My day at school

I going to try to go back to keeping a more or less daily journal of what goes on at the school where I teach, OK Centennial. I know it's late in the year, less than 4 weeks to go, but I need to get into the writing habit.

Today my juniors were introduced to Thornton Wilder's classic American play, Our Town. We in the English department don't get much of a chance to teach drama, it not being one of the items on the End of Instruction tests. So now that the tests are essentially over, I decided that my students needed to experience this view of everyday life, and death, in small town America. They reacted with some expected confusion. The play has little action to it and much talk. They have been conditioned by various media and entertainment to expect the opposite. I think, though, they are at least interested in what is going on with the characters, especially George and Emily, the two youngters who fall in love, enough to carry them through till I can guide them to see the play's timeless themes. We'll see.

My seniors are experiencing Frankenstein starting with the excellent movie starring Robert DeNiro as the creature and Kenneth Branagh as Victor Frankenstein. This flim is a much more easy "sell" since it contains a lot of action and not a little gore. The issues that the book on which the movie is based concerning scientific progress and personal responsibility are with us yet.

On a personal front, I'm reading a couple of good books dealing with completely different subjects: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer and The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan. I'm enjoying both for very different reasons.

Review for "The Worst Hard Time"

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is heartbreaking to read, but what a reading experience it gave me. First, a disclaimer, I am a proud Okie, 4th generation, great-grandson of a man who settled near the part of Oklahoma called "the Dust Bowl." My father witnessed the "Black Sunday" dust storm of Palm Sunday, April 14, 1935 so vividly described in Egan's marvelous book.

The book is a history of a time and a people whose lives and deeds still affect me as an Okie and the nation as people of the land. In it, Eagan describes in detail the hows and whys of the Dust Bowl, how the land was emptied of the Indians and the bison, how the native grasses that had kept the Southern Plains in place for thousands of years was stripped away in less than a decade. All the while, the "nesters" as Eagan terms the inhabitants of the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle, southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, and other places thought that they would quickly make their fortunes farming what had not long before termed "the Great American Desert."

At first, all went as planned as during the 1910s and 20s, high prices, at first spurred by the Great War, and then by the 20s boom times encouraged farmers to plant bigger and bigger fields. Along with the high prices coincidently occured some years of plentiful rain.

Then came the Depression, drought, and despair as fields dried up, crops died, and farmers went bankrupt. Even though there was nothing to hang on to, many chose to do so, joining "Last Man" clubs and pledging themselves to hang on "till Hell freezes over" and then to "skate on the ice." Most had nothing to go to and tried to hang on to their homes rather than join the trek to California and other places. They chose voluntary poverty with a home than without one.

The debate over whether the government should do anything to help the farmers in need mirrors much of the debate that has taken place during our own "Great Recession." (One aspect of this book is to make me realize that our recession pales in comparison to their depression.) Pres. Hoover refused to intervene, choosing instead to let the "invisible hand of the market" to root out life's "winners and losers." Roosevelt instead commission a man by the name of Hugh Bennett to study the problem and take action. The result was thousands of Soil Conservation districts and some national grasslands that exist to this day. In Egan's words, "The only grassroots New Deal project still in existence."

I would encourage all my fellow Oklahomans, West Texans, Eastern Coloradoans to read this book. Ken Burns has made it the basis for a PBS special on the Dust Bowl that I am eager to see. Warning, you can't read this book and not be affected by it. But, for your own sake, read it.

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Ball Four by Jim Bouton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

really, really enjoying this book so far

And I continued to enjoy it to the very end. I love Jim Bouton's wry humor, great intelligence, and savy baseball knowledge. It's a little hard to grasp the controversy that this book caused on its publication, since "tell-all" books that have followed this sports book gem have "told-more", but Bouton was a pioneer in sport honesty, in some ways he still is ahead of commercialized sports reporting, and as all pioneers have, he paid a price for being the first in a new land.

For example, he only recently has been invited back to Yankee Stadium for revealing, among other things, that Mickey Mantel drank alcohol, Roger Maris flipped off fans, and Hank Bauer was a very insecure manager.

I loved this work. I hope I can find a way to use exerpts in my teaching. This work holds up well to style analysis.

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High Stakes Testing Hath Begun

We have begun our Spring round of End of Instruction  tests at Oklahoma Centennial Mid High School. On Monday, we started administering the US History test to students who have yet to pass it. Today it was Algebra II retests. Tomorrow it will be Algebra I retests. Something else the next day till the next week when the middle school tests begin and then the high school tests the first time takers and so on and so on through the month.

Then the next month there will be tests for those who failed to show up for the first round.

Students will be out of their regular classes and in the testing labs and testing classrooms from here on out.

All because we have been scared witless by the notion that some other country is getting ahead of us in the education game. First it was the Soviets, then the Japanese, now the Indians or the Chinese. Who knows next time it may be the Australians or South Sea Islanders.

I am as much in favor of accountability as anyone, but, Lord, there has to be a better way other than halting school for 6-8 weeks just to do testing.

House Panel Reverses Itself on Teacher Stipends.

The Oklahaoma House panel that voted against requiring teacher stipends decided to reverse its decision. We will see if the rest of the legislature follows suit.

Review of The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. The main message seems quite relevant to our time. The rich and powerful maintain their power largely by keeping the rest of us fighting among ourselves for the few scraps they allow us to have.

Case in point, the recent lottery ticket buying frenzy. Lotteries exist largely to fund government services like education. Why? Because the rich and powerful have convinced us that increasing taxes, which hit them the hardest are wrong. So, they have conveniently arranged to have us to tax ourselves by buying a 200 million to 1 chance to join the ultra-wealthy.

In the world of the Hunger Games, poor children fight each other and die for a chance to live a comfortable life.

All good science-fiction is a modern morality play to teach us through story what we need to learn in fact.

I look forward to using this book in my classroom.

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State Releases List of 11 Schools Slated for Takeover

OKC Roosevelt Middle School

Oklahoma Centennial Not On List

The state released its list of "low performing Oklahoma schools" it has slated for takeover.  Three schools are in the Oklahoma City Public School District: Shidler Elementary, Roosevelt Middle School, and Santa Fe South Middle School.

My school, Oklahoma Centennial Middle/High School is not on the list, for now.

All three schools are on the south side of the city and have predominantly Hispanic student bodies.  Santa Fe South Middle is an "alternative charter" school where many students struggle due to limited English abilities as do those in the other two schools.

I am curious as to how the state hopes to turn these schools around, and how the teachers who work with these students will be treated.  Will the state, for example, provide more language assistance, additional instruction for English Language  Learners, more alternative placement for struggling students?

As I said yesterday, I am skeptical that a state that ranks as one of the nation's lowest in per pupil expenditure will do more than try to shuffle new bodies in for old. 

We all await to see what miracles will come from Lincoln Boulevard.

The State of Oklahoma Plans to Takeover Up To 10 Schools: What They Will Do and What They Won't

There is a report in the Tulsa World that the Oklahoma State Department of Education will release a list tomorrow of up to 10 schools it will "take operational control"of next year.

My school, Oklahoma Centennial, could very well be on that list.  I know we are on the state "Priority School List" of schools where this could happen.

The state is calling this a "partnership", but when the state partners with a school, we all know who the "senior partner" is going to be.

This takeover, let's be honest and call it what it is, comes out of the waiver Oklahoma was granted by the federal Department of Education to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law that has governed education since the early days of the Bush II administration.

No one really know what this takeover will entail. Joel Robinson, spokeperson for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Janet Barresi, claims that, "[c]ollective bargaining agreements and school vendor contracts won't be affected by the process." 

Of the latter, I have no doubt. Of the former, I'm not so certain. It could well be that, at the age of 60 and at the top of the district's pay scale, yours truly will have to reapply for his job or try to find a new one. Such was the case for the teachers of US Grant High School when the district "took over" there.

I am not sure what the state would hope to gain from this, no matter who is on the takeover list tomorrow. Just what can the state do for us that we are not already doing and have been doing day in day out?

I know some things that the state WILL NOT do.

The state will not try to help deal with the systemic poverty that blights the lives of our student body.  The number one predictor of students success in America is the economic condition of the students' families.  The state could try to develop "empowerment zones" that have helped areas like Harlem in New York City with economic development, but the state won't do that.

The state will not try to raise the minimum wage of the students' parents and even the students themselves to where they are paid a "living wage" lifting them out of poverty. 

The state will not provide adequate, affordable child care for parents and students who have to care for pre-school children.  This could go far to help with our high absenteeism rates often caused by students having to care for babies and toddlers at home.

The state will not provide adequate treatment opportunities to deal with constant partners to Poverty--Despair and Addiction.

The state will not provide after school programs so that children can engage in constructive activity when the school day ends.

The state will not create alternative placement programs for students who, for various reasons, do not function in a regular school environment, and instead constantly disrupt classes making it impossible for other students to learn. These students drain time and energy from teachers who exhaust themselves managing the few while trying to teach the many.

Instead, I look for the state to replace teachers, staff, and administrators, and then wonder why nothing ever gets changed.  Then they will replace teachers, staff, and adminstrators, and then wonder why nothing ever gets changed, Then they will replace teachers, staff, and adminstrators, and then wonder why..........

House Panel Says to OK NBTC teachers, "Get out of the classroom!"

An Oklahoma House of Representatives sub-committee voted 9-2 against requiring the state to pay the $5000 annual stipend for Oklahoma teachers who have met the requirements for National Board teacher certification.

Basically, what the members of the panel said to Oklahoma classroom teachers is, "Get out of the classroom if you want to significantly increase your salaries."  Instead, these teachers will earn basically the same pay that a teacher who has not gone through the rigorous certification process makes.

I have attempted the National Board for Teacher Certification program, twice. Failed both times.  It's very demanding. I don't think I work as hard for it as I did my English M.A., certainly not during the first year's process. I attended classes at Southeastern Oklahoma State University for a week. Then I spent the rest of the year gathering material for my portfolio. This included two video taped classroom teaching sessions.  I wrote 4 different essays totalling more than 60 pages, gathered artifacts and endorsements, and took a two hour exam and still came up short.  I very much admire those who have successfully completed the process.

In Oklahoma, there are around 3000 NBTC teacher, around 115 in the Oklahoma Public School District alone.  Several years ago the legislature created an incentive for those in the program: successfully complete it, and you will received a $5000 stipend each year for the next 10 years.

The idea behind this comes from an odd reality in education: for a teacher to make significant money in education, she has to leave the classroom and get into administration or consulting.  After a while, we get to the top of our pay ladder and after that, we get cost of living raise, if we are lucky.  The next step usually means becoming an assistant principal or working at the district or state office, away from the kids we teach who are the reason we became teachers.

The stipend for NBTC teachers was designed to help correct that somewhat. It also provided pay for performance, a phrase dearly loved by those who want teachers to earn their salary increases for something other than longevity.  Now all those noble plans are in jeopardy.

Last year, the Oklahoma State Department of Education decided there was not enough money to pay the full $5000 stipend and voted instead to give NBTC teachers $3900.  Whether this amount will rise or fall or even be there at all is uncertain.  The bill the House panel was considering not only contained a requirement to pay the stipend, it also contained scholarships to help pay for the fees associated with being accepted into the program, which costs a minimum of $2500 to go through Oklahoma's version of the preparation process.

There is hope that the legislation will continue to see the merits of having such a large number of NBTC teachers.  I hope so because we know that the most important figure in a child's education is her teacher.

We need the best in the classroom, not in some office.

Mitt Romney: Unshakably Extreme

On a Rainy Day During Spring Break

We are on Spring Break today. Acutally, we have been on Spring Break for a week already and won't be back in school till a week from today. 

The first week of Spring Break was for Cat and myself and "Intersession" where we were tutoring students in need of extra help for school and the end of term tests that our middle school and high school students have to take.

I had about 6 or 7 students come to my classes, all of them 9th graders.  They do not have to take the high school End of Instruction (EOI) tests, so the tutoring I did with them mainly consisted of helping them with reading, writing and vocabulary.

We wrote poems, did interviews that appeared in newspaper articles they created, created posters, and read some essays.  They seemed to enjoy most of it, but I cannot say that they made much improvement or really needed to in the first place.

We keep trying to find ways to help our students, but we never seem to get the job done.  I keep thinking there must some some magic trick that will turn straw into gold.

It has been raining all day today.  I don't mind it because the state has been through one of the worst droughts ever, but it means that we cannot get out and tend to our yard like we would like too.  So, I come inside and do some reading, plan my lessons for the rest of the year, and enjoy a little down time.

Gonna get more dramatic?

I had my conversation with Dr. Roy, our consultant, and Ms. Jaramillo (Ms. J to all of us) over what they saw in my classroom yesterday.

One thing Dr. Roy told me is that I love my subject, and I want my students to love it. So, he said I need to look for ways to invite them in.

Ms. J said that I ought to borrow the techniques I use when I announce the school football games. I need to put myself "on stage" so to speak.

So my students should expect me to be a bit more of a performer in the classroom. (Though probably not as much as the guy above.

Any suggestions on how to pull this off?

When Bad Things Happen to (Pretty) Good Teachers

Today was one of "those days" at school.

On Friday, my principal, Ms. Johnson, informed me that a couple of consultants would be in the building on Monday and Tuesday to visit our classes.  They would be specifically looking at our classwork "engagement strategies"--those things we do in our lessons that get the students involved in learning and excited about their education. Not the sort of image that many of our adolescent learners have about their days in the classroom.

Actually, I have been trying to up my game about my teaching techniques and engagement is one of the areas I am trying to explore.  So, most of the day Sunday I was hunched over my school laptop trying to come up with some engaging lessons for my juniors and seniors.  I should say I was hunched over my school laptop and my home desk computer because, unfortunately, I left the power cord for my laptop at the school and the power ran down half-way through the process.  I don't know if this caused the later problems, but it should have been an omen.

After working from mid-morning to late at night, I had two pretty good lessons, I thought.  The junior would be analyzing Langston Hughes poem, "Mother to Son". (Well, son, I'll tell you:/
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.)

Specifically, they would be looking at the extended metaphor of the "crystal stair" in the poem. I had a pre-assessment using the Smartboard, a Power Point presentation, and a handout that would help the students take really good notes.


I wanted to give the seniors an introduction to the British Romantic movement starting with William Blake and William Wordsworth. I had a Power Point for them, a note-taking guide, even a YouTube hip hop version of Wordsworth poem "Daffodils".

All set for the big day on Monday.

I managed to get through the first hurdle: beating everyone else to the one functioning copy machine we still have in our building.

When I got to the classroom, I set up the now re-charged laptop and fired it up to get things ready.

That's when the trouble started.  Nothing worked. My Smartboard wasn't talking to my laptop, no matter how much I rebooted, pleaded, swore, or threatened violence.  My laptop itself seemed to have trouble getting on with the program that I had loaded from my home computer to my flash drive. Finally, it's screen went blank except for the message that somehow, my operating system was nowhere to be found. I rebooted and got the same message. My great plans were no more!

I went screaming, inwardly at least, to Ms. Jaramillo (Ms. J), the high school assistant principal. There in her office was one of the consultants. I explained my problem to both of them and charged back to my classroom trying to figure out what the heck to do.

Sure enough, as soon as I started teaching Ms. J and the consultant came to my room.  I used the note-taking guide and the poem for my lesson.  My presentation was rather "old school", using the white board in place of the Power Point.  I got through best I could. About half-way through they got up and left. The consultant, a very nice guy, said that we would consult on what he observed tomorrow.

I had turned the computer off at the beginning of class. At the end, I walked over to my now dead machine and turned it on one more time.  It worked fine. The Smart Board picked up up the image from my lesson like no problem ever existed. 

There are those times when you don't know whether to cry, laugh, scream, throw things, throw up your hands and give up, give up your hands and throw up, or just follow the advice in "Mother to Son":

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

--Langston Hughes

Organizational Health Inventory

I was not in school today, nor will I be there tomorrow.  Instead, I am in a workshop with my principal, Ms. Johnson, and fellow AFT building representative Linda Dudley going over the results and significance of the Organizational Health Inventory (OHI) that our district has done every year for the past 8 years or so. 

The OHI is a survey done by the school's teachers and administrators designed to measure how everyone feels about their working conditions, things like do we feel focused on our school's goals? do we feel empowered to reach those goals? do we feel we have enough autonomy to carry our our mission to attain our goals? and so on.  This is Ms. Johnson's first year as our principal, so she and the other first-year principals (about 18 or so) were there with each building's union reps to get the lowdown on what the survey said and what it means for us.

According to the survey, our organization health really improved over last year.  The staff were more positive in each of the 8 categories covered in the inventory.  One reason was probably due to the feeling that, even though we are a "needs improvement school" operating under a "School Improvement Grant", we finally had been given clear directions on what we were supposed to be doing (Goal Focus was our highest category) and more of the means to be able to do it.

Had the survey been taken later in the school year, it is always taken near the start of school, the news would probably not have been as positive.  Back in October, as Ms. Johnson put it, we all hit a collective wall.  For one, we had been in school since August 1st and for another, the reality of our situation began to weigh on us.  No matter what new techniques we had been trained to do, we still were faced with many of the same problems we have always had with our students. They had not yet turned into the model scholars we all dream of teaching.  Some of us, me included, struggled with applying the new techniques.  Some drifted back into old habits of teaching, which is what one does when one feels a bit lost in the new methods. 

I think then, things have gotten better. At least they have with me.  I am beginning to finally learn how to organize my lessons and approaches better.  I still struggle with classroom management, but I use technology more and have learned some good engagement strategies.

I think that most of our faculty are on-board with the direction we are going and the course corrections we need to make.  I hope we can see real improvement in our students' test scores because that will give us a real boost in morale (another OHI category that in our school could use improvement).

On (finally) Winning a Chess Game at Barnes and Noble

Tonight, I went to the Barnes and Noble at 61st and May Ave. to play chess.  A group of chess lovers have been meeting there for several years now, and I have played there off and on, mostly off.  In all that time, I've have never won a chess game and didn't expect to do so that night.  In fact, I didn't do so on my first game against a young man who was somewhere in his teens or twenties. (When you are like me, a few weeks away from 60, the young can be anywhere from 12-35 and still look basically the same.)  His name was Caleb and after about 30 moves or so, I had to resign in the face of overwhelming odds. (My king and rook versus most of his armed forces.) 

About mid-way through our game, we were told by the manager of the bookstore that the chess club, which had been meeting the the store coffee shop, had been given a "reserved" area back in the store.  So after Caleb had whomped me, we took our boards and pieces to the "reserved" area.  This turned out to be about half a dozen plastic picnic tables and some folding chairs. 

Caleb wandered off to find more worthy competition while I set up my set on the rickety table and dusted off a couple of chairs.  Soon a man named Eduardo sat down to play me.  Edurado was somewhere near my age. (When you are nearing 60 this can be anywhere from 35 to Methuselah.) I remembered playing Eduardo a couple of years ago. (He didn't.) I had never won against him (see above).  But tonight, for the very first time, I DID.  I managed to push a passed pawn to the back rank and used the pawn's promotion to capture his queen.  From there, I pushed my advantage on to victory!!!!!

He politely requested rematch to which I happily agreed. I figured that he would have a chance to even the score, and we would part on equal terms.  But I proved lightening could strike twice in the same place because this time I used two knights to drive his king into a corner where I achieved checkmate FOR THE SECOND TIME IN THE SAME KNIGHT (ere) NIGHT.

By this time, I had to get home. ("School night," I explained.)  So I left Barnes and Noble with a winning record for the first time in my life.

Of course, I will be back.

Teachers Propose Reform. Will Anyone Listen?

Today, I participated in a workshop at put on by my union American Federation of Teachers that focused on our response to the No Child Left Behind wavier the federation Department of Education granted the state of Oklahoma.

In the waiver, the state Department of Education establishes the policy of giving a letter grade, A-F, to all schools in the state.  Furthermore, it established a list of "Priority Schools" that the state could take over because these schools are deemed failures in educating children.

Oklahoma Centennial Mid/High School, where I teach, is on that list.

According to the waiver, the state could leave the school under district control because the school is already sufficiently implementing school improvement measures. The also has the option of running the school itself or turn the school over to an outside entity such as an educational corporation or charter group.  In the last two cases, all staff in the school would be subject to a performance review and any protection previously afforded to those staff by the collective bargaining agreement between the union and the district would be null and void.

The workshop is an attempt by the union to have a say in any school reforms the district or the state may wish to adopt under the waiver.  In the workshop, we discussed teacher and administrative evaluations, parent/stuff contracts, teacher performance incentives, teacher peer assistance, and so forth.

There is no guarantee that any of our suggested reforms will ever be enacted.  Past practice does not offer much hope in that matter.  Teacher suggestions, particularly those offered by their union typically do not receive much notice from the powers that be whether they "be" in the district, the state department of education, or the legislature. 

But we have to try something. I will publish the results of our efforts and try to get them out to anyone who will listen.

I'll see what happens.

On Having My Teaching Judged By a "Boring A**" Exam

Today my students took their English 11 district benchmark exam, the one the district will judge our school and me on how well we have educated our students this year.  I had the students from my time block 1 English 11 class, a pretty good bunch of kids.  They, for the most part, took their time and, I think, did their best.  One young man, however, arrived half way through the allotted 3 class periods time set aside by the school for the students to take this important exam. Nevertheless, he finished the exam, though I suspect he rushed through it to get it out of the way.

Another teacher had my 7th time block class, the one with several problem children in it. He reported to me that a couple of students appeared to wait till near the end of the allotted time and then rushed through marking answers at random. Another had her head down on her desk nearly the entire period. Three or four times he went over and admonished her to get her head off her desk and take the test seriously.  The last time he tried, she didn't bother to lift her head. She simply looked up at him and closed her eyes.  However, she handed in a completed answer sheet at the end of the testing period.

My point is, how can we as a school and I as a teacher be fairly judged by the results of this test when some of the students don't take it seriously at all.  After all, this is not, by their reasoning a real test. It's just, in the words of one student, another "boring a** exam" he is made to take much against his will. Yet these exams are taken very seriously by the power that be in our district and our state.  It is even possible that my career could be adversely affected by an exam that my students just blow off casually.

It doesn't seem fair somehow.

Tomorrow my students at their district "benchmark exam" that will test how much they have learned this year. In reality, these exams are teacher exams because when adminstrators look at them, they judge teachers' efforts in their classrooms. 

So, we'll see how I'm doing.

Speaking Christian

I spent most of the day moving stuff around.  My family has doubled.  Cat's sister moved in with us and Skylar our "granddaughter" has been with us a year and a half ago.  We are trying to move stuff out of both their rooms (which formerly were used as a den and a study). 

One requirement has been for us to give away several books that we have had for years, some of which neither of us have read.  It is a bit depressing to think that there are many excellent books that you will never get around to reading. And when you have them on your shelf year after year, you feel guilty that you did not sit down and read them.

Such is the life of bibilophiles. 

However, right now I am reading some interesting books. Each year during Lent season, our church does a book study. This year we are studying the book Speaking Christian by Marcus Borg. 

Borg writes about how the language associated with Christianity has become distorted and meaningless in our time. His desire is for us to see words like sin, salvation, redemption, righteousness and so forth in their historical meaning and to understand what those words mean to us in our time.

I've read Borg before and have always enjoyed his writings. So I am looking forward to our study.

Snitching, Chess, Moving and the Six-Foot Beard

In my junior classes we analyzed an editorial by Leonard Pitts in which he calls those in the African-American community who promote what he calls the "Stop Snitching" culture "weak and cowardly". I always manage to get a lively discussion out of this essay and today was no exception. Even my typically rowdy 4th hour class were engaged in the instruction.
On Monday we take the 3rd quarter (and final) district benchmark exams. This is the one that will be used by the district to make judgments of our school's progress. I hope that my students will take this exam more seriously than they typically do. It is hard to get them to realize the seriousness of these tests and the forces that are moving behind them. To them, it is just another boring exam that they are forced to take. They have been taking the state EOIs more seriously since these tests determine whether or not they graduate.
Had a interesting incident at The Village Library Chess Club. A man named Jim came in for the first time with a woman named Barbara. Jim introduced himself as a chess lover of long standing. However, the most remarkable thing about Jim was that he sported a 6 foot long beard, which he had tied up in short bundles. His beard sort of reminded me of an Edward Lear limerick I learned as a child.

Jim promised to come back, and I will get more of his story later. He played a couple of games with the kids there, which was a real help.
We will probably spend much of this weekend moving stuff around, trying to get our two new family members, Cat's sister Romona and our granddaughter Skylar's rooms set up for them. This means getting my desk, our two computers and the table they rest on, out into the living-dining room area. It will be a moving experience.

Why Teachers Weep

.

There are times when you really feel like crying as a teacher. Today, we had a meeting of our teaching team called the "Professional Learning Community" (PLC). The focus was on two students who were failing in our classes. We brought each one in separately to ther room where our PLC meets to talk with him, and his parent if possible, about how we could help him turn things around. The first young man was a senior whose efforts and grades had taken a nose dive in the second semester. I'll call him Dejuan. Dejuan came in to the room where we were meeting, and we talked with him about our concerns. We got his mother on a speaker phone, and she told him in no uncertain terms that he had better change. He promised he would, and I prepared a list of make up work for him to do, which I told him and his mother would be available for him in my class later that day. He did not show up for my class to get his make up work. However, he was not the saddest case we had. The second young man, like Dejuan an African-American male, is a middle-school student, a 17 year old middle-school student. "Charles" does nothing in his classes. Charles puts his head down on his desk whenever he managse to come to class. The rest of the time, he wanders the halls of the school until an administrator or our campus police officer catches him and puts him in "In School Suspension" for the day. Charles was in the library when one of our team members went to get him. Charles delayed coming to see the team as long as he could. When he finally got there, he simply sat in his chair saying nothing. We tried to get him to respond, but he met our entries with a stony silence. The teachers who have Charles in their class (I do not) asked him what they could do to help him. Charles looked down and did not say a word. Finally, one of our counselors offered talk with him privately and took him to her office. When Charles and the counselor left, one of his teachers said that the behavior he had shown us was exactly what he does in her class. Charles is a special education student. The special ed teacher who has Charles as a part of his case load told us that he feels Charles needs some kind of alternative placement, but that his mother refuses to allow it perfering to see her son stay at our school where he will remain for a few years till he is too old to be our concern. The teacher who has Charles in her class told of another time she tried an intervention with him. She said that during her talk with him, he only said one word. That happened when she asked him the question, "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" "Dead," said Charles. And that was all

Ash Wednesday

I went to my first Ash Wednesday service at Mayflower Church. It was very moving time of reflection on our earthly nation. This is supposed to be a time of sacrifice, when one fasts or gives up a human pleasure or indulgence. In my case, I am giving up carbonated beverages. This will probably do me good, if some of the reports on the negative affects of soda pop turn out to be true. It may become a change I will continue after Easter.

Teaching point of view and tone

Today in my junior class, I tried to further my students' understanding of how point of view in narratives affects our perceptions. We went back one more time to Toni Cade Bambara's story "The Lesson". I also put up some tone words on our "Word Wall" (Marzano disciples, take note)that named some of the attitudes that Sylvia, the story's protagonist, has toward Mrs. Moore, a woman trying to teach the children life lessons about economic justice. I then had the students pretend they were Sylvia's older relative and that she had written them a letter complaining about Mrs. Moore. They were to write her back about their perceptions of Mrs. Moore. I have not read all of their letters yet, so I've yet to assess how well they have learned their lesson.

Toni Cade Bambara

My School Year

I have been neglecting my blog for several months now. I keep thinking that I should write something, but it's been very hard to find the time and the energy for it. It has been a difficult year. I'm having to learn a very different teaching method, and there are times when I am not doing a good job of using it. I think that much of the problem lies in the shear amount of time that has to be devoted to doing everything that is demanded of me right. Take for example today. We have been directed to use data gathered from the last district test, called benchmark tests, to discover where my students need extra help. I have chosen to focus one unit on point of view. I chose to use a story titled "The Lesson" by the African-Americana writer Toni Cade Bambara. I chose it because the story is told from the first person point of view of a young girl, named Sylvia, who is about 10 years old. Sylvia and her friends live in a slum in Harlem where a woman named Mrs. Moore has taken on the responsiblility of educating the children who live there. The story provides a good tool for teaching 1st person point of veiw with an unreliable narrator. Sylvia dislikes Mrs. Moore's attempt to show the children how wealth is unjusty concentrated in the hands of a few by taking them to the famous F.A.O Schwarz toy store on 5th Avenue, Manhattan. However, the reader knows that Mrs. Moore has the children's best interest at heart even though Sylvia and some of the others resist Mrs. Moore's efforts. Among the tasks I have been given my teaching is to use various methods to "highly engage" my students. I have used several, but still, when it comes to doing the work of reading and responding, the students, like Sylvia, resist my efforts. I have tried to use formative assessments to determine how much my students really have learned about the objective, but I'm still not certain that they know what they need to know. On top of this, I still have to do the business of classroom management, attending workshops and meetings. Fulfill various committee responsibilities. So, I feel that no matter how much I do, I'm still not doing the job I'm supposed to do. What do I do?

Will Rogers HS Chess Tournament

I took a student, Zachary Wright, to the Oklahoma Scholastic Chess Organization's scholastic chess tournament at Will Rogers High School in Tulsa. Zachary got his first tournament win at the event and was so excited he was telling everyone, including the waitress at Chili's where we ate after the tournament.

Zachary at the chess tournament

Will Rogers High School is a beautiful Art Deco creation built by the Works Progress Administration during the Depression.

bust of Will Rogers at Rogers HS

Rogers HS Library

The next tournament is in Oklahoma City. I hope I can take more students this time to it.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach demonstrates how post-modernism can produce a very enjoyable novel. The story alternates between 5 different characters: Henry Skrimshander, an almost mythically talented college shortstop, Mike Schwartz, the catcher who discovers Henry and mentors his development as a player and person, Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate whose Zen clam earns him the nickname, Buddha, Guert Affenlight, the 60 year old president of Westish College who falls in love with Owen, and Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter who returns home to Westish after disastrous elopement and 4 year marriage.

Each character’s story intertwines and moves to a crisis centered around Henry's troubles with an errant throw that causes him to lose confidence in himself and playing ability. The characters are wonderfully drawn making you wish the best for all of them all the while knowing that a happy ending for all is impossible. In some ways these characters remind me of Jay Gatsby the eponymous hero of F. Scott Fitzgerald book. They all want more for themselves than nature, society and/or their talents will allow them to have.

Recommended reading for those who love baseball, stories about college days and colleges, and really good post-modernist fiction.


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Day 21: Is it really day 21 already? Why the Finns are #1 in education

A classroom in Finland
We have been at school for nearly a month now. It once was that this day would begin the first or second week of "real classes" after having gotten the "back to school" first week behind us. Heck, once this week was the last week of summer when we went to school on the Tuesday after Labor Day.

I read an interesting article in this month's Smithsonian magazine entitled "Why Are Finland's Schools Successful? According to the article, Finland doesn't give its students the type of standardized tests that American education systems so love except for one in the senior year. One quote from the essay really stood out for me.

It’s almost unheard of for a child to show up hungry or homeless. Finland provides three years of maternity leave and subsidized day care to parents, and preschool for all 5-year-olds, where the emphasis is on play and socializing. In addition, the state subsidizes parents, paying them around 150 euros per month for every child until he or she turns 17. Ninety-seven percent of 6-year-olds attend public preschool, where children begin some academics. Schools provide food, medical care, counseling and taxi service if needed. Stu­dent health care if free.

In the US, many would call this socialism! (It is really a part of social democracy, but few rightwingers know or care about the difference.) It seems to work in Finland, at least.

Days 16-20: I Got, Got, Got, Got, No Time

I have skipped a few days this week, actually, nearly the entire week. It seems like I have no time to get things like blogging done because I am full of all the things I have to do as a teacher during the week.

For example, during the school day I have 45 minutes of planning time to do things like, well, plan lessons. Of course, there are papers to be graded, parents to be called, department and professional learning team reports to be filled out. Many days I have to get paperwork to the principal's secretary, the financial secretary, or the activities director. Oh, and there's that man who wants to visit my seniors about a college they might be able to attend. Need to get back in touch with him. Wasn't there a professional development course that I needed to sign up for? And so it goes.

Since the students' learning day has been extended 30 minutes, we are supposed to be able to go home at the end of the class day, 2:40pm, but I have yet to be able to get out of the building before 3:30, and that was only because I had to attend my AFT Executive Board meeting to review our 2011-12 contract. Then we had the ratification vote on Thursday in a fairly raucous session that lasted from 4:30 to 6:00pm. After that, I went to the city football previews because several of my students who play football asked me if I would come watch them, and I told them I would. (I missed the game tonight, however.) Most of the time I get out of the building around 4:30 after arriving at 6:45.

Still, I am behind on my grading. I need to plan my lessons better. (Today, the principal walked into my room at the end of my 3rd period. I ran out of lesson with about 10 minutes of class time, and I stupidly hadden planned for an "enrichment" activity with the dead time.

Saturday is Labor Fest, so Cat and I will be involved in activities all day. That leaves me with Sunday to get lesson plans done for the week and perhaps a little more caught up on my grading.

Anyone who thinks that teachers work 7 hours a day 9 months a year should be boiled in his own tea!

Days 13, 14, 15: Some Interesting Facts About My Students

I found out some interesting things about my students.

I got the results from the reading test my students took. This test scored the students on their reading grade level meaning that if a student read on the level of an average 10th grader, it would show that s/he was reading at 10.6 (10th grade, 6th month).

According to the test, this is how the 11th graders at our school level out on their reading abilities.

We have:
1 at 3rd grade
5 at 4th
7 at 5th
16 at 6th
9 at 7th
5 at 8th
4 at 9th
3 at 11th
2 at 12th
and 12 reading at the Post High School level.

This is how the 12th graders are doing with their reading

2 a the 4th grade level
3 at the 5th
7 at the 6th
13 at the 7th
7 at the 8th
9 at the 9th
2 at the 10th
1 at the 11th
1 at the 12th
and 5 are at the post High School level

I am not writing about this to gain pity points. I accept the challenge that these numbers represent. But I hope this makes clear both the problems and opportunities we who teach in urban school districts have.

We continued our reading of Native American myths and Beowulf in the 11th and 12th respectively. On Friday, I used some graphic organizers that I found on a very good website that I highly recommend to my fellow teachers.

The weekend is here!

Day 12: Open House

Open House at Centennial

Today the juniors continued reading Native American myths by reading the story "Coyote and Buffalo Bull", another trickster tale. This one comes from a Pacific Northwest tribe.

The seniors read about the fight between Beowulf and Grendal. They analyze the examples of alliteration in the passage.

The big event of the day was Open House at Centennial. We had our biggest parent participation since I've been teaching at the school. I think it is the signal of a new level of enthusiasm by Centennial's patrons.

Day 11: The Evaluation That Wasn't

Today the 11th grade studied one of the Coyote Tales as a way of learning and analyzing the Trickster archetype. Their homework assignment is to take a modern day trickster like Bugs Bunny, Spongebob, The Joker or some other and do a brief comparison and contrast essay comparing the two tricksters.

The 12th grade read Beowulf's speech before King Hrothgar where Beowulf states his purpose for coming to Denmark and boasts of his past victories over enemies and monsters. Their homework assignment is to write a similar boast telling of their past accomplishments and those that they hope to accomplish in the future.

Today we had a faculty meeting where we were supposed to be told about the new evaluation system using the Marzano teaching model as its basis. However, at the meeting we were informed that the evaluation had NOT been developed, and that we would be evaluated using the old model that has been in place for several years now.

In education, we are used to things like this.

Day 10 and the Weekend, an offer to coach a chess team

Tricksters Old and New
Bit of catching up to do.

Friday, the senior class got into the poem Beowulf at last starting with the problems the creature "Grendal" causes for the Danes. I love the way that Maurice Sagoff, the creator of Shrinklits condenses this part of the epic Monster Grendel's tastes are plainish.\Breakfast? Just a couple Danish.

The juniors read Langston Hughes' story "Salvation" in which he tells about a time when he "faked" being saved in a church revival to please his aunt and everyone else in the congregation. It is another example of the kind of reflective essay the students are going to be writing soon. I had something similar happen to me which I wrote about in a blog entry entitled "Camp Meeting".

This weekend has been part school preparation and part home remodeling. We are going to install new cabinets in the kitchen, so the old ones had to be taken out, moved actually. The old are being relocated in the our pantry to make way for the new.

I have also been working on my lesson plans for next week. The people who believe that teachers only work from 8am to 3pm don't know what they are talking about.

I also found out that Casady Schools wants to talk to me about becoming the coach for their middle school chess club. I held a chess camp for them over the summer, which I really enjoyed. If this works out as I think it will, I will be sponsoring three different scholastic chess groups: Centennial, The Village Library, and Casady.

Next week, the seniors continue with Beowulf while the juniors will be reading and working with Native American creation and trickster tales.

Day 8 & 9: A Couple of Good Days

I missed a day yesterday (if anyone noticed). So I've got a bit of catching up to do.

On Wednesday, the students took their "I Am" poems to the media center's computer lab and turned them into Word documents that can be displayed as posters. The students did a good job of creating their poem posters. We have our open house on August 16th, so the students will be able to display their creativity to their parents.

Today, Thursday, I took a different turn with both classes. The juniors began a unit on writing a reflective essay while the seniors began a unit on Beowulf. I showed them a Power Point presentation on the heroic quest archetype to introduce them to the Anglo-Saxon epic.

The school got some good news today. The progress our high school made last year means that we are not on the state's school improvement list. We would have made "Adequate Yearly Progress" (AYP), but we fell short in only one category, graduation. We had too many of our freshman students fail to graduate in 4 years, evidently. Of course, these were the first years of our school during which we began in one building and ended up in another. We had to work in a grossly overcrowed building when we finally did move in. It was not the sort of environment conducive to retaining and nurturing students to graduation.

Now that we are in our building with one less grade level in the building, I think we have an excellent chance to succeed with our student body. We have some great students going here, and we are getting help with the Common Core Standards.

I am looking forward to the success our students are going to have.

Day 7: I need to "up" my game

Today I tried to get the students to engage in "active reading": reading that goes beyond the words of the text to where the students think about what they are reading. This includes being aware of the work's purpose, figures of speech, images, and so on.

Frankly, my teaching did no go all that well. I had trouble getting the students' focus away from each other and into the text. This was something that the people who observed my class yesterday noted on the observation form they gave to me. Clearly, I am going to need to revise my teaching methods, up my "game" so to speak if I am ever going to succeed at the level I am being asked to attain.

I am going to have to go out of my "comfort zone" as a teacher and try new methods.

One problem I am having is keeping the students "on task". I am going to go over what I was taught in the week before school to see where I need to change my method.
All I ask is that the district is patient with me as I and my colleagues move in new directions.

Change can be threatening, but I have reinvented myself before, and I can do it again.

Day 6: Graphic Organizers and Note Taking

Today I worked with students to teach some learning skills. With the juniors, I had them analyze the 1st paragraph to M. Scott Momaday's Way to Rainy Mountain.

I had the seniors take notes on the Anglo-Saxons and their culture using the Cornell note taking method.

I felt I was more successful with the juniors. They created web diagrams that noted the nature imagery in the paragraph. I think the main reason that the exercise was successful was that the students experienced a feeling of success when they correctly identified the images. As I walked around the room, the kids showed me what they had discovered. They discussed whether or not the items they discovered were images or not. I believe that they learned something about analysis and imagery.

The note taking was not as successful for the same reason that the junior was. The students could not feel real success by successfully taking notes. I think that giving students an opportunity to feel success is something I will endeavor to build into my lessons wherever possible.

Something else of note, today my teaching was observed three times. Once by a representative from the Marzano people, once by one of the assistant principals, and then by both the Marzano rep and the assistant principal together. This is all a part of being a "School Improvment Grant" (SIG) school under NCLB's "transformation model." I'm actually glad to have someone come in and look over what I'm doing. I can use all the help I can get. I compare teaching to other professionals like lawyers and doctors who are said to have a "practice", not a job. Teaching is a practice, and I'm always trying to practice at my best, but I'm still practicing my craft.

The First Weekend

I spent most of my weekend relaxing, but also preparing for the next week and the rest of the year.

Saturday, Cat, my wife, and I went on a date. We were finally able to see the final Harry Potter movie, afterwhich we went to a nice Italian restaurant. Cat teaches English also at another Oklahoma City school. (We steal ideas from each other on a regular basis.)
In addition to some great together time, I began reading a book on education entitled Unschooling Rules: 55 Ways to Unlearn What We Know About Schools and Rediscover Education written by Clark Aldrich. Can't say that I'm all that impressed with the book or the author's program. He takes the standard line that our schools, as they now exist, were designed for a more linear Industrial Age and don't fit today's non-linear world. Many of his recommendations seem to be more doable for home schoolers. (In fact, he seems to feel that only home schoolers are doing a good job of educating.) Aldrich recommends having children work with live animals, and not just pets! He also calls for children to work as apprentices or interns to get real world experience. One could do that if one had one or two children to education, but it's not really something I can use in my line of work.

Next week I begin to add more content to the curriculum. I'll still be working on the Rituals and Routines, but the 11th graders will be working on study skills like note-taking and graphic organizing. The 12th graders will start on early British literature. Beowulf here we come!

Day 5: Testing Redux, Redux and "Way to Rainy Mountain"

Rainy Mountain, Wichita Wildlife Refuge near Lawton, Oklahoma
Finally got finished with the GM Reading test today. A few students were absent on either of the first two days, so they had one part of the test to make up. My 7th hour finished the vocabulary because I ran out of answer sheets on Wednesday for them. Those who were not testing read M. Scott Mommaday's wonderfully lyrical essay "Way to Rainy Mountain". Next week we are supposed to do the first of the district's "Benchmark" exams that are designed to measure what our students know and do not know about reading and writing.

I wish I could do this without giving my students yet another standardized test.

Day 4: Testing, Testing, Testing, Redux

Another day of testing today. We are administering the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests® to our students to determine their reading needs. Yesterday they were tested on vocabulary. Today they did the reading portion of the test. Most of the students seemed to take the test seriously, but I am worried that they will experience "test burn-out" by the time we get to the End of Instruction exams in April.

Day 3: Testing, Testing, Testing

Today, we tested, the first of many certainly. This was the Gates Reading Test to determine the students' reading levels. I think this will yeild useful information. I'm curious about the reading levels of my students. I have suspicion that many are reading well below grade level, but this will give me a better indication.

My question is, what then? I am not trained in reading remediation. If I find that Jesse reads at the 6th grade level, then what should I do. I am not asking this as a rhetorical question or to simply show dispair. I really want to be a good teacher, one who meets his students' needs, but sometimes I feel that the ocean is so big and my boat is so small.

Another problem I had arose when they were finished with the test. The portion of the test they took today was over vocabulary.Explaining the test took about 5 minutes, and taking it took 20 minutes. I ended up with 10-15 minutes after the test. I spent the time talking about some of the class procedures, but I felt as those I didn't use the leftover time well.

When I came to my last hour's class, I had run out of test answer sheets. So I had the students read M. Scott Momaday's essay "Way to Rainy Mountain", and had the students write a couple of paragraphs about home and family as well as summarize the Kiowa legend Momaday recounts in the book. Later they will be writing a reflective essay, so I felt it would be useful to read a reflective account that we can return to later.

Second day of teaching: better than the first

Today I had the students write a poem. More specifically, they were following a "poem pattern" known as the "I Am" poem. The pattern gave the students a lead in phrase followed by a suggestion on how to complete the line. For example, the first line of the poem read: I am name two things that describe you. The student could complete it by writing, I am a loving and caring person. The rest of the poem asked them to name things that concerned them, that made them happy, that they look forward to, and so forth.

Most of the students took to the assignment well. Many of the poems I read revealed things to me about my students I could not have imagined.

Then I had the students exchange their poems with someone. They read each others poems and picked out a line they liked in it. They wrote the line down and wrote why they liked it. My purpose in doing this comes from the fact that I am trying to engender a more postive atmosphere in my class and in my school than often exists now.

Tomorrow the students are taking a reading test, the first of many they will take this year. I am not certain how well that will go over, but I will give it my best effort.

I begin the new school year.

Oklahoma Centennial High School
This year I begin my 18th year as a public school teacher. Going back to my days as a graduate assistant teacher at the University of Oklahoma, I have taught for 33 years. School began today, the earliest it has ever begun in the Oklahoma City Public School District, as the beginning of our "Continuous Learning Calendar". The theory is that with a shortened summer break, our students will retain more of what they learned the past year. We will see how that plays out.

Another wrinkle that has been added to my school is the fact that we are now under the "Transformational model" for a "Needs Improvement" school. This means that we are under a special mandate to improve our instruction and our students' learning. As a part of that, we attended a one week seminar the week before school, for which we were compensated. We learned about the "Marzano Model" of instruction developed by Robert J. Marzano in his book The Art and Science of Teaching among other works on instruction.

As I said, today was the first day,and I am attempting to teach my students the "Rituals and Routines" of the classroom, those practices that will lead to a classroom where learning can take place. I can tell that I will need to work more with the students. They will need much practice, but we have made a start.

My plan is this: I will do my very best to follow the methods of instruction that I am being taught. And I will report the results of those methods in this blog. The focus will be me, my successes and failures. I will not make any negative judgements about those methods, nor will there be anything criticism of my administration, my school, or my students. I simply want to report how I am doing as a teacher, and let others make their own judgements about me and me alone.

Review of "Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Michael Shaara won the Pulitzer for this book and justifiably so. This book examines the battle of Gettysburg from several points of view including General Lee, Longstreet, Armistead and Buford. Of most interest to me were the sections that focused on the character and actions of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the university professor turned citizen-soldier, whose heroic actions during the fight for Little Round Top saved the Union army and, quite possibly, the war itself.

Shaara's prose is highly imagistic. Pickett's charge, which was the final act in the Southern defeat, gets this description. "And then the first shell struck near him, percussion, killing a mass of men to his right rear, his own men, and from then on the shells came down increasingly, as the first fat drops of an advancing storm, but it was not truly bad. Close it up, close it up. Gaps in front, the newly dead, pile of red meant. One man down holding his stomach, blood pouring out of him like a butchered pig, young face, only a boy, a man beding over him trying to help, a sergeant screaming, 'Damn it, I said close it up.'"

What I also got from this historical novel were the various attitudes towards war in general and the Civil War in particular. Longstreet knew that the tactics were wrong and the final charge hopeless. Lee simply wanted to do right by his men and his "country" meaning Virginia. Chamberlain believed that the war was something new, people willing to fight and die for an idea, that all people should be free. Of all the characters he comes through with his ideals entact. Though he recognizes the tragedy of what is happening to the nation he loves.

Shaara's title reflects the paradox that was the Civil War. He ends the book with a quote from Winston Churchill's "A History of the English Speaking People" that calls the war the "least avoidable of all the great mass conflicts. . . ." The irrepressible conflict settled the great unsettled question of the American Revolution: do we truly mean it when we say that all humans are by nature equal and therefore equally deserving of liberty and dignity. Men like Chamberlain helped to insure that the answer was "yes".



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My Review of "Endgame" by Frank Brady

Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall - From America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness by Frank Brady

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Fascinating and balanced account of America's greatest chess master.

Two things are undeniable about Bobby Fischer: 1) He is the greatest American chess player of all time, perhaps the greatest anywhere, though I cannot state that categorically. 2) He was a deeply self-centered man who believe that his genius gave him entitlement to say and do whatever he pleased. This book explores both aspects of Fischer. And while it becomes at times too apologetic for his egotistical, paranoid, self-destructive behavior, Frank Brady pulls no punches in describing Fischer's dark side while acknowledging Fischer's genius.

What to make of Bobby Fischer? As some have pointed out, we regularly overlook the negative sides of many fellow geniuses to enjoy what they have produced. I enjoy the music of imperfect me like Beethoven and Wagner. I appreciate the art of Paul Gaughan knowing how he exploited women. I enjoy the movies Eliz Kazan while deploring his betrayals before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Do I put Fischer in this group of people who were great artists, but flawed humans? Yes and no.

Yes, I do believe that Fischer was a genius who produced the type of beauty Marcel Duchamp saw in chess, but I believe that Fischer's ability to play a game does not entitle him to anything but condemnation for his insenstivity to other people, his persecution complex, and his ungracious behavior to any who displeased him in the slightest.

I read one time that, "while gratitude may be the humblest of virtues, ingratitude is certainly one of the worst of all vices." I believe that Fischer's worst vice was that he could not see past his own, largely imagined hurts and attacks.

For me, this taints Fischer's remarkable accomplishments on the board.

And even though he was a great genius at it, he still was playing a board game. Would I seek to mitigate this behavior in someone who played checkers, parcheesi, or mahjong? I would not, and I cannot forgive Fischer for believing that his ability to play a game played by young children made him any better or any more entilted that the rest of us.



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