde airhead daughters to refrain from putting on makeup while they’re driving, fer kee-reist! That came from a story about an area sheriff who came upon three (!!!) teenage sisters dead in an accident and cosmetic products scattered everywhere. And this post is related to a comment I made on Sam’s blahg, Wednesday, Oct. 3rd.

I love my Thursday night class and I had a great time. But sigh.

That is just about all. I more or less created my last job. On this one, I have a lot to learn! I DO have to say that Froog has quite the supply of illegal substances on his “flyin’ musheen”: frog juice, listerine, and laundry detergent. I did not partake in any of those substances. Other than that, I think I’m out for tonight. Way out. Sayonara, KW.