A Rock To Tie A String Around

I want an iPad. I’ll just say it up front so you know that a good 67% of my gripe comes from wanting an iPad, and not having one. Now, the other 33% of that gripe, come from the fact that my school, my place of employment, is throwing my iPadless existence in my face and rubbing my non-touch screen nose in it.

She probably scored proficient on her high school exit exam

We received an email this week stating that our students are taking the high school exit exam over the next couple of days and in order to motivate the kids to pass the exam, the students who score proficient on both math and English, will receive an iPad. A motherlovin’ iPad.

Now, before you say it, yes. This is the test that the kids have to take in order to graduate from high school. So, evidently, the whole ‘graduating from high school’ thing wasn’t incentive enough, they needed iPads.

only an ipad could make me this awesome

Where was this policy when I was in high school? I remember getting a copy of ‘Le Petite Prince’ from my French teacher when I completed my fourth year of French. That was it. The math students competed for one high tech graphing calculator as a prize for the best grade. One, for the whole school. One.

But no. My school is raining down iPads. Sigh.

The entire concept of the CAHSEE, or California High School Exit Exam is flawed. I shouldn’t be up in arms about iPads, I should be enraged that the kids are even measured on such an arbitrary test. For one, they first take the exam in 10th grade. So, if it’s truly meant to be a measure of whether the students have learned a sufficient amount of knowledge to leave high school – those who pass should be released out into the world at age 15. Secondly, the exam tests students based on 8th grade learning standards. So, if you really want to back track, you can say that anyone who earned an A in 8th grade English or math should have been released from formal education at age 12. Sounds good to me, then they can get back to the fields and help out with the family farm…

So, here we are. If you really examine the facts we’re only providing our kids with a 8th grade level education in order to graduate from high school. Sounds pretty abhorrent doesn’t it? Or does it?

The Amish only require compulsory education through 8th grade, and that through their own schools. They focus on the basics plus some vocational training, and then you’re pretty much sent back to the family to help with the farm. I would criticize this except that they actually educate their kids to one grade level beyond what LAUSD kids are working plus they get a vocational training. Now granted, the Amish vocational training is likely to be something in the vein of how to fix wagons or care for horses….

http://pittsburgh.about.com/cs/pennsylvania/a/amish_2.htm

I’d worry about offending the Amish, but only a really bad Amish would be reading this right now….

Of course, a middle school education wouldn’t be so bad if it were the same kind of program that our ancestors back in 1895 had. You’ve all surely seen this before but I’ll add the link just for kicks

http://www.barefootsworld.net/1895finalexam.html

I wouldn’t squawk at all if our students were leaving their formal education with an 8th grade education that looked like this:

“9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?”
Um…a lot? First of all, what’s a rod, secondly, why do I want this farm

Here’s another one:

“8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865?”
Um….yeah, I hear someone at the door, I’ve gotta go, but hold that question, I’ll be right back….as soon as I look all these dates up…

And another:

“5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.”

Okay, I’m pretty sure the last one was married to John Lennon….

Here’s a sample from the current 8th grade learning standard CAHSEE:

2. Which sentence below is an example of a simile?
A I will have set no clock . . .
B I do not want to know my name . .
C We need hours of aimless wandering . . .
D A day away acts as a spring tonic.

That phone is like an ipad, but not even nearly as awesome.

14. This selection is BEST described as—
A fiction
B biography
C article
D essay

Now, to be fair, I didn’t cut and paste the reading selections. But c’mon people, it’s not exactly an 8th grade question like this:

4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts
of”lie,”"play,” and “run.”

I’m just saying that damn, I deserve an iPad. I’m tempted to dress in my favorite ‘skinny jeans’ and hoody and sneak onto campus tomorrow morning with the hopes that I, too, will score proficient.

I’ve decided that Amy Chua is really onto something with this tiger mother business. For those of you who have been under a rock for the last couple of weeks, an excerpt from Chua’s book ‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother’ was released in form of an essay for the Wall Street Journal titled ‘Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior’. If you haven’t read it, you can find it here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html

Are you in a rage filled stupor yet? Are you incredulously defending your own parenting techniques to anyone who will listen? Are you rattling off the myriad reasons that calling your child ‘garbage’ to motivate them might result in psychological trauma? Are you filled with renewed appreciation for your own parents?

Well, stop it, you big wussies. Pull on your big-kid pants and stop your sniveling. I mean, what are you? Garbage?

Do you feel motivated yet? Damn…well, it is my first attempt at tiger mother motivation, I’ll keep working on it.

In reality, this has nothing to do with parenting. ‘Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior’ is a perfect example of a marketing campaign gone awry. Chua did not write the book as an instructional manual, it’s a memoir:

“It’s a memoir about a lot of my mistakes, you know? It’s more like a ‘don’t try this at home’ as opposed to a how-to guide.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/21/eveningnews/main7270289.shtml

But that wouldn’t draw the crowds, would it? Another memoir from a mother who realized her parenting mistakes and saw the light certainly wouldn’t have made the cover of Time Magazine with the headline “The Truth About Tiger Moms: Am mother’s memoir on tough-love parenting unleashed an international debate. Is that because she’s onto something?”

You can’t buy this kind of press. Well, technically you can…if you’re a really good marketing agent and you buy a well-placed spot in the Wall Street Journal and then choose the most controversial and out of context material possible from the book you’re trying to sell. Then, you can buy this kind of attention.

Did it work? Hard to say. It’s a bestseller, but Chua has been mythologized into the kind of perfectionist, crazypants parent that Joan Crawford could only dream of being.

Chua said in a recent interview that not only was she ripped apart on the web, but she’s actually received death threats. Is that worth it to sell a book? Maybe.

Whether or not the actual book is a how to guide or a cautionary tale, she’s started a conversation that seems to be sticking. I’m not talking about the parenting debate….I think that conversation has been rehashed quite enough. I’m talking about the ‘What would you do to sell your book?’ conversation that every author out there should be having.

Anne Rice renounced Christianity in the name of book sales. Okay, to be fair, that’s just speculation, but still. In July of 2010 she went to the hub of wisdom also known as Facebook to say:

“For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out…”

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/07/29/anne-rice-denounces-christianity/

Coincidentally, while all the hubbub was brewing and she was all the radio shows and whatnot to discuss her newfound religious freedom, she had time to plug her new book: “Of Love and Evil” Which came out in November of 2010.

Was she sincere? Maybe. Is Amy Chua serious that the best way to get your kid to play that piano recital piece is to make her sit at that piano for three hours while you pack up her doll house and threaten to cancel all her birthdays until she’s 25? Maybe. Does it matter? Maybe. Did it sell books? Oh yeah.

Not to drag the illiterate hoards into this conversation, but Snooki, yes that chick from Jersey Shore is also a bestseller. Seriously. Before you pack up your writing career and toss your laptop into the trash, consider what the girl has had to do to sell that literary masterpiece.
Snooki’s book “A Shore Thing”, seriously – that’s the title, was launched on January 4, 2011. On January 5, 2011, Snooki was on Ellen sharing just the kind of titillating kind of blabber you can look forward to in her book.

“Yes, because I want to remember my night and sometimes I just don’t. It sucks. So you’re like, “What did I do? Why did I wake up in a garbage can?”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/05/snooki-i-wake-up-in-a-garbage-can-once-a-month_n_804550.html

So why would Snooki be sharing these intimate details with us? It’s the same family of behavior that led to ‘Why Chinese Mothers are Superior’ and ‘I quit being a Christian…” It’s attention seeking shock material intended to make us rush out and read the book to see if they’re really that extreme. And it worked, big time.

So, my advice is to start logging all your extreme behavior now in case you get picked up by Random House or Penguin. You never know when you’ll have to spill all your secrets or make yourself look like a monster, all in the name of sales.

I took a creative writing class many years ago in which I was assigned to write a children’s book. I spent weeks designing, writing, brainstorming, tormenting myself about how to get it just right. I turned it in to my professor completely assured that I had written the next Velveteen Rabbit or Willy Wonka, I was surely the next Roald Dahl, I mean after all, I had actually really worked on this thing, not like the other half-assed projects I had turned in.

I received back my masterpiece with a ‘C’ and a little note on the side that said ‘Lots of effort, thanks for trying so hard when it’s not really your thing.’

I was infuriated, but it worked to deftly illustrate a very good point: children’s books are freakin’ hard to write.

When I first started writing, I was amused to find that most of my friends who learned that I was working on a novel automatically assumed it was for children. Not so much really. I don’t think I’m nearly a good enough writer to write for children. Adults will put up with a lot more bullshit than kids will. Couple that with a shorter attention span and you have the fascinatingly difficult job of writing a genuinely excellent, compelling story in under 1500 words. For the sake of comparison, my blog usually runs around 700 words (give or take) so double that and you have a longish children’s book. I would wager most children’s books that are aimed at kids like my Mr. Adorablepants, age almost three, are much shorter than even that.

It’s harder than it sounds.

There are some crappy children’s books out there too. Any parent will tell you after you’ve had to read ‘The Jealous Monster’ for the 50th time that you are ready for that book to mysteriously disappear…. Some kid’s books have no story at all, and while I do understand that they are aimed at certain developmental goals, ‘Mis Colores’ in which each page is a color and two words, is the literary equivalent of watching paint dry.

So, I decided to list a few of the children’s books that I am so very glad that Mr. Adorablepants loves and I love to read to him. And before you say it, yes, I’m probably damaging his nearly three-year old psyche by reading these books to him. Maybe he’ll grow up to write his own darkly twisted and somewhat sardonic children’s books, maybe he’ll just send me the bill for his therapist.

Here you go:

‘The Wolves in the Walls’ by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave Mckean

Probably best known for ‘Sandman’ and my favorite of his novels ‘Neverwhere’, Neil Gaiman is my writer crush. I nearly passed out from happiness after reading ‘Coraline’ and ‘The Graveyard Book’. Gaiman’s little story is about the wolves living in the walls of a little girl’s house, they break out and chase the people away so they can watch their television and eat their toast and jam. It’s dark and kinda scary, and Mr. Adorablepants squeals ‘It’s a wolf! A wolf having a party!’ whenever we read it. The illustrations are like nothing I’ve ever seen in a kid’s book, like graphic novel meets line sketches. Lovely.

‘The Dangerous Alphabet’ also by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Gris Grimly

Yes, another Neil Gaiman book, like I said, he’s my writer crush. This one is a spooky, gruesome and sardonically twisted little trip through the alphabet, and the sewers of London. Mr. Adorablepants loves to count all the monsters and witches. He’ll probably need therapy for his one, but he does recognize all his letters….so does that balance it out?

‘Where The Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendak

Couldn’t resist. Yes, we all know this is probably the best children’s book ever written, but it can’t be said enough. You have the completely wonderful illustrations, but more importantly, you have three whole pages with absolutely no words, just blind faith in the kids looking at the book that they are smart enough to fill in the gaps. ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ is excellent because there is not an ounce of irony or condescension in it. Perfect.

‘Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?’ By Dr. Seuss

There are just so many Dr. Suess books that I could write about here, but I decided to just pick my favorite. Besides having the kind of illustrations that haunt my imagination since I was Mr. Adorablepant’s size, the content of this book in particular is surprisingly deep, and layered. I can read it to my son, and I also find myself reminding myself of the wisdom within this book every day when confronted by various situations. A couple of blogs back I wrote about the crazed and perhaps delusional Westside Rental Rentally Crazy Dancing Clown. Every time I walk by his truck where he continues to hurl insults at me, I say to myself: “Just tell yourself Duckie, you’re really quite lucky, some people are much more, oh muchly much much more unlucky than you.”

So unlucky in fact that they have to work as the Rentally Insane Dancing Street Clown.
But I digress.

I think the books we read as children shape the books we choose as adults. I was lucky enough to have a mother that didn’t seem to think it was odd that her elementary school daughter was reading Nevil Shute and Sylvia Plath…. I blame and thank Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak among others. I wonder what Neil Gaiman will do to Mr. Adorablepants….

I don’t normally believe in New Year’s Resolutions. Which would explain why I don’t normally make any. But this year is an exception; I have decided that I need a motivational tool to get myself off of the procrastination wagon and back on track. So, I made some resolutions. I am, however, trying to be realistic. I’m not going to pretend that I’ll give up caffeine, or that I will stop whining like a two-year old whenever the house is cold. I guess I could make those resolutions, but they would be stone, cold lies.

So, I’m keeping it real for the new year, here’s what I’ve come up with thus far:

1. I Resolve To Stop Mocking Sarah Palin In Every Blog Post

If you read this blog even infrequently, you might have noticed that I’m a little preoccupied with the inanity that is the moose hunting, smore eating half-term quitter of Alaska, Sarah Palin. I’ve resolved to let off. Not because I’ve decided that she’s getting any better, in fact, I’ve decided that she’s become much worse. No, I’m going to attempt to curb my Sarah Palin slams for the simple reason that I hope that if we all stop paying attention to her, she’ll simply go away. That always works right?

So, I need to say my goodbye to Sarah, and even if she continues this asinine crusade against Michelle Obama’s healthy kids campaign, and even if she continues to fly around on extravagant hunting trips and then claim that she’s shooting moose to feed her family, and even if she hauls other equally repugnant pseudo-celebrities on her show that rival Kate Goslin, I will simply look away, stick my fingers in my ears and pretend I don’t see.

That’ll work right? Right.

2. I Resolve To Stop Hurling Objects At The Husband When Startled

You know how some people have really sensitive gag reflexes and whenever they brush their teeth, they gag themselves? Well, I have an oversensitive Fight or Flight Reflex, except it’s mostly set on Flight with a little bit of completely useless spontaneous Fight mixed in. I’m jumpy. This morning, The Husband came around the corner into the bathroom and he was greeted with a scream and a tube of toothpaste flying at his head while I ducked around and tried to hide in the shower. All this took place in an approximately fifteen second span, just time enough for him to not duck, me to slip and bash my head into the closed shower door and to send the cats fleeing in terror.

Now imagine it wasn't the ghosts from the graveyard under your house and it was just your innocent spouse....

What was The Husband doing, you may ask, to deserve such a response? Nothing. He was just walking into a room in our house. That’s all. It’s not the first time it’s happened. Sometimes I get startled in the night and my first impulse in my sleep-riddled brain is to start smacking The Husband’s sleeping form until he wakes up. Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be – he’s a very sound sleeper and it takes quite a few smacks to get him awake, by which time I’ve usually forgotten why I needed him awake in the first place.

But no more, I’m going to stop taking my ridiculously sensitive scare reaction out on The Husband. He never tries to scare me on purpose; in fact, he goes way out of his way to not scare me. Usually, it’s far from The Husband’s fault.

A few years ago we had a bedroom window that opened up into a planter in a breezeway of an apartment complex. Our lazy neighbors didn’t take their dog to the dog run area to relieve himself, they, instead, let him jump in the planter and do his business directly outside our bedroom window. Obnoxious, but not scary.

One particular night, I was awakened by what I know now to be the smacking of a dog’s tail on our window. Except that in my sleep-riddled brain, it wasn’t a dog tail, it was a serial killer and it was all somehow, The Husband’s fault. I woke The Husband up with an ear piercing horror movie scream and a lot of well-aimed whacks. On the upside, our neighbor’s never let their dog in the planter again and they also never made eye contact with me ever again…The Husband recovered as soon as he figured out what the bejessus was going on.

No. It wasn't even Cujo at the window. I always thought he looked like he was waiting for a treat in this picture....not nearly threatening enough.

3. I Resolve To Stop Trying To Fix Household Appliances By Yelling and/or Pleading.

As some of you may know, because I’ve been whining about it on pretty much every venue I can find, our heat has been on the fritz. It’s supposedly fixed now, although it still feels pretty freakin’ cold to me.

I attempted to fix our heater the other night myself using the foolproof method of begging and hitting. I asked it nicely, then when it still didn’t click on, I begged, then I smacked it. It didn’t work.

I would normally not worry about my behavior, but later on that evening, I found my two-year old, Mr. Adorablepants sitting by the heater, apologizing to it for my actions….at least that’s what I think he was saying….

I also yelled at the coffeemaker this morning for tipping it’s filter off to the side and creating a coffee ground volcano that spewed lava-hot coffee guts and hot water all over the counter and floor. Oddly enough, my yelling didn’t work. It’s almost like they’re inanimate objects that don’t respond to threats.

Huh.

So there you go. Three, realistic, and well-needed resolutions. While Sarah Palin won’t care much, The Husband and the heater will be grateful.