Midlife Coursing and Cognitive Dissonance

A West coast friend of many decades, (same age as me) skyped me yesterday and among our mutual ruminations about what the future holds for us, she advised me to identify and follow my passion. That’s easy, I told her. Lately my passion has been education reform and tonight, it paid off for our school.

"The SRC also voted to renew three schools' charters. Two - Planet Abacus and Laboratory Charter - are strong academic performers whose renewals had been held up because their founder, Dorothy June Brown, was on trial on federal fraud charges.

Brown was acquitted on six counts and will be retried on 54, but officials were satisfied that both schools had met several conditions, including severing ties to Brown."

3D or not to D

I saw “Gravity” in 3D on Saturday night with one of my BFFs, having just seen it the night before with my son. How that came about was my perfectly boneheaded move after a long day’s work, click-buying too fast without reading the small print, aided by some less than stellar user navigation by Moviefone.com, but Spencer and I found ourselves headed to the 2D version of Alfonso Cuarón’s space opera, “Gravity” on Friday instead of the 3D version we really wanted to see.

Once I realized that the tickets were non-refundable, we each made our own flavor of lemonade if you catch the drift. Spencer, who is prone to vertigo, thought the 2D version might be safer and I told myself that this would be the perfect acid test of whether the film was worth seeing twice, simply to resolve whether Real 3D is integral to the storyline or just a gimmick.

To be sure, the film is stunning in standard format 2D. We thoroughly enjoyed it. But by the end of my viewing, I had no doubt I needed to see it again to test the question. When I asked my 13 year old if he felt the same way, he said he did, but I could tell from the lack of commitment in his voice that he didn’t really share the same zeal I did.

Where’s the race?

Being-“white-ever” in Philadelphia—another take

Philadelphia Magazine, recently tweaked as the "urban magazine with suburban sensibilities" has an article that attempts to tell the untold story about race relations in Philadelphia. It's disappointing to say the least. The gist of the article is that blacks have so co-opted discussions about race that white people are afraid to say anything. I have something to say.

I think it has everything to do with where you live, how you live and how you were raised. I actually live in Fairmount where the author said he's spent time, so I've heard many of the same types of stories he relates. I don't find them shocking, because I've been hearing these "scary stories" all my life from people who usually seem to have an agenda for telling them. Here's a story that the author might find shocking. One of my neighbors, not much older than me, once told his teen daughter that if she ever brought a n**** into his house, he'd kill them both. The daughter sometimes uses the n-word in her conversations, but less so, particularly as her own daughter's best friend is mixed-race African American. Major shift, in only two generations.

Camera Test

My father, the photographer, has been dead for nearly four years. Nonetheless, since Dad loved nothing more than taking a new camera out for spin, inviting him to “come with” to field-test my newest purchase seemed a natural thing to do.

An Open Letter to my fellow Parents United at 4th

I regret that business obligations will keep me away from the SRC Meeting tomorrow. I’ve just gotten off the phone with Pierre, one of our parents and he’s promised to keep me informed when (and if) a decision happens tomorrow. I had signed up to speak at the November meeting, in which we all know the decision was canceled at the last minute, (literally). I know I'm not the only one who really can't take the suspense anymore.

I also never thought my message of the primacy of academic excellence was unique to me. But it seemed earlier this year that what we as parents desired had become confused by people who spoke for us in the absence of our own voices. Well, we have spoken up, clearly and with purpose about the reasons to preserve Lab Charter. Our Board of Trustees has heard us. The School Reform Commission and the Philadelphia School District have heard us.

Parents stepped up at SRC and Lab Charter Board Meetings. So when we were offered an opportunity to engage on a decision-making level, I submitted my resume.

I won’t pretend that I wasn’t disappointed that another parent was chosen for the Board of Trustees position. But our board’s single most urgent task ahead is the preservation of the school’s unique academic culture without direction from the “Main Line” office. The Board recognized this when it formed a crucial educational subcommittee this month.

It chose its newest member well and wisely. Twanna Mae, as an educator AND a parent, was and is the best most logical choice. I guess I shouldn’t be amazed that she wasn’t even the only candidate with compelling education credentials. This month’s Board of Trustees meeting underscored what I always suspected, that parents in the know, teacher-parents in the know, seek out Laboratory Charter for the best education in the city.

Lab Charter is unique, not just among public schools, but among charter schools. There is a growing academic industry that is competing for public school dollars. There’s a lot of money being made out there and lots of debate as to whether large scale for-profit corporations put our children first and give parents a real stake in their education. There have also been plenty of scandals surrounding charter programs that promised much but deliver little.

Lab Charter always delivered and is now (hopefully) ending a painful period in which it was nearly destroyed by the profit motive of a few individuals. I’d hate to see it go through this now, only to be absorbed by another larger, for-profit corporation in the future. By staying small, independent and focused on the education of our children, Lab Charter may not be the only solution to the school crisis in this city, but it is one of the best ones. It works.

If I am asked to submit my resume again in June for board consideration, I will do this gladly. A few months make no difference in my willingness to serve such an effective and worthwhile leader in the future of our children's education.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to the students, teachers and parents of Laboratory Charter School. I and my family are blessed to be part of this community.

When All Around You Go Short, It Pays to Go Long

http://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/

Democrats vilify Republicans as arithmetically-impaired, fundamentalist Randian social Darwinists. Republicans cast Democrats as godless, spendthrift, entitlement-sucking socialists. The extremes of both parties flame each other with such withering intensity that moderates are incinerated in the crossfire.

Independents went to the dance, kissed both boys, listened to their promises, but are playing coy as to which one (if either) they'll go home with. There's a very impolite word for that kind of date. I'm not going to use it, but do keep it in mind.

Independents are angry that the conventions offered them so little specificity and exact detail to make up their minds. What are they expecting? Paul Ryan found out just how draconian specifics can be when the fact-checker zombies come back to feast on his flesh. So has President Obama when he extemporaneously gotcha'ed himself in the "you didn't build this" line. Unpinch your nostrils my rabbity independent friends and inhale the partisan air. It may stink a bit, but it won't kill you. It is in fact, the best we have to breathe. A short guide to full bodied respiration follows ...

Is anybody surprised to learn that presidents don't dig ditches?

Presidents don’t perform “the mission” any more than Barack Obama pulled the trigger on Osama bin Laden.  But presidents DO make big things happen. They say go and Seal Team Six went. They are executive change agents. They paint with broad brushes, create mandates, which they hand over to the legislative, judicial and military branches to execute the details. That’s their jobs, even after they are on the job. That’s our system.

On the campaign trail or the Oval Office, the president is Preacher One. That’s our process. Expecting anything else is like asking for Christ to climb on the cross for a repeat performance. Human history, not just American history, offers poor job security for messiahs. We need to grow up, stop expecting them and definitely, we need to stop throwing them under the bus as soon as we grow the least bit impatient with their progress. We need to start thinking more longterm and allow history, economics and law to unfold in their own time. If we keep making midcourse corrections to molify the "election-deciding independents," if we keep jerking the rudder every two years, we’ll get nowhere anybody wants to be. 

Which is exactly where we are now. And it's all thanks to you.

Random happy thoughts about college tuitions:

(No, I'm not smoking anything hallucinogenic, thank you.)
Just got off the phone with Son 1's Financial Aid office finalizing some stuff for his frosh year at UARTS. May I brag for a moment? We got a nice package. High on the merit scholarships and grants. (Proud of the boy!) Low on the loans and out of pocket. TG!! One of my relatives is already mid-five figures into a bank for their child's education AT A STATE SCHOOL and the kid is only halfway through. I know this is a far more typical scenario than mine. And it upsets me.

Observation, with the way that states, especially PA are gutting their education budgets, (thank you Mr. Corbett) and Mr. Ryan's designs on Pell Grants, perhaps you're better off looking at private schools (with their more generous endowments) rather than state schools for a cost effective education. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, especially for folks of my generation, but this is my experience. I'm not saying that we were savvy when we started this process. Far from it. We were total newbies--more lucky than smart. I'm just a middle class guy, two working stiffs making middle class money and last year at this time I looked at the numbers and was convinced I wouldn't be able to send my son to college. Every time I looked at the mid-5 figure college tuitions, my BP shot up and I got pissed.

It's a "funny money" situation. Like healthcare. We say this procedure will cost $35k, but insurance will cover 90% and we'll accept it. Your out of pocket $25. Why can't medicine, like education, cut out the funny money business and just charge reasonable rates that middle class people can afford? Despite our good fortune, I'm convinced the system is broken.

Random Olympic closing observations

In no particular order:

Whether you found the opening and closing ceremonies quirkily entertaining or insufferably pompous and my FBF's already know where I stand, the Brits did an amazingly good job.

Brit pop music rocks. It has from the '60's when I was a kid and still does. Continue to invade at will, lads and lasses.

I don't know how they did from a budgeting/profit/loss standpoint, but they pulled the games off without Chinese overkill and with no major delays, no scandals, NO TERRORISM and all in one of the world's largest, busiest, most diverse cities. Well done, London!

This (or something like it) is what Mitt Romney should have said, but we already know he's no statesman or spokesman for American anything. Whatever he was asked when he made his infamous comment, he should have realized that his job wasn't to consult as a former Olympic organizer, but as an American dignitary. The hubris of the man. Epic fail on his part. Mr. PM and Mr. Mayor of London--well-said sirs!

The Dark Night of The Dark Knight

In answering critics who say that dark movies cause dark acts, movie industry apologists sound eerily similar to NRA apologists ....
by Rick Weiss (c) 2012 Trident Productions

As horrific as it is, the “The Dark Knight Rises” premiere massacre in Colorado is already fading from our “news-stream” mentality. Before it completely washes downstream, let’s throw a little keylight on two troubling, if related connections and see what we can learn from them, if anything.

We know from “Inception” that Chris Nolan can bend space and time and keep 4 or 5 different realities going simultaneously, but “The Dark Knight Rises” is even more ponderous, a kinda a big goofy allegorical soufflé. It rises, but falls flat soon after leaving the oven. Good girls and bad girls trade places with reality-defying aplomb. Batman is masked. Unmasked. Masked again. He needs to conquer his fear. He needs to learn to fear again. He's rich. He's poor. He's rich again. He's dead. Alive. Dead again, then alive again. The Scarecrow sits in judgment on the rich. The film’s best line is left to Catwoman:

"There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne," she purrs. "You and your friends better batten down the hatches. Because when it hits, you're all going to wonder how you ever thought you could ever live so large and leave so little for the rest of us."

My Father's Clothes

Several times in the year or so after my father passed, my mother would call me over to one or two closets in which she'd neatly hung my father's clothes with a veneration reserved for a priest's vestments. "He hardly wore these," she'd say with a sad, delicate wave of her hand. I’d look in her eyes and what I'd see there was not so much her grief in the lengthening absence of her mate of over 53 years. What I'd see most, was her hope in my acceptance of the utility of the offer. These were reverential, intimate moments between the two of us. The third presence, the obvious one, Dad’s, was hanging on the clothes rack. So, each time, I selected two or three items that I liked more than the others and thanked her. 

It's an odd, sad and complex thing to walk around in your dead father's clothes. There are times I asked myself that if his clothes retain some essence of him, would I absorb it?  I already had 90% of his genetic makeup. Would the clothes make it complete? All his successes, setbacks, beliefs and experiences–would I inherit these by osmosis?

Dad was 5'9" and barrel-chested. I am 6'1" and barrel-chested. At the top, we are alike. Dad's legs were short, thick, muscle-knotted and bandy. I have my mother's longer, more graceful legs. Dad's scent is sweet and masculine. It is cinnamon, musk, Irish Spring soap, Old Spice aftershave, graham crackers and face stubble. I’ve known this scent/signature all my life. My own scent is much harder for me to describe, though I know it is similar to his.

I passed over his sportcoats, which I really did not like and assumed would not fit me properly. The first item I chose smelled the strongest of him, even though freshly washed. It's a navy blue zippered pullover. As I held it to my face, a flash of grief surged through me with the knowledge that once I took it, wore it and washed it, eventually my molecules would displace all his molecules and its scent would change, become entirely mine, not his. Everything fades. Molecular traces are replaced. Though I honor his memory by wearing Dad’s pullovers, I actively erase his imprint by doing so. This is not something one can do casually.