To Know the Truth

Part I: Joggers
On my drive home this afternoon I passed an oncoming jogger, a well-built middle-aged man with a look of determination on his face. He was moving pretty fast, and I had to wonder if he was enjoying himself, and what he would be doing in, say, two hours. How do vigorous runners spend their after-run, unwound evenings? Lounging with a glass of wine? Watching TV and eating Chinese takeout? Teleconferencing with international business associates?

I don’t know this simply because I am a morning jogger who lacks vigor. I get up at 5:24 most weekday mornings, roll onto the living room floor for push ups and crunches, and slog off down the street for an approximately two-mile face-off with my cush-job destiny of finding fitness (and waking up) by most unnatural means. Jogging is more a matter of winding up, for me, than unwinding.

I’m not the only one like me. Usually at about the same spot each day I meet another young man out for a morning fix. We greet each other and then melt away into the darkness of either direction, and sometimes I wonder if he, too, is exercising before his day begins, or if he is letting off steam from a night shift.

Part II: Beer
Jogging isn’t the only thing that doesn’t float my boat. A coworker who seems to believe himself to be a skilled dresser and all-around flashy guy has quite a few times suggested I join him and other teachers on Fridays after school at the local microbrewery. Last week I had a good excuse not to drink up: M&N&I were to leave right from school to go to my parents’ for an artful weekend with the family. This week, too, I have the happy excuse of already having socializing plans on Friday.

Good excuses won’t always be so handy, however, and so I may just have to tell the coworker, “Thanks for the invitation, but I have found that the best way for me to unwind is to go home and spend some quality time with my dear wife and little daughter.”

Part III: NCLB
If No Child Left Behind remains in effect as is, by 2013 every single student in my school district will be required to pass every last one of our state’s standardized tests in order for the district to continue to receive federal funds.

“Every last student?” one teacher asked at a recent meeting. “You mean that by 2013 they think we’ll be that good at teaching?”

Another teacher piped up, “They’re doing this with the police, too, right? So that by 2013 there will be no more crime?”

It might mean that there would be no more NCLB, if that were the case. After all, NCLB cultivates racial profiling, a big no-no when it comes to police activity. For example, the Hispanic population at my school has risen high enough potentially to count as a NCLB subgroup. Last year, if they had been a subgroup, our Hispanics’ low reading test scores would have cost the school its successful go at “adequate yearly progress.” As a result, this year all Hispanic students (except for those with a history of good testing–i.e. proven innocent) are being removed from elective classes and placed into a remediation setting in order to raise their test scores.

In response to my colleagues’ and my misgivings about NCLB at the recent meeting, my assistant principal assured us that “tweaking for success” is indeed taking place. Certain subgroups have been granted 15-point curves, for example, a trick I was reminded of during an NPR report about teamwork-building executives trying to get a horse to jump over a high bar. A creative solution? Just lower the bar.

Of course, no politician will ever profess wanting to leave behind children. But maybe they could get away with encouraging children to succeed in a variety of ways other than meaningless testing.

Part IV: Republican Ticket Implosion
If Republicans rely on a conservative Christian base, Palin’s veepship is a death wish.

At my parents’ church on Sunday, for the final song, the aging lady leader directed the men to sing the leader part and everyone else to join in on the rest, since, as she said, “men are to be leaders.” (This was in no way relevant to anything else that took place during the service.) She kept mum but raised her arms to conduct as we men lustily sang the leader part. Hmmm.

Men are to be leaders? Then no female veep for me, please! Assuming that the conservative ranks actually believe what they believe–although the song leader’s actions suggest they don’t–a vaginally-blessed candidate simply doesn’t stand a chance.

NPR sure is wishing political death on the McCain-Palin ticket, though, even if conservatives are in love with the NRA pro-lifer. Two weeks ago, immediately after NPR’s coverage of newly-chosen Palin’s denial that polar bears should not be on the endangered species list because they’re not in trouble and oil companies need to drill in their space, there followed–you guessed it–a report detailing the polar bears’ horrid plight. Yesterday afternoon, NPR touted coverage of a McCain-Palin shindig, the Obama-Biden campaign, and–woohoo!–Hillary Clinton’s work to garner womanly favor for the Democrats.

None too subtle, eh?

Part V: Snapshots
I was formally observed last Friday by my assistant principal. In today’s post-observation conference, my impressions of the class period were confirmed: it went well.

It wasn’t my doing, though. My students really took the cake. See, after I had required all of them to come up to the board and contribute to the whole class from their individual homework, about one third of the class begged to share more. Okay then.

And a bit later in class, when I was explaining to students what I wanted to see in the essays they were about to write, one student piped up, “It looks like you’re wanting us to use a lot of snapshots.”

“Snapshots?” I’d never heard of them before.

Another student chimed in, “Yeah, that’s when you write things so that the reader can see what you’re writing about in their heads.”

“Does everyone here know what a snapshot is?” I asked.

Heads nodded, and someone else said, “You use, like, details and stuff. Like what you see and hear.”

“Very good,” I said. “Yes, I want you to use lots of snapshots.”

Whew!

Part VI: Spanish Fluency
M has often discounted her Spanish fluency. If people ask her, “Are you fluent in Spanish?” she will humph and err and humph again and maybe get around to saying something like, “I’m okay.”

Well, today she settled the matter once and for all. In court.

Last week she received a subpoena to testify on behalf of her former employer in a truancy case, since a year ago she had acted as interpreter in a conference involving the mother of a truant student, and so this afternoon she puttered up the highway to take the stand. Once there, she was asked under oath if she is a fluent Spanish speaker.

And she said yes.