It's all about heart

I have volunteered more of my time to help coach the Junior Varsity baseball team at the school in which I am conducting my student teaching. I thought that it was wise because I hope to coach baseball or softball when I get a full time teaching position, and I thought that it would be useful to have a little experience doing it, even though it was dumb given all of the time commitments I already have. However, it has been great. I have learned a lot about coaching and baseball. What I learned most is that kids are not getting the support they need in order to compete. So many of our players have not been playing ball for more than a couple years, and they are already sophomores and juniors in high school. It is unfortunate that they have not had the benefit of playing in the summer or in Babe Ruth leagues beyond school. There are so few players that my high school could not even field a third team for freshmen and sophomores like most schools. In one sense this is an advantage. The high school I went to was highly competitive and I was not big enough, strong enough, or fast enough, when I went there, to make the team. At least this way everyone gets to be on the team.

While participation is nice, competitiveness is nice too, and my JV team lacks the latter. In fact they are so not competitive that they have not won a game in a few years. So far we are 0-5, and there is not much hope of winning this year if things remain the same. It seems that the kids do not know how to win. Their morale is so low that after the first inning, they practically give up. Ground balls find their way to the outfield every time, and pop flies have a tendency to fall no matter how long my players have to get under them. Runners get picked off and opponent's batters have a tendency to walk or get hit by a pitch. Things go from bad to worse and worse even still. It is not a pretty sight.

But why would I write about this? What can I learn from all of this? I learned that heart which coaches and players often talk about is a real phenomenon. It is something that keeps you playing hard no matter what the odds. It is something that does not allow you to give up. Something that keeps you from throwing in the towel. I don’t know if I can instill it in my players, but they need it for sure. Friday they didn’t make it through four innings or one hour before we threw the towel in. Tuesday we scored our first run in four games, but didn't have a hit. It seems they are losing before they even take the field. They need heart. For myself, I will keep going out there even though they seem to be a lost cause, if for nothing else, because there is still a chance that they will find out what they are missing.

Those who can do...

I was reflecting on the phase from where it originated I do not know, except that it ended up in pop culture somehow. It goes, “those who can do, and those who can’t teach.” After teaching for a few months now I can say with confidence that there are those who can’t teach. It is not as easy as the catchy phase makes it seem. Imagine trying to hold the interest of 30 teenagers, engage them in learning, and at some point help them to learn something they did not know they needed learn. Imagine selling something that your customer does not want to buy, all the while trying to please your boss who wants you to meet your quota. Imagine being a drill sergeant who has a platoon of new recruits to train who have been conscripted into service against their will, and then disallowed to yell at or hit them. Imagine trying to make the Cold War as interesting as American Idol, generating interest in American government when students just want to watch South Park. These are some of the obstacles to teaching.

So then this is my phrase in response to the one we all know, “those who can sometimes do, but those who can can’t necessarily teach others to do it.” Have you ever tried to teach someone something that you knew how to do? Was it frustrating? You see it on the golf course all the time. Undoubtedly there is someone out there who went along with his buddies because of peer pressure but has no idea what to do (like me). All of his friends are likely to try to help him. “Hold your hands like this…” “Keep your head down…” “Use a different club…” “Grip it looser…” The advice is never ending, but inevitably their rookie friend will not improve because all of this new information is too much and he has little experience with golf. Probably his friends will give up on him and let him hack his way through 18 holes. So then can everyone teach who can do? I think not.

Teaching today, and always as far as I can tell, is a very challenging thing. It is not a matter of simply transferring knowledge from one mind to another. Teachers and students are not computers. It takes creativity, empathy, communication, and sensitivity among other things. I heard someone say that teaching history is most effective when told as a story. History can be very interesting, but history teachers often make it boring. For instance, we studied the space race, and instead of making it about V2 and Jupiter rockets which is boring, our lesson focused more on monkeys and the lunar landing. My students were interested in the space race when I suggested that there is a possibility that we did not actually land on the moon. Some of them were shocked. How could that be? I asked them if we could land on the moon tomorrow, and most answered that we could, however we could not because our space program revolves around the shuttle, and the shuttle cannot land on the moon and then leave again. They were hooked. Suddenly a boring lesson about space ships turned into a heated discussion on whether we faked it. Is such a thing possible? Why would we fake it? How can we know for sure? Questions were flying and learning was happening. I was very pleased.

You see there are many ways to transfer information or “teach.” The challenge is in finding the method that is most effective. Power point, videos, books, computer programs, there are many tools that a teacher can use, but like other tools, they are only as effective as the person wielding them. If you don’t think I am right, try to teach something to someone else who knows nothing about it. Try to teach your girlfriend about horsepower, or your sister about baseball. For women, try to teach your boyfriend, or husband about skin care, or laundry. The point is not that there are not women interested in baseball or men who can do laundry, but the point is that it is not always as easy as it seems to teach someone something they are not naturally interested in. Therein lies the most significant challenge to teaching. So think about that the next time someone makes teaching the butt of a joke, or you hear the phase, “those who can do, and those who can’t teach.”

But teacher... my computer crashed

I have always been suspicious of those students who use the excuse that their computer crashed when it was time to turn in a project. More often it was the printer, which is understandable because we have advanced in the area of print technology far beyond Gutenberg, but we have not managed to make these print machines reliable. I thought that people who had a computer crash must have been dumb and left it out in the rain or something because I could think of no other reason why a computer would crash. I have had a computer since 1995 and never had a problem that I couldn’t fix myself. However, last week I found myself unable to even get my computer to turn on. Being in my own estimation a fairly cleaver man I promptly took it apart to "take a look" but was unable to do anything but look, and then promptly put it back together. It then worked for about five minutes. Believe me for those five minutes I felt like I was invincible. I mean if I could fix a computer with no formal training, what couldn't I do? It turned out that in fact I hadn’t fixed anything, and my computer remains dead. I am hoping that it might be resurrected, but I am not sure I can wait until the second coming. Meanwhile I am using my wife's computer which is much more capable than mine, even though she only uses it to check her email twice a week. It is nice except that it has none of my games or gadgets on it, all of which I have been prohibited to install. I only tell you all of this to say that I am sorry for not posting anything for the last two weeks. I will try to post all of the things I wrote in that time over the next few days, and that I now am more inclined to listen when a student tells me that their computer crashed and their term paper along with it.

More "Big" Ideas

Ok so maybe I have gotten a little carried away with this big car idea, but it is fun for me. Besides I forgot to share my favorite idea. If I were to name my own big car, it would be the Juggernaut. That's right. Maybe there is a market for cars made with superhero names like Superman, Batman, or the Hulk. I'll feel the market out with that one. Also I think it would be a good idea to name some vehicles after dinosaurs. After all they have mystique and also connote size. I am thinking for our first line we could have the T-Rex, Velociraptor (sports car) and Stegosaurs. It is just a start, but there is a long list of names to choose from.

What it boils down to I think is that there are too many companies in the market now, and too many cars. Ford, Chrysler, and GM know this first hand. They were used to huge percentages of the market share, and cry when their share is lost to Toyota, Nissan and Honda. Such is business. The other extreme though is a country like India which had a state owned auto-industry which produced a small amount of inferior vehicles without much choice or variation on the vehicles they produced. So in the end I guess I prefer the free market method that we employ today. Especially if someone is interested in my name ideas.

The bigger the better

Alright, I finally got around to writing something that I have been thinking about for a while now. How big can vehicles get? It is getting out of control. Believe me, I am a devout capitalist, and I believe in free market, and I recognize that the only reason these vehicle exist is because people want them, but when is enough enough? I used to drive around in a Ford Probe, which is a very small car, and I thought to myself that the bumper of these vehicles is at my eye level. If they broadsided me I would be killed. Something has to change. Even the names of the vehicles connote largeness. Titan, Tundra, Expedition, are just a few. Nissan in fact seems to be leading the way with the large vehicle line, but let's not forget about the line of Hummers, which while they have gotten smaller since the first commercial hummer was made available, they are still grossly oversized. I would like to see a movement away from this trend.

However you know what they say...if you can't beat em join em. So I think I will. In fact I have a few ideas for car names that might prove catchy. I am going to patent them and then sell the rights to the name to which ever company wishes to use the name. Here is a sample of the names I have come up with so far: Mammoth, Colossus, Titanic, are some of the names I was thinking may fit. I also think we should create a line of vehicles names after Greek gods: Zeus, Apollo, and Aphrodite (2 door for the dating scene) are some of the ones that might work. Otherwise maybe we should name them after continents to show their size: Antarctica is a good one, America is also nice, but for the largest of course it would be called Asia. Only the most confidence damaged people would need to drive around in a vehicle named after the largest continent in the world, but I think there is a market there. Anyways, those are just my thoughts, tell me what you think, maybe we can go into business together.

Oh Nancy

I have been amazed at how utterly ignorant politicians seems to be when it comes to economic principles. I have witnessed high school students who understand the basic concepts of supply and demand and the effects of increased taxation on business etc. They have explained to me that the minimum wage increase is likely to cause either higher prices on products and/or fewer jobs as employers lay off workers to offset the net income change. They get it why don't politicians? Believe me I am not interested in returning to a time when the factory owners hired children to do dangerous work and paid them little to compensate. I am not advocating for a return to a time when you could be fired for complaining about a wage that was below subsistence level. What I would like to see though is a government which is careful not to change things when they are going well, and apparently some people think that the status quo is not good enough. Nancy Pelosi had a few things to say about the recent surge in the stock market.

*****
Nancy Pelosi condemned the new record highs of the stock market as "just another example of Bush policies helping the rich get richer". "First Bush cut taxes for the rich and the economy has rebounded with new record low unemployment rates, which only means wealthy employers are getting even wealthier at the expense of the underpaid working class."

She went on to say "Despite the billions of dollars being spent in Iraq our economy is still strong and government tax revenues are at all time highs. What this really means is that business is exploiting the war effort and working Americans, just to put money in their own pockets."

When questioned about recent stock market highs she responded "Only the rich benefit from these record highs. Working Americans, welfare recipients, the unemployed and minorities are not sharing in these obscene record highs". "There is no question these windfall profits and income created by the Bush administration need to be taxed at 100% rate and those dollars redistributed to the poor and working class". "Profits from the stock market do not reward the hard work of our working class who, by their hard work, are responsible for generating these corporate profits that create stock market profits for the rich We in congress will need to address this issue to either tax these profits or to control the stock market to prevent this unearned income to flow to the rich."

When asked about the fact that over 80% of all Americans have investments in mutual funds, retirement funds, 401K's, and the stock market she replied "That may be true, but probably only 5% account for 90% of all these investment dollars. That's just more "trickle down" economics claiming that if a corporation is successful that everyone from the CEO to the floor sweeper benefit from higher wages and job security which is ridiculous". "How much of this 'trickle down' ever get to the unemployed and minorities in our county? None, and that's the tragedy of these stock market highs."

"We democrats are going to address this issue after the election when we take control of the congress. We will return to the 60% to 80% tax rates on the rich and we will be able to take at least 30% of all current lower Federal Income Tax tax payers off the roles and increase government income substantially. We need to work toward the goal of equalizing income in our country and at the same time limiting the amount the rich can invest."

When asked how these new tax dollars would be spent, she replied "We need to raise the standard of living of our poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of unemployed minorities. Stock market windfall profits taxes could go a long ways to guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as "Americans"."

*****
Let me summarize Nancy's school of economics: low unemployment rates mean that workers are being exploited. Spending money to rebuild a ravished country is bad. We should tax the rich at %100. The stock market is evil. Rich people are evil. Illegal immigrants should be supported by tax payers to the level of middle class. Wealth redistribution is the answer.

It is odd how she is so interested in making everyone equal and yet requested and received her own jumbo air force jet to fly her from Washington to San Francisco; the jet has been called "Pelosi One." She makes me want to shake her so hard that she suffers from shaken Congresswoman Syndrome. I don't feel as though I need to debrief her absurd remarks because they are so absurd, so I will just leave it at that.

Busy

I am sorry for any one who checks this blog regularly so as to read my brilliant posts as soon as I post them because I have been remiss in posting these last couple of weeks. Ok, well that is probably no one. I will try to make up for it with blinding brilliance. I have a great number of things that I could share, but I am not sure what you might want to read. Let's see... well I went on my first Men's advance (we are not calling it a retreat) and that was a lot of fun. I started coaching (sort of) baseball, I finished teaching WWII, and I am getting ready to teach the Cold War one of my favorite topics because I myself am a pinko commie. Besides that there have been some interesting things in the news, like Brittany Spears shaving her head or something stupid like that, as if I really cared. A crazy astronaut tried to murder the woman that her adulterous lover is with. Then Anna Nicole Smith died and no one talked about the astronaut chick any more. My Dad suggested that maybe NASA killed Anna to get their girl off the headlines (something to think about). The stock market slipped yesterday and everyone had a cow. So what it is higher than it has ever been, consumer confidence is up, unemployment is down, and Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the house. Ok well maybe that last one doesn't help. Trust me I listened carefully when I heard that someone tried to kill Chaney. You can say what you want about W, but if we had to suffer Nancy he would look like a saint I suspect. So anyways, enjoy the posts, and for goodness sake, leave some responses.

Land Wars

As I was driving around this morning after dropping my kids off I drove by a field with hundred of fig trees piled up ready to be burned. As usual being that I have a soft spot for agriculture, I was sad to see the figs ripped out in order for developers to build more houses. In and around Fresno this is a common sight. Farm land being destroyed and replaced by cookie cutter houses. But this is nothing new for me; I have come to accept although not support the urban sprawl that has become standard in the United States. As I was lamenting this phenomenon I thought how ironic it is that at one point there was nothing there but wild grass and any trees that happened to grow there all by themselves. Before the figs and other trees were planted, and rough grasses plowed into neat rows, there was only natural flora. Then I thought that some people protest the development of so called "wilderness" into farm land. Here is the process: naturalists protest the use of wilderness for agriculture, agriculturalists protest the development of farm land into suburbs, then no doubt someone protests the purchase of those properties (after many years) for city projects or freeway onramps.

In many places of the world even today there is conflict over land. A classic example is Israel and Palestine, but there are others. In our own country there is conflict over tribal lands and who has the "right" to use the land. This issue has been addressed by several philosophers, including John Locke, whose philosophy is a cornerstone of our government and society. He claimed that a man could only possess as much land as he could use. But technology has made it possible to use much more land than a man who lived 300 years ago could. The point is that we are still fighting over land. Unlike in the Middle East however, we don't use guns and bullets to settle disputes, but we still do use a weapon of sorts. It seems to me that we use money to wage war over land now. Farmers have more than whoever controlled it in the first place. Developers have more than farmers. Cities have more than the poor saps who have their land bought up using imminent domain. We are waging war over land, just as we have for thousands of years.

So what is the point? It brings me back to one of the things that I go back to again and again. That man is not really all that advanced. We have not really advanced at our core as much as we would like to think. We still struggle to walk the straight and narrow. Prostitution, murder, pillage, rape, maim, destroy, these are the things we have done since the dawn of time, and we are still doing them. Maybe we are not as savage as we once were, but I think it is debatable. But maybe I am just disturbed over the story of the astronaut who drove halfway across the country to kill her lover's lover. That story sure sounds savage to me. And must I point out that we are still worshiping idols? If you don't think so consider how much media attention Anna Smith got for her untimely death. Oh well, I can complain all day, but all I can control is how I act, and sometimes even that is too much. Have a nice day.

Questions

I learned something very important about teaching this week. We began the WWII unit this week and on Monday I stated by having the students first talk about what they know about WWII and then ask questions to drive the learning. I used the question model to begin a lesson about Pearl Harbor and the US entering the war. We talked about whether the US should get involved when other countries have conflicts, and most of my students had an opinion. We used that discussion to lead into a lesson about the US foreign policy leading up to the war, and then our entrance into the war. I felt that it was a good lesson and was glad that I had succeeded in stimulating learning. The next class period we did a lesson on the diverse people who were involved in the war, women, hispanics, blacks, Japanese and Native Americans. I did not use any questions to drive the learning only dove right in. I was dissapointed with their reaction. So I completely rewrote the lesson for the next day (they are on a block schedule) and changed the lesson drastically. Instead of being about diverse groups in the armed services, it became about freedom, and what freedom means. I feel like it was a much better lesson. I had the students write a parallel poem at the end of the lesson, and the "Freedom for Some" poem is the one I wrote to model for them. The moral is that questions drive our learning. We do not usually care to learn something that we do not question or that we already understand. I am going to try to always allow for questions to lead the learning in my classroom.

Freedom for Some

This poem I wrote the other day because I was having my students write a poem to show the paradox between the diverse groups of people fighting in WWII and the freedoms they had or didn't have in the USA. We did a lesson on Tuskegee Airmen, 442nd (an all Japanese unit), women in the armed forces, Navajo Code Talkers, and Mexican Americans in the military. All of these people served in the war, and yet they did not all have equal freedoms. Anyways, this poem shows that paradox. My wife objects to the language I used, but I feel it is appropriate.

I am a white man.
I am a black man.
I am a free man.
I am told where I can eat, drink, sit, and even pee.
I am loved by all.
Some love me, but others hate me.
I want to serve my country.
I want to serve my country.

The Army drafted me to fight.
I had to fight to get into the Army.
They trained me and called me a soldier.
They spit on me and called me a nigger.
The men around me were my brothers.
The men around me were closer than brothers.
I fought in France and felt like a hero.
In France they treated me like a hero.

I was proud of my service, fighting for freedom.
I was proud of my service, but I don’t know what I fought for.
I came home and they called me a hero.
I came home and they called me a nigger.
I love my country and my country loves me.
I love my country, but my country doesn’t love me.
The USA is still the land of the free.
They give freedom to some, but not to me.

Experiencing Death

This is a poem that I wrote in High School. It is a parallel poem, which means it shows two different things that happen at the same time. In this poem I was comparing a soldier with a person who decided to go to college to avoid being drafted.

I am but a young man.
I am but a young man.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die.
I will go to school for escape.
I will face the Death.
I want the Country to help me.
I want to help the Country.
I go away to learn at school.
I go away to live in Death.

School is so stressful.
Death is terrifying.
I know I can make it.
I don’t think I will survive.
I fear nothing at all.
I fear for my very life.
I curse the Country.
I fight for the Country.
I read about the Death.
I live the Death.
I don’t think there is really a Death.
I cannot escape the Death.
I will never die.
The Death will swallow me.

I drink with friends in happiness.
I drink alone to forget.
I am completely healthy.
I am numb with pain.
I am full of life.
The Death took my life.
I know everything.
Nobody knows anything.
My whole life is ahead of me.
My life was left behind.
Here’s to life.
Here’s to Death.
I am a great man.
I am a dead man.

FDR

I wanted to apologize for my earlier rant. I was simply upset at the facts surrounding FDR. I need to give credit where credit is due, and I wanted to acknowledge that FDR was very good at keeping up the nation's moral. It should be credited to him because had this not been the case, had despair and fear continued, a more radical leader may have gained power, as in Germany. Also despite the internment of the Japanese Americans, FDR was a good war time president. He foresaw the need to combat Fascism in Europe and imperialism in Asia, and took action when it was needed. While I am still overall critical of his leadership, I recognize that there are important contributions that he made to our nation. I just wish that his failures are not ignored because of his successes.

First four weeks

After four weeks and an entire unit I have learned a lot about teaching. There are many things that I would do differently, and yet many that I think I did well. For this unit on the Great Depression, I wanted to focus a lot on writing. Obviously writing is something that I find very valuable, and I wanted to share my experience with it in the classroom. I thought that it would be a shame to do something well and not use it to teach my students. So I created fictional characters set in the 30s, and gave each student one of the characters. As the unit progressed and their characters experienced some of the ups and downs of the time, I had them write journal entries to reflect their learning. Some of them did very well with this, and others not so well, but the point was that they were writing. For a unit assessment I had them use their characters to write a narrative essay about the Great Depression. While some of the essays are not well organized, I was pleased that nearly all of the students wrote. I had one student who hates writing, and doesn’t like school in general write two and a half pages. I was so pleased with him. Even if the essay was not excellent compared with others, for him it was the best he could write, and he will only benefit from having done it. Writing is proof that a person is thinking, and I know now that my students were thinking. So no matter the things that I have struggled with in these first few weeks, there is at least one success, and that is that my students wrote a story. If nothing else went right for the rest of the semester, this would be enough.

Tiny Miracle

Today I noticed a flower so meek.
Through the heavy ground it did peek.
I thought of the grueling process it did take,
To show us its gleaming beauty, far from fake.

It pained me to think of all the people,
that find a flower less than a steeple,
And those who cut them to caress,
Ruining the tiny miracles brief but pleasant happiness.

The New Deal

Just a few thoughts on the New Deal after teaching it to my students. In short it was a sham. Roosevelt somehow managed to maintain high approval ratings while the economy continued to suffer. I believe that he was a great man for keeping up moral but for turning the economy around, well he was a failure. In England and Germany the depression was long gone by the time Roosevelt sent the country into a recession in 37, five years after taking charge and turning out law after law. Hoover cut taxes to give people more money to spend, but Roosevelt raised taxes. Hoover was criticized for not giving veterans bonuses from WWI, but Roosevelt cut veteran pensions and reduced military spending, yet was spared criticism. Thank goodness for Japanese imperialism or we might still be in a depression (ok that is a stretch). Let's not forget what Roosevelt did during that engagement. Putting Japanese Americans in camps? Who else imprisoned his own productive loyal citizens? Oh yeah Hitler and Stalin. At the same time too. I'm not saying Roosevelt is equal in evilness to Hitler or Stalin, just similar at the same time. I am just tired of people celebrating men when there is no reason to celebrate. It turns out that the best presidents are probably their own best advocates. It seems that tooting ones own horn is more important than running the country.

Hoover and Roosevelt

As I began teaching the unit on the great depression I decided to try to dispel some of the myths that bother me about this time, but more importantly to present all of the information and let the students to decide for themselves what is truth. For instance, most people (who know anything about the Great Depression) are under the impression that Hoover is largely responsible for the economic crash, and furthermore that he did nothing to help the country as it plunged into despair. In fact Hoover offered federal money to all of the states, but only a few decided to accept it. He created more Federal works projects than any other previous president including the Hoover dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, and work on the Supreme Court building. He tried to stabilize farm prices by asking farmers to leave their fields fallow, but this only softened the fall.

Hoover was a good man, a humanitarian, who was adept at helping people, and worked hard to not only ease the suffering of the American people, but also to maintain the tenets of our government and economy. In contrast Roosevelt was a playboy and a smooth talker. A person who was good at telling people what they wanted to hear. He also opposed women's suffrage and was critical when Harvard accepted its first black students. Nearly everyone he met commented that he seemed intellectually weak. When he took office after promising a "new deal" he made things up as he went, borrowing many of the things that Hoover proposed, including the bank holiday which began the "hundred days."

Roosevelt did some things that I admire as well, but I am critical of him because he is praised for "getting the US out of the depression," while in fact even during his presidency, the unemployment rate only once dropped below 8 million. Not exactly getting the country out of the depression. In fact it is the enormous military industrial complex that is created when the US mobilized for WWII that corrected our economic shortcomings. Roosevelt felt that he was so important that he was the only president to serve more than two terms. Of course he did not survive the forth term and died in office, leaving the country in the hands of Harry Truman. His cousin Teddy Roosevelt is the only other president to run for a third term, although it was as a third party candidate.

You decide who we should praise, and who we should condemn. I will just do what I feel teachers should do and present the facts.

First week

I survived my first week of teaching, but just barely. It is not so much the actual teaching or the kids, it is all the preparing and the work that goes into each lesson that has been challenging. Besides that I have night classes three nights a week which makes for a very long week. I love the kids though. They are amazing. If I can convince them that it is worthwhile to write and read, and express themselves, they seem like they are capable of great things. Several of my students have only been in the US for a couple of years, and yet they all work really hard. I think that it will be a good semester. I hope to learn a lot from them, and also to teach them something.

Back to Work

With the Christmas vacation nearly through I have been writing and reading fairly consistently, although I admit to a bit of Playstation playing. I did not write much though on the various book projects I have been working on, but rather I have been writing lesson plans for my new class. I am going to be teaching American History at Roosevelt High School in Fresno for my final student teaching. It is a state requirement to do “student teaching” which is when a University student in the Teaching program goes into a classroom and takes over a couple of classes from the teacher there. I was so excited about it that I decided to write my own lessons right away despite having the option of using my master teacher’s lessons for the first unit, which is the Great Depression. I have so many ideas about it that I expect I will share some of the things that I am passionate about on this blog, which is quickly becoming more about book reviews and teaching than writing, but that is where I am at right now. Hopefully this spring and then this summer I will get back to writing some of the books that I have been working on.

Besides that I have been reading a bit which is evident by the reviews that I have written for this blog. I have a few more that I think I will do including some from my course work. I must have read about fifty books in 06. I think that maybe I will go back and count them all just because I am amazed that I am capable of reading so much. Right now I am reading Citizen Soldier by Stephen Ambrose. It is a book about WWII on the European front. I was hoping to finish it before I go back to school but that may not happen. Anyways, to all of my fans out there (all three of you) I am going to try to write something interesting every week along with various reviews etc. I am going to post my short story about boot camp, and maybe my essay about the Grapes of Wrath and some more poetry by popular demand (just for you Aunt Mary). Exciting isn’t it? I think so.

Book Review The City in Mind

This book I expected would be very informational because of the subtitle “ notes on the urban condition.” I had hoped that I would learn a lot about urban planning and city development. I have been critical of urban sprawl for a few years because of the rapid rate at which Fresno is expanding, and I hoped to read about some alternatives. The Author examines several cities: Berlin, Atlanta, Paris, Rome, Mexico City, Boston, London, and Las Vegas. I felt as though he spent far too much time discussing the history of a city rather than the actual structure of the city. While I appreciate history as it relates to the present (I am after all a history teacher), I felt that he went into far too much detail to the neglect of the current situation in some instances. In the chapter about Mexico City for instance the bulk of it was about the Aztecs and Cortez, not modern Mexico City. All he had to say about it was basically, it is a mess. Ditto Berlin and London. It also had a strong anti Christian theme which seemed out of place in a book about cities. He took time to criticize the Crusades even though it had only the most minimal contribution to the chapter on Rome, and also pontificated about the Inquisition which as far as I can tell had nothing to add to any chapter. He blasted Gothic architecture and attributed it to Christians rather than simply Europeans, a distinction which is unfairly critical of Christian culture while sparing European culture. I can summarize the book in a sentence: suburbs are a mess, Paris is the best city in the world because of a man who nobody liked, and Boston is the city of the future in the USA. I don’t really recommend it for a study of urban planning because it was difficult at times to wade through the elaborate descriptions of historical events to find the characteristics of city development.

Book Review: The Chronicles of Narnia, The Silver Chair

The Silver Chair might be the best book beside The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe in the Narnia series. I really enjoyed not only the interesting story line, but the way in which Lewis infused a lesson about following God’s directions, and how he does not give up on his plan and will for us even if we go astray. Overall it is a very good story coupled with a very good lesson. The transition between Narnia and the “real world” was smooth but not redundant. I like the way Lewis uses a different means of transporting people between the two worlds in each book. I look forward to reading the final book.

Christmas or Giftmas

Christmas is almost here and I can’t wait for it to be over with. It is sad that I am not excited about this holiday, but I can’t help it. I love it but it has turned into a mad dash to get everyone a gift, it has lost its focus. I know, I know, everyone talks about the “true meaning of Christmas.” In fact my daughter has a Veggie Tales video about the same theme, but really what are we doing? Christmas becomes so stressful because of the gifts. Everywhere I went this week people asked me “Are you ready for Christmas?” Meaning “do you have all of the stressful ridiculous shopping finished?” As a matter of fact, my wife did most of the shopping, but she transformed our dining room table into a gift wrapping central, and has been wrapping gifts since Thanksgiving. It is too much.

I propose we make an entirely new holiday separate from Christmas. We could call it Giftmas. It would make all of the department stores happy because people could still go crazy buying things. In fact I am even willing to concede December 25 to Giftmas. Maybe we could more Christmas to the summer sometime (which is when Jesus was actually born). Christmas should be more like Thanksgiving to me. Thanksgiving is a great holiday. All you do for Thanksgiving is get together with family and friends, eat a lot and watch football (if you like football). It is great, there is so much less stress. Sure there is the stress of cooking, which Christmas has anyways, but there is no “what should we get so-and-so, or you-know-who.” It gets crazy with the gifts. You know the awkward feeling you get when you spent about ten dollars on a gift for someone and they bought you something for fifty. It is awful. I want to skip it every year. I like getting gifts and giving them, but I don’t like the gift game.

So that is why I am advocating a moving Christmas and calling December 25 Giftmas. Maybe then we can make Christmas a religious holiday again since it has been besieged by secular advocates like the ACLU and others who are trying to take Christmas away from the Christians. One point that some people bring up is the Christmas was made December 25 because there was a pagan holiday on that day and the leaders of Rome wanted to replace it with a Christian holiday. I think it is time to give it back to the pagans. Let’s move Christmas and make it a purely religious holiday again. No more Christmas vacation, Christmas trees, Christmas lights, snowmen, Santa Clauses etc. It will just be about Jesus coming to this world with the ultimate goal of redeeming us who were lost. That’s what I want for Christmas—Jesus, and only Jesus.

So Merry Christmas to you and yours. Enjoy the holiday, whatever it means to you. Enjoy the company of your family, and try not to stress out about the gifts, they are only material gifts, the best gift is the gift of life from our Lord Jesus Christ.

When Cold Bites

I wrote this poem and put it on Christmas cards a few years ago. It is a bit weak, but it is the only Christmas/winter poem I have. I still like it and I hope you do too.

Snow lightly falling on the frozen ground.
A forest full of animals all sleeping without a sound.
The wind sharply blows against a peaceful town.
A blizzard white mouse scurries with some bread he found.

Through it all the warmth of a fire burns strongly.
Thick smoke pours from a chimney and rises calmly.
Life beginning to stir inside a house slowly.
A family awakens from a soft slumber peacefully.

Outside a father is chopping wood to maintain a fire.
A mother begins to prepare a breakfast to cure any hunger.
The children wash their faces; eyes full of joy.
They return to their rooms to recover their toys.

Hot chocolate warms the families bellies.
The fire burns hot, and the food is extra tasty.
Outside the cold bites down especially nasty.
But it can’t touch a family warmed by love.

The Real Football

Note to the reader: I wrote this essay in the spring of 2003 so the SuperBowl winner was New England and the previous World Cup winner was Brazil. If it makes you feel better you may substitute Pittsburgh for New England, and Italy for Brazil.


Well, that’s all for this season folks. That’s right, the New England Patriots are the world champions. After sixty minutes of play that took over three hours, the Patriots of New England defeated the Panthers of Carolina to win Super Bowl XXXVIII in one of the most watched sporting events in the world. Fifty something men beat another fifty something men in a domed stadium in temperate Houston Texas and were crowned world champions. Congratulations to the victors, but where was the rest of the world. Well, they were playing football too, only it hardly resembled the football Americans cherish. The rest of the world was playing a type of football that most Americans don’t enjoy and don’t pay much attention to. Strange? Of course it is. Two sports bear the same name, yet are fundamentally different. So why don’t Americans like football, or soccer by its American brand? I’m not sure. Everyone else seems to like it. Perhaps Americans have a better version of the sport. Or, perhaps not. The father of Patriots owner, Frank Cash, owns the Major League Soccer team the “Revolution”. In an article published by the Houston Chronicle he said, “In terms of my family, there is no difference between football and soccer.” Europeans have a different opinion as evidence from an article in “Sporting Life” “America’s football is a sissy version of rugby.” The only way to find out which is better is to break them down, and examine every aspect of the two sports.

First, why are these sports even comparable? Not only are they both called football, but they have several other things in common. They are played on the same size field. About one hundred yards from end to end. Both have goal posts at each end of the field, though they differ in size and shape. Each sport has a huge following of fans. In both sports eleven men from a side play at a time. In both you can tackle another player, and can also commit a foul. In both sports players wear brightly colored uniforms and their teams often have nicknames or mascots. It is not the similarities between the sports that are interesting however it is the differences.

The first difference is how each game is played and by whom. Football is played by a team consisting of no more than fifty-two players. Eleven play on offense at a time and likewise eleven on defense, leaving another thirty for substitutions and special players like kickers. Soccer is played by a team of sixteen players per side. Eleven play on the field at one time and five are substitutes. Both sports play eleven teammates at a time but in football a team may make unlimited substitutions. In soccer, a team may only make three substitutions per match, which means at least eight players play the entire game. It is difficult to say then which sport is superior in this aspect. Does one want to see more players involved in the game or the same players play the entire match? Advantage: Draw.

In terms of match length the two sports differ greatly. In football a regulation game consists of four fifteen minutes quarters with half time that can be 15-45 minutes based on media coverage between the second and third quarters. The time clock does not run constantly. It stops for numerous reasons: change of possession, injuries, team time-outs, a two minute warning at the last two minutes of the second and fourth quarters (NFL only) etc. A full game generally takes three hours to play or more. In soccer, teams play two forty five-minute halves with a twenty-minute half time between them. The clock does not stop for any reason, though “extra time” or “injury time” can be added by the referee at the end of each half to counter time lost by injuries, celebrations, etc. A full match takes two hours to play. So, in football teams play for sixty minutes and a game takes three hours. In soccer a match is ninety minutes of play, yet only takes two hours. Soccer manages thirty more minutes of playing time, in an hour less than football. Advantage: Soccer.

When comparing each sport’s organized leagues they contrast greatly once again. Football’s top league is the National Football League (NFL). It consists of thirty-two teams, all from the U.S., divided evenly into two conferences, the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). Each conference has four divisions, designated by region, with four teams in each. Each team plays sixteen games in a regular season excluding play-offs. Each team must play the teams in their division twice, which means a team plays only half of the teams in the NFL every season (6 division games and 10 non-division games). The team with the most wins determines division winners. There are only a few other football leagues in the world. Many colleges in the U.S. have football teams, but these are not professional teams. Canada has a league with somewhat different rules. Europe has a league of several teams, and Australia has a football league with drastically different rules. Soccer has hundreds of professional leagues in the world, but I will focus on the Premier league in England for comparison, one of the world’s top leagues. The league consists of twenty teams. Each team plays the others twice, once at home and once in the opponent’s city, for a total of thirty-eight matches. There is no geographical or other division between teams. The league winner is determined by the team with the most points at the end of the season; three points awarded for a victory and one point for a tie result. Also at the end of the season the worst three teams are relegated to a lower league (in England it is Division 1), and the top three teams from the lower league move into the Premier League in order to keep the league competitive. When it comes to league set up and schedule, soccer is superior for simple league organization and because every team plays the others for more games total. Advantage: Soccer.

Rules and regulations of each sport are also dissimilar. Football has a quagmire of rules that are so complicated many fans don’t even fully understand them all. In fact it takes years of football viewing to grasp them. For example many do not know when and how to perform an “on-side kick”, or what a “safety” is, or which players are “ineligible receivers.” What does it mean when a team is playing a “nickel” defense? What is a “flea-flicker”? When can a player do a “forward pass”? When can he do a “lateral”? Why does a team have to have a certain number of players on the “line of scrimmage”? How many do they have to have? These questions illustrate some of the confusion that football creates by way of it’s rules. Soccer however is very simple when it comes to rules. If a team kicks the ball out of bounds it is given to the other team. If a player fouls another player by knocking him to the ground without touching the ball first the team that was fouled gets the ball. If any player besides the goal keeper touches the ball with his hand, it is awarded to the other team. The “off-sides” rule seems to be the only one that causes confusion, but any eight-year-old British boy can explain it. So when it comes to simplicity of play again soccer seems superior. Advantage: Soccer.

Scoring is another area where these two sports vary. Football’s methods of scoring are again more complicated. A touchdown is worth six points after which a team has the option of kicking an “extra-point” worth one point, or trying to make a “conversion” worth two points. If at any point a team kicks the ball through the goal posts (besides immeidatly after a touchdown) it is worth three points and called a “field goal”. A team can also score a “safety” by pushing a team’s offense into their own “end-zone”. This play is worth two points. In soccer there is only one way to score; kick the ball into the other team’s net. Such an action is always worth one point. There is no other way to tally points. Some say that football has more scoring in general, but such a point, were it true, would not counter the complexity of scoring. Advantage: Soccer.

Finally let’s examine the competitions that award a team with the title of “World Champions”. For football it is the Super Bowl. A competition held every year. Teams first must qualify for the playoffs. The four division winners and two “wildcards” from each division make the playoffs, a total of twelve teams. The four best teams do not even play in the first round. The tournament is single elimination. Only the winner moves on, until there are two teams left which play in the Super Bowl, at a location determined before the season begins, and lately is always in a warmer region of the country. The winner becomes the champion. In soccer the competition is called the World Cup (even the name suggests world involvement). Qualification for this competition, which is held only every four years and is played in a different country each time, usually begins two years before the event. Each nation must play teams from other nations on their continent or in their region. The regions are Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, North/Central America, and Oceana. The top teams from each region qualify for the competition. Only thirty-two nations actually make the tournament. They are then divided into one of eight groups, each with four teams. A team then plays each team once. The top two teams advance to the next round. The sixteen teams that make it out of the group round then play in a single elimination tournament. Winners move on and losers go home, until there are only two remaining teams. The teams then play each other in a match watched by millions all over the planet. The winner of that match is the world champion for the next four years. You can decide which competition is more significant, and more prestigious, but for me the choice is clear. Advantage: soccer.

So who then is the true world champion? The Patriots of New England? Hardly. They are the Super Bowl champions. They are the champions of American football. That is all. Brazil is the world champion for winning the World Cup in 2002. The Brazilian team went through much more than the Patriots did to get such a title. In my opinion they deserve it more. As for which sport is superior, I guess that it all comes down to personal preference. Stephen Eule of the Wall Street Journal said, “When played well and at a high level, there is nothing to compare the beauty, excitement, and passion of soccer.” Frank Deford, a sports commentator, had this to say about football, “the game suffers from a bland image.” There seems to be a new trend away from football and perhaps towards soccer. Bob Edwards on the television program “Morning Edition” reported this information, “For the first time in recorded history, too, the number of American boys actually playing football is declining,”. Could this mean that there is a new movement away from football and toward soccer? It is certainly a possibility as the US becomes more global or, perhaps young boys are simply playing football on their Playstations instead of on the field. A fellow can still dream can’t he?

The Real World

There are a few phases that drive me crazy, as I am sure there are phases that drive most people crazy. One of them for instance in using the word “kudos.” I recognize that this is a legitimate word (as well as a candy bar), but it was used so often by my “superiors” when I was stationed in San Antonio that it has lost any appeal to me. They practically went around saying, “hey nice work, kudos!” Then someone would reply, “hey thanks for the kudos.” I wanted to kill myself. But no matter how annoying this word is to me, there is one phrase that beats them all. It is “the real world.” I am so sick of people using this phrase and would like to make the case that in fact it should be banned from vocabulary and vernaculars everywhere.

I first heard this word in high school while teachers would say that they were preparing us for the “real world.” I understood this to mean that somehow high school was meant to replicate this “real world” and that by being there we would somehow be more equipped to deal with this world. First of all nothing about high school replicated the “real world,” or as I assumed they were referring to, the work world. No where else in our society can you find thirty-five people of the same age and education level with so different dreams and ambitions, who are not there by choice, but rather because they are compelled to be there, than you can in high school. It is astonishing really to think about it. Prison resembles high school more than the “real world.” In prison people are not there of their own free will, and cannot simply leave, or if they do, someone is likely to come looking for them, in both cases it is likely to be a man or woman representing law enforcement. So I conclude that high school is not the like the “real world.”

I left high school and joined the army. I thought that surely this was much more the “real world” than high school, but there too my drill sergeants and superiors talked about getting out of the army and going to the “real world.” I was disappointed because I really had hoped to have entered the real world by then, seeing as how I had lived the first eighteen years of my life in the “non-real world.” Still I found myself in a world other than the real one.

I was discharged from the army after five years of service and felt that I must finally be entering the “real world” as my fellow service members called it, but alas I went to college. In college I had a speech class on argumentation, and one day the professor talked about how college is not the “real world,” and how we had better be ready for it because it would be hard or something. By now I was downright depressed. I was already 23 and had never lived a day in the “real world.” I began to wonder if there was such a thing as the “real world.” I could not seem to find it, and no one could seem to tell me where it was.

Three years in college, two kids and five years of marriage, now I am teaching, but of course, teaching is not the “real world” either. Now I was convinced that there is no “real world.” Perhaps we were all living in the Matrix after all. Maybe it is all an illusion. I don’t know. At 26 I had never found the “real world.” I of course saw it on MTV once but I didn’t know how to get on the show so I guessed I would never be a part of the “real world.” Then I decided something.

It wasn’t me who was confused, it was everyone else. Is that possible? It seems so strange that all this time I am the one who realized where the real world is. It is right here. It is all around us. Everyone who is alive is in the “real world.” Students, soldiers, professors, and teachers are all in the “real world.” Why? Because they all have their own personal "real world problems" like relationships, family, stress, illness, death, bills, crime, traffic, etc. Let alone all of the global "real world problems" that affect everyone like, terrorism, politics, globalization, unemployment, energy costs, supposed global warming, poverty, cloning, abortion, AIDS, and Brittany Spears.

This entire time people have been telling me that I am not a part of "the real world," but they were wrong. I am a part of it, and so are they. Now I have a mission, to get them to see that they are in the “real world” as well. All this time they have been thinking they are somewhere else, but they aren’t. They need to quit wasting time waiting for the “real world” to come to them and start living. THIS IS THE REAL WORLD! WAKE UP AND SMELL THE NAPALM! (I mean non-free-trade coffee).

Book Review: The Chronicles of Narnia, The Dawn Treader

This Narnia book is also good, but I had some critiques to offer. The thing that bothered me about this one, which Prince Caspian did well, is the manner in which they entered Narnia. I felt that it was a little cheesy myself. I realize that it is a children’s book, yet I wondered where did the children get the painting? Anyways, besides that I felt that Lewis did a great job entertaining the discussion of Heaven in this book. There were a lot of things going on that offered perspectives and insights into the manner in which people think about heaven. In the end I was satisfied with the result and the treatment of the subject. The thing that impresses me about these books is the way Lewis integrates some of the difficult questions about the Christian faith into a narrative story for children no less. This book is well written and I felt that the plot was more interesting in this one than Prince Caspian even though the moving between worlds was weaker.

So much to write, so little time...

Today I finished my last paper for the semester, and I am glad to be done. With so much writing momentum I hope to get as much book writing done as possible. I am not sure where to start. On the one hand I have the sequel to the Sureshot about two thirds of the way completed. I would love to finish it and then begin working on editing. Then I have so many other ideas. One project which I am calling Confessions of a Prisoner has about four or five chapters completed, but I need to rework those because I don’t like the voice of the main character. Then there is another project that I wrote only a few pages for but one that I can’t wait to do. The working title for this one is Bring Me Home, and Brandi is especially excited about this one. Besides there I have about a dozen other ideas, two of which I recently came up with that I could work on. What should I do? I guess I will just start writing and if I get tired of one thing I will move on to another. We’ll see what happens. I have only one month before I start the spring semester. It will be interesting to see how much I get done before then.

Book Review: The Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian

This is the forth Narnia book, and another good one. This was the third book I read over the Thanksgiving break. It was good. More specifically, I felt that it brought back the kids in an interesting yet acceptable manner. It was interesting how Lewis dealt with the issue of time between the “real” world, and the Narnia world. In this book he points out that time does not match between the two, which was of course a given based on the ending to the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, but he explains that in fact it is not a set ratio, but rather a non specific amount of time may pass in Narnia while the children are in the real world. Anyways, it was interesting to see how things had gone since the children left Narnia and how people then believed that there was no such person as Aslan etc. My favorite part was when Lucy can see Aslan, yet the other children can not, but eventually after following Lucy (who is following Aslan) they come to see him as well. To me this related to people who are “new” to the Christian faith. They do not see everything very well, and may not “get it,” but if they trust that they are not being led astray, eventually they will see things for themselves. Well, it was a good book, an easy read, enjoyable, and a bit thought provoking. I was trying to think of how I would rank them, and I just don’t think that it would be fair, so I won’t.

In the zone

Lately I have felt really good about myself as a writer. I'm sure it is the same for other people with different professions. No doubt the football player feels good about himself when he knows he is at the top of his game. I suspect the painter knows when she is painting better than ever before. Perhaps the farmer intuitively knows when his crops are doing well. It has been the same for me this last week. As we sometimes say “I have been in the zone.” This is good because I have been writing final papers for my classes this semester among other things. It is just coming naturally to me right now. I think about what I want to write, put my headphones on, listen to Project 86, and then the vision of what I am going to write hits me. It is a wonderful and magical thing. I hope I find the time to take advantage of it while it lasts.

Building Bridges

This is the "letter to the reader" in my teaching portfolio. I am so pleased with it that I decided to post it.


Dear Reader,
I write this to you so that you might have a sense of how a man is transforming into a teacher, and not just a teacher, but a redeemer. The Fresno Pacific mission and vision statement describes teaching as a “calling to redemptive service.” At first this seemed very cosmic and idealistic, but then I met seventy tenth graders at Sunnyside High School who were there to learn, among other things, world history. That is were I came in—I was there to teach them. I had so many questions going into this semester and at the beginning of my initial student teaching experience. Among them were: Will I relate to the students? Will they learn anything? Will they want to learn anything? What if I fail? What if I can not reach them? I found that there were students who were in gangs, abandoned by family, parents, on drugs, illiterate, hopeless, and unloved. Then I understood why Fresno Pacific would call teaching “a calling to redemptive service.” My students needed to be redeemed, and I had the power to do it. But how?

All of the books and articles in the world could not equal the actual time spent in the classroom. William Ayers (2001) wrote that “teaching is an eminently practical activity, best learned in the exercise of it and in the thoughtful reflection that must accompany that,” (p. 12). I learned in a couple months working with my students what I could never have learned spending years studying teaching and learning, and while it is an enormously complicated thing that cannot be fully explained in words, I will sum it up like this: first I have to know myself, then I have to know my students, then I have to find a way to build a bridge between us.

The first thing that I learned about teaching is that in order to be successful at it, I must be acutely aware of myself as a teacher, but more importantly a learner. Socrates is accredited with the advice “know thyself,” and Shakespeare elaborated in Hamlet, “to thine own self be true.” This to me is the heart of being a teacher, and my goal as I become one. Parker Palmer (1997) wrote that “we teach who we are,” and “teaching holds a mirror to the soul,” (p. 15). I can only teach effectively if I have an understanding of how I learn and who I am at every level—socially, spiritually, and internally. In practical terms then, teaching for me is less about adapting to the classroom, and more about adapting the classroom to me. This includes curriculum, lessons, even physical environment. Everything reflects me as an individual. The more I understand myself, and teach who I am, the better I will be as a teacher.

Part of being true to who I am is being honest. Students are smart. They have noses for smelling a liar and eyes that see through masks. Everyday I must get up and be myself, in my weakness and in my strength, the students need me to be me, they need me to be real. Authors Sizer and Sizer (1999) wrote that “kids count on our consistency. Few qualities in adults annoy adolescents more than hypocrisy,” which is a huge burden on the teacher (p. 11). It means that every day I am being evaluated. Not by administrators, mentor or master teachers, but by students. As a teacher I must accept that I am fallible just like my students, and that making mistakes is permissible and a natural part of learning. Haberman (1995) wrote that “the surest way to teach children and youth to accept their fallibility is to select and prepare teachers who accept their own,” (p. 71). This is something that I tried to instill in my students and at least one appreciated it by writing to me, “you helped me learn that being wrong is alright.” This is a crucial part of understanding myself, but knowing myself is only the first part.

The second challenge for me is to know my students. Ideally I will know all of my students intimately. The goal according to Levine (2002) is to “become deeply familiar with each student’s abilities, needs, and interests so that [I] can suggest well-informed strategies for each student’s learning,” (p.17). This is challenging with a large number of students, but it is extremely important and begins with something as simple as knowing each students name. Because of who I am, and the way I relate to people, I learned all of my students’ names and used them as we interacted during the day. I was rewarded for this in an informal evaluation I had my students write about me. Michael wrote, “most all of my teachers didn’t know my name, but you do. You would call on me during class on a question to answer.” It was important to at least one student that I knew his name. I was disappointed that he believes other teachers do not know it.

Knowing my students is a key element in shaping my strategies to teach them. They are all different and they might require different teaching methods. This again reinforces the idea that teaching is not about methods or strategies, but instead it is a dynamic relationship that is wholly human and therefore immune to imposed models and machines. Haberman (1995) wrote that “stars establish very close and supportive relationships with most of the children they teach,” but that knowing is not enough, but rather must be used to “make teaching more relevant,” (p. 53-54). My goal is knowing my students, which leaves the final piece in quality teaching—building the bridge between myself and them.

Once I have a solid understanding of myself, and spend the time to significantly know all of my students, I must find a way to connect who they are with who I am. Students are not likely to do this on their own. I alone have the power to build the bridge. Ayers (2001) suggested that “the teacher must be the architect and the contractor who begins to build the bridge,” (p. 75). The question is then how do I build the bridge? It begins with me and my passion for not only my subject but learning in general. I can build a bridge to them by becoming a student myself. To this Robert Fried (2001) explained that, “passionate teachers convey their passion to novice learners—their students—by acting as partners in learning rather than as “experts in the field,” (p. 23). Once I become one of them in a sense, they will trust me and I can lead them effectively. Haberman (1995) explained how the class works once the bridge is complete, “by identifying with their teacher—through rapport, caring, mutual respect—children are naturally drawn to explore and sample the teacher’s interests and pursuits,” (p. 33). I can lead them and they will follow. The possibilities for learning are endless because they know that I will be there with them, the bridge is built.

It all begins with me. If I can “to mine own self be true,” I have a chance of building the bridge to my students. When I am true to myself, building the bridge will come naturally because, “teaching can come from the depths of my own truth—and the truth that is within my students has a chance to respond in kind,” (Palmer, 1997 p. 20). It is the importance of knowing myself that makes this portfolio important.

Reflecting on and examining my experiences during my initial student teaching has helped me to understand myself, my students, and how to build bridges to them. Examining the community contributed to my understanding of my students. Reflecting on the lessons that I taught helped me to understand the things that I did well and not so well, and helped me understand what I was able to communicate to my students (bridge building). Discussing the nature of the school with the assistant principle helped me understand both myself as a teacher and also the school with its students. The discipline inquiry further helped me understand myself and my beliefs about discipline, but also how the students respond to different discipline strategies.

Finally all of this goes back to my revelation that teaching is in fact a “calling to redemptive service,” in more ways than one. First and foremost there are students who need redeeming. The community and the school sometimes discount students. Like one of my students whose third grade teacher called him a “burro,” he does not believe in himself as a learner. It is my job to make him believe in himself. Besides the students, I have the task of redeeming the subject matter. Several of my students began world history believing that it was a waste of time. I had to build a bridge between them and the curriculum in order to redeem it. To this end some of my students wrote that “you helped me learn that history can be fun and interesting.” For these students history is no longer something to be dreaded. It can be enjoyed, and know that gives me satisfaction as a teacher.

Book Review: A Farewell to Arms

Another book that I finished over the Thanksgiving break was A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway. I have been a bit critical of him despite having only read The Old Man and the Sea which I in fact enjoyed, so I decided to read this novel and see what all the fuss was about. I must admit that it is a good book. I enjoyed the very real dialogue that he used as well as the story line itself. I did not feel that I got a good sense of the characters’ emotions however and especially the main character. He seemed to me to be fairly emotionless, which is fine except that I hoped for a bit more out of him. I also expected there to be more of a critique on war. Maybe it is not so much that there is not a good critique of war, but rather that there is the stronger storyline between the main character and his lover. I felt that he did a good job of showing the insanity of it when they were retreating and he was going to be shot because he was suspected of being a German infiltrator. Also there was the sense that no one really knew what was going on most of the time. The dialogue was often about what would happen next and the soldiers and civilians all had different opinions but never really knew anything. I found this to be true in my own experience in the army. Everyone has an opinion but no one really knows. Well in general I thought that it was a good read. It is both interesting yet insightful, subtle and yet clear.

Is Violence Getting Worse?

In my seminar class at Fresno Pacific we read some articles about bullying and violence in schools, including one on sexual violence. It was my professor’s stance that violence is getting worse in our society. I have yet another professor with a similar opinion. While I yield to their experience in years, and trust that they have a solid sense of things, I cannot agree to this opinion yet, even though it is often reported in the media that violence is getting worse in this country and that gangs are worse now than ever, so on and so forth. I am still not convinced. Not because I don’t want to believe that it is getting worse, but rather because I do not have a rosy view of the past.

The press about the apparent rise in violence is often blamed on the media. Music, television, movies, and video games are often cited as contributing to the violent nature of our citizens today. “He listens to angry music,” someone might say, or “he learned it playing video games.” I am not sure that these things make people angry or violent or if violent people listen to angry music and play violent games. But my reasons for not trusting the prevailing wisdom is not a matter of the psychology of people committing violent acts, but more broadly, the violent nature of humans in general. Because of this more general perspective I doubt that there has ever been a peaceful time in our world. Because of this I feel that there are a couple things that are contributing to this sense of rising violence.

European Perspective

First of all I feel that there is a lot of violence in the world. Certainly one could not deny that places like Iraq, Israel, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Columbia, Kosovo, and many more are places were violence is common. If we understand then that in general the world is a violent place, then what we are really concerned about is violence in the Anglo-Saxon part of the world which is seen as “civilized” and peaceful. The kingdom pulled together by the British has been the new Rome for the last 200 years. England and her children have been the model of justice and gentleness. This of course is in spite of numerous wars and conflicts internationally, as well as domestic horrors such as mob lynchings in the US south, church bombings in Northern Ireland, and the October Crisis in Canada. Still people of these nations, in general, apparently believed that they were a peaceful society. It was the rest of the world that was seen as savage and violent, not the west. The issue then is not that the world as a whole is becoming more violent, because it has clearly always been that way, but rather that the “civilized” world is not besieged by violence from within. This perspective is wholly Eurocentric and the result of tunnel vision. Had we been paying attention to anything that went on in the last hundred years and beyond, we would know that violence has been a staple of human existence since the beginning of time. I believe that this is the first error in thinking that has led us to believe now that our society is growing in violence.

Middle Class Perspective

The second issue that I think may be getting in the way of true understanding when it comes to violence and society, is that we (WASPs) see things from a middle class perspective, and often times Puritan New England perspective. It is a simple fact that in the slums of New York there was much violence even as early as the first half of the nineteenth century. There was violence between Italians and Irish, “natives” (people born of English or German families who came before the revolution) versus immigrants. Violence against Jews and Russians was common. The difference was that it was something largely ignored by the middle and upper classes. They did not care if there were Irish immigrants getting killed in the streets of the five points. No one was worried if there were Italians dying in gang or eventually mob conflicts. The news did not even cover the countless stories of murdered women and battered children. Nevertheless the violence was there.

Besides this there was a historically violent south in the United States. More white people than black were lynched in this region, and it was not uncommon for there to be feuds between families that went on for generations. There were many gangs of robbers and other types that raided towns and terrorized people, only there was no national press that covered this type of violence. It was not uncommon in the south for two men to fight each other to the death over seemingly inconsequential disputes, yet we talk about senseless violence in this country as if it is a new thing.

Lastly one should bring up the West as another example of a violent era. Nevada, Oregon, and California all have a violent past. There are endless stories of bandits and robbers, cowboys and crusaders who were all violent. In California there was violence against the Spanish, Mexicans, Natives, Chinese, Japanese, and others. Rarely has there been a time when the state was not beset with violence, yet some speak of the present as if this is the first time that violence has surfaced.

I believe that all of this history is simply under reported and the media makes it seem as though it is only now that violence has erupted. Furthermore, I believe that the violence of the past went unnoticed because it was perpetrated mostly by and on the poor, as it is today, and the wealthy did not pay it heed. The bourgeoisie did not see it, hear about it, or talk about it. It is the old “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” strategy. This is no longer possible because television has brought the images, sounds and discussion into the homes of middle class people. This is the real rise in violence. Not that there is any real change in the number of violent acts, only there is now up to the minute reporting on it that reaches every American no matter how high the gates around the community reach.

Technology

Perhaps the perceived rise in violence is not due to an increase in the tendency toward violence, but rather the increased ability to kill people. The increase in technology coupled with the availability of weapons of any sort, have likely lead to a rise in the number of deaths from violent acts. In this country kids have access to rifles that are able to fire rapidly and accurately whereas before, even firearms were inaccurate and slow to reload. I am amazed when soldiers in Iraq or Kosovo conduct a raid of private homes to yield hand grenades, rocket propelled grenades and Kalashnikov assault rifles. This of course allows people to kill one another much more efficiently than before, and the likely hood of death from such an attack is higher than before in spite of an increase in medicine to treat gun wounds etc. Instead of treating a patient for one gunshot wound as was likely in the past until the last thirty years, victims are often shot multiple times making treatment much more challenging. Instead of fist fight that have always been common, there are gunfights. This is a fundamental shift in the nature of violence, not an increase in violence in general. I admit that such a change may in fact be more devastating than a simple increase.

Sexual Violence

As for the prevalence of sexual violence it is historical that women have been abused and mistreated since the dawn of man. The question is whether this sort of thing is increasing in modern society. I recognize that it seems that younger children are becoming increasingly more sexually violent. For this I am not sure of the reason, though it may again have something to do with the media and exposing children who do not understand their sexuality to sexually explicit material. However, I suspect that there is a certain amount of sexual violence that went unreported for a long period of time. This is evident in the number of molestation charges that are surfacing now from thirty and forty years ago. I believe that there has always been a significant rate of sexual violence but that it was unreported because of the shame factor. There is naturally a certain amount of shame that comes with being violated, and this is only magnified when one is violated sexually. Coupled with an immature understanding of what occurred and this is a recipe for denial and repression. Furthermore there is the sense that one should not “shame the family” that is rapidly fading in the USA among middle class people, that is allowing for more of these events to be publicized. In other countries, such a thing sometimes leads to the death of the girl involved because of the shame that it brings to other family members, which almost ensures silence on the part of the victim, and I believe that there was a similar force at work in this country until the past twenty years or so. Like the belief that violence is occurring more frequently in our society, sexual violence could suffer some of the same misunderstandings.

Conclusion

I want to conclude by first saying that I do not think that we should ignore violence in our society. It is a cancer that should be treated not ignored, because ignoring it will not ease it. Furthermore I am fully against children watching violent programs and playing violent games, while I do not believe that such things will make them killers, I suspect that it is nevertheless a poor use of time, and not beneficial for their social or scholastic development. Secondly I am not even sure that I am correct in my hypotheses. It is quite possible that violence in fact is increasing in our society, and that it is due to media, music etc. I am simply challenging the idea and asking for some proof. This I understand may be difficult as the means by which to record information improve, and the past is difficult to properly gauge. I also understand that I am painting with large brush strokes and have not been very specific. If I were to devote significant time and energy into researching this issue, I am sure that I could further develop my argument or perhaps find what I am looking for in the first place: evidence that violence is increasing, but for now I will have to settle for generalizations and nonspecific counter arguments. Feel free to enlighten me. I have not asked questions about this issue because I feel I know the answers, but rather because I wish to know the answers.

Book review: Black Rednecks and White Liberals

Over the Thanksgiving break I finished three books and I intend to post my review of all of them. The first is Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell. I have read three Sowell titles now and loved all of them, though there is some tendency to repeat the same theme. For instance in Conquest and Culture’s he discussed slavery in his chapter about Africa, and again had a chapter devoted to slavery in this book. However, the chapter in BR&WL was much more thorough. I was especially interested in the chapter on Black Education because I myself will soon be a high school teacher. It confirmed what many people have suggested, that in order to have success teaching children in poverty or “at risk” or whatever we are supposed to call them according to the politically correct police, one must have high expectations and require hard work. This makes perfect sense. If children in inner city schools are in fact behind those in suburban areas, how can they close the gap unless they work hard? Some might argue that it is not their fault and so it is not fair to make them work harder than children who’s parents pay for tutoring etc. but the fact remains that they are behind and are not likely to catch up by any amount of praising or complaining.

Besides this chapter I felt that the chapter about “middleman minorities” was very interesting. Sowell made the case that there are many “Jews” in the sense that there are other examples of minorities who filled the role that Jews did in Europe and even the United States. He cited Chinese in Southeast Asia and Indonesia, Lebanese in northern Africa and Armenians in Turkey. All of these he claimed and supported, are minority peoples who were often on the margins of the parent society, but that achieved success in spite of disadvantages they faced. It was a strong argument.

The main chapter and theme of course is that the “black” culture that we find in the United States today and which is often celebrated by not only some blacks, but often liberal elites, is not the result of culture brought from Africa, but rather culture brought from areas of England by white settlers. He argues that it is the “redneck” culture that has found its way into “black” culture originating from the south by osmosis. Sowell cites many examples of people from the North traveling South in the Anti-bellum period, who noted the “redneck” culture and its characteristics. He quotes such scholars or W.E.B. Dubois who held negative views of the Southern blacks. This is a very interesting argument which, in my mind, is not so much an indictment of African Americans today, than it is of the South in general.

I would recommend this book for its original point of view and sound scholarship. That is, Sowell does not simply make up arguments or claim special insight, but supports everything he writes with a mountain of citations and quotes. It is well written and offers much to ponder.

Fantasy Writing

I have been reflecting a bit on writing in the fantasy genre and have come up with a few things that I think are a special challenge. There are two main problems with writing fantasy. The first is the largest. It is creating a believable world. Whether in sci-fi or fantasy, the author has often created a new world. The easiest thing to do is to use the “real” world. There are plenty of sci-fi books that are set in the modern world or in the near future which means the reader can understand the setting without a lot of explanation by the author. In fantasy, often the genre will borrow the historical medieval world so that again there is no need for a lot of explanation about the setting. If the author chooses to create an entirely new world, with new rules, than there must be some pages devoted to helping the reader understand how things work in this world. This is true of any changes to the actual world. In fantasy it is often magic that has been added to the medieval setting, and such things should be explained in order to be coherent and believable. In sci-fi any time there is new technology or a new race of character these things should be explained. This allows the author tremendous freedom because he can deviate from the “real” world and create a new world, but also adds responsibility to the reader for not leaving him behind. Then there is the additional question as to how many pages to devote to background or explanation of the fantasy world or the additional characteristics found in the story’s world.

The other challenge that I have found is with names. I agonize over names of characters and places. There are several options for the writer. The easiest on the writer and the reader is to simply use common or at least recognizable names. I feel this is often the case with Harry Potter. The series actually uses a mixture of common and creative names, which makes it easy to read, but then adds some mystique to the story. Another option is to borrow the names found somewhere else as in the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien borrowed nearly all of the names found in his books from a German epic, the Saga of the Volsungs. Still another option and the one I employed is to create all of the names found in the story. This is by far the most challenging. I eventually developed a complicated system for randomly building names in the different languages found in The Sureshot. While this often prompts people to ask “how I came up with those names,” and to complain about their difficulty, it does add a sense of the fantastic. I defend my use of created names by explaining that to use English as a base for naming would be bland and lack the “feel” I am after in my stories. I am pleased with my system for naming as it is now both efficient and effective in my opinion. I will not apologize for any difficulty in their pronunciation.

Anyways, these are my thoughts so far about writing in the fantasy genre.

Thanksgiving Prayer

I composed this nice Thanksgiving prayer, but as I was about to pray, Bob, my grandmother's suiter passed out and gave us all a scare. With him being roused, my mother-in-law was pushing me to pray anyways. Well I completely forgot the prayer that I prepared and just mumbled a few things. Anyways, here it is.

Thank you for bringing us here today,
Thank you for showing us the way.

Thank you for the work we do with our hands,
Thank you for loving family and friends.

Thank you for the children who are models of love,
Thank you for those who watch from above.

Thank you for giving us a choice,
Thank you for ears to hear your soft voice.

Thank you for buying our sins at a cost,
Thank you for finding us when we were lost.

Thank you for being the way, the truth, and the life,
Thank you for when we were blind and you gave us sight.

Thank you for this life, this day, and this food,
We accept it all and offer it all back to you.

Ode to Bear Pascoe

This is my ode to my favorite Fresno State football player this year.

Bear oh Bear, where did you come from?
Bear oh Bear, where will you go?
While you are here, you are my hero?

The season nearly over, without much to show,
But one person shined; one person glowed.

I sat in my seat in the cold hard stands,
Amongst the other sad, sullen, Bulldog fans.

I scanned the players from left to right,
Looking for some hope, for some light.

Sure we had Wright, but he was leaving this year,
What in the future would give reason to cheer?

I watched the defense and studied the offence,
And found that one man stood taller than the rest.

Bear Pascoe is his name, from Porterville they say,
And more than anyone else, I enjoyed watching him play.

Once a quarterback, but now moved to tight end,
No matter where you are, your talents transcend.

The visitors kickoff and I see you blocking,
Little men challenge you but always end up stopping.

Then everyone but you trots off the field,
And the offense joins you so a drive you can build.

We run left and run right without much success,
Now the play calling will be put to the test.

A pass play! What an amazing sight!
And look! Up the middle! Bear Pascoe takes flight!

Tom throws the ball high up in the air,
Bear reaches up and grabs it with care.

With momentum like a boulder rolling down hill,
Bear bowls over defenders on his feet still.

Charging down field, a bulldog with a bone,
Bashing and crashing his way to the end zone.

Touchdown! I don’t believe it you did it again,
Keeping the team alive when the chances are slim.

Like a gladiator you hold your fist up high,
Then humbly line up to block for the try.

So I’ll keep watching and cheering for you,
Next year we’ll start again, expectations renewed.

I look forward to seeing you play again soon,
Flattening defenders and catching passes too.

Bear oh Bear, where did you come from?
Bear of Bear, where will you go?
While you are here, you are my hero.

Asleep in my bed

Weary, tired and sore from a long hard day,
Skull pounding and throbbing, headache won’t go away,
Stomach turning, rolling, churning, from lack of food,
All day spent with people, vulgar and rude,
Combined, it all created a pretty poor mood.

Lay down, slip under the covers so warm,
Soon as peaceful as a baby just born,
Close your heavy tired eyes and drift off to sleep,
Gradually content and peace will creep,
Time spent in twilight is always yours to keep.

Muscles relaxed and quickly recovering,
Anything can happen while you are slumbering,
Mind drifting from place to place without care,
Wherever you want to go, you can go there,
In your dreams everyone can be bare.

Dreaming of love, lust and content,
It all comes easy with hardly an attempt,
In a dream no door has a lock,
Every great blue ocean has a dock,
And it all ends at the sound of an alarm clock

Where do ideas come from?

One of the things that people sometimes ask me when I talk about my book is "where did you get the idea?" I once watched an interview with J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter) about this very topic. She joked about being tired of hearing it saying that she wants to reply, "the idea shop," or something silly like that. I too don't know what to say most of the time, but often reply that The Sureshot is simply a reflection of the reading that I enjoy.

Then this last weekend I was mowing the lawn when I thought up another great idea for a book, and I realized that I regularly get good ideas while doing yard work. This reminded me of how people often claim to get good ideas in the shower. This is fitting since both bathing, and mowing the lawn are things that can be done with little active thinking. To me the fact that I seem to get good ideas while I mow the lawn is ironic since I don't enjoy mowing it.

I suppose though it doesn't make much difference what exactly I am doing while I do some thinking, only that I am doing it. So the moral is 1) that ideas don't come from an "idea shop" but rather from the shower, or more correctly from doing something which allows for thinking, and 2) it is good to mow the lawn.

Me on TV

This is picture from my interview on "Great Day" a morning show on KMPH a local Fox affiliate.

lonely

So my wife went out of town this weekend to a women’s’ retreat and I am home with the kids. While this might seem like a recipe for disaster it actually has not been that bad. I am home with them a lot and so there is nothing I can’t do. For the most part they have been pretty mellow, but a couple of times we have had some issues. Eli has been a bit sick and so he is a little more challenging lately, and Maddy, well, she is Maddy, and thinks she is in charge. All in all it has gone well with the kids.

The thing that I did not expect was how lonely I would be. I miss Brandi so much. This is only the second night, but I am dying here by myself. I thought that it might be nice to have some time alone. I figured I could play playstation without being nagged, and eat whatever I wanted, but the truth is that I miss her badly. I didn’t even play video games last night (ok well not very long). I mostly wrote because I didn’t know what else to do. I have too many writing projects as it is, but I thought of a great new idea for a book.

Speaking of books, I got my check for last quarter and it turns out that I have only sold like 100 books. Pretty lame huh? I don’t despair however. I truly believe that the book is good, and people who have read it think so as well, only marketing is a challenge. I did manage to get onto a morning TV show here in Fresno which was great. Several people said they saw me, so that must mean that many more saw me. I only hope that such exposure leads to more sales. I understand that it may take some time to get my book out, and build an audience, only I thought that it might be easier than this. Then I think so what? So what if The Sureshot doesn’t sell a lot? I will write another book and then another, and perhaps one day, I will sell some books. For now I am simply thrilled that I got published at all. If I only sell 100, well that is still more than most people ever sell, because most people haven’t written a book, and more still haven’t been published. For now I will just be happy with that.

Besides that I can’t wait for Brandi to come home tomorrow. It is strange how you can grow accustomed to living with someone, that when they are gone, everything seems so strange. I didn’t expect this feeling, but now that I know it is there, maybe I will appreciate her more when she is around, (which is most of the time). They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, after this weekend, I believe it.