shoeless at IUPUI

While this coach isn't getting near the amount of press that his taxi-driver-assaulting colleague is, perhaps he should get far more.

300-plus Coaches to Go Barefoot

The skepticism about good intentions and cynicism over athletes' and their coaches' behavior in general makes us all as sports fans enjoy sports a little bit less. How much happier were you as a sports fan seeing the Gators win the crown, knowing that the quarterback at the helm is a genuinely good person? Or that the linebacker leading the defense isn't going to spend his NFL-riches-to-be on a new Benz, but proper representation so that his incarcerated brother might get a fair trial? Contrast that with the joy you felt at hearing that the Cowboys cut Pacman Jones after his twentieth-time-too-many screw up. Maybe sports weren't so driftless after all. Perhaps all we needed was the media to start highlighting the good instead of the bad...

two little words

"buenos dias."

a smile. for the first time since i've been shopping at the neighborhood market on glebe road, a cashier made eye contact with me. it wasn't terribly busy, and we were the only customers at any of the registers. she didn't say a whole lot else. she probably knew that i didn't speak a whole lot of spanish and saw my eyes scanning the register in the off-chance that she told me how much in spanish.

"six seventy-five," she says. i pay; she give me my change.

"gracias."

"de nada."

all the more reason for me to sharpen my spanish. as has been the case for years, i understand far more than i can speak, so long as the speaker isn't a rapid-tongued cuban. i watched a primetime special earlier this week called "what would you do" on abc. it was a candid camera kind of show, though not for comedic effect. the first situation was a cashier at a lunch counter who refused to serve day laborers because they couldn't speak english. both sides were actors, but they wanted to see what the real customers would do. some did nothing; some agreed with the cashier; few helped the "laborers". when the host interviewed a local laborer, he tearfully told him that situations like that happen more often than not. it ain't right.

"we are all made of flesh and bone," he opined (through the translator), "treat me like a human being."

conflicting interests

something pains me each time i walk into an outdoor store. the gear head id in me is elated, excited, intrigued at all the shiny new toys and clothes that will keep me entertained whilst pursuing outdoor fun. i want to try them all on and have an unlimited gift card to purchase said gear. this half of me is in conflict.

the quieting force that seems to be stronger in me is the anti-consumerist ego that fights its every id whim. i'd just as soon keep the same old stuff and old clothes and old pickup, but in this american society, it's pretty difficult to do. i read not buying it by judith levine a while back. if you've not read it, it details the trials and tribulations of the author's challenging project of not buying anything but needs for an entire year. i thoroughly enjoyed the book and identified very strongly with her internal conflicts on doing so. i'd say in climber fashion, this is the strongest statement we make. thrift store finds, flea market used pants, army surplus wool sweaters. to top it off, it's all chalked up because wearing clean clothes to climb in seems to be a ridiculous faux pas.

of course, this is fought by our craving for new shiny carabiners and cams and ropes and packs to stow it all in. granted a good bit of our climbing gear carries our life in its function. substandard gear doesn't cut it. in the snowboarding realm, i've had to drop a few bills on new gear just to get started. it ain't top notch stuff...yet, but it gets me outdoors on the weekends when the rocks are too wet or snow-covered to climb on them. this weaker id loses far more often. were it stronger, i'd have a kayak, a new mountain bike, and and and.

glorious weather!

by show of hands, how many of you sat around the house like lazy bums when you finished your homework in elementary school? middle school? high school?

that's what i thought. exactly zero.

it struck me, yet again, yesterday that kids of this young generation at my school aren't overweight and lazy because they overeat. they're overweight and lazy because they don't play outside. i know kids live in this neighborhood. you'd be hard pressed to find one playing outside at their house. i'm sure in this day and age of parents' paranoia over anonymous bogeymen doing God-knows-what to their progeny that they're a little less likely to let their kids play in the front yard. with that logic, you'd think that you'd hear a little more noise and such coming from backyards. nope. yesterday afternoon, it was like this neighborhood was empty, with nary a kid behind any of the doors. i know that's not the case. parents are too stressed and overworked to leave work at a reasonable hour for their kids to get out to play. no wonder this generation's favorite answer for, "what's your favorite thing to do?" revolves around games made by nintendo, sony, and microsoft, not spalding, russell, or wilson.

once in a blue moon, i'll see kids out playing in the leaves, but never out riding their bikes. maybe the streets are rougher in suburbia these days than they were back when i was a kid, but i doubt it. my best friend alex lived around the block from me. we'd hop through neighbor's yards to get to one another's houses. our parents weren't petrified of us getting bitten by the neighbors' dogs or getting sued for trespassing because we knew each other. i took those same dogs for walks after school each day...er, they took me for walks each day. i remember us falling off our bikes, falling off trampolines, getting into scrapes with other kids in the neighborhood. this kid matt that lived on my street got hit by a car at least five times to my memory. on his bike, off his bike, skateboards. come to think of it, maybe his mom should've been more concerned...

on childhood obesity

a few weeks ago, i mused about the obesity epidemic in this country getting worse, not better because of the poor example adults are setting for the children in their lives. it is affecting children. on one hand, the children don't see the value in exercising. on the other, a father dies too young, and his 12 year-old son sets out to not emulate that example. is that what it will take to turn some lives around? check this video.

get a grip!

kids play. kids get hurt. kids cry. kids are made of rubber. kids bounce. kids heal. raise your hand if you don't get that. no one? that's what i thought.

see here. [right click it, open in new window or new tab so you can come back to me] back? good.

first an old story. my first year teaching, the kids played tag pretty much every day. they weren't overly rough with one another, but they were fast. those days when i'd join in (when there were no other classes on the playground), they'd either wear me out quickly or cut and juke and jive like a rabbit. one day, they were playing as usual. they were running in between the trees, which was generally a no-no for obvious reasons, but there were no classes but mine and nothing bad had happened...yet. it wasn't the whole class playing, so i wasn't too worried. cody was doing his best to evade being tagged, looking back at whoever was it. full-speed, full contact, stopped dead in his tracks by a longleaf pine. he toppled over. he remained conscious, but he was out for another day or two. honestly, his mother didn't say so, but i wouldn't be surprised if he had a concussion. gentlemen, if you saw joe theissman, you can remember it vividly. that kind of clarity of memory.

did i outlaw tag? no. i kept on them to follow the rules of staying in the open field. were there any more incidents? no. did his mother sue the school or me? no. she had a firm grip on reality. kids play hard. kids hurt, but they also heal. 'round here, that sensibility seems to be lacking. when my kids play tag here, they're up and down and all around the playground equipment. have any of them gotten hurt? no. why not? first of all, dogpile is ridiculous. any teacher with half a brain (and yes, we all have twice that) can figure out that dogpile is a bad idea. moreover, he/she can convey that to the class. play too rough, you're on the fence. someone's bleeding, they go to the clinic. it doesn't happen too often, but i'll admit it does. technically, they're not supposed to run inside the fence where all the equipment is, but then they're not really being active. recess could be better spent in the safety of our classroom playing sedentary games like hot potato or heads up, seven up. i'd rather assume those risks than have an obese class!

no, it's not as safe as sitting on the couch, but life's too short to be spent watching tv or playing video games. the world isn't bubble wrapped. our schools shouldn't be either...

cultural clarity

from whence i came, my coworkers were all very friendly. my mothering hens, our unofficial men's club, the interns that became my friends by the simple proximity of our ages and our interests. i still maintain (or attempt to maintain) contact with a handful of the interns that came through our little school in my time there. outside of school, their varied interests in college football and live music and boisterous barrooms lined right up with my very same interests! my mothers always looked out for me, and to some extent they still do. i know when they get to meet the macaroni to my cheese, they're going to love her. how could they not?

i digress. our men's club also worked together in a very woman-dominated school. i was the lone classroom teacher representative. we had a music teacher representative, the expectedly male p.e. coach, and one administrator. add to the mix our awesome custodial crew, and the seven of us could often be found on monday afternoons playing armchair quarterback after the kids left. yes, our female colleagues were also as knowledgeable and could hold their own in these conversations, but we men were the constant. the women varied.

i sometimes wonder why that cameraderie isn't quite there at my new school. she and i were discussing perceptions and stereotypes and how our own experiences shape and color (no pun intended) our interactions from a very young age. suddenly it clicked. the culture that some of these very same men come from colors their perceptions of work, and their interactions with we teachers. our head custodian is korean, and i finally figured out that his cultural perceptions of work dictate less personal communication and a seemingly stronger work ethic. [note the time: yes, i am writing at work! the kids are gone, i'm leaving as soon as i finish, but still...] the building supervisor is a loquacious salvadoran man. he always has a big smile on his face, always willing to have a short conversation with a teacher when he comes into their classroom. again, to what extent does his culture play a role? is it merely personality, or is it more of how he was socialized? on the surface, it would seem that an older black woman would have little to talk about with me. however, my conversations with her are filled with laughter and joking and good-natured kidding. is it that talking with her reminds me of those friends i left behind, that she has more of a southern, slow-talking mentality? a reminder of the fictive kin i formed in alachua?

politwits

early this morning on good morning america, some political wonk was waxing poetic about how the campaigns are going for the dems and how the race might go against mccain in the fall. one thing that stuck in my mind was his analysis of obama's candidacy. he made the comparison between obama and that of two other groundbreaking african-american men, jackie robinson and tiger woods. he said that obama needs to put himself more in the mold of tiger and not jackie. to be the best candidate, not the best black candidate.

i take issue with this on many levels. first and foremost, he denigrated jackie robinson's contribution to athletics as we know them today where the best athlete is the best athlete. from the get go, he was a champion in the majors, winning the first ever rookie of the year award. all star game honors came his way six times in his career. he added to that one national league mvp award and helped the dodgers win six national league pennants and one world series ring. "the best black ballplayer"? au contraire!

the point he was trying to make, albeit with flawed logic, was that tiger woods began his career as the best african-american golfer. now, as he piles up trophies and green jackets and banks a lot of coin, everyone knows he's the best golfer in the game now, if not ever. that's the angle that this wonk wants the obama camp to take, that barack is the best candidate, not the best black candidate. that they should stop playing up his skin color and start playing the content of his character. the problem i had with his argument, as always, is that the media are the source of a lot of this spin. arent't the media the ones that are highlighting the fact that the democratic nod is going to the first female or the first african-american? aren't the media the ones that are asking poll questions like, "is he black enough?" aren't the media the ones that force him to take time out of his campaign to comment on the black experience in america when they lambasted him over his preacher's fiery sermons? this politwit needs to wake up and take a look at his own colleagues for how they're portraying all the candidates.

jack roosevelt robinson

and your starting shortstop, from UCLA, number 42...JACKIE ROOOOOOOOBINSONNNNNNN!

starring this week in our study of famous americans is the man, the myth, the legend. at first glance, you might think, "why are you learning about a baseball player? so what if it's black history month! he's still only a mere athlete..." and so on. there's a lot more to be drawn from branch rickey's "experiment" than meets the eye.

robinson has a lot in common with a more famous civil rights leader by the name of martin luther king, jr. both are from georgia. both enjoyed, if not excelled in sports at a young age. both were subject to vile hatred by people that they'd never met, even death threats. earlier today though, i myself was questioning his inclusion in our study of famous americans. i screened a supplemental video on youtube, then selectively showed it to the class.



as we paused and discussed during the clip, one of my students was visibly moved by it. afterwards, this shy boy came up to me and explained why. he was able to transport himself into robinson's cleats by virtue of his treatment as a muslim in a christian country. he knew how it felt to be judged by his appearance by people who didn't know him at all. instantly, it made sense. on the higher order, seemingly simple topics such as these can make quite an impact. i'm simultaneously proud and saddened by this bright eight year-old making that connection. on one hand, i know this is a cruel world, and sugarcoating life for children only makes that adjustment harder when they grow up. on the other, what the hell is wrong with our country that he's been robbed of the innocence of his youth by knowing this harsh reality already?

we've come a long way since abe, susan, jackie, and martin, but we still have a long way to go...

with a little love and luck

valentine's day vexes men. plain and simple. my thinking, what makes this day different than others? i know that st. valentine was a priest who secretly married young couples way back in the day. i know there was a pretty famous massacre in gangland chicago in the more recent past. i bet more guys know details about the latter than the former, but all are utterly confused about what to do for this holiday. i know that people watching is ever more interesting today. go to the grocery store and play the Which Girls Have Dates? game. i bet you have no trouble discerning the two. yet another difference in the sexes!

unless it's been discussed prior to today, i'd venture to guess that most guys are perplexed about what is appropriate for their girlfriends or dates. there's that fine line to walk between not stepping up to the plate and going overboard by letting on that you care too much. dinner? candy? flowers? lingerie? what's too much? what's too little? lucky me, i know the answer!

don't get me wrong, i'm still the same jaded valentine's day hater of hallmark. what was once a perhaps religious holiday has been corrupted by american commercialism. isn't today just another day to show that you care about or love someone? flowers, making dinner. no different than several other nights each month. i can just get cards for this particular date.

thanks, hallmark, for helping me say what she already knows!

immigrant song

my midweek mental musings...

living in florida my whole life made me almost blind to the immigrant experience. it was all around me, and perhaps i subconsciously blocked it out. i didn't know of the struggles that they had trying to assimilate. college was no better. i was surrounded by primarily privileged white students, especially in the college of ed. norman hall was a world like no other (perhaps nursing?)--filled with females mostly differentiated by the greek letters on their t-shirts or the color of their hair.

in and around the district, immigration is a hot button issue of late. several counties have closed day laborer centers where people could pick up day laborers in the morning, pay them under the table, and drop them off at night. some counties have mandated that citizenship checks be performed at traffic stops. there's a big uproar from advocacy groups and xenophobes alike. my neighborhood is largely hispanic. most people are very friendly to strangers, a quick smile and a nod hello. i really dig it.

this week, the struggles and worries of undocumented immigrants were brought home in my eyes. we're going on a field trip to the white house in 2 months. for background security, the secret service requested all kinds of information. it never occurred to me that some of this information might cause consternation among some parents. they worry that it will be cross-referenced with INS or homeland security, and their family will be torn apart for a school field trip. it's a touchy subject, as the school actually has no right to ask about citizenship status these days. we don't ask, they don't tell. these parents are among my most caring. they want a better life for their children and see school as the route to that life. they struggle with communicating with the school, culturally shocked into the american belief that education is a team effort. often, their culture dictates that teachers are almost revered. it's very hard to communicate our different expectations and the equal footing that we share in educating their child. whether or not they speak english is a moot point sometimes, as learning english isn't the same as speaking english. once you take away the context of face-to-face interactions, even a simple phone call about homework becomes an exercise in linguistics to make the conversation as comprehensible as possible. it's tricky and exhausting and ultimately satisfying when that rapport is built and the divide is reduced. short of learning a new language a year, i doubt i'll ever excel at it. just enough to be competent and show that i care is all some of these parents need.

snow day controversy

this was in the washington post today. i hear it was on good morning america too. thoughts?

Va. Student's Snow-Day Plea Triggers an Online Storm
By Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 23, 2008; A01

Snow days, kids and school officials have always been a delicate mix.

But a phone call to a Fairfax County public school administrator's home last week about a snow day -- or lack of one -- has taken on a life of its own. Through the ubiquity of Facebook and YouTube, the call has become a rallying cry for students' First Amendment rights, and it shows that the generation gap has become a technological chasm.

It started with Thursday's snowfall, estimated at about three inches near Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke. On his lunch break, Lake Braddock senior Devraj "Dave" S. Kori, 17, used a listed home phone number to call Dean Tistadt, chief operating officer for the county system, to ask why he had not closed the schools. Kori left his name and phone number and got a message later in the day from Tistadt's wife.

"How dare you call us at home! If you have a problem with going to school, you do not call somebody's house and complain about it," Candy Tistadt's minute-long message began. At one point, she uttered the phrase "snotty-nosed little brats," and near the end, she said, "Get over it, kid, and go to school!"

Not so long ago, that might have been the end of it -- a few choice words by an agitated administrator (or spouse). But with the frenetic pace of students' online networking, it's harder for grown-ups to have the last word. Kori's call and Tistadt's response sparked online debate among area students about whether the student's actions constituted harassment and whether the response was warranted.

Kori took Tistadt's message, left on his cellphone, and posted an audio link on a Facebook page he had created after he got home from school called "Let them know what you think about schools not being cancelled." The Web page listed Dean Tistadt's work and home numbers.

The Tistadts received dozens more calls that day and night, Dean Tistadt said. Most were hang-ups, but at one point, they were coming every five minutes -- one at 4 a.m., he said. At the same time, his wife's response was spreading through cyberspace.

Within a day, hundreds of people had listened to her message, which was also posted on YouTube. A friend of Kori's sent it to a local television news station, and it was aired on the nightly news program. As of yesterday, more than 9,000 people had clicked on the YouTube link. Hundreds of comments had been posted on the Facebook and YouTube pages, largely about what constitutes proper and polite requests for public information from students.

One Oakton High School student said in a posting yesterday that the crank calls to the Tistadts' home were out of line but that Kori's call was appropriate. "I am not happy that [Dean Tistadt] gambled multiple times with our safety just so we might have a bit more knowledge crammed in our heads at school," he wrote.

A Westfield High School student agreed: "thank God someone stood up for us at last!"

Some were just as adamant the other way. A student from James Madison High School in Vienna wrote: "It's called a home phone number for a reason. My dad is a physician and I can't tell you how irritating it is to get calls at all hours of the night from people who think they are entitled to immediate attention . . . leave the poor guy alone."

Kori, a member of the Lake Braddock debate team who said his grade-point average is 3.977, said his message was not intended to harass. He said that he tried unsuccessfully to contact Dean Tistadt at work and that he thought he had a basic right to petition a public official for more information about a decision that affected him and his classmates. He said he was exercising freedom of speech in posting a Facebook page. The differing interpretations of his actions probably stem from "a generation gap," he said.

"People in my generation view privacy differently. We are the cellphone generation. We are used to being reached at all times," he said.

Kori explained his perspective in an e-mail yesterday to Fairfax County schools spokesman Paul Regnier. Regnier said, also in an e-mail, that Kori's decision to place the phone call to the Tistadts' home was more likely the result of a "civility gap."

"It's really an issue of kids learning what is acceptable and not acceptable. Any call to a public servant's house is harassment," Regnier said in an interview.

Kori said that he was called into the principal's office to discuss the matter but that he was not punished.

Candy Tistadt did not return phone messages, but Dean Tistadt credited Kori for having the "courage of his convictions to stand up and be identified." He also credited him for causing the high volume of crank calls, not to mention considerable grief and embarrassment for his wife.

"This has been horrible for her," he said, adding that he and his wife both learned a hard lesson about the long reach of the Internet.

on one hand, this kid had a valid point. three inches of snow here is like a foot elsewhere. the plows can't keep up, and the drivers freak out about it. even this florida boy keeps a cooler head in such road conditions! it was just snow, though, no ice.

on the other hand, this kid knows that past 10:30, if the day isn't called for early dismissal, it's not going to be. in a county this size, it'd be a logistical nightmare to recall buses and parents on an hour-by-hour basis. he knew that. additionally, he obviously has not been taught a proper sense of decorum and decency by his parents. just because you have someone's email address or home phone number doesn't mean you should use it. mr. tisdadt has the right to a life separate from work, though many in the media would have you believe differently about public servants or those in the public's eye. thoughts?

aggravated

i'm beginning to see that there are far worse problems in education than our supposed falling behind in the world market because of low test scores. i don't know if the prevalence of diagnosed problems in kids these days is merely the symptom or actually the problem. my kids this year are ADD to the nth degree. it grows tougher each year to maintain attention while teaching. i can't even take a breath in the middle of a sentence without their impulsive nature taking over and causing them to call out answers, questions, or random stories that have nothing to do with the subject at hand. i teach a classroom full of id with no superego to control it. one of the more problematic should be in an alternative placement. the reason he's not? an inflexible specialist who refused to place kids in said center. "it can be controlled with medication." aren't we then breeding a generation of pharmacologically-dependent children who can't cope with their issues without an rx? that ain't right. it doesn't fix the problem, it merely masks it, and when the dosage needs changing because the kids grow, their education as well as those of their classmates suffers.

delayed

snow day, i understand. yesterday, no delay, no early release, no snow day. forecast actually called for a dusting. flurries, if you will. yeah, we got close to 3 inches. kids, understandably excited. hell, i could barely contain myself. we weren't allowed to go out for recess. no, that wasn't my decision. i blame the "liability" excuse on people bent on lawyering up and filing lawsuits frivolously. let your kids be kids. yes, they'll get hurt, but who among us didn't have a broken bone, skinned knees/elbows, busted lips, or stitches when you were a kid? don't lie! the world wasn't sterile, and our parents sure didn't think it needed bubble wrapped. anyways....so i had to be the bad guy and tell the kids they couldn't make snowballs. they couldn't start making snowmen. fact is, i wanted to join them, but these parents and their overprotectiveness would not deal well with wet clothes, wet shoes, or a bruised anything from slipping on the ice...

so, i got to work too early this morning. took some pictures of the beautiful snowy wonderland playground, haven't done much else. i guess i should figure out what my schedule looks like today. pictures will be posted when i get home tonight...maybe.

is chivalry dead?

since relocating from the north of florida (read: the south) to the north of virginia (read: the north), i'm noticing a distinct difference in people. people in my neck of the woods, so to speak, tend to be friendlier than your average hustle-and-bustle northern city. at least the ones i've visited before, i.e. chicago, miami (yes, i know it's down south and warm, but it ain't southern by a long stretch!). strangers will smile at you on the street if you make eye contact and initiate. busy businessmen and women will thank you if you hold open a door for them. politeness is not absent up here, which is really nice. it has made an adjustment to city life that much more bearable.

today at work, speaking with the guidance counselor, i was venting about one of my kids. he'd hit a girl. in the face. repeatedly. generally, i like this kid. he's bright and pretty interesting. i had to restrain myself from blowing up at him for this "incident." ordinarily, back in the countrified world of alachu-ay, i'd have gotten real close and said in no uncertain terms, "gentlemen don't hit ladies. ever. i don't care if she hits you first, you don't do it. period." that made the point, and i never had to repeat it to him.

that argument fell on deaf ears today. he looked at me, "but it's not fair!" i continued with, "ladies first. get used to it. yeah, it's not fair, but as a guy, you get used to it. that's the way of the world."

same response, "but it's not fair!"

the guidance counselor's assessment, "there aren't too many guys like you left, mr. j." that of course got me thinking, is chivalry dead? have men really regressed so far from being polite and good to women that such concepts are going to die out with the generation of kids in my classroom? have "equal rights" or feminism or independent female pride eroded what was left of what i consider to be a decent way to act? why is it that i need to worry about teaching such things to my students?

the fact that i have to teach such things to some (not all) students explicitly is very telling. i'm sure that the majority of my kids' fathers embody the very spirit of chivalry, though few probably explain it as such. i know the fathers certainly will expect it of any boy their daughters date in the future, but who's really teaching it? there's been at least a few kids each year that have gotten my don't-hit-a-woman speech. (is it only male teachers that get on that high horse, or is it just a southern thing?) each year, i need to teach the basic manners of don't eat until everyone's been served. i'm going to bounce this idea off two markedly different groups of people this weekend and see what they think.

thoughts?