A SHAMEFUL MESS

Okay, let’s try to sort things out. The House of Representatives Republicans don’t like Obamacare. They want to defund it, delay it, or do anything else to stop its implementation. So, they refuse to fund the budget with a continuing resolution unless provisions to kill the law are included. Democrats in the Senate refuse to act on any bills sent to them by the House. The president refuses to budge since he declares that the Affordable Care Act is law that has been passed and declared okay by the U.S. Supreme Court.

What’s now left is a “mell of a hess!” Like most Americans, I’m tired of the endless drama that plays in our nation’s governmental halls. Right now, national parks are closed. Folks who’ve traveled to the nation’s capital to soak in some of the great history of the country are turned away at the gates. I think of the impact on children not being allowed to walk up to the Lincoln Monument or on veterans not being allowed to pay tribute to their fallen brethren at the World War II Memorial or the Vietnam Wall.

Millions of folks are seeing the impact of this shutdown on their lives. Furloughs for government workers and layoffs in the private sector hit as the wheels of production come to a screeching halt. Families of fallen

soldiers are left waiting for death benefits that the government won’t pay. People still have house payments or rent due, and they still have to provide food for families. The worry about meeting bills is once again present, just as it was in 2008 when the bottom fell out of the economy. Isn’t it ironic that the very ones who have caused this debacle are receiving their paychecks?

Some representatives are playing a game of chicken about the national debt. Let’s be clear: the issue in question deals with debts that have already been incurred. Our country simply cannot renege on its bills. If we default, the effects won’t ripple through the world economy; they will crash through it. Sure, the budget needs a serious perusal to find waste that should be cut. However, what folks must be willing to do is give up some of the services that our government provides if the cuts are to be made. That’s what makes all of us hedge because we don’t want to lose anything.

I’m thinking that most Americans are just about over partisan politics that paralyze the country. We’ll continue to have two parties because not everyone has the same take on what is best for our country and its citizens. What the overwhelming majority of people are sick and disgusted with are those individuals who are more interested in ideology than country. That comes from both the far right and the far left. The fringe groups should not be dictating the course of our country.

 Democracy is built upon the basis of “majority rule.” At present, a small minority is running the show, and they are doing one poor job of it. Extremism, whether it comes from terrorists from abroad or from citizens of the U.S., never has in mind what is best for the whole. It works at tearing apart the fabric of a great country and reduces it to a malfunctioning machine.

America needs elected officials who are leaders, not destroyers. We are ready for those we choose to work to make this country better, not to cripple it. An old saying might put it best: “Lead, follow, or get out of the way!” That’s sound advice for all politicians. The time has come for them to find ways to fix things, and yes, that means compromising and, above all, using God-given common sense.

Pictures of several national building show them encased in scaffolding. The Washington Monument and the Supreme Court Building are under repair. Perhaps we need to rustle up every member of Congress and the executive branch and do a bit of renovation on them. Either these individuals begin to perform the jobs for which they were elected, or they can be replaced with others who hold the country’s interests above their own. 

Another Testing Debacle

Without a doubt, I’m not the only one who uttered a “Huh” and re-read the story of the Stem Academy student who received copies of earlier tests to help her pass a World History exam. Plenty of blame can be spread to all involved with the situation.

The first comment comes about the student. From the newspaper article it seems that she isn’t capable of doing the work or is unwilling to do so. She failed the history course and another one. Is the whole issue something that could have been avoided by a more serious commitment to study in “all courses,” not just the ones in which she might excel?

The STEM Academy education is touted as something above and beyond those at other schools in the system. The description on the website states,

“The essential element of high quality STEM education is not a narrow focus, but an open mind disciplined and empowered by scientific reasoning, technological expertise, engineering design, and mathematical logic.”

Evidently, the approach didn’t work for this girl; she didn’t manage to navigate things in a couple of classes. So, she was placed in front of a computer where she was to learn the material. Having her do so violated another description of the academy:

“Our integrated curriculum delivered through project-based instruction develops students' abilities to make connections, work in teams, ask questions, gather and interpret information, evaluate sources, draw meaningful inferences, and defend their conclusions-useful skills for future graduates pursuing any major or career path.”

It looks as if the academy received another failing grade on this. It’s difficult to achieve those things when a student sits in front of a computer screen all day. The young person is more likely being force-fed the material she didn’t get the first time around, and there’s no team work involved.

At any rate, the school system’s responses made the situation as clear as mud. It was a test, but then, again, it wasn’t. The scores counted, but not really. The test used to be used but not any longer, even though teachers didn’t know. Double talk does little to add clarity to a questionable program. Last, it was a test, but not an End of Course (EOC) one. HUH?

This online program Odyssey has never been a favorite of teachers. Recovery credit programs can be completed in a couple of weeks. If the learning results with Odyssey are that spectacular, why doesn’t the superintendent fire all the teachers and let kids earn credits on computers? As things are now, other students resent having to put in the classroom work for a semester while others get the same thing for a fraction of the time.

Somehow, we’ve lost direction in our school system. Money is spent on all sorts of innovative programs. The focus from the top is more on scores than on education. Someone not long ago opined that the system was run more like a manufacturing plant where students were products. Maybe that’s all right at some level, but education is much more than making “cookie-cutter” students. Kids are humans, not products, and an education that works teaches basic skill in subjects, as well as about life and getting along with others. No end of course exam will accomplish that.

Students must be held accountable for what they master in classes. Failure should require a “re-do,” not a shortcut and reward. Cheating must never be allowed so that a student can pass and the system can change its percentages of passing or graduating students.

Most of all, Knox County Schools need to have the courage to do what is best for students. Secondary concerns should be aimed at EOC scores. If teachers are allowed to teach and students are willing to work, the outcomes will be what we all want. It just might avoid another testing debacle. 

A Family Tree

About a month ago, I watched as men worked for three days to drop a tree in my neighbor’s back yard. For some time the top had been dying, and the massive maple posed a threat of crashing onto the house. What drew my attention to the event was the fact that the endangered house was where I grew up and that tree

was the sight of hundreds of memories.

That tree played a prominent role in my life during the first day of summer break from elementary school after the sixth grade. Daddy met Jim and me on the last half day and told us to change clothes and weed the strawberries. The patch was located behind the maple, and we spent what seemed to be decades hunched over yanking stubborn weeds from the rows. Like most kids, we weren’t too tough when it came to work, so every few minutes we took a break and searched for shade. That maple was no bigger than six feet and offered only imaginary shelter. 

Mother placed a table under the tree during garden season. On it we husked earns of corn and set containers of broken beans. One year Mamaw Rector sat with us boys for a few days, and we spent afternoons breaking beans as she told us stories about our dad as a boy and young man. She called my older brother aside and gave him some change to buy his cigarettes. She was more aware of what we did than we knew.

I’d never completed a pull-up during high school. A few years later, I decided to change that. One branch on the maple was low enough to reach, and my hands wrapped around it perfectly. Before long I chinned myself for the first time, and by the end of the year, I could do 20 reps with hands in either position. When the tree was hewn, that limb was more the size of most tree trunks.

When we boys grew into adulthood, mother planned a family reunion. Aunts and uncles and cousins once, twice, thrice removed came from as far as North Carolina and New York and as near as a mile away. The maple offered shade from the summer sun as we set up tables and chairs and ate meals and caught up on events and recalled the best of times.

Grandchildren spent hours with Mother at the tree. They’d sit in the swing with her and talk and laugh and love. Wading pools were positioned, and little persons splashed under her watchful eye, all the time being protected from sunburn by the sprawling canopy.

When Mother ended her battle with cancer, we boys and our families gathered at the house. We cried for our losses but then found ourselves sitting under the tree as stories of what used to be flowed. Late into the night, we shared those memories with only the light of cigarette tips and the sounds of beer cans clinking interrupting the dark and stillness.

Like all things in this life, that maple tree aged and grew brittle and a bit feeble. Eventually, some kind of disease attacked and slowly destroyed it from the inside, its own kind of cancer. Eventually, it was too weak and too sick to recover, and its life came to an end.

Watching such an important part of my life cut down in pieces hurt. Oh, the real pain might have come with the realization that I too have spanned several years and am on the backside of life. That’s not being maudlin; it’s being honest. At some point, I’ll come to an end as well, but my prayers are that I won’t leave for several more years and after making a mark on those whom I love.

That maple tree started off as a young, strong sapling, and over the years it matured and served as the centerpiece of many of our activities. In so many ways, that maple became our family tree. 

Adrenaline Rush

How sad is a person’s life when he’s willing to pay for the opportunity to have bulls with long horns run after him? No, this wasn’t that famous yearly event in Spain. It happened in Petersburg, Virginia, where 4000 folks paid $30 a head to be chased by bulls down a quart-mile dirt track at a speedway. Some 8000 others paid an admission fee to watch the madness and possibly bloody goring that might occur. It was the first of ten planned bull runs that will occur throughout the country.

One woman said, "I just didn't want to die, to get trampled by bulls and die.” Then she added, "It was a rush ... a shot of adrenalin."

That seems to be a growing desire of Americans: they want to experience something “more” than what every-day life offers. Millions of people participate in thrill-seeking activities such as skydiving, mountain jumping, and vehicle racing. I’ve never understood any of it. First, why would anyone jump out of a perfectly good plane in order to soar through the skies attached to a piece of cloth? With my luck, the parachute would fail, and I’d hit the ground at approximately 100-plus miles per hour. The fall doesn’t hurt; it’s the sudden stop that causes the pain.

Mountain jumping, as I call it, is a relatively new thing. Crazy people stand on mountain tops and simple dive off. They wear a suit that is designed to catch the wind so that their bodies are buoyed throughout the drop. In truth, these participants look like flying squirrels.

One wrong move and they become “greasy spots” on the rocky faces of the mountains they attempt to fly by.

Other adrenaline junkies ride “crotch rockets” at the speed of light down narrow or around twisting roads. Some people swim with sharks or dive from cliffs in pursuit of that “high” that comes from cheating serious injury or death.

I just don’t get it. Sure, life can sometimes wear on all of us. The demands of work and family can weigh us down. Hoping there’s enough money to meet monthly needs sometimes worries us.

Still, it’s those same low times that make the smallest of things so special. In my way of thinking, nothing is much more rewarding than sitting on the porch on a summer evening and hearing the cicadas and seeing the lightning bugs. Catching a glimpse of deer by the road or on a golf course takes my breath every time.

Being with my kids and grandson and wife is more fulfilling than any jump from a plane or harrowing 200 mile-per-hour ride in a race car. The most exciting things in our lives should be those that involve the family, nature, and home.

I write a blog titled “The Common Is Spectacular.” Many have advised me to change the name since the URL address is too long and too easy to mispsell. I’ve resisted because that title states my philosophy on life. The daily things are the best, the ones that we recall half a century later. The over-the-top experiences in life bring on rushes of adrenaline. However, when the rush from one is done, what replaces it is exhaustion. Our energies are depleted, and we’re left dormant until they are replaced.

It would be nice if folks could find the same happiness being chased by the kids as they do when bulls chasing them. That kind of activity is much safer, cheaper, and rewarding in the long run. I’ll save my energies for these less stressful kinds of adrenaline rushes.