Schools of Quality

I have to admit that I'm a bit of a language purist. I also happen to make plenty of mistakes and errors, but like all good Americans, I like to ignore my own foibles and focus my ire and frustration on others who err.

This would apparently include people who use edu-jargon. That rarified language that is used by those trying to sound sophisticated and expert, but in fact end up just looking like they don't know how to use the English language. It's oxymoronic in a way (heavy on the moron), if you stop to think about it. After all, here is a group of people that presume to be educators, that are responsible for students learning the very language that these so-called educators consistently mangle and abuse.

Latest case in point - a letter written by a superintendent of a school district to the teachers of said district.

To paraphrase 2 examples that stand out:

1) "We are making strides in our efforts to graduate students college ready."

2) "All schools should be schools of quality."

The first one is irritatingly awkward, and in my opinion (could be wrong here) at the very least a hyphen b/w "college" and "ready" would help immensely. However, I find the whole construction to be leaden and would opt to trash it and start over. I hate the phrase, "We are making strides in our efforts to . . ."

The second one is just stupid - it sounds all smart and stuff, but really, what's wrong with "quality schools"? How does the "of" help convey meaning? It doesn't. In fact, it makes the sentence harder to read. This is just stupidity posing as intelligence.

Maybe the problem isn't that the curriculum is being dumbed down, it's that the people in charge are down-right dumb.

Memory

It's funny how memory works in its random fashion.

Like doing laundry.

Which reminded me of a conversation I had with my sister and an old friend of our family, Cassandra, who was visiting as my mother lay dying on the sofa bed in the livingroom. We were gathered together to visit and take care of her and she was flitting in and out of consciousness - sleeping mostly. So we talked. My sister and Cassandra talked about doing laundry - how to keep colors bright. I, in my ignorance and general lack of interest in such things, made an ass of myself by declaring that it was my practice to just throw all my clothes in the machine, add the cup of detergent and press start. I've often thought excessive attention to the niceties of material goods to be a bourgeois trait that a communist such as myself would never deign to emulate.

My parents were good members of the bourgeoisie. My father, an incredibly gifted man, is an architect and his personal life-project has been remodeling the house I grew up in. My parents bought the house shortly after I was born. It's an old Victorian - I remember the day my father told me it had turned 100 (well, it probably wasn't the exact day, but it was the year). It had been remodeled successively probably by every owner since it was built. Structurally, it was sound, but a bit of a mess. My father's life project essentially has involved gutting the house room by room and remodeling each. Problem is, what with maintenance, and the fact that some rooms can't be completed until others have work done to them (running electrial wire and pipes necessitate multiple-room rehabs) . . . well, let us just agree that it is a multiple-life project and admit that there are still rooms that lack ceilings. Dad was particularly proud of the stepped ceiling he designed and installed in the living room that my mother would later spend the last remaining months of her life in. At one point, my mother disparaged that intricate ceiling as "so bourgeois" which was a bit of a shock considering that I had always believed that she aspired to bourgeois-hood, which she did. I think, mostly, she just wanted the fucking house done, which was an impossibility given my father's creative impulse combined with his insistence on flawless execution, combined with the fact that he also has a day job.

When I think about my mother lying in her last days, I think about how brave and strong she was. How she faced the terror of death with stoicism, but a human, tender stoicism. A grace. Like the time I visited her in the hospital, when nobody knew what was going on, not the doctors, not the family, not even her. All we knew was that she was having some sort of weird seizure - and she, herself didn't even know that - which is one of the things that terrify me most about her experience. The doctors finally decided that there was pressure building up around her brain because the cancer cells were preventing the spinal fluid from draining normally. They needed to do a spinal tap, more or less immediately. The doctors explained all the risks and benefits and the family had a quick conference, but what choice did we have really? Of course. Because of various and sundry timing difficulties, I was the only one with my mother when the doctor came to do the procedure. I sat in a chair and held my mother's hand as she lay on the hospital bed on her side. The doctor, behind her, prepared himself and I held my mother's hand and she looked into my eyes as the needle punctured her lumbar region. She didn't speak, but her eyes did - of determination mixed with fear of the unknown of the what-next. Of hope and pain and loss. Of strength and love.

It's funny what a rolled-up dirty white sock and a purple button-down shirt thrown carelessly together into a beat-up old top-loading machine can evoke.

Politicians, Waffles and the Media

I like the media, basically. I think they have their problems, but overall, I defend even corporate media as having its proper place in American society - I just take everything with a grain of salt.

I also am addicted to reading reader commentary, particularly on the Boston Globe website. This is a terrible addiction, it is very much bad for my health. Invariably, I am drawn to the comments on articles I know are going to get the stupidest comments and increase my blood pressure. And so . . . I read this one. It's a boring article, really. And not really very important, but it involves my Congressman, so I thought I'd catch up on what he's been up to. Turns out, he voted for a bill, but said that if that very same bill came before the House again, he would vote against it.

And, of course, the idiots came out of the woodwork. Don't believe me?

Read the comments . . .

Capuano's position is clear, really. He supports the majority of the bill, but he's against the abortion provision. He knows that if he votes against the bill, it will set back the process. If he votes for it, it still needs to go through the Senate and it will change in the meantime and probably (hopefully) lose that abortion provision. People who don't get this, don't get politics and really should have their right to vote rescinded.

He's not waffling. His diatribe against Coakley (which might be similarly flawed, but that's a political maneuver, not ignorance) in essence accused her of being politically naive - always voting your conscience is a good way to never getting anything accomplished - you need to play smart.

So, what do we take from this lesson?

1) People need to hone their critical thinking skills - if something sounds implausible, it probably is. If that little alarm goes off - do a little extra research. Go back to the source.

2) If you aren't doing the thinking, shut up. Your knee-jerk opinion is useless and only makes you look foolish.

3) The Globe is really partially at fault here. I hate to admit it, being the defender of big media (in its proper place) that I am, but the reporting is sloppy. Rather than taking the opportunity to explain the process, the Globe reporter is taking the opportunity to create a story here - the Capuano and Coakley feud. Sound bites win out over reason, even in print media - especially in an age when print media is losing ground to other media sources (of course, they aren't helping themselves by letting me read it for free online). In any case, the story only invites idiocy rather than elevating understanding, which is the putative purpose of the media, or at least I thought.