A Rock To Tie A String Around

There’s a lot of hullabaloo out there right now about bad teachers and failing schools. As those of you anywhere near Los Angeles know, the LA Times has begun the controversial undertaking of publishing teacher performance scores. So far this practice has only extended to LAUSD elementary teachers, but I have no doubt that it will soon enough expand to middle and high schools. On the surface, it looks like a little bit of rough justice. Those bad teachers will be rooted out, the good ones will shine and all will be right in the world, the children will learn, the birds will sing and we will once again rule the known world.

Uh huh.

I can’t help but think back to my own education when I wade through this crap. What if the LA Times or the Colorado Springs Gazette in my case, had decided to out the bad teachers? How many of my elementary, middle and high school educators would be on the bad list? I’m guessing a few, more than a few, yet here I am. I graduated college twice, I’m in law school, I function in society decently well – sometimes better than others… So did it matter that I spent the first three years of elementary school in special ed because of undiagnosed dyslexia? Did it matter that I didn’t know what a protagonist was until I was a college freshman in my first literature course?

I have a hypothesis that it has relatively little to do with what our teachers teach us in school and more to do with whether or not the people in our lives inspire intellectual curiosity, which sadly for the LA Times, cannot be judged by a test score. I went to school in the wild west days of education. There were no high school exit exams or state tests that influenced funding. Was that a good thing? Maybe not….I am the girl who left high school completely algebra illiterate, who still thinks trigonometry sounds more like a medical procedure, and an unpleasant one at that.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m defending crap teachers, I’m not, and believe you me; there are some crap teachers out there. You’ve either had one or you know one, hopefully you aren’t one, but they’re out there. I just don’t think crap teachers are a new phenomenon. I think that before we blame our failing education system on crap teachers, we have to consider that they have been around since there were schools. Crap teachers are as much a fabric of a school as is the fluorescent classroom lighting and breaded chicken sandwiches in the cafeteria.

I think in an Artaudian way, it’s a test of character to have a crap teacher. It’s like Survivor: Education Island. You learn to separate all the bullshit from the good and sink or swim. Crap teachers give us a little bit of Darwinesque survival of the fittest in an otherwise cushy education system.

I think it built character for my 6th grade social studies teacher to tell us that the ruskies were building atomic bombs and had them aimed at American churches and schools, hands on the trigger, ready to launch at any minute…the paranoia growing by the second….

I also think I benefited from my 9th grade Health teacher writing ‘What’s wrong with you? How can you think this?’ on my essay about suicide and why I thought it was an inherently selfish act. I still do think that for your information Gerry Cantrell….Heath teacher extraordinaire.

And I appreciate the reality shock I had when I entered college and realized that those C’s that my math teachers had been giving me all the way through high school, even though I never scored above a D on a single math test -meant that I didn’t know an integer from a lug nut. I think that reality shock was good for my system – like an extremely cold and unpleasant shower, in the arctic, in winter…..

Or how about my Geography teacher who referred to all of South and Central America as ‘Mexico’? At least he was consistent, all Asian countries were renamed ‘China’. The only thing I remember about that class outside of that was making an arbitrary wall mural of the world under the sea….. I’m sure that built something in me, is character supposed to feel like a migraine?

My crappy teachers inspired my well-rounded sense of rebellion and outrage. I went out of my way to research topics so I’d have a smart-ass answer for the sole purpose of ticking off my teacher. That kind of inspiration can’t be measured. Instead of the CST and it’s various incarnates, we should have the Smartass Meter, if we measured our kids by their willingness and ability to be a pain in the ass, we’d look like the most successful country in the world. Fortunately, in order to be a Smartass, the student has to do some research, even if it is for the sole purpose of trying to make your teacher look like an idiot.

So you see people, crappy teachers are not a new idea, they’re old school – and we all know that old school is the best school, right?

Okay, let me start out as saying in my defense, that NPR is my radio of choice. However, Air America, AM 1150 here in Los Angeles, is my morning show so when I get into the car at the end of day, it’s still on and I have to make a conscious choice to change the channel. I often forget because my brain is a pile of slimy ramen noodles at the end of the day. This is why I know Gayle King has a radio show.

Gayle, or as we know her – Oprah’s BFF, claims to discuss a variety of topics on her show ranging from politics to entertainment. Her promo on her website says:
“A self-proclaimed news junkie, Gayle’s extensive media experience will lead to in-depth discussions on universal subjects that matter.”

Uh…yeah…okay.

Allow me to digress for a minute and say that I’m pretty jealous that I wasn’t able to hookup friendship style with someone like Oprah back in my twenties. If I had hitched my star to that meal wagon, I’d be pretty freakin’ set right now. I mean, I would have a great, meaningful friendship with a wonderful person….isn’t that what I said?

I already know I’m risking incurring the wrath of the Gayle King fans….or as I see it, the ‘I hope to be two degrees of separation from Oprah fans’.

So back from the digress, I often end up listening to Gayle for extended periods of time before I realize that I can listen to real news, and thus promptly switch the station. I feel like it’s my civic duty to warn other listeners out there, those who might be too apathetic or absurdly loyal to their own version of AM 1150 to turn that dial. So I composed a little Gayle King Radio Show Diary for you so that you may learn from my apathy and be inspired to turn that dial to ‘This American Life’ on NPR….just a few notches over is the promised land my friends. In any case, enjoy:

Monday, September 13:

Dear Diary,
Today Gayle is talking about the six-word memoir. You are supposed to summarize your life in six words…hmmm, interesting idea, should I make my students do it? Why does she keep repeating hers? She has repeated it like eight times in the last two minutes, she didn’t even write it, her producer wrote it for her…does that count? Is it a memoir if someone wrote it for you? Wouldn’t that be a six-work biography? Now she has a caller who used the word ‘transcendental’ in his, I kinda don’t think she knows what that means….I’m being mean. Of course she knows what that means, she has a radio show, she must have a producer or someone standing by with a thesaurus….right? Oh man, she just repeated her six-word biography again. She thinks that ‘Favorite Mommy, loves all things delicious’ is the cat’s meow.

If you google 'ugh', this is what you get....who knew?

What would mine be right now?

Why Am I Listening To ThisCrap

If I cheat and pretend like thiscrap is all one word, that works…. Hmmm…how about this:

Why Haven’t I Changed The Channel?

That’s better.

Wednesday, September 15:
Dear Diary,
I think it’s Wednesday….huh, maybe I’m wrong. Gayle is talking about Amanda Knox. She actually has an interesting guest on; some FBI agent who thinks Amanda Knox is innocent. Why does she keep interrupting him, she keeps cutting him off so she can tell him that he ought to thank his wife for watching crime television and how Gayle thought Amanda Knox was guilty base off the media coverage. She’s told him like four times now that she thought Amanda Knox was guilty, this guy actually sounds kind of annoyed now, is she trying to refute him? With second hand accounts of some news show that she can’t quite remember now….I don’t think she’s going to win that fight.

Thursday, September 16:

Dear Diary,
Gayle is talking about Dr. William Petit. Horrible story. Why is she talking about the pronunciation of his hometown’s name? Seriously, she’s gone on for like two minutes about how she heard someone say Chesire wrong somewhere. Okay, she’s back to the story, now she’s back to the pronunciation of Cheshire, now she’s back to the story….focus Gayle, focus.

Unidentified Day, Sometime Last Week:

Dear Diary,
Gayle is busting wide open the story that divorce rates are higher for couples where the woman makes more money than the man. As evidence she’s taking calls from a bunch of divorced – or soon to be divorced – women who say it was all because of an inequity of wealth in their relationship. They didn’t use those words though…..

Maybe she’s right, but in the last five minutes she’s told me ten times that she’s divorced and repeated an amusing anecdote about some kid who told her and Oprah that he didn’t want to marry anyone like them. She’s telling that story again, make that eleven times. Sometimes Gayle King reminds me of my grandmother with the degenerative brain fog.

I think I’ve pinpointed why I dislike the Gayle King Show. She reminds me of my richy neighbor, who is not unlike any number of richy privledged housewife types that live in Beverly Hills or Cherry Creek or any richy suburb of a major city.

So nuthin' for nuthin', they seriously revised the definition of housewife for this show....some of this lot weren't even married.....just sayin'....

If you handed any of these women a microphone and gave them ample air waves and time slots, this is the show they would have. They would lightly discuss all the stuff they saw on the morning news and never have anything new to say; in fact they would never even have any in-depth research about it. In exchange for their inequitable reporting, they would be chalk full of amusing anecdotes and little stories that vaguely relate to the topic at hand.

How I long for the days when Rachel Maddow was in the 3pm time slot….

As some of you may know, I am currently in law school. It’s a fascinating, tedious and exhausting process, and has helped me to understand crime television infinitely more, which was, of course, my ultimate goal.

One of my favorite parts of law school has been the vocabulary lessons, and in the spirit of a few of my recent blogs about saving obscure words or banning inane and annoying expressions – I have decided to try to integrate legal terms into my everyday vernacular. Yes, I want all of us to feel confident using random legal language in everyday life. You will impress your friends and confuse your neighbors.

So, I went through Black’s Law Dictionary and randomly selected a few terms and have done my best to find a reasonable way to use them in everyday life.

Here ya go, on my honor, randomly selected:

1. Ethical Wall: a screening mechanism that protects a client from a conflict of interest by preventing one or more lawyers within an organization from participating in any matter involving that client.

Whew. That was a mouthful. Okay, okay so it’s some kind of fancy legal mumbo jumbo about protecting the integrity of a client’s case..blah blah blah. This term has potential to be integrated into everyday use.

For Example:
“I would totally help you move but there’s an ethical wall that prevents me from getting up that early on a Saturday morning.

The best part is that your friend will be too busy trying to figure out what you’re talking about to really question you, at least immediately, giving you a chance to slink away without accepting any responsibility. By the time he realizes that what you said doesn’t make a whole lotta sense, it’s too late, you’re in your car, on your way home.

2. Nonskip Person: A person who is not a skip person for the purposes of the generation skipping transfer tax

I’m not even sure what I just typed. I think it means that I can stop paying all my taxes and let my son, Mr. Adorablepants, worry about it. Any legal minds want to weigh in on this one?
In any case, I can think of a variety of ways to misuse this term in everyday life:

“I’m pretty sure that nonskip loser has a methlab in his garage.”

Until I am corrected, I will continue to use nonskip person as an insult, just try and stop me.

3. Spurious: Deceptively suggesting an erroneous origin; fake

This one’s easy, and it’s insulting, double fun:

“I bought this fantastically spurious Prada bag off some guy on the corner! Go me!”

on a side note, I do not understand why people will pay even fake money for these ugly things....

4. Impossibility of Performance Doctrine: The principle that a party may be released from a contract on the ground that uncontrollable circumstances have rendered performance impossible

I think this is an extremely far-reaching term, I have a lot of uncontrolled circumstances that get in the way of me finishing things.

For example:
“Oops, I would have graded those papers but a special about Donnie Brasco came on the crime channel unexpectedly and thus by the Impossibility of Performance Doctrine, you can fugettaboutit.”

5. Probable-Desistance Test: a common-law test for the crime of attempt

As with the term above, I also attempt a lot of things that sometimes pan out, usually not. So I can see where a test that was able to determine whether I had actually attempted something would be handy, got all that?

Here, try this:
“I’m perfectly aware that that bread I tried to make from scratch turned out to be a fifty pound tortilla with a density that rivals Venus, but if you conduct a probable-desistance test, you’ll see I really, really tried. So, take a bite, now.”

That’s all for now, soon, I’ll share several excellent latin legal phrases that ought to be liberated from the bowels of the legal world and reintroduced on the street. Happy legal speak everyone.

My iPhone thinks it knows me. It tries to fill in the gaps for me when I’m writing a text or an email, usually it’s utterly unsuccessful, sometimes it’s downright bizarre. For example, the other day I tried to type ‘barbecue’, it changed it to ‘Barcelona’ – which would have made perfect sense if I were trying to ask The Husband if he needed any supplies for the weekend Barcelona. Or maybe the time it changed ‘patio’ to ‘pompadour’, so when The Husband went looking for me, he knew to go straight to the pompadour. Great, thanks iPhone.

It reminds me a bit of the old days with Tivo when it would try to predict what I wanted to watch based on other things I had taped. The end result being that I returned home from work to find it had recorded eighteen hours of Who’s the Boss reruns on the TVLand channel. And it’s not like I could get into Tivo’s head and ask it why it thought I needed that much Tony Danza, so I found myself scouring my choices, asking why? Why did it think I liked this? What did I do wrong? I still don’t know, and instead of trying to solve the problem, I dumped Tivo and shacked up with DVR.

But it’s made me think about some tech inventions that would be utterly invaluable. I fancy myself an amateur inventor, The Husband has absolutely no faith in my inventions but someday I will prove him wrong. Some of my brilliant ideas have already been lifted and marketed by other punks, pffttt… Like my idea for The Feminine Funnel. It’s pretty much what it sounds like – I was thinking ‘what would be better than being able to stand up when you pee?’ Answer: ‘Nothing.’ So, I came up the idea to use those funnels you use to pour oil into the car, except make them in appealingly bright colors! Tada! Brilliance.

But then, of course, this invention already exists…it’s called Urinelle, the urinal for women. Pfftt…I think The Feminine Funnel has a much more melodic ring to it.

But toilet items aside, I have some new inventions for the tech age, problem being that I can’t make them so I need some tech savvy individual to partner up with me and do all the heavy lifting. Oh, and by ‘partner’ I mean 70/30 – I’m the 70.

Here they are:

1. The Internal Song Combuster: Ever had a song stuck in your head? Don’t know all the lyrics? Can’t really sing? Have no way of playing the song so you just keep humming the same few bars over and over and over….until you feel like Jack Nicholson sitting at the bar at the Overlook Hotel? I’m right there, right now. My song demon is ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade’ Yes, I’m being haunted by Barbara Streisand.

My invention would be an ipod like device you hook up to your temple and it automatically plays the song that’s stuck in your head out loud for the world to hear. I’m not sure what the purpose of this device would be, except to be able to mock your friends and family, and maybe to show the world your inner Broadway diva…. But I’m not too worried about that, the marketing and promotion would be your department 30% partner.

2. The Bullshitometer: Remember on Star Trek how they had that device where the aliens spoke into the magical box and it automatically translated their alien language into English? Thereby eliminating the need to ever learn a foreign and/or alien language? Yep, that was awesome.

Here’s something that will be even more awesome. I propose that we (by we I mean you) build that box but instead of a foreign language translator, it would cut all the bullshit out and just give me the subtext instead.

Example:

What I hear now:
“I went into teaching because I love kids, I love helping young people and feel a genuine sense of goodness when I help turn a kid’s life around and I will stop at nothing to make these amazing young people succeed, God, I love my job.”

Here’s what the Bullshitometer interprets:
“I went into teaching because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get laid off and I have summers free to travel to Cozumel. But now I’m laid off and I never made enough teaching to even leave the state, much less go to another country. The kids are okay, but if I have to look at another adult today and pretend to love my job I’m going to scream.”

Wouldn’t that be useful? Seriously useful? Okay, maybe not so much essential, but amusing?

Again, I’ll leave the marketing up to my 30% partner; I’m just the idea guy.
Okay, so there ya go 30% partner – let’s get working (by we I mean you, all you, my job is done). I sense a million dollars in my future, and significantly less for you, but you can have the entire honor. I’m going to move to my mansion in Cozumel.