Matching Tracksuits

Month: May 2022

Entertaining Your Brain During Testing

Thursday 12 May 2022

or

“How Not to Fall Asleep While Doing Nothing for Three Hours”

The title is misleading: to suggest that I do nothing at all during the three hours of state-mandated standardized testing would be to suggest a testing violation. That cannot be: a testing violation means paperwork, emails, meetings, reprimands, and the like. It means notes detailing the testing violation in one’s employment file, and in an absolutely worst-case scenario, it can mean termination of employment.

So what does this proctoring look like? I have three chairs I use in my room for such an occasion: proctoring means walking around the room and looking at everyone then sitting down in one of the chairs. After a few minutes, I get up and do it again, returning to a different chair. And then again.

“Why don’t you use the time to do lesson planning?” Testing violation.

“Why don’t you read?” Testing violation.

“Why don’t you grade papers?” Testing violation.

“Why don’t you write letters?” Testing violation.

There are only two things I can do other than walk around and watch kids take the test: create a seating chart and alphabetize the test tickets (why call them tickets — it’s not like they’re admission slips for something they really want to do). So I take a long time doing both. I work on the seating chart throughout the whole test: it’s like nibbling at a bit of candy you’ve been craving for so long. I alphabetize the test slips slowly and in stages.

And I daydream while staring at the backs students’ heads.

Wednesday Afternoon Bike Ride

Wednesday 11 May 2022

The Boy and I decided yesterday that we’d go mountain biking today after school. He wanted to go to a bike park in a town about half an hour from here, but I said it was too far and suggested Lakeside Park, where L had her sand volleyball practices. He agreed, somewhat reluctantly, but seemed eager about the afternoon when I left this morning.

This afternoon, just as I was finishing up with the bikes and bike rack, he came out to tell me he wasn’t ready.

“Well, get ready,” I laughed.

“No, I’m not mentally ready. I don’t really want to go now.”

This is what I was waiting for, almost expecting. It happens more times than I care to experience, and sometimes, K and I take a more gentle approach, trying to get him to see the positives of it, reminding him why he wanted to do it in the first place. Not today. Today, I didn’t have the time for that.

“Stinks to be you. We’re leaving in a few minutes. Change your shirt and get your shoes on.”

I went go get his bike to complete the whole packing process (his goes on last) and saw that his back tire was flat. Again. I’d just replaced the innertube before our last adventure only to have it rupture about a mile from the car. I’d simply taken the older one, which had the slow leak, and patched the leak. It had worked fine for a while.

This put a new crimp in the plan. He was already reluctant to go. Getting a flat in the middle of a ride might turn him off of riding for a while. There might be even more fussing the next time. I decided just to take the chance. I pumped up his tire, saw that it was holding, and packed the bike. When we arrived at the park, it was still holding. About midway through the first part of the ride, though, E noticed it was getting squishy. We went back to the car, pumped it back up, and rode another few miles.

“That was fun,” was his verdict.

Testing

Tuesday 10 May 2022

We the kids posed for a picture well after testing to show the various positions they’d assumed during standardized testing.

Growth

Monday 9 May 2022

It’s that time of year: my students are writing their letters to next year’s students. The English 8 kids wrote them last Friday; English I will be writing them in a couple of weeks.

The guidelines are simple:

  1. Provide advice for rising eight-graders
  2. Show off how well you can write now.

To achieve the second goal, I only allow students one class period to write the letters. The results could theoretically be a little better for the English 8 students if I gave them more time, but part of the charm in the whole exercise is watching next year’s students’ shock when I tell them at the letters they’re reading are in fact first and only drafts.

One young lady’s letter demonstrated so wonderfully how much she’d grown as a person from the beginning of the year. J, at the start of the year, was one of the most worrying students: her behavior was often disruptive; she was often disrespectful when teachers called her on her behavior; she rarely did any work, and what she did was not turned in or handed in still incomplete.

Yet over the course of the school year, she’s calmed down, learned that butting heads with teachers is counterproductive, and begun doing her work (then doing her best). Her grade has gone from a 62 (just barely passing) to a 84, just six points shy of an A.

One paragraph of her letter reads:

How to stay out of trouble in the 8th grade? Staying out of trouble in the 8th grade is probably one of the most important things you can do. One thing you can do to prevent getting in trouble is to minimize your circle and stop posting things on social media. People take a lot of things to social media and the drama leads into school so now it’s the school’s problem and once you post something on social media there’s literally no going back. It’s there forever. Having a lot of friends can cause you to get into a lot of stuff because once one of your friends is beefing with one another they are going to bring you into it because they want you to choose one or the other. My advice to you as a 8th grader right now is to never trust a soul, follow the right path and take it slow, that’s how you can be successful in the 8th grade.

There’s a certain cynicism in that conclusion, but perhaps it’s not entirely awful advice.

Mother’s Day 2022

Sunday 8 May 2022

Morning was for relaxing.

Afternoon was for relaxing, too. And a bit of spray painting.

Evening, our first fire in the new firepit.

Recital

Saturday 7 May 2022

The Boy had his first recital today. He’s been fretting about it on and off since he decided he wanted to participate in his music school’s annual recital, and he was particularly worried about it once we arrived at the venue — it was all too real then. But once he got in the warm-up room, he seemed fine.

“Do you want me to stay here with you?” I asked. He glanced up at his teacher.

“No, I’ll be fine.”

I went into the auditorium and found the girls. It wasn’t hard: there weren’t more than fifteen to twenty people in the audience.

Once he and his teacher worked out a little cord issue, he began, and though he later said his hands were shaking, you can’t really hear it in his playing.

Afterward, of course, it was time for some family pictures.

And then the Girl drove us home — on the highway.

Thoughts on Hell

Thursday 5 May 2022

I’ve been in a Twitter conversation with a Christian fundamentalist about hell. What has come to light once again is the Christian double standard regarding hell and God’s omnipotence. This Christian and many like him suggested God doesn’t send anyone to hell. People choose to go to hell. They choose with their sins, they choose with their blasphemy, and they choose with their rejection of God. And most disturbingly, some will even admit that according to Christian doctrine and the idea of original sin, even newborn babies are deserving of this punishment because of the stain of original sin.

Yeah who determine the parameters that resulted in such consequences? Who determined that transgressions against gods will result in separation from God? God of course. God said all the rules and all the consequences, so why are you might want to try to suggest to ease your conscience that God doesn’t send anyone to hell, he set up all the framers to make that a certainty in some situations.

This Christian continued his argument by explaining that God didn’t Mikaël for humans but rather for the devil. Here once again we run into a problem when we accept the idea of God’s supposed omnipotence and omniscience. He exists outside time, Christians explain, so he knows all things at all times. That means that when he created hell for the devil, he knew man would eventually end up there as well. But the Christian view creates a surprised God who thinks, “Crap — that went off the rails quickly! I’d better do something!” My interlocutor explained it thusly:

Can you decide anything yourself? Free will. Man had free will & chose evil. He didnt have to, was warned not to but did anyway. Free will. Then God Himself made the way back. Man sends himself to hell. Your choice.

My response was along the lines above:

God made the consequences of disobedience hell. He could have made the consequences anything. He chose infinite punishment for a finite transgression—or, thanks to original sin, the transgression of a distant relative of eating a piece of fruit. Perverse.

But he’ll likely continue to insist that I just don’t understand God’s grace, that I don’t understand the finer points of the theological argument, that I just don’t understand.

And that’s another problem: why would a benevolent god make things so difficult to understand, so easy to misunderstand, when eternal punishment is on the line?!

Four Blood Moons

Wednesday 4 May 2022

I don’t know why I read things like this. I knew when I reserved it at the library that I was just getting this nearly-decade-old book by fundamentalist nutjob pastor John Hagee to see just how ridiculous it is — to mock it, in other words. Yet since I’m reading a book of primary documents (letters, reports, etc.) from the perpetrators of the Holocaust, I felt I needed some light reading.

The back cover blurb itself was enough to entice me:

It is rare that Scripture, science, and history align with each other, yet the last three series of Four Blood Moons have done exactly that. Are these the “signs” that God refers to in His Word? If they are, what do they mean? What is their prophetic significance?

In this riveting book, New York Times best-selling author, Pastor John Hagee, explores the supernatural connection of certain celestial events to biblical prophecy—and to the future of God’s chosen people and to the nations of the world.

Just as in biblical times, God is controlling the sun, the moon, and the stars to send our generation a signal that something big is about to happen. The question is: Are we watching and listening to His message?

It’s rare that Scripture and science align? It’s never happened. Ever. Scripture and history? A handful of times. All three together? Never. Double-never.

But I was intrigued: it sounded from the blurb that Hagee was going to try to get some prophetic meaning out of the positioning of the sun, moon, and stars. That sounds like astrology — one must say that in a rumbling, threatening voice for the full effect. Fundamentalist Christians avoid astrology or anything that looks like it at all costs. So how can a good, Rapture-believing, tee-totaling, fundamentalist, Scripture-literalist have anything to do with astrology?

First, we might want to define astrology. Sure, we all know what it is, but let’s get a good definition on the table. Let’s Google it and take the first definition: “the study of the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies interpreted as having an influence on human affairs and the natural world.”

Just for kicks, let’s see what astronomy’s definition is, using the same method: “the branch of science which deals with celestial objects, space, and the physical universe as a whole.”

How does Hagee define these?

  • “Astronomy is the science of studying the movements and positions of planets and stars.”
  • “Astrology is the worship of stars, which is occultic and pagan.”

He literally gives the definition of “astrology” for “astronomy.” Don’t believe me (because I’d be skeptical of such idiocy myself)? Here are the shots from the book:

This means one of two things:

  1. He’s completely ignorant about what astronomy actually is, and no one around him corrected him either from deference to his position as “God’s anointed” of their own ignorance.
  2. He knows what astronomy is and is counting on his readers not knowing how duplicitous he’s being.

Neither option is good.

Tuesday Evening

Tuesday 3 May 2022

The Boy has a new chore: watering the grass in the front yard.

He does it even when it’s not needed.

I’m sure the fact that he needs to (in his mind) get soaked in the process has nothing to do with it.

In the meantime, K took some pictures of our flowers.

Of course, the real highlight for the Boy was in the evening, when his packages arrived.