Another wagon joins the circle.
Couldn't resist.
This is so much fun to watch. Not the hapless homeowner, but the spin of the TU, Madeo, and his BFFs.
jt: I agree with you 100%.
JES: I resent the generalization that those who disagree are writing under cowardly aliases and that those of us who question the TU's role are stupid. Why was Madeo's kid outed in the TU? Why was this front page news? Who is the "Delmar tipster?" I'll bet it is Madeo. Why did he lawyer up anyway? His kid has not been charged, isn't the district attorney's office enough? Seems to me the TU had a major role in the spin. Shame on Rob Madeo, and shame on you and Kevin Marshall for defending him. Yeah, I get it. He's your friend. Tough. All of you write under the TU masthead and so open yourselves up for scrutiny. You chose to write here. You could have stayed in your own little corner. If you are sure you don’t want to spend your free time writing for this audience then why do it?
More:
JES:
I’m not suggesting that there is some sort of concerted effort of TU bloggers to have a conspiracy. However, I think it is silly to just blow off this discussion entirely. There are several things that disturb me about the TU’s, and various “volunteer” bloggers, spin.
-commenters are chastized for things Madeo is proud of in his online persona (anonymous posting, personal attacks)
-sweeping generalizations and lumping together dissenters, anonymous commenters and the truly abusive
-lack of reflection on Times Union role (this is not only true for this story, but often in the TU, and I see nothing but denial and justification whenever the editor addresses it)
-lack of real reflection on motivation for posting (research demontrates that we are more likely to stereotype people unlike us, people we do not know, versus cut slack for those that are like us, and that we know)
1) “Re: The cowardice of anonymous comments: I stand by that. Whatever I say in public, I say under my own name, so I have to take ownership of it…But most of the comments that I read that made my soul hurt were anonymous ones . . . from people who would never speak that way if they were forced to use their real names.”
Actually I agree with you on many of the anonymous comments on TU blogs generally, not just in this viral story. Look at comments on just a couple, the Animal Rights blog or the Tea Party blog, for instance. I imagine there are some that are even worse that do not make it through the moderator’s filter.
However, the reactions of you, Kevin Marshall, and Michael Huber in making generalizations about aliases in an effort to demonize the other side is unfair. Not all dissenters are anonymous, and not all the anonymous vitriol is directed toward Madeo. It also seems disengenuous – if you are so dismayed by the vitriol (who isn’t?), the huge interest in the incident and the dissent from the presented narrative, why was the story on the front page of the print edition for three days, highlighted on the website for days (still is), and the subject of today’s editorial? Why so much posting on it from the bloggers?
2) “Re: Me being protective of Rob Madeo because he’s my friend: I think the total time that we’ve spent speaking to each other in the “real world” runs to about, maybe, 10 minutes…Plus, whatever I felt I need to say to or about Rob, I would say to him directly, in private. Our whole lives don’t have to be lived online, folks…”
Frankly, I don’t care whether you are friends, but I asserted that you were because I could think of no other reason why you would defend him so stridently or be upset by the commentary this has generated. His online persona has not inspired any confidence that he merits loyalty. (You later mentioned that your wife is a lawyer, and that explains it. You are not as repelled as I am by our litigious society. Think it is OK to sue a relative when you hurt yourself at their house, etc.) I guess there must be opportunities to add to that 10 minutes of FTF time between you, since you mention saying something directly to him in private and not living our whole lives online?
3) Re: ggiuliano’s “All of you write under the TU masthead and so open yourselves up for scrutiny.” I do open myself up for scrutiny . . . I live and work in the public domain, both as a paid writer (not for the Times Union), a volunteer blogger, and as an employee at my day job. I work for a nonprofit corporation . . . you can easily go online and find my salary, benefits, all sorts of other stuff. Google my name and you’ll pages and pages and pages of hits about me, because I use my own name online. I don’t really know what additional “scrutiny” you wish me or others to undergo. If I were involved in a controversial community issue, I have no doubt that the TU editorial staff would go after me just as they went after both parties in this case. I hope that never happens…to me OR to you…”
The same is true for me. I am not anonymous online, nor have I ever been. I don’t write things on the internet that I would not say in person. I am not suggesting you should or that I want you to undergo scrutiny. I am saying that you have to be realistic that you will undergo greater scrutiny by writing under the TU’s masthead. That is part of the tradeoff. You must have agreed to blog here for a reason, I assume to get more readers? With readers comes pushback, debate, and opening yourself up to more scrutiny and speculation. This is one reason why some prefer aliases, and even popular bloggers have tried to conceal identity. They want to say things that may have repercussions if they were identified. Rob Madeo tried to do this with Albany Eye. Was he a coward? He wrote a lot of personal attacks about the on air talent of competing networks. Was that unethical? It certainly backfired on him eventually. Why is no commentary offered about that when the viral commenters are ridiculed?
When you were in your own little corner, you could probably write pretty much anything you wanted without worrying about getting a ton of disagreement among commenters. Comments that were rude but would still be acceptable in the TU blog world could be deleted, and the offending commenter would go away and not upset your mom when she read your blog. This is true for me. My identity is not a secret, and I could be scrutinized and called out, but that rarely happens because I am in my own little corner, one step above the paper journal I kept for years before moving to the electronic world.
I am a little uncomfortable with this: If I were involved in a controversial community issue, I have no doubt that the TU editorial staff would go after me just as they went after both parties in this case. I hope that never happens…to me OR to you…”
First, because I am still wondering if the TU unwillingly outed Madeo? Next, because they have not gone after him with nearly the same fervor as the homeowner. And third, certainly I agree that the TU would go after me if I was involved in a controversy. But you wording (all caps OR) makes it sounds like a threat? I assume that wasn’t your intention.
4) Re: ggiuliano’s “If you are sure you don’t want to spend your free time writing for this audience then why do it?” That’s exactly the question that I was asking myself, in public, under my own name, putting it for public scrutiny…”
Well, it is a good question. I can see why this more public forum could be less enjoyable than the little corner. Words have power, and a thick skin is necessary to protect sanity. I’m not sure why you repeat this to me, though. I am not anonymous, nor have I ever been.
I think I touched a nerve (I often do when I jump in, which is why I rarely jump in):
JES: I’m just asking questions and seeing where it takes me. If you don’t like the insinuation, that’s OK. I am not implying it is as orchestrated or top down as you seem to think I do. But I think there are still questions to be asked. I don’t know you (aside from this blog), your wife or your mom. Your mom I mentioned because I would delete insulting comments on my blog that might offend mine. I think that was clear in my next sentence which you didn’t quote. I know the thing about lawyers is touchy, and I apologise for offending you. I added it because you said you hated the phrase “lawyering up” which I used (and I believe it is perfect for this situation). To me it just illustrates a different world view of ethics, morality, law etc. than the one I hold. The example I gave may not capture your feelings at all.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
First wagon in the circle.
Pasting my comment here. Also going to add the plagiarism tag, because I always keep track of things I believe to be influential in producing the ethical erosion I deal with sometimes. [Later: changed to a new tag, ethics]
I am neither an anonymous coward nor a hypocrite. I wonder why you, and your buddy Rob, embrace the son’s version of the story with barely a question while what the homeowner says is “alleged?”
Kids lying is also older than our grandparents and is still fairly common.
1. Ding Dong Ditch is older than your grandparents. It actually dates as far back as the 19th Century and is still fairly common.
How does this matter? It’s an old prank so that makes it charming? Or are you suggesting not having heard of it before makes one ignorant? Kids don’t do it in my village as far as I know, and I didn’t know anyone who did it when I was a kid, either.
2. Madeo is going to punish his son. If you’d read the article, you’d all know that.
I have read every article, before you started wagging your finger, in fact. Frankly, if the TU wanted to out the parent’s identity, and Madeo jumped right in, then why not reveal what that supposed punishment is? I can already hear the cries of MYOB when essentially this story is being milked for all its worth.
It takes a village to raise a child, right? That shouldn’t just mean entitlements. It should also mean that families are accountable to communities, not that you could be sued or arrested for intervening when a kid is misbehaving.
3. This is all still new and raw. We don’t know that these charges are going to be maintained or if/when the Madeos may decide to drop them.
The fact is that they are currently pressing charges. If that’s met with silence it is doubtful they will make the right decision on their own. Perhaps with the community speaking out the Madeos will do the right thing and drop the charges. (They should also make the kid apologise, but I have a feeling that will never happen.)
4. A lot of you are crying “you don’t know what you’d do to protect your children!” while chastising Rob for looking at his bruised and visibly shaken son and deigning to press charges against the man who did it, regardless of the circumstances.
Regardless of the circumstances!! You have to be kidding me. Son was the catalyst, and actions have consequences. He wasn’t hit by a car while riding his bike.
5. I’ll be attacked for saying it (again), but regardless of where it happened, Mr. Van Plew gave chase and was WRONG WRONG WRONG. Not from a moral standpoint, but from a safety one. Under absolutely NO circumstances should you do that, whether the people fleeing were playing ding dong ditch or trying to steal your stereo. That’s not just me saying that, that’s also any police officer. You all cry “you have no idea what they were up to!”, completely disregarding that if this kid did have evil intentions, Mr. Van Slew’s actions would have further put himself and his family in danger. Anybody who knows for certain they would react similarly needs, for their own sake, to re-examine their thought process when it comes to this sort of thing.
Nice of you to throw away the moral angle. Yes, we all know for our own safety we shouldn’t walk alone at night, and we shouldn’t fight with an attacker over our purses. I would not chase someone who was lurking around my house, nor would I hold them for police, but I am a small woman deep in middle age. Wrongdoers depend on good people doing nothing. Where do you draw the line on blaming the victim? If I do walk alone and someone assaults me, is it so much my fault that the attacker should walk?
6. Every single one of you who suggested Rob’s son should have been beaten worse or shot – what the Hell is wrong with you?
No argument there.
7. As someone else pointed out, kids do dumb things. To suggest that parents – whether it be the Madeos or the hosts of the sleepover – maintain constant mental control over all actions their kids take shows a stunning lack of grasp on reality.
I don’t believe parents can do this, and I also know that even good kids do stupid things. But Madeo is responsible for his own actions, and pressing charges is sending the wrong message to his kid.
8. Every single one of you who suggested Rob was a bad father clearly don’t know Rob or his family. More importantly, you should be ashamed of yourself.
You know what? I deal with young people all the time. Most are wonderful, but a handful are unethical and amoral. They would cheat, lie or low level steal if it served their ends. They are used to having their parents intervene and defend every mistake they make. I suspect it is one reason we see so much professional misconduct in the news – everything from Enron to Jayson Blair to Blagojevich. Often I am the first person whose path they cross that does not let them off the hook lightly after catching them. I do blame poor parenting, and frankly, that is more of a stretch than this case because the young people I reference are young adults, not teenagers. I am most sincerely not ashamed of my attitude – I feel I am doing them, and the world, a service by being the wake up call, and holding them accountable.
9. I sincerely regret my initial stance, which was nothing less than a full indictment of Mr. Van Plew’s actions. My reaction was raw and not well thought out, and I need to man up and apologize for it.
Again, no argument.
10. A kid who plays ding dong ditch isn’t a “hoodlum.” Get some perspective.
Maybe not, but based on Madeo’s reaction of placing blame, I am not convinced it is not a pattern, and that his kid isn’t starting down a bad path. Will the next article or blog in the TU go to great lengths to show junior is an honor student, loved by all, and is kind to babies, puppies and kittens?
A later comment: Your defense is evolving to ginning up sympathy for a dad wanting to pursue justice for his poor battered baby.
Since you have admonished us to read the articles, I’m having trouble reconciling this from the 7/22 story “The police report said the Madeo boy suffered a cut on his elbow, bruise over his eye and a bloody lip after being tackled by Van Plew, but the boy refused medical attention” with your statement in the comments above “what’s being reported is that the police reported several lacerations, a bruise above the eye, a swollen lip, and according to their lawyer it’s said he could end up permanently removing teeth.”
Although he refused medical treatment at the scene, his injuries were such that he may lose teeth? And there were multiple lacerations in addition to the cut on his elbow? This is in the police report, or the lawyer asserted it? Where is this being reported?
More:
I actually can understand why you are writing about it, because you quite clearly are friendly with him. And I recall reading a post you made several weeks ago about your desire for fatherhood and fondness for infants. I think that instinct is sparking you to identify with your friend’s situation, and think he is admirably protecting his son.
Babies eventually grow into 14 year olds. They can be a lot more challenging at that age.
DL writes “I don’t see how the TU has any vested interest in him.”
I do. He may not be an employee, but his blog hits, and the traffic generated by this fiasco are revenue generators. Selling newspapers is getting more and more difficult. Plenty of media outlets have folded.
Kevin writes “…it’s people trying to score points on the internet (WHY?) at the expense of Rob and his kid. And I think that’s wrong.”
Just on the internet? The Times Union isn’t capitalizing on the situation? Yesterday’s print story was low on the front page and didn’t include Madeo’s name, but did include this:
Gerstenzang denied that Van Plew threatened the teenager with violence if he tried to escape before police arrived, as the teen allegedly told police in a statement, according to an e-mail from a town insider who calls himself “the Delmar tipster.”
Is the Delmar tipster Madeo?
The story is all “allegedly” about the kid’s behavior, but not the homeowner’s. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Madeo’s son is not the one facing charges. It also included TMI on the homeowner’s life.
Today’s story was on the front page, above the fold! In fact, it was the top story. Madeo is extensively quoted. The last is “…it’s a very sensitive issue that I’d rather not be discussing.” Than why was he discussing it? Why was he identified in the paper at all?
Madeo may deny it, but he is a public figure. The controversies he has generated are bound to spark discussion and criticism. (He may even be enjoying the attention in a conflicted kind of way.) What I think is wrong is that it is being presented as poor him and his kid, boo hoo, it’s all at his expense, you people are mean.
This is exactly why much of the community is outraged. I am tired of the sense of entitlement, ethical relativism, and lawyering up. This is what I see in his behavior and the justifications for it.
I could not care less about scoring points on the internet – I write for myself, have done so for years, and note this incident to keep track of ethical failings in media, politics and elsewhere because it is a particular interest of mine.
Pasting my comment here. Also going to add the plagiarism tag, because I always keep track of things I believe to be influential in producing the ethical erosion I deal with sometimes. [Later: changed to a new tag, ethics]
I am neither an anonymous coward nor a hypocrite. I wonder why you, and your buddy Rob, embrace the son’s version of the story with barely a question while what the homeowner says is “alleged?”
Kids lying is also older than our grandparents and is still fairly common.
1. Ding Dong Ditch is older than your grandparents. It actually dates as far back as the 19th Century and is still fairly common.
How does this matter? It’s an old prank so that makes it charming? Or are you suggesting not having heard of it before makes one ignorant? Kids don’t do it in my village as far as I know, and I didn’t know anyone who did it when I was a kid, either.
2. Madeo is going to punish his son. If you’d read the article, you’d all know that.
I have read every article, before you started wagging your finger, in fact. Frankly, if the TU wanted to out the parent’s identity, and Madeo jumped right in, then why not reveal what that supposed punishment is? I can already hear the cries of MYOB when essentially this story is being milked for all its worth.
It takes a village to raise a child, right? That shouldn’t just mean entitlements. It should also mean that families are accountable to communities, not that you could be sued or arrested for intervening when a kid is misbehaving.
3. This is all still new and raw. We don’t know that these charges are going to be maintained or if/when the Madeos may decide to drop them.
The fact is that they are currently pressing charges. If that’s met with silence it is doubtful they will make the right decision on their own. Perhaps with the community speaking out the Madeos will do the right thing and drop the charges. (They should also make the kid apologise, but I have a feeling that will never happen.)
4. A lot of you are crying “you don’t know what you’d do to protect your children!” while chastising Rob for looking at his bruised and visibly shaken son and deigning to press charges against the man who did it, regardless of the circumstances.
Regardless of the circumstances!! You have to be kidding me. Son was the catalyst, and actions have consequences. He wasn’t hit by a car while riding his bike.
5. I’ll be attacked for saying it (again), but regardless of where it happened, Mr. Van Plew gave chase and was WRONG WRONG WRONG. Not from a moral standpoint, but from a safety one. Under absolutely NO circumstances should you do that, whether the people fleeing were playing ding dong ditch or trying to steal your stereo. That’s not just me saying that, that’s also any police officer. You all cry “you have no idea what they were up to!”, completely disregarding that if this kid did have evil intentions, Mr. Van Slew’s actions would have further put himself and his family in danger. Anybody who knows for certain they would react similarly needs, for their own sake, to re-examine their thought process when it comes to this sort of thing.
Nice of you to throw away the moral angle. Yes, we all know for our own safety we shouldn’t walk alone at night, and we shouldn’t fight with an attacker over our purses. I would not chase someone who was lurking around my house, nor would I hold them for police, but I am a small woman deep in middle age. Wrongdoers depend on good people doing nothing. Where do you draw the line on blaming the victim? If I do walk alone and someone assaults me, is it so much my fault that the attacker should walk?
6. Every single one of you who suggested Rob’s son should have been beaten worse or shot – what the Hell is wrong with you?
No argument there.
7. As someone else pointed out, kids do dumb things. To suggest that parents – whether it be the Madeos or the hosts of the sleepover – maintain constant mental control over all actions their kids take shows a stunning lack of grasp on reality.
I don’t believe parents can do this, and I also know that even good kids do stupid things. But Madeo is responsible for his own actions, and pressing charges is sending the wrong message to his kid.
8. Every single one of you who suggested Rob was a bad father clearly don’t know Rob or his family. More importantly, you should be ashamed of yourself.
You know what? I deal with young people all the time. Most are wonderful, but a handful are unethical and amoral. They would cheat, lie or low level steal if it served their ends. They are used to having their parents intervene and defend every mistake they make. I suspect it is one reason we see so much professional misconduct in the news – everything from Enron to Jayson Blair to Blagojevich. Often I am the first person whose path they cross that does not let them off the hook lightly after catching them. I do blame poor parenting, and frankly, that is more of a stretch than this case because the young people I reference are young adults, not teenagers. I am most sincerely not ashamed of my attitude – I feel I am doing them, and the world, a service by being the wake up call, and holding them accountable.
9. I sincerely regret my initial stance, which was nothing less than a full indictment of Mr. Van Plew’s actions. My reaction was raw and not well thought out, and I need to man up and apologize for it.
Again, no argument.
10. A kid who plays ding dong ditch isn’t a “hoodlum.” Get some perspective.
Maybe not, but based on Madeo’s reaction of placing blame, I am not convinced it is not a pattern, and that his kid isn’t starting down a bad path. Will the next article or blog in the TU go to great lengths to show junior is an honor student, loved by all, and is kind to babies, puppies and kittens?
A later comment: Your defense is evolving to ginning up sympathy for a dad wanting to pursue justice for his poor battered baby.
Since you have admonished us to read the articles, I’m having trouble reconciling this from the 7/22 story “The police report said the Madeo boy suffered a cut on his elbow, bruise over his eye and a bloody lip after being tackled by Van Plew, but the boy refused medical attention” with your statement in the comments above “what’s being reported is that the police reported several lacerations, a bruise above the eye, a swollen lip, and according to their lawyer it’s said he could end up permanently removing teeth.”
Although he refused medical treatment at the scene, his injuries were such that he may lose teeth? And there were multiple lacerations in addition to the cut on his elbow? This is in the police report, or the lawyer asserted it? Where is this being reported?
More:
I actually can understand why you are writing about it, because you quite clearly are friendly with him. And I recall reading a post you made several weeks ago about your desire for fatherhood and fondness for infants. I think that instinct is sparking you to identify with your friend’s situation, and think he is admirably protecting his son.
Babies eventually grow into 14 year olds. They can be a lot more challenging at that age.
DL writes “I don’t see how the TU has any vested interest in him.”
I do. He may not be an employee, but his blog hits, and the traffic generated by this fiasco are revenue generators. Selling newspapers is getting more and more difficult. Plenty of media outlets have folded.
Kevin writes “…it’s people trying to score points on the internet (WHY?) at the expense of Rob and his kid. And I think that’s wrong.”
Just on the internet? The Times Union isn’t capitalizing on the situation? Yesterday’s print story was low on the front page and didn’t include Madeo’s name, but did include this:
Gerstenzang denied that Van Plew threatened the teenager with violence if he tried to escape before police arrived, as the teen allegedly told police in a statement, according to an e-mail from a town insider who calls himself “the Delmar tipster.”
Is the Delmar tipster Madeo?
The story is all “allegedly” about the kid’s behavior, but not the homeowner’s. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Madeo’s son is not the one facing charges. It also included TMI on the homeowner’s life.
Today’s story was on the front page, above the fold! In fact, it was the top story. Madeo is extensively quoted. The last is “…it’s a very sensitive issue that I’d rather not be discussing.” Than why was he discussing it? Why was he identified in the paper at all?
Madeo may deny it, but he is a public figure. The controversies he has generated are bound to spark discussion and criticism. (He may even be enjoying the attention in a conflicted kind of way.) What I think is wrong is that it is being presented as poor him and his kid, boo hoo, it’s all at his expense, you people are mean.
This is exactly why much of the community is outraged. I am tired of the sense of entitlement, ethical relativism, and lawyering up. This is what I see in his behavior and the justifications for it.
I could not care less about scoring points on the internet – I write for myself, have done so for years, and note this incident to keep track of ethical failings in media, politics and elsewhere because it is a particular interest of mine.
More on this story. I wrote the following comment, but since what I wrote yesterday mysteriously didn't appear on the Bethlehem blog, I guess my instinct to post it here was correct. So here's my take today:
Careful, Teri — better get the disclaimers ready because the TU blogger “community” is already circling the wagons. It must be so hard for the clique to resist posting on this controversy — all those seductive hits and comments! But dissenting from the company line is not allowed. When censoring the commentary isn’t sufficient to extinguish debate (as is happening at the Bethlehem blog), then the next step is dismissing it with remarks such as “But not under any circumstances am I going to allow anybody to cheer on the actions Van Plew took, regardless of his intent.”
The mention of intent is ironic, given this from Madeo’s Albany Eye FAQ: The Question: You worked at one TV station and made fun of other TV stations. Wasn’t that unethical?
His response: That’s a question worthy of a master’s thesis, not a web FAQ. I don’t think you can judge ethics without examining intent —and take my word for it, I did not use the blog as a tool to drive up ratings.
I don’t need to write a master’s thesis to know that his ethics are clearly questionable, as demonstrated by his online persona, both at the TU and in the Albany Eye days, the Trey Anastasio fiasco, and his pressing charges in defense of his troublemaker son for an incident that should be handled between neighbors.
The Times Union’s reporting also raises red flags about “intent.” Why did they report so extensively on the homeowner’s background and neighborhood in the original story? And why did they later out the kid as Madeo’s son, so that his identity is now known? To generate traffic?
BTW, I too have never heard of “ding, dong, ditch.” It would upset me if punks were doing it my neighborhood (luckily better families live in my more humble neck of the woods I guess). Yes, many teenagers pull pranks and use profanity, and much of the time it doesn’t make the paper. Some also shoplift, drink, do drugs, destroy public property, do acts of vandalism, drink and drive, speed and text while driving, and take other foolish risks. They have to learn that there are consequences for their behavior, and this is a teaching moment opportunity. It is a warning sign — a chance to nip it in the bud before the kid’s behaviors escalate into a tragedy. Too bad the Madeos are choosing to convey the wrong lesson.
A later comment:
I think this is a productive suggestion. I do believe that farmwork is a good experience for kids. It has been a big part of life in my extended family, and having real “chores” builds character. This will only work with a dear friend or family member, though. I doubt farmers have time for a stranger’s or acquaintance’s kid with and attitude.
Last month I was picking strawberries and there was a woman nearby with her teenaged daughter and the daughter’s friend. The friend was not unpleasant, but the woman’s daughter was all about copping an attitude. Complained constantly, sighed that is was boring, said strawberries are bigger, better and cheaper in Price Chopper so why bother. Mom’s goal was only three quarts, with each picking one, but eventually the woman gave in after quickly picking a scant quart and promising to make waffles for the daughter.
Although I like the idea of community service, I am not certain of its usefulness as punishment. The stigma may turn people off instead of inspiring them to be lifelong volunteers and better people in the long run. But I am not completely opposed to the idea.
Some ideas for what works:
1) Modeling good behavior yourself.
2) Learning when to say No and sticking to it.
3) Television, game systems, computers, smartphones: beware. I like technology and have mixed feelings about these things, but taking them away for a time, and making the privilege be earned, can be effective. I also believe that television should be very limited for older kids as a general rule, and entirely absent in infancy/early childhood.
4) Being proactive about who are your children’s friends. Also being cognizant of when it is your kid who is the bad influence, instead of always blaming others.
5) Having something to do. It doesn’t have to be a myriad of activities, although activities can be positive, it can also be a job, but it doesn’t have to be that either. Responsibility at home works, caring for pets, the garden, washing dishes, mowing the lawn, doing laundry, otherwise helping out – cheerfully.
Careful, Teri — better get the disclaimers ready because the TU blogger “community” is already circling the wagons. It must be so hard for the clique to resist posting on this controversy — all those seductive hits and comments! But dissenting from the company line is not allowed. When censoring the commentary isn’t sufficient to extinguish debate (as is happening at the Bethlehem blog), then the next step is dismissing it with remarks such as “But not under any circumstances am I going to allow anybody to cheer on the actions Van Plew took, regardless of his intent.”
The mention of intent is ironic, given this from Madeo’s Albany Eye FAQ: The Question: You worked at one TV station and made fun of other TV stations. Wasn’t that unethical?
His response: That’s a question worthy of a master’s thesis, not a web FAQ. I don’t think you can judge ethics without examining intent —and take my word for it, I did not use the blog as a tool to drive up ratings.
I don’t need to write a master’s thesis to know that his ethics are clearly questionable, as demonstrated by his online persona, both at the TU and in the Albany Eye days, the Trey Anastasio fiasco, and his pressing charges in defense of his troublemaker son for an incident that should be handled between neighbors.
The Times Union’s reporting also raises red flags about “intent.” Why did they report so extensively on the homeowner’s background and neighborhood in the original story? And why did they later out the kid as Madeo’s son, so that his identity is now known? To generate traffic?
BTW, I too have never heard of “ding, dong, ditch.” It would upset me if punks were doing it my neighborhood (luckily better families live in my more humble neck of the woods I guess). Yes, many teenagers pull pranks and use profanity, and much of the time it doesn’t make the paper. Some also shoplift, drink, do drugs, destroy public property, do acts of vandalism, drink and drive, speed and text while driving, and take other foolish risks. They have to learn that there are consequences for their behavior, and this is a teaching moment opportunity. It is a warning sign — a chance to nip it in the bud before the kid’s behaviors escalate into a tragedy. Too bad the Madeos are choosing to convey the wrong lesson.
A later comment:
I think this is a productive suggestion. I do believe that farmwork is a good experience for kids. It has been a big part of life in my extended family, and having real “chores” builds character. This will only work with a dear friend or family member, though. I doubt farmers have time for a stranger’s or acquaintance’s kid with and attitude.
Last month I was picking strawberries and there was a woman nearby with her teenaged daughter and the daughter’s friend. The friend was not unpleasant, but the woman’s daughter was all about copping an attitude. Complained constantly, sighed that is was boring, said strawberries are bigger, better and cheaper in Price Chopper so why bother. Mom’s goal was only three quarts, with each picking one, but eventually the woman gave in after quickly picking a scant quart and promising to make waffles for the daughter.
Although I like the idea of community service, I am not certain of its usefulness as punishment. The stigma may turn people off instead of inspiring them to be lifelong volunteers and better people in the long run. But I am not completely opposed to the idea.
Some ideas for what works:
1) Modeling good behavior yourself.
2) Learning when to say No and sticking to it.
3) Television, game systems, computers, smartphones: beware. I like technology and have mixed feelings about these things, but taking them away for a time, and making the privilege be earned, can be effective. I also believe that television should be very limited for older kids as a general rule, and entirely absent in infancy/early childhood.
4) Being proactive about who are your children’s friends. Also being cognizant of when it is your kid who is the bad influence, instead of always blaming others.
5) Having something to do. It doesn’t have to be a myriad of activities, although activities can be positive, it can also be a job, but it doesn’t have to be that either. Responsibility at home works, caring for pets, the garden, washing dishes, mowing the lawn, doing laundry, otherwise helping out – cheerfully.
A 'ding dong ditch' clickfest -- Page 1 -- Times Union - Albany NY
I sometimes read the father's blog at the Times Union, and read the old Albany Eye years ago. I posted the following comment at the linked blog, but I decided to repost it here.
"We feel he’s being disciplined in an appropriate manner,” Madeo said. What did he do, wipe his son’s tears away, hand him a new ipod and say don’t worry, we’ll get even with that creep who dared to try to hold you accountable? Big surprise, Rob Madeo has no moral compass. His offensive July 20 blog post “The Glenmont Cat Wranger Rides Again” is his idea of funny. The July 19 post “How To Get Fired from TV News Without Really Trying” completely skips the irony – he practically got fired, and had to shut down the Albany Eye blog for stealing the scoop from his employer. His idea of funny at that time was making nasty comments anonymously about the appearance of women who were on air at competing networks, or tossing flip comments about horsemeat as a delicacy. No doubt he is raising a menace. What a loser.
I sometimes read the father's blog at the Times Union, and read the old Albany Eye years ago. I posted the following comment at the linked blog, but I decided to repost it here.
"We feel he’s being disciplined in an appropriate manner,” Madeo said. What did he do, wipe his son’s tears away, hand him a new ipod and say don’t worry, we’ll get even with that creep who dared to try to hold you accountable? Big surprise, Rob Madeo has no moral compass. His offensive July 20 blog post “The Glenmont Cat Wranger Rides Again” is his idea of funny. The July 19 post “How To Get Fired from TV News Without Really Trying” completely skips the irony – he practically got fired, and had to shut down the Albany Eye blog for stealing the scoop from his employer. His idea of funny at that time was making nasty comments anonymously about the appearance of women who were on air at competing networks, or tossing flip comments about horsemeat as a delicacy. No doubt he is raising a menace. What a loser.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
I've started some long-term consulting work, and so I'm busy, busy, busy at the moment. It's good stuff professionally, and personally, it is taking my mind off the loss of Ande somewhat.
We spent the weekend in Samsonville, and did a lot of swimming!
The thought of getting another cat has entered my mind. At this point I know I will, but the question is when. I've never waited very long after one of my dogs has died (the longest was 6 weeks or so, the shortest was one week). I didn't get another cat after Edna died, although I seriously considered it and did some looking. But Bob's recurrence was detected less than 2 weeks after Edna died, and I decided it would be better to wait until he recovered. Getting to the vet etc. was just too difficult while he was convalescing. Little did I know that by the time he was feeling almost 100% better, I would also have lost Ande.
We spent the weekend in Samsonville, and did a lot of swimming!
The thought of getting another cat has entered my mind. At this point I know I will, but the question is when. I've never waited very long after one of my dogs has died (the longest was 6 weeks or so, the shortest was one week). I didn't get another cat after Edna died, although I seriously considered it and did some looking. But Bob's recurrence was detected less than 2 weeks after Edna died, and I decided it would be better to wait until he recovered. Getting to the vet etc. was just too difficult while he was convalescing. Little did I know that by the time he was feeling almost 100% better, I would also have lost Ande.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
I thought it might help to focus a bit on happy, rather than sad, memories. Although his life was far too short - but that's always true, I guess - in his time with us Ande made a big impression on everyone.
He was so cute! His tiny size contributed to that, as did his friendliness. From Edna he learned to slide his front paws down before jumping off a cabinet - this was a trait she developed as an older cat, and even though he could have easily jumped to the floor without this caution, he copied her behavior. Despite this, he did like to jump up on high perches, and would often go up on cabinets, especially in Samsonville.
As a kitten, while we were introducing him to Sam, Sophie and Edna, we kept him in the bedroom sometimes, and I remember we could hear him playing with various toys - batting around a ball with a bell. He wasn't all that playful otherwise, but he would often play with Sam, or bat small objects from the table to the floor. He liked to tip over our full water glasses! And to follow me in the bathroom, where he insisted on sitting on my lap. I could flip him upside down and he let me cut his nails. When a window was open, he would sit on the windowsill and watch the birds and squirrels.
I wanted him to be an indoor cat, but felt bad that he couldn't go with Edna and the dogs when they went outside, so I would put on his collar and a leash, and bring him out with me. He was very docile, and that much exposure made him happy - in fact he loved to go, would calmly lay in a lawn chair while I watered the plants or weed whacked the yard.
He liked to perch on our portable dishwasher, which is on a table near the window, and while up there, he would bat the small Woodstock chimes that are hanging above it. I don't think I will ever be able to hear the tinkle of those bells without thinking of him.
He wasn't a big eater, but he loved Greenies and salmon flavored Natural Temptations. He also liked to drink the water from canned tuna, salmon, chicken or turkey. He was very vocal, communicated with loud meows. Sam was his buddy, more than Edna or Sophie.
He wasn't a hunter, but I think he did get one mouse when he was young.
Some of these cute things may have been indicators of his health condition, I guess - his calmess, his tiny size. (And of course, his poor appetite.) Sniff.
Sometimes I called him "Ando," but our favorite nickname for him was "Little" and he may have thought that was his name. Ande is Edna backwards, and today I am thinking without an Edna maybe there couldn't be an Ande?
He was so cute! His tiny size contributed to that, as did his friendliness. From Edna he learned to slide his front paws down before jumping off a cabinet - this was a trait she developed as an older cat, and even though he could have easily jumped to the floor without this caution, he copied her behavior. Despite this, he did like to jump up on high perches, and would often go up on cabinets, especially in Samsonville.
As a kitten, while we were introducing him to Sam, Sophie and Edna, we kept him in the bedroom sometimes, and I remember we could hear him playing with various toys - batting around a ball with a bell. He wasn't all that playful otherwise, but he would often play with Sam, or bat small objects from the table to the floor. He liked to tip over our full water glasses! And to follow me in the bathroom, where he insisted on sitting on my lap. I could flip him upside down and he let me cut his nails. When a window was open, he would sit on the windowsill and watch the birds and squirrels.
I wanted him to be an indoor cat, but felt bad that he couldn't go with Edna and the dogs when they went outside, so I would put on his collar and a leash, and bring him out with me. He was very docile, and that much exposure made him happy - in fact he loved to go, would calmly lay in a lawn chair while I watered the plants or weed whacked the yard.
He liked to perch on our portable dishwasher, which is on a table near the window, and while up there, he would bat the small Woodstock chimes that are hanging above it. I don't think I will ever be able to hear the tinkle of those bells without thinking of him.
He wasn't a big eater, but he loved Greenies and salmon flavored Natural Temptations. He also liked to drink the water from canned tuna, salmon, chicken or turkey. He was very vocal, communicated with loud meows. Sam was his buddy, more than Edna or Sophie.
He wasn't a hunter, but I think he did get one mouse when he was young.
Some of these cute things may have been indicators of his health condition, I guess - his calmess, his tiny size. (And of course, his poor appetite.) Sniff.
Sometimes I called him "Ando," but our favorite nickname for him was "Little" and he may have thought that was his name. Ande is Edna backwards, and today I am thinking without an Edna maybe there couldn't be an Ande?
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Trying to articulate some of the ways I feel.
When I was 12, I got a baby goat for my sixth grade graduation present. My mother asked me if I wanted a ten speed bike or a goat, and naturally I chose the goat. I am not sure of the date I got her, but I know it was in the Spring when she was several weeks old. I named her Heidi, and she was a cross between a Nubian and a Toggenburg. We didn’t have a fenced area near the barn for her, she was extremely mischievous, and when she was loose, she would attack the bushes near the house. She could devour an entire large shrub in minutes. So when I couldn’t closely watch her but didn’t want to lock her in her stall, I would tie her in the yard.
One day in August, I had her tied so I could swim with my friend in our pool. During that time, she managed to stretch her collar and the rope so that she could reach some brush at the edge of the yard and the woods. A small branch slipped through her collar. She was very smart, could untangle herself. So she tried to get loose by going ‘round and ‘round. Her collar became a tourniquet, and she strangled. She was still warm when I found her minutes later. I will never forget the sight, or the horror I felt. I yelled for my mother. We rubbed and rubbed her, trying to revive her, but it was too late, she was gone. I was devastated.
One result of that trauma is that since then, I have never felt comfortable with leaving a collar on an animal. I much prefer harnesses for walking, and I never tie my dogs. I take their collars off whenever they are inside, and they don’t wear them at all in the yard (which is fenced). I always took Ande’s collar off, too. He wasn’t free-roaming, and he was always closely supervised when outside. Edna didn’t wear a collar at any time. (I know their collar-less states create risk of them being lost without ID tags, but I am just as neurotic about being sure the animals don’t get lost.) The other outcome of that horrible experience was that at the time, and for 36 years, I blamed myself. I still do today.
My mother said it wasn’t my fault. Whether she said this because she believed it to be an unpreventable accident, or because I was a child and couldn’t be blamed for that reason alone, I am not sure. But I didn’t agree, and still don’t. It most definitely was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention, and I didn’t properly assess the risk.
I’m not saying that it was intentional, or even that I could have been expected to know it could happen. I’m also not arguing that there is a need to place blame for accidents, or for when someone dies.
But I do believe in learning life’s lessons, taking responsibility, and being careful to not repeat mistakes.
I am (not clinically, but self-diagnosed) to some degree OCD. I have to check certain things, and there are triggers: in particular, fire risk or the animals. I lock the doors more to be sure someone doesn’t open one and inadvertently let the dogs out, rather than because I am afraid of burglary. So I have to make extra sure that the door is locked when I leave. I always unplug certain appliances, am sure the oven and stove top are off, and close all windows when there is a thunderstorm. I don’t let my dogs stick their heads out of the car window both to protect their ears, and to be sure they don’t jump or fall out. (They never would, as they take on the beliefs of their owner eventually, and so they always bark at all dogs they see who have their heads out of the car windows – warning them of the dangers, perhaps? This has been true for all of my dogs.)
I worried over every minor health problem that my first dog Howie had, or any tiny change in his behavior. He seemed sickly, always had skin and digestive issues. But he lived to the age of 15 ½ with few major sicknesses and little need for veterinary intervention. The same is true for Sophie, although she has had more illnesses than he had, and as a result has needed more trips to the vet over the years. But despite her various issues, she’s never been seriously ill. She is now 11 ½, which is quite old for a Bassett Hound. Doesn’t matter, though. I worry still.
Howie's start in life was a good one, though. You could tell his mother had a fabulous home. Sophie's is unknown, but I assume she is the product of a puppy mill.
I never worried about Penny. She ties with Edna as the easiest pet I’ve owned. Never sick, no issues, behavioral or otherwise, no need for constant fussing. Both proved there was no reason for concern – Penny lived to be 16 ½, and I had Edna for over 16 years. (I don’t know her age, but she was an adult when I found her.) Penny had been born in a home, although the family clearly didn’t have a lot of money, and were sort of running a backyard breeding operation. But she had no papers, so they weren’t really cashing in. And they did seem to adore her mother, and even cried when I took Penny home. Edna was a stray, so who knows what her life was like before. But she was a Main Coon Cat, and Penny was a Poodle, so maybe the breed had something to do with their robustness.
Similarly, I didn’t worry over Rudy. He, of all my pets, was the picture of health. Shiny, handsome on the inside and out. High energy, and blessed with a winning personality. I was so proud of him. Then he got Lyme Disease at age 7. I am not sure if that was the cause (maybe), or if it was his beginnings – born at the shelter to a stray mother. But he got cancer when he was 9 years old, and died a week after his 10th birthday.
I am not sure why I didn’t worry over Ande. Certainly the pillow paw should have always been in the back of my mind. Although I didn’t make the connection, his eating habits (not good), small size, and docile temperament should have been red flags. And his beginnings were even worse than Rudy’s – Ande was born in a feral cat colony. So why didn’t I worry more?
I don’t worry much over Sam either. So far he seems very healthy. I got him at the shelter, but he was owner-surrendered. I assume his mother was not a stray.
All of these pets have eaten homemade diets. I was doing it before it was “cool,” when people said you were wrong to not feed commercial food. They all drank spring water. Some have taken supplements. The vaccination / flea control history is different with each pet – in some cases, I followed the vet’s recommendations (which have changed over the years), in others I was more cautious. But generally, I have erred on the side of caution. I can't make any generalizations about whether it has had an impact, though, or if I should have made a different decision.
None of these dogs and cats succumbed to accidents – Heidi’s sad death taught me to be mindful. However, the reason I accept blame for Heidi (I wasn’t paying attention, and I didn’t properly assess the risk) is true for Rudy and Ande, also. Of course they did not die from a sudden accident, but there were occasions, before and during their final illnesses, where I should have been as mindful as I am about making sure stoves are turned off and windows are closed. I ask myself, why didn't I notice? Why didn't I do some things differently?
Leaving out Heidi's very different circumstances, my worry over all of my animals' health has been warranted in two cases where I didn’t worry (so I was wrong), unwarranted in two cases where I did worry (so I was wrong again), and unwarranted in two cases where I didn’t worry (I was right for a change). Sam is still young, so the jury’s out, but my track record says that I am neither a good nor a bad judge of risk.
When I was 12, I got a baby goat for my sixth grade graduation present. My mother asked me if I wanted a ten speed bike or a goat, and naturally I chose the goat. I am not sure of the date I got her, but I know it was in the Spring when she was several weeks old. I named her Heidi, and she was a cross between a Nubian and a Toggenburg. We didn’t have a fenced area near the barn for her, she was extremely mischievous, and when she was loose, she would attack the bushes near the house. She could devour an entire large shrub in minutes. So when I couldn’t closely watch her but didn’t want to lock her in her stall, I would tie her in the yard.
One day in August, I had her tied so I could swim with my friend in our pool. During that time, she managed to stretch her collar and the rope so that she could reach some brush at the edge of the yard and the woods. A small branch slipped through her collar. She was very smart, could untangle herself. So she tried to get loose by going ‘round and ‘round. Her collar became a tourniquet, and she strangled. She was still warm when I found her minutes later. I will never forget the sight, or the horror I felt. I yelled for my mother. We rubbed and rubbed her, trying to revive her, but it was too late, she was gone. I was devastated.
One result of that trauma is that since then, I have never felt comfortable with leaving a collar on an animal. I much prefer harnesses for walking, and I never tie my dogs. I take their collars off whenever they are inside, and they don’t wear them at all in the yard (which is fenced). I always took Ande’s collar off, too. He wasn’t free-roaming, and he was always closely supervised when outside. Edna didn’t wear a collar at any time. (I know their collar-less states create risk of them being lost without ID tags, but I am just as neurotic about being sure the animals don’t get lost.) The other outcome of that horrible experience was that at the time, and for 36 years, I blamed myself. I still do today.
My mother said it wasn’t my fault. Whether she said this because she believed it to be an unpreventable accident, or because I was a child and couldn’t be blamed for that reason alone, I am not sure. But I didn’t agree, and still don’t. It most definitely was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention, and I didn’t properly assess the risk.
I’m not saying that it was intentional, or even that I could have been expected to know it could happen. I’m also not arguing that there is a need to place blame for accidents, or for when someone dies.
But I do believe in learning life’s lessons, taking responsibility, and being careful to not repeat mistakes.
I am (not clinically, but self-diagnosed) to some degree OCD. I have to check certain things, and there are triggers: in particular, fire risk or the animals. I lock the doors more to be sure someone doesn’t open one and inadvertently let the dogs out, rather than because I am afraid of burglary. So I have to make extra sure that the door is locked when I leave. I always unplug certain appliances, am sure the oven and stove top are off, and close all windows when there is a thunderstorm. I don’t let my dogs stick their heads out of the car window both to protect their ears, and to be sure they don’t jump or fall out. (They never would, as they take on the beliefs of their owner eventually, and so they always bark at all dogs they see who have their heads out of the car windows – warning them of the dangers, perhaps? This has been true for all of my dogs.)
I worried over every minor health problem that my first dog Howie had, or any tiny change in his behavior. He seemed sickly, always had skin and digestive issues. But he lived to the age of 15 ½ with few major sicknesses and little need for veterinary intervention. The same is true for Sophie, although she has had more illnesses than he had, and as a result has needed more trips to the vet over the years. But despite her various issues, she’s never been seriously ill. She is now 11 ½, which is quite old for a Bassett Hound. Doesn’t matter, though. I worry still.
Howie's start in life was a good one, though. You could tell his mother had a fabulous home. Sophie's is unknown, but I assume she is the product of a puppy mill.
I never worried about Penny. She ties with Edna as the easiest pet I’ve owned. Never sick, no issues, behavioral or otherwise, no need for constant fussing. Both proved there was no reason for concern – Penny lived to be 16 ½, and I had Edna for over 16 years. (I don’t know her age, but she was an adult when I found her.) Penny had been born in a home, although the family clearly didn’t have a lot of money, and were sort of running a backyard breeding operation. But she had no papers, so they weren’t really cashing in. And they did seem to adore her mother, and even cried when I took Penny home. Edna was a stray, so who knows what her life was like before. But she was a Main Coon Cat, and Penny was a Poodle, so maybe the breed had something to do with their robustness.
Similarly, I didn’t worry over Rudy. He, of all my pets, was the picture of health. Shiny, handsome on the inside and out. High energy, and blessed with a winning personality. I was so proud of him. Then he got Lyme Disease at age 7. I am not sure if that was the cause (maybe), or if it was his beginnings – born at the shelter to a stray mother. But he got cancer when he was 9 years old, and died a week after his 10th birthday.
I am not sure why I didn’t worry over Ande. Certainly the pillow paw should have always been in the back of my mind. Although I didn’t make the connection, his eating habits (not good), small size, and docile temperament should have been red flags. And his beginnings were even worse than Rudy’s – Ande was born in a feral cat colony. So why didn’t I worry more?
I don’t worry much over Sam either. So far he seems very healthy. I got him at the shelter, but he was owner-surrendered. I assume his mother was not a stray.
All of these pets have eaten homemade diets. I was doing it before it was “cool,” when people said you were wrong to not feed commercial food. They all drank spring water. Some have taken supplements. The vaccination / flea control history is different with each pet – in some cases, I followed the vet’s recommendations (which have changed over the years), in others I was more cautious. But generally, I have erred on the side of caution. I can't make any generalizations about whether it has had an impact, though, or if I should have made a different decision.
None of these dogs and cats succumbed to accidents – Heidi’s sad death taught me to be mindful. However, the reason I accept blame for Heidi (I wasn’t paying attention, and I didn’t properly assess the risk) is true for Rudy and Ande, also. Of course they did not die from a sudden accident, but there were occasions, before and during their final illnesses, where I should have been as mindful as I am about making sure stoves are turned off and windows are closed. I ask myself, why didn't I notice? Why didn't I do some things differently?
Leaving out Heidi's very different circumstances, my worry over all of my animals' health has been warranted in two cases where I didn’t worry (so I was wrong), unwarranted in two cases where I did worry (so I was wrong again), and unwarranted in two cases where I didn’t worry (I was right for a change). Sam is still young, so the jury’s out, but my track record says that I am neither a good nor a bad judge of risk.
This picture was taken on June 13. Hard to imagine that one month later he would be dead!
I don't usually do this so fast after a pet dies, but yesterday I packed up his food, dishes, beds, litter box, collar and leash, toys, medication, scratching post. I had to get them out of the living room and kitchen, can't look at them every minute. I am tempted to rip out the catnip I am growing for him, but I have resisted. I am not sure what I will do with these things. The food could be donated to the shelter, but could the other items transmit a disease to a new cat? I am not sure. Maybe I will ask Dr. Tina. The dogs have an appointment on August 2.
Bob picked him up while I was at a meeting. It was very upsetting, much more so than if he had died at home, which would have been my preference if I could have seen into the future. But then I may have felt guilty for not taking heroic measures to save him. I had to look into the bag he was in - Bob didn't want to - but since I didn't get a chance to say goodbye it was important for me to see him again. I wasn't able to curl him into a basket as I would have liked, but I wrapped him in a fleece blanket and put him in a box. I put a package of Natural Temptations in with him. Silly, I know, but it was his favorite food, when he felt like eating. Last evening we drove down to Samsonville. Our nephew and my father had dug a grave for him in the afternoon, right next to Edna. Not that she liked him very much, but he loved her.
Today I feel so sad. Also guilty, like it is my fault and I could have saved him somehow. Or should have worried and fussed over him and appreciated him more for the short time I had with him or something. It isn't rational I guess, everyone notes what a good life he had, that he would not have lived this long as a feral cat, how much love and attention we gave him, but I know it is the natural process of grief. All of that is easy to write and say and hard to believe and feel. It is especially hard because he was three. I was blindsided, when I shouldn't have been. The signs were all there that he was gravely ill, and I pushed it out of my mind. For his whole life I knew he had "pillow paw" which is a sign of a terrible immune disorder, but I was in denial. He seemed healthy, until very recently. Even then I thought he was young and it wasn't serious. That was how I felt until Saturday, when serious worry set in. But it wasn't until early Monday that it hit me: he might die, although even when he was at the vet, I chose to believe that he would bounce back.
For the first time in 17 years, I don't have a cat. He might be my last one, and that is a distressing thought, too.
I have so many things to do, and focusing on them would distract me, but I am too distracted to focus on them...
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
RIP "Little."
Here is a post I wasn't expecting to write today. Our sweet little cat Ande died this morning. I am kind of in shock, although since Saturday I feared that this might be the outcome. We don't know exactly what happened, but he had an immune disorder. We knew from his first vet visit as a kitten. It wasn't FIV or FeLV (he tested negative on two separate occasions). He never grew very much, was very docile (not at all like a very young male cat activity wise) and was not a good eater. He didn't have any bouts of illness before this, but he was sort of sick for the past couple of weeks. He got over the kitty cold part just fine with antibiotics, and we thought he would be OK, but his appetite never recovered. He lost weight and was lethargic and declined very quickly over the past few days. Didn't respond to various treatments (steroids, blood transfusion, hydration, syringe feeding) when he should have. I knew he would never be a long lived cat like Edna was, but I didn't expect him to live for only three years! But I know if I didn't take him home he would not have lived even three years. People who have feral cat colonies are criminals!
Here is a post I wasn't expecting to write today. Our sweet little cat Ande died this morning. I am kind of in shock, although since Saturday I feared that this might be the outcome. We don't know exactly what happened, but he had an immune disorder. We knew from his first vet visit as a kitten. It wasn't FIV or FeLV (he tested negative on two separate occasions). He never grew very much, was very docile (not at all like a very young male cat activity wise) and was not a good eater. He didn't have any bouts of illness before this, but he was sort of sick for the past couple of weeks. He got over the kitty cold part just fine with antibiotics, and we thought he would be OK, but his appetite never recovered. He lost weight and was lethargic and declined very quickly over the past few days. Didn't respond to various treatments (steroids, blood transfusion, hydration, syringe feeding) when he should have. I knew he would never be a long lived cat like Edna was, but I didn't expect him to live for only three years! But I know if I didn't take him home he would not have lived even three years. People who have feral cat colonies are criminals!
Thursday, July 08, 2010
From the Times Union, an all too common story:
A 25-year-old woman has been charged with allegedly abusing two German shepherds, city police said.
Her age is important enough to lead?
Later, in the story:
What? In that case, was it really necessary to put "allegedly" in the lead? And why wasn't this near the beginning of the story?
How does this woman now have two dogs in Troy anyway?
The Troy Record does a better job of highlighting the most important facts in their opener:
A woman already facing dozens of animal cruelty charges elsewhere racked up two more on Wednesday in Troy, where police say she left her two dogs to starve in a fenced-in backyard after she was evicted.
Later, in their story:
Are you kidding me? Starving is not torture? This is an outrage. Thanks to the Record for reporting on it.
A 25-year-old woman has been charged with allegedly abusing two German shepherds, city police said.
Her age is important enough to lead?
Later, in the story:
The detectives determined that Paetow faces 92 count counts connected to animal cruelty or neglect in the Syracuse area and has a history of selling and buying dogs.
What? In that case, was it really necessary to put "allegedly" in the lead? And why wasn't this near the beginning of the story?
How does this woman now have two dogs in Troy anyway?
The Troy Record does a better job of highlighting the most important facts in their opener:
A woman already facing dozens of animal cruelty charges elsewhere racked up two more on Wednesday in Troy, where police say she left her two dogs to starve in a fenced-in backyard after she was evicted.
Later, in their story:
Cpt. John Cooney said Troy detectives discovered that Paetow’s criminal history included some 92 animal cruelty-related counts during their investigation and added that she has a history of buying and selling dogs. Felony charges under what is known as “Buster’s Law” were considered, he said, but dismissed due to issues of intent.
“The law is carefully worded to put the felony-level change more at a torture-type behavior,” he said.
Are you kidding me? Starving is not torture? This is an outrage. Thanks to the Record for reporting on it.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Fourth of July in West Shokan. This flag has 48 stars! It was given to the family of a soldier who was killed in the Bataan Death March. First time it was unfolded was on Sunday.
First weekend in Samsonville since Easter. My brothers and father had opened the pool a few days before, and it was still green-ish, but we decided it didn't matter, and swam anyway. Wonderful! I already have gotten more use out of it than all last summer. It should be all clear by the time we go down there next time.
We traded in our Dodge Ram truck for a Mercury Mariner (same as Ford Escape). It's something we have been considering for a couple of years (sparked by gas prices) but I know it was hard for Bob to give up having a pick-up truck. Still, he can't use one any more, and although I am stronger now, I don't need a truck, although we do need 4WD. The truck was just sitting there in front of the house, he was only driving the car. So we knew after his recovery, we had to make a change.
We got a grate to divide the back for the animals (with the seats down) so that he doesn't have to worry about being stepped on by an excited dog. We were both concerned that they would hate being separated from us, but we put their beds in the back and they love it! What a pleasure. The Mariner is working out great overall, it has running boards which help with my lifting Sophie, and it will be better for hauling bags of dirt etc. for the garden than the car is.
When we got back Monday evening, I tested out my strength, and installed the air conditioner in the kitchen. I've wanted to use that one even when it wasn't 95 degrees, because otherwise using the oven or dryer is impossible. I did it!
Yesterday, we broke down and had our nephew come over and install the (much heavier) ones in the livingroom and bedroom. We didn't need them at all last year, and were hoping to tough it out this summer, too. There is something to be said for getting used to the heat. But this level is just too extreme. The animals were suffering!
And using the office was out of the question, which is a problem when I am in the middle of my summer online class. I do have a laptop, and yesterday I spent the whole day in the kitchen - but there are some tasks that are so much easier on the desktop.
Aside from one basil plant biting the dust (and the damage to the coleus and parsley from a critter), the garden and flowers are doing great!! I was a little worried about not being able to water on Sunday, but the deep watering I did before we left on Saturday lasted until yesterday.
Been struggling with various animal illnesses - but they all seem to be on the path to wellness at this point.
Friday, July 02, 2010
Thursday, July 01, 2010
I participated in the Paws in the Park walk for the Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Society on Saturday. Southpaw, the mascot for the Tri-City Valley Cats was there.
I went to Syracuse (on Amtrak) and Cortland on Monday and Tuesday. I visited my niece and nephew, and then went with a friend to her daughter's freshman orientation. I've visited many SUNY campuses over the years, but never Cortland. It was interesting seeing a campus from the "other side."
You can't really see it here, but behind the house is a large cemetery - an interesting feature of campus.
Wow. What kind of a crappy district would it have to be to hire this dude? It doesn't reflect on his character? HELLO! This is one reason why the teaching of ethics is such a challenge. People shrug their shoulders at truly heinous behavior. No biggie. I don't have a "dog in this hunt" but I have seen him interviewed on the TV news and my impression is that he is a weasel. (Except that is an insult to weasels.) OK, so he is an unethical jerk. All he does in the interviews is take no responsibility and blame others for his own incompetence.
The Raucci disgrace isn't the only issue. The recent trampling of a student's rights when the middle school principal suspended the kid for refusing to wear rosary beads under his shirt is another. (Of course the TU has done its best to give that situation limited coverage, what a surprise.) Anyway, what a no brainer. If anyone involved had a shred of competence or integrity they would know they will lose in court. Instead they flush more money down the toilet and make the district a laughing stock. You can't trample on a student's rights to free exercise, regardless of whether some gang or other has adopted a religious symbol as an identifier (and it is very clear this kid was not in a gang anyway). It isn't the same thing as wearing a tee shirt that says "F You" or something. Incredible overreach by the school administration, and you don't have to be a legal scholar to know that.
So good riddance. Sadly, the board enabled the bad behavior and should be turned over by voters, but since apathy is pretty strong they are probably secure. This is like a case study, makes a great example of board and administrator folly for my foundations class - so thanks for that at least.
The Raucci disgrace isn't the only issue. The recent trampling of a student's rights when the middle school principal suspended the kid for refusing to wear rosary beads under his shirt is another. (Of course the TU has done its best to give that situation limited coverage, what a surprise.) Anyway, what a no brainer. If anyone involved had a shred of competence or integrity they would know they will lose in court. Instead they flush more money down the toilet and make the district a laughing stock. You can't trample on a student's rights to free exercise, regardless of whether some gang or other has adopted a religious symbol as an identifier (and it is very clear this kid was not in a gang anyway). It isn't the same thing as wearing a tee shirt that says "F You" or something. Incredible overreach by the school administration, and you don't have to be a legal scholar to know that.
So good riddance. Sadly, the board enabled the bad behavior and should be turned over by voters, but since apathy is pretty strong they are probably secure. This is like a case study, makes a great example of board and administrator folly for my foundations class - so thanks for that at least.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Seven Teachers (a work in progress)
by Gina Giuliano
Unintended Lesson Imparted
8/14/1998. In high school, we had “selectives” for English. This meant that you had to take ninth grade English, then six semesters of English classes. Those six could be freely chosen among a menu of choices. It was great, and I loved that approach, but it was eventually abandoned for a more structured method. I suppose that was because students were not studying a common core, and so were not doing well enough on the English Regents.
It was at this time that I learned there are a lot of things teachers don’t know. This thought had occurred to me a few times before, once in elementary school when another girl slugged me over a brown crayon, and the next-door classroom teacher (who was watching us because our teacher had to step out - to do what, I now wonder?) sent us both to the principal’s office. It dawned on me again in seventh grade science, when the teacher changed my grade of 100 on a test to a 50, after catching the girl sitting next to me cheating from my paper and accusing us of collaborating. I had to look up that word in the dictionary, in shock as I read it next to the 50 on my paper, written there in red pen.
But those incidents were disciplinary issues, not academic ones. This particular course, my learning experience for what teachers know, was a “harder” selective impressively titled “The Novel.” It included reading Giants of the Earth, My Antonia and The Jungle. An essentialist’s list, perhaps? The teacher was amiable enough, and all of the popular, semi-good-student male jocks were drawn to his class. Had I know this in advance, in spite of the attraction of the course’s focus, I probably would have chosen a different class, for I was one of the great unknown masses in high school, not a bit athletic, and not just a semi-good-student but an honor student. I sat in the second or third seat back, one row from the door, marveling at those boys and imagining how much my best friend and a popular wanna-be would like to trade places with me. If “The Novel” had not involved wading through Willa Cather and Upton Sinclair, that is.
That day we were discussing Giants of the Earth, and the teacher said, during one of his regular volleys with a jock whose usual comments consisted mainly of wisecracks, something about male and female oxen. (My memory tells me that he might have said “oxes,” but that part can’t be true.) I felt as if a spike of electricity ran through me. He wasn’t joking. If he didn’t know that an ox is a castrated bull, maybe he didn’t understand The Jungle, either. My doubts grew exponentially. Maybe he didn’t even know which classic books to assign for this class. And I was certain he didn’t suspect that two-thirds of my classmates were gathering their insights not from actually reading the assigned novels, but from cliff notes.
Of course, later I realized that a college degree in some subject doesn’t mean, and isn’t intended to mean, that the graduate has memorized every tidbit there is to know about the discipline. Just because I can’t remember the date Montana became a state doesn’t mean I’m unworthy of my bachelor’s degree in history. Later I also realized that I’d learned a valuable lesson that day, and it wasn’t about oxen or literature or popular kids and cliff notes.
As a result, I’ve concluded that my teacher was a good guy and not a bad teacher, either. First, now I’m certain that his book list was appropriate, even excellent. But more important, that day I learned to question things which are casually presented as “facts.”
Gym Teacher from H-ll
11/22/02. I noticed on AOL's welcome screen, one of the changing main photos/headlines reads "On This Day in 1963...where were you?" The story is about President Kennedy's assassination. I can't remember where I was, since I was only a little more than two years old at that time. Sometimes we kind of remember things from when we were tiny not from the actual experience, but because someone has told us the story and it becomes familiar. I don't recall my mother or father telling me what I was doing, either.
What is a coincidence is that last night I was thinking of JFK. He was really only the subject of a passing thought, and it wasn't because I remembered the anniversary of his death was today. I had straightened up the porch once again, in an effort to make a renewed commitment to using the treadmill. I started thinking about physical education class, or as we called it, "gym." I hated gym in school. That hatred resulted in a lifelong disdain for most sports, whether as a participant or spectator, live or televised. (I don't like other types of games, either.) I don't read that section of the paper or listen to that part of the news. I'm ignorant on the subject, and I'm fine with that. More troublesome is a distaste for exercise, which I now struggle to overcome. Oh, I don't mind swimming, but I don't want to go to some sort of facility with others to do it. And I like walking, but it has to be productive in some other way than simply improving health. It has to be alternative transportation, in other words. Even the treadmill in the semi-privacy of the front porch is an adversary.
I think given the chance, I might have been an OK athlete; some members of my family have considerable talent, and I respect them for that. My hatred started early, and it isn't one of those memories that someone else told me. I don't think I told my parents about the things that happened in gym, anyway. Those were still the days when school authority was respected. My first grade gym teacher treated me all right. I mean, I wasn't singled out as an athlete or a wimp. Average is often a good place to be. She was extremely mean to some of the boys, though. She even hit a few with a whiffle ball bat, right in front of the class. I don't know if corporal punishment was allowed then, or if she was breaking the rules. I don't remember why she did this, I'm sure they were being brats, but I know it wasn't an isolated instance and it was awful. She only lasted a year.
Because I wasn't the target, though, I think that experience isn't really to blame for my aversion to athletics. It may have set the stage, but it took root during Grades 2 - 6, when I had the same teacher every year. He hated me. Or at least that's what I believed, I doubt he gave our relationship that much energy. But he did single me out for public abuse regularly. Unlike Ms. Whiffle Ball Bat, he never raised a hand to a kid, at least not when I was a witness. He may not have had to resort to such tactics, since he was especially good at verbal humiliation. He seemed to like the competitive, athletically skilled kids, which were many of the boys and some of the girls.
I vaguely remember, the first year in his class, that another girl and I didn't participate very much in whatever game the class was playing. In elementary school, that usually meant dodgeball, or the even more vicious war. I don't know why this happened, if we claimed we didn't feel well, or were tagged out almost immediately by our more aggressive classmates and so sat out much of the game or what. I'm sure I wasn't a really good player. Although I’ve never been overweight and I was then and still am active, I've always been careful and tried to avoid injury, so I wasn't the type to slide into home or jump really high to get the ball. I didn't care that much about winning. So that could be what started it.
Already I had been labeled a loser, which meant never being chosen as team captain by the teacher, and being picked last, or second to last, or on a really good day, third to last for a team, even by kids who acted nice to me at other times. I wasn't exactly a popular kid at any time, but I did have a couple of friends, and as a top performing, quiet and well-behaved student I was generally liked by the teacher. That year my new gym teacher threatened to send us both to the nurse's office for gym class because he insisted there was something wrong with us, and he said he was going to give us the grade "M" for "medical" on our report cards instead of real grades. He never carried through on either, and instead we passed the class. Could they retain a straight A second grader for failing phys ed, I wonder?
When I was older, we occasionally did something other than play dodgeball in the gymnasium. I remember being outside on the athletic field, and when the class was nearly over, the teacher telling us to run as fast as we could back to the school. I think it was getting near to one of the holiday breaks, and he said he was going to give us each a lollipop when we got there. I liked candy as much as any kid (still do), and I tried to run fast. True to his word, he handed lollipops out to all of my classmates. When he got to me, he said I couldn't have one because I ran too slowly. You know, it has been over thirty years, and I still feel the sting as I write that.
Just two years ago, I was at a luncheon meeting of school counselors, and I was seated at a table with a man who was recently retired from the high school I attended. I was not one of his students, and he didn't remember me, but he knew my elementary school, and he mentioned that he still socializes with my long-retired nemesis. I nearly choked on the spring mix salad with mandarin oranges and raspberry vinaigrette dressing (a conference standard) at the mention of the name.
When I finally got to high school, for the most part I had more competent physical education teachers, and we played much better sports, but the wimp label was not easily shed, my hatred for gym remained, and I certainly didn't transform into the teacher's pet. I remember the annual physical fitness test, which I think had something to do with national or State standards. There were timed squat thrusts and push ups and jumping jacks, and the gym teacher marching around like a drill sergeant. I learned that President Kennedy was to blame for my torture. (Did you wonder when I was going to get to the part about JFK?)
Sometimes changes in physical education curriculum are discussed in academe, or the media, although probably less than reforms in other subjects. The focus is usually the cruelty of the games played, the unfair methods of choosing teams, and the damage to self-esteem. I've had students who believe such changes to be ludicrous, arguing that learning to deal with competition is healthy or a fact of life. Whenever I mention the dreaded dodgeball game, or my gym aversion to my classes I am sure to get a laugh. A lot of people do identify with it, it seems. I don't tell it like a tear-jerker, and I omit the medical and lollipop days. Leaving aside the being labeled a loser problem, I argue that gym class could have taught me something valuable about physical fitness and a healthy lifestyle, but it didn't. Nor do I see much impact now; there are too many kids laying on couches, plugged into television programs or game systems, eating fast food and drinking soda.
However, there is something important I did gain. I was lucky to like, and achieve, in the academic and creative parts of learning. Whatever social difficulties there were in school (and there were many, but they will keep for another time), I felt comfortable in math, social studies, English, art, etc. That feeling of being at home in education is one reason people pursue advanced degrees, and a career somewhere in the academy. The gym experience was unacceptable, but at least it was isolated. Now, when I am teaching classes full of future teachers, I try to impart that there are kids who feel that way about all classes, and at all times in school. I want to make sure the losers get an occasional lollipop, too.
Maybe He Thought Third Graders Liked Gross Stuff
April 16, 2003. In third grade, half the day was spent learning English and science with a strange teacher, and the remaining half was sanctuary, or social studies and math with a nice teacher.
I believe the strange guy only taught at my school for a year. He was very tall and thin. His wife was a substitute teacher who was very short and fat, and also mean. They made an odd couple, to be sure. This strange teacher didn’t really rely on humiliation, and so wasn’t outright mean – just very odd, almost sadistic.
I remember the weirdo walked around with a pair of pliers in his back pocket, and every so often he would whip them out, and yank a couple of teeth out of some deer skulls he kept in the supply cubbyholes near his desk - and threaten us with the same if we didn't stop talking. He would walk right up in front of a student's desk, clicking those pliers together.
I also remember he had a deer or cow heart floating in some solution - and we had to go up in pairs, reach into the container - I think it was one of those plastic jugs that paste came in - and pick it up, then drop it back in. Eeeewwww! Splash. In a macabre way, it is sort of funny. You know he did it just because it was disgusting, I mean what did we learn from that?
Once when my pencil rolled off my desk and I bent down to pick it up, he bounced a ball off the back of my head. This was a shock, as I was the type of kid who never got in trouble.
I think that might be the only occasion when he singled out me, though. Another time, my mother had to take me out of school for a dentist appointment, and I missed a quiz. I had only had time to write my name, etc. at the top of the page. When we got them back the following day, he had written “100" on mine, with the note, “Mother had to take you out of school...but this is what you would have gotten, isn’t it?”
There were two girls who were his favorites; unlike nearly everyone else in class, they could do no wrong. One day he put a couple of those deer teeth he had yanked out into a glass of Coke to demonstrate that they would dissolve. Afterwards, he gave the leftover bottle of soda to those two girls while in class. They drank it while we watched. (As children, we believed he was treating them to something, but now I wonder at the juxtaposition of Coke rotting your teeth with being given it as a reward?)
I suppose he was trying to be a progressive, and use hands-on learning. It did make a lasting impression, but probably not the lesson he intended.
Regardless, neither those two girls, I, nor any other classmate who was the recipient of one of his nicer gestures appreciated the positive attention. The entire class was so creeped out by him that all we wanted was to be ignored.
Exceptional English Teacher
3/30/06. I found out a couple of days ago that a favorite teacher of mine died last month.
I wouldn't say this favorite teacher of mine was a role model, or even a mentor exactly. Personally, she may have had some issues; she was involved with at least three former students, and eventually married two of them. I don’t know whether the relationships were inappropriate while these boys were in her class. But it was the ‘70s, and such entanglements were not uncommon in those days. I can think of several teachers, both male and female, who were romantically involved with students. It did not make the news as it does today.
She taught three of the selectives that we were permitted to take in English, and I took them all. She encouraged a lot of free writing and reading. Because she was popular among students who were not college bound, her classes had a much more chaotic atmosphere than was usual for me.
At first, because of my love of reading and writing, I relished the thought of choosing my own English class. I resolved to take the “harder” selectives. I soon found that memorizing long lists of vocabulary words and dutifully regurgitating definitions for the weekly quiz were standard in all selectives; easy enough, but boring. Eventually I enrolled in the “easier” English courses, those which attracted mostly the non-Regents track students, because once the quiz was dispensed with, these teachers allowed less structure, and delighted in the rare opportunity to have a serious student.
In the “easier” selectives, I was permitted to read and write what I chose; I relished the freedom, even if it meant tolerating things that were (mostly) absent in the harder selectives, such as one of the scary triplets coming in late and throwing a chair across the room, yelling “f--- you” and storming out of the classroom when the teacher timidly asked him about his tardiness.
She was nice to everyone - including, and especially, the troubled students, even the kid who threw the chair and yelled the obscenity. Those capable of it could be self-directed, and she was there to applaud our efforts; this is an example of constructivism (in fact, the whole idea of selectives is pretty constructivist). In my case, she really encouraged me to write. She always assigned a journal as an assignment in class; that has proved to be a valuable lifelong habit for me, and I require the students in my foundations class to keep one, too. Maybe I wouldn't be writing this now if it wasn't for her; she wrote "keep writing!" in my high school yearbook. When I told her that I was going to go to Oneonta to college, she shared that Oneonta was her alma mater. She even wrote to me a few times when I was a freshman.
Although I hadn't kept in touch with her in years, I think the world will be a little less bright with her gone.
Savvy School Marm
08/01/07. I read recently about the efforts of parents to ban Junie B. Jones books. Some believe children should be taught proper spelling and grammar immediately when learning to read (the phonics approach), and others favor whole language, a literacy method that accepts misspellings and other errors as long as children are engaged in reading and writing. Junie is a troublemaker, calls people names and talks back to her teachers. She has problems with grammar.
In 1966, when I was learning to read, my school used i.t.a. (the initial teaching alphabet). There were two kindergarten classes. Mine used i.t.a., and the other class used a traditional method to teach reading. I often wondered about i.t.a., especially after I became an educator, so a few years ago I did some research on it.
It was more popular in the UK than it was in the US, and there are still some proponents for using it, or a similar simplified spelling method to teach reading and writing. Apparently, i.t.a. was a response to the difficulties of teaching children to read and write in English, a problem that is not as often seen in cultures that speak a more phonetic language such as Spanish.
You can see the influence of i.t.a. on my writing in a story I wrote in February 1969, when I was 7 ½ years old. This was written during second grade, the transition year from i.t.a. to regular spelling.
I didn't write “A Cat in a Boat” for school; I wrote it at home, to amuse my family. We were definitely not up to writing stories of this length or complexity in school! You can tell how much I preferred animals to people even then. I would add that the dark theme probably would have gotten me sent to the school psychologist's office...except that in 1969, such things didn't happen, and I don't remember my elementary school having a psychologist.
Plus, in second grade I had a wonderful teacher who would not have overreacted. She really was old, that wasn’t just a child’s perception. She’d been teaching since one-room school days. Her command of the classroom was complete; students respected her. This wasn’t because she was mean. She was just a really good teacher. I don’t recall her being warm and fuzzy exactly. I remember that the focus was on learning, and that she encouraged the faster-paced students to explore and become self-directed learners, which gave her time to focus on the middle-range and slower learners.
My brother had her for fourth grade a couple of years before me. He struggled in school, had been held back that year before, and I remember how devastated he was by this. But then he got this wonderful teacher, and adjusted quickly. My mother says “she taught him to read.” (They were not using i.t.a.)
When this wonderful teacher was very old, she invited my brother over to her house and gave him a piece of antique furniture.
So the school administration must have known that this old school marm was the best choice for the transition, and she landed the unhappy task of guiding us.
I.t.a. didn't harm me at all; it may have helped me (my parents believe it did), or perhaps I would have learned easily no matter the method. I am a voracious reader, I like to write, and never had trouble with spelling, grammar or punctuation.
However, I do remember that the transition to regular spelling in second grade was very traumatic for a lot of kids in my class. Some struggled for years, and I think some still struggle as adults. Whether that would have been true, regardless, is a good question. Parental resistance is one reason cited for failure of innovative methods by proponents of simplified spelling, but the transition is the most important reason given for failure of this approach. My school abandoned the i.t.a. pilot after just a few years.
I do notice that some college students have trouble with spelling, punctuation, word choice and grammar, and they certainly didn't learn via simplified spelling, but perhaps they were taught with the whole language, rather than phonics approach. But I have always chalked students' weakness in this area up to over reliance on spell checkers, and also to the love affair with text messaging and IM-speak.
I don't have any wisdom regarding the merits of the Junie books, although I think banning books is always misguided. I do believe that reading is better than an activity such as television watching or gaming.
Stereotypical School Marm
01/15/08. I found out that another of my former elementary school teachers has died. This is a woman I had for fourth grade. My recollections of her aren't really numerous or specific. It may be that the year she taught me was the only year she was at my school. I do know I thought of her as so old. I mean, it's natural for a little kid to think of a teacher as old, but in this case - I remember thinking that she was a lot older than my parents - if my calculations based on her graduation dates from high school and graduate school are true that isn't the case at all; she was only in her early 30s at that time. I even thought she was older than my second grade teacher when in truth she was young enough to be her daughter!
She was the definition of an old school marm: hair in a bun, stiff, thin and bony, brittle, with plain attire that featured high collared shirts. I think she was a pretty good teacher in terms of conveying the material, though, I mean I believe I did learn in her class. She was old fashioned in her methods, nothing like the other "young" teachers.
But I remember all the kids hated her. I think we believed her to be pretty mean overall. Equal opportunity mean. Not warm and fuzzy at all. We were terrified of her. She wasn't particularly mean to me, but she wasn't exactly nice to anyone. Often she expected us to rat out other students who were misbehaving, would hold an entire row accountable for the actions of one student, make us write repetitious sentences over and over.
I remember some of the boys disliked her so much that they gave her a gift of candy that they had tampered with - sprinkling hot pepper on it, I think. Caused awful repercussions - yelling, extra homework, loss of “compliments” (we had a system where as a class, we earned points for good behavior that were kept track of on the blackboard - when we hit a set number, the class got a small party. Behaviorism in action!).
Starting in third grade, I had two teachers per year. So in fourth grade, I had this teacher in the morning, and the other half of the day I had a different teacher. I remember how relieved we all were to go to his class in the afternoon.
I liked my elementary school and believe my education there was decent but when I think back I realize for how many years I had teachers that were scary. Ones that must have disliked kids. It's amazing I didn't fake sick every day. I always wonder how people would react if you went to a funeral and stood up when they invite people to make remarks or wrote in one of the legacy.com websites your actual recollection! Of course I could never do that but it is a funny thought nonetheless.
Challenging Assumptions
May 29, 2010. A couple of weeks ago we attended a retirement party for a favorite professor of ours from undergraduate days. I wanted to make him something for the event, and so I went through a stack of old notebooks from that time. (Yes, I still have most of my college notebooks and even a few from high school, stored among cobwebs and dust on a shelf in the stairwell.) I photocopied some of the pages of notes, mostly things he said about the readings that were discussed in class, found some pictures of campus and made a big card out of a new notebook.
Thirty years after sitting in this professor’s classroom, the memories still resonate. I took three classes in European History with him. He took no BS from students. You had to come to class prepared. Two books we read were Brave New World and Frankenstein. At the time he was definitely a Marxist (he has since tempered his views somewhat), and his lectures were very enthusiastic. I remember him jumping up on the desk. He didn’t stifle student viewpoints, however; one of the classes was economic history, and it was cross-listed with business, so there were several enthusiastic capitalists in the class as well. Class discussion was very lively.
Students often lingered after class to continue the discussion, and at the time I was very hostile to technology. Not just computers, but even things like roads. We had been studying the English enclosure act, and I was uncomfortable about the idea of efficiency. At the next class, he wrote “Productivity Sucks” and “Inefficiency Kills Me” in huge letters on the board. It was the basis for class discussion.
He was a tough grader, and he also turned assessment ideas on their end. When he handed papers back, one student might have a check on top, one might have 85, one might have A-, another might have “very good” written on it, another would have 4.5, and still another would have no marks on it at all. Students would look around, frustrated. What does this mean? How do we compare these grades? He told us not to be “grade mongers.” In those days, at the end of the semester, you had to wait for the college to mail you the semester’s grades, and it took a few weeks. So professors often posted final grades on their office doors after they submitted them. This professor would post the list, and the grade was different depending on whether you counted down from the top or up from the bottom. Now I realize he was applying constructivism to assessment.
On the first day of class, he said “raise your hand if you are a freshman,” immediately upon walking into the room. After looking around, he told the students with their hands in the air “I have signed drop forms on the table in the front. You’re out of the class.” (He’s wasn’t joking.)
We’ve stayed in touch all these years, chatting on the phone, meeting for dinner or at important occasions, and years after graduation, he wrote me recommendations for my master’s and doctoral degree programs; I distinctly remember the envelope for the master’s degree one was very fat. Probably his recommendation alone would have gotten me accepted.
by Gina Giuliano
Unintended Lesson Imparted
8/14/1998. In high school, we had “selectives” for English. This meant that you had to take ninth grade English, then six semesters of English classes. Those six could be freely chosen among a menu of choices. It was great, and I loved that approach, but it was eventually abandoned for a more structured method. I suppose that was because students were not studying a common core, and so were not doing well enough on the English Regents.
It was at this time that I learned there are a lot of things teachers don’t know. This thought had occurred to me a few times before, once in elementary school when another girl slugged me over a brown crayon, and the next-door classroom teacher (who was watching us because our teacher had to step out - to do what, I now wonder?) sent us both to the principal’s office. It dawned on me again in seventh grade science, when the teacher changed my grade of 100 on a test to a 50, after catching the girl sitting next to me cheating from my paper and accusing us of collaborating. I had to look up that word in the dictionary, in shock as I read it next to the 50 on my paper, written there in red pen.
But those incidents were disciplinary issues, not academic ones. This particular course, my learning experience for what teachers know, was a “harder” selective impressively titled “The Novel.” It included reading Giants of the Earth, My Antonia and The Jungle. An essentialist’s list, perhaps? The teacher was amiable enough, and all of the popular, semi-good-student male jocks were drawn to his class. Had I know this in advance, in spite of the attraction of the course’s focus, I probably would have chosen a different class, for I was one of the great unknown masses in high school, not a bit athletic, and not just a semi-good-student but an honor student. I sat in the second or third seat back, one row from the door, marveling at those boys and imagining how much my best friend and a popular wanna-be would like to trade places with me. If “The Novel” had not involved wading through Willa Cather and Upton Sinclair, that is.
That day we were discussing Giants of the Earth, and the teacher said, during one of his regular volleys with a jock whose usual comments consisted mainly of wisecracks, something about male and female oxen. (My memory tells me that he might have said “oxes,” but that part can’t be true.) I felt as if a spike of electricity ran through me. He wasn’t joking. If he didn’t know that an ox is a castrated bull, maybe he didn’t understand The Jungle, either. My doubts grew exponentially. Maybe he didn’t even know which classic books to assign for this class. And I was certain he didn’t suspect that two-thirds of my classmates were gathering their insights not from actually reading the assigned novels, but from cliff notes.
Of course, later I realized that a college degree in some subject doesn’t mean, and isn’t intended to mean, that the graduate has memorized every tidbit there is to know about the discipline. Just because I can’t remember the date Montana became a state doesn’t mean I’m unworthy of my bachelor’s degree in history. Later I also realized that I’d learned a valuable lesson that day, and it wasn’t about oxen or literature or popular kids and cliff notes.
As a result, I’ve concluded that my teacher was a good guy and not a bad teacher, either. First, now I’m certain that his book list was appropriate, even excellent. But more important, that day I learned to question things which are casually presented as “facts.”
Gym Teacher from H-ll
11/22/02. I noticed on AOL's welcome screen, one of the changing main photos/headlines reads "On This Day in 1963...where were you?" The story is about President Kennedy's assassination. I can't remember where I was, since I was only a little more than two years old at that time. Sometimes we kind of remember things from when we were tiny not from the actual experience, but because someone has told us the story and it becomes familiar. I don't recall my mother or father telling me what I was doing, either.
What is a coincidence is that last night I was thinking of JFK. He was really only the subject of a passing thought, and it wasn't because I remembered the anniversary of his death was today. I had straightened up the porch once again, in an effort to make a renewed commitment to using the treadmill. I started thinking about physical education class, or as we called it, "gym." I hated gym in school. That hatred resulted in a lifelong disdain for most sports, whether as a participant or spectator, live or televised. (I don't like other types of games, either.) I don't read that section of the paper or listen to that part of the news. I'm ignorant on the subject, and I'm fine with that. More troublesome is a distaste for exercise, which I now struggle to overcome. Oh, I don't mind swimming, but I don't want to go to some sort of facility with others to do it. And I like walking, but it has to be productive in some other way than simply improving health. It has to be alternative transportation, in other words. Even the treadmill in the semi-privacy of the front porch is an adversary.
I think given the chance, I might have been an OK athlete; some members of my family have considerable talent, and I respect them for that. My hatred started early, and it isn't one of those memories that someone else told me. I don't think I told my parents about the things that happened in gym, anyway. Those were still the days when school authority was respected. My first grade gym teacher treated me all right. I mean, I wasn't singled out as an athlete or a wimp. Average is often a good place to be. She was extremely mean to some of the boys, though. She even hit a few with a whiffle ball bat, right in front of the class. I don't know if corporal punishment was allowed then, or if she was breaking the rules. I don't remember why she did this, I'm sure they were being brats, but I know it wasn't an isolated instance and it was awful. She only lasted a year.
Because I wasn't the target, though, I think that experience isn't really to blame for my aversion to athletics. It may have set the stage, but it took root during Grades 2 - 6, when I had the same teacher every year. He hated me. Or at least that's what I believed, I doubt he gave our relationship that much energy. But he did single me out for public abuse regularly. Unlike Ms. Whiffle Ball Bat, he never raised a hand to a kid, at least not when I was a witness. He may not have had to resort to such tactics, since he was especially good at verbal humiliation. He seemed to like the competitive, athletically skilled kids, which were many of the boys and some of the girls.
I vaguely remember, the first year in his class, that another girl and I didn't participate very much in whatever game the class was playing. In elementary school, that usually meant dodgeball, or the even more vicious war. I don't know why this happened, if we claimed we didn't feel well, or were tagged out almost immediately by our more aggressive classmates and so sat out much of the game or what. I'm sure I wasn't a really good player. Although I’ve never been overweight and I was then and still am active, I've always been careful and tried to avoid injury, so I wasn't the type to slide into home or jump really high to get the ball. I didn't care that much about winning. So that could be what started it.
Already I had been labeled a loser, which meant never being chosen as team captain by the teacher, and being picked last, or second to last, or on a really good day, third to last for a team, even by kids who acted nice to me at other times. I wasn't exactly a popular kid at any time, but I did have a couple of friends, and as a top performing, quiet and well-behaved student I was generally liked by the teacher. That year my new gym teacher threatened to send us both to the nurse's office for gym class because he insisted there was something wrong with us, and he said he was going to give us the grade "M" for "medical" on our report cards instead of real grades. He never carried through on either, and instead we passed the class. Could they retain a straight A second grader for failing phys ed, I wonder?
When I was older, we occasionally did something other than play dodgeball in the gymnasium. I remember being outside on the athletic field, and when the class was nearly over, the teacher telling us to run as fast as we could back to the school. I think it was getting near to one of the holiday breaks, and he said he was going to give us each a lollipop when we got there. I liked candy as much as any kid (still do), and I tried to run fast. True to his word, he handed lollipops out to all of my classmates. When he got to me, he said I couldn't have one because I ran too slowly. You know, it has been over thirty years, and I still feel the sting as I write that.
Just two years ago, I was at a luncheon meeting of school counselors, and I was seated at a table with a man who was recently retired from the high school I attended. I was not one of his students, and he didn't remember me, but he knew my elementary school, and he mentioned that he still socializes with my long-retired nemesis. I nearly choked on the spring mix salad with mandarin oranges and raspberry vinaigrette dressing (a conference standard) at the mention of the name.
When I finally got to high school, for the most part I had more competent physical education teachers, and we played much better sports, but the wimp label was not easily shed, my hatred for gym remained, and I certainly didn't transform into the teacher's pet. I remember the annual physical fitness test, which I think had something to do with national or State standards. There were timed squat thrusts and push ups and jumping jacks, and the gym teacher marching around like a drill sergeant. I learned that President Kennedy was to blame for my torture. (Did you wonder when I was going to get to the part about JFK?)
Sometimes changes in physical education curriculum are discussed in academe, or the media, although probably less than reforms in other subjects. The focus is usually the cruelty of the games played, the unfair methods of choosing teams, and the damage to self-esteem. I've had students who believe such changes to be ludicrous, arguing that learning to deal with competition is healthy or a fact of life. Whenever I mention the dreaded dodgeball game, or my gym aversion to my classes I am sure to get a laugh. A lot of people do identify with it, it seems. I don't tell it like a tear-jerker, and I omit the medical and lollipop days. Leaving aside the being labeled a loser problem, I argue that gym class could have taught me something valuable about physical fitness and a healthy lifestyle, but it didn't. Nor do I see much impact now; there are too many kids laying on couches, plugged into television programs or game systems, eating fast food and drinking soda.
However, there is something important I did gain. I was lucky to like, and achieve, in the academic and creative parts of learning. Whatever social difficulties there were in school (and there were many, but they will keep for another time), I felt comfortable in math, social studies, English, art, etc. That feeling of being at home in education is one reason people pursue advanced degrees, and a career somewhere in the academy. The gym experience was unacceptable, but at least it was isolated. Now, when I am teaching classes full of future teachers, I try to impart that there are kids who feel that way about all classes, and at all times in school. I want to make sure the losers get an occasional lollipop, too.
Maybe He Thought Third Graders Liked Gross Stuff
April 16, 2003. In third grade, half the day was spent learning English and science with a strange teacher, and the remaining half was sanctuary, or social studies and math with a nice teacher.
I believe the strange guy only taught at my school for a year. He was very tall and thin. His wife was a substitute teacher who was very short and fat, and also mean. They made an odd couple, to be sure. This strange teacher didn’t really rely on humiliation, and so wasn’t outright mean – just very odd, almost sadistic.
I remember the weirdo walked around with a pair of pliers in his back pocket, and every so often he would whip them out, and yank a couple of teeth out of some deer skulls he kept in the supply cubbyholes near his desk - and threaten us with the same if we didn't stop talking. He would walk right up in front of a student's desk, clicking those pliers together.
I also remember he had a deer or cow heart floating in some solution - and we had to go up in pairs, reach into the container - I think it was one of those plastic jugs that paste came in - and pick it up, then drop it back in. Eeeewwww! Splash. In a macabre way, it is sort of funny. You know he did it just because it was disgusting, I mean what did we learn from that?
Once when my pencil rolled off my desk and I bent down to pick it up, he bounced a ball off the back of my head. This was a shock, as I was the type of kid who never got in trouble.
I think that might be the only occasion when he singled out me, though. Another time, my mother had to take me out of school for a dentist appointment, and I missed a quiz. I had only had time to write my name, etc. at the top of the page. When we got them back the following day, he had written “100" on mine, with the note, “Mother had to take you out of school...but this is what you would have gotten, isn’t it?”
There were two girls who were his favorites; unlike nearly everyone else in class, they could do no wrong. One day he put a couple of those deer teeth he had yanked out into a glass of Coke to demonstrate that they would dissolve. Afterwards, he gave the leftover bottle of soda to those two girls while in class. They drank it while we watched. (As children, we believed he was treating them to something, but now I wonder at the juxtaposition of Coke rotting your teeth with being given it as a reward?)
I suppose he was trying to be a progressive, and use hands-on learning. It did make a lasting impression, but probably not the lesson he intended.
Regardless, neither those two girls, I, nor any other classmate who was the recipient of one of his nicer gestures appreciated the positive attention. The entire class was so creeped out by him that all we wanted was to be ignored.
Exceptional English Teacher
3/30/06. I found out a couple of days ago that a favorite teacher of mine died last month.
I wouldn't say this favorite teacher of mine was a role model, or even a mentor exactly. Personally, she may have had some issues; she was involved with at least three former students, and eventually married two of them. I don’t know whether the relationships were inappropriate while these boys were in her class. But it was the ‘70s, and such entanglements were not uncommon in those days. I can think of several teachers, both male and female, who were romantically involved with students. It did not make the news as it does today.
She taught three of the selectives that we were permitted to take in English, and I took them all. She encouraged a lot of free writing and reading. Because she was popular among students who were not college bound, her classes had a much more chaotic atmosphere than was usual for me.
At first, because of my love of reading and writing, I relished the thought of choosing my own English class. I resolved to take the “harder” selectives. I soon found that memorizing long lists of vocabulary words and dutifully regurgitating definitions for the weekly quiz were standard in all selectives; easy enough, but boring. Eventually I enrolled in the “easier” English courses, those which attracted mostly the non-Regents track students, because once the quiz was dispensed with, these teachers allowed less structure, and delighted in the rare opportunity to have a serious student.
In the “easier” selectives, I was permitted to read and write what I chose; I relished the freedom, even if it meant tolerating things that were (mostly) absent in the harder selectives, such as one of the scary triplets coming in late and throwing a chair across the room, yelling “f--- you” and storming out of the classroom when the teacher timidly asked him about his tardiness.
She was nice to everyone - including, and especially, the troubled students, even the kid who threw the chair and yelled the obscenity. Those capable of it could be self-directed, and she was there to applaud our efforts; this is an example of constructivism (in fact, the whole idea of selectives is pretty constructivist). In my case, she really encouraged me to write. She always assigned a journal as an assignment in class; that has proved to be a valuable lifelong habit for me, and I require the students in my foundations class to keep one, too. Maybe I wouldn't be writing this now if it wasn't for her; she wrote "keep writing!" in my high school yearbook. When I told her that I was going to go to Oneonta to college, she shared that Oneonta was her alma mater. She even wrote to me a few times when I was a freshman.
Although I hadn't kept in touch with her in years, I think the world will be a little less bright with her gone.
Savvy School Marm
08/01/07. I read recently about the efforts of parents to ban Junie B. Jones books. Some believe children should be taught proper spelling and grammar immediately when learning to read (the phonics approach), and others favor whole language, a literacy method that accepts misspellings and other errors as long as children are engaged in reading and writing. Junie is a troublemaker, calls people names and talks back to her teachers. She has problems with grammar.
In 1966, when I was learning to read, my school used i.t.a. (the initial teaching alphabet). There were two kindergarten classes. Mine used i.t.a., and the other class used a traditional method to teach reading. I often wondered about i.t.a., especially after I became an educator, so a few years ago I did some research on it.
It was more popular in the UK than it was in the US, and there are still some proponents for using it, or a similar simplified spelling method to teach reading and writing. Apparently, i.t.a. was a response to the difficulties of teaching children to read and write in English, a problem that is not as often seen in cultures that speak a more phonetic language such as Spanish.
You can see the influence of i.t.a. on my writing in a story I wrote in February 1969, when I was 7 ½ years old. This was written during second grade, the transition year from i.t.a. to regular spelling.
A Cat in a Boat
Once upon a time thare lived a familiey who was verry verry poor. And theye had a son whose name was Thimathy. he was a only child. theye had a cat too. the cat's name was "Pussy Kitty" Pussy Kitty was a Nice cat. every-boddy thoute sow. But one hollow-ween the Boy Dressed up as a cat aNd dressed the cat up as him well it sow happened the parent's thoute thimouthy was the cat and the cat was thimouthy. and the cat eat whot thimouthy was spos too eat. and thimouthy was eating whot the cat was sossposs too eat. and the cat slep iN the Bed aNd thimouthy slep on a Rug. And the cat went to school and thimouthy stade home But worst oF all there pareNts called thimouthy Pussy Kitty aNd called the cat thimouthy this went on For 2 years one day thimouthy and his mother and Father went to a "JinMill"!?? and came home 2.0.0. at night! All three wer DruNgk Pussy-Kitty thoute and thoute But he thoute Fast! Now thay thoute mor oF Pussy Kitty But the Next Day thaye oll most killed Pussy-Kitty! Poor thing! Now Pussy Kitty New whot too doo. this is whot he did he got a Boat Poot thimouthy and his mother and Father on it and went to "Lake Goerge"! the Boet tipped and thay all DrouwnD exsept Pussy-Kitty he New how too swim he loved it aNd you no whot he Fowned a New home and thay treted him like a cat Not like a huemen Beng! and he was happy he was happyer the he was BeFore!! the eNd!
I didn't write “A Cat in a Boat” for school; I wrote it at home, to amuse my family. We were definitely not up to writing stories of this length or complexity in school! You can tell how much I preferred animals to people even then. I would add that the dark theme probably would have gotten me sent to the school psychologist's office...except that in 1969, such things didn't happen, and I don't remember my elementary school having a psychologist.
Plus, in second grade I had a wonderful teacher who would not have overreacted. She really was old, that wasn’t just a child’s perception. She’d been teaching since one-room school days. Her command of the classroom was complete; students respected her. This wasn’t because she was mean. She was just a really good teacher. I don’t recall her being warm and fuzzy exactly. I remember that the focus was on learning, and that she encouraged the faster-paced students to explore and become self-directed learners, which gave her time to focus on the middle-range and slower learners.
My brother had her for fourth grade a couple of years before me. He struggled in school, had been held back that year before, and I remember how devastated he was by this. But then he got this wonderful teacher, and adjusted quickly. My mother says “she taught him to read.” (They were not using i.t.a.)
When this wonderful teacher was very old, she invited my brother over to her house and gave him a piece of antique furniture.
So the school administration must have known that this old school marm was the best choice for the transition, and she landed the unhappy task of guiding us.
I.t.a. didn't harm me at all; it may have helped me (my parents believe it did), or perhaps I would have learned easily no matter the method. I am a voracious reader, I like to write, and never had trouble with spelling, grammar or punctuation.
However, I do remember that the transition to regular spelling in second grade was very traumatic for a lot of kids in my class. Some struggled for years, and I think some still struggle as adults. Whether that would have been true, regardless, is a good question. Parental resistance is one reason cited for failure of innovative methods by proponents of simplified spelling, but the transition is the most important reason given for failure of this approach. My school abandoned the i.t.a. pilot after just a few years.
I do notice that some college students have trouble with spelling, punctuation, word choice and grammar, and they certainly didn't learn via simplified spelling, but perhaps they were taught with the whole language, rather than phonics approach. But I have always chalked students' weakness in this area up to over reliance on spell checkers, and also to the love affair with text messaging and IM-speak.
I don't have any wisdom regarding the merits of the Junie books, although I think banning books is always misguided. I do believe that reading is better than an activity such as television watching or gaming.
Stereotypical School Marm
01/15/08. I found out that another of my former elementary school teachers has died. This is a woman I had for fourth grade. My recollections of her aren't really numerous or specific. It may be that the year she taught me was the only year she was at my school. I do know I thought of her as so old. I mean, it's natural for a little kid to think of a teacher as old, but in this case - I remember thinking that she was a lot older than my parents - if my calculations based on her graduation dates from high school and graduate school are true that isn't the case at all; she was only in her early 30s at that time. I even thought she was older than my second grade teacher when in truth she was young enough to be her daughter!
She was the definition of an old school marm: hair in a bun, stiff, thin and bony, brittle, with plain attire that featured high collared shirts. I think she was a pretty good teacher in terms of conveying the material, though, I mean I believe I did learn in her class. She was old fashioned in her methods, nothing like the other "young" teachers.
But I remember all the kids hated her. I think we believed her to be pretty mean overall. Equal opportunity mean. Not warm and fuzzy at all. We were terrified of her. She wasn't particularly mean to me, but she wasn't exactly nice to anyone. Often she expected us to rat out other students who were misbehaving, would hold an entire row accountable for the actions of one student, make us write repetitious sentences over and over.
I remember some of the boys disliked her so much that they gave her a gift of candy that they had tampered with - sprinkling hot pepper on it, I think. Caused awful repercussions - yelling, extra homework, loss of “compliments” (we had a system where as a class, we earned points for good behavior that were kept track of on the blackboard - when we hit a set number, the class got a small party. Behaviorism in action!).
Starting in third grade, I had two teachers per year. So in fourth grade, I had this teacher in the morning, and the other half of the day I had a different teacher. I remember how relieved we all were to go to his class in the afternoon.
I liked my elementary school and believe my education there was decent but when I think back I realize for how many years I had teachers that were scary. Ones that must have disliked kids. It's amazing I didn't fake sick every day. I always wonder how people would react if you went to a funeral and stood up when they invite people to make remarks or wrote in one of the legacy.com websites your actual recollection! Of course I could never do that but it is a funny thought nonetheless.
Challenging Assumptions
May 29, 2010. A couple of weeks ago we attended a retirement party for a favorite professor of ours from undergraduate days. I wanted to make him something for the event, and so I went through a stack of old notebooks from that time. (Yes, I still have most of my college notebooks and even a few from high school, stored among cobwebs and dust on a shelf in the stairwell.) I photocopied some of the pages of notes, mostly things he said about the readings that were discussed in class, found some pictures of campus and made a big card out of a new notebook.
Thirty years after sitting in this professor’s classroom, the memories still resonate. I took three classes in European History with him. He took no BS from students. You had to come to class prepared. Two books we read were Brave New World and Frankenstein. At the time he was definitely a Marxist (he has since tempered his views somewhat), and his lectures were very enthusiastic. I remember him jumping up on the desk. He didn’t stifle student viewpoints, however; one of the classes was economic history, and it was cross-listed with business, so there were several enthusiastic capitalists in the class as well. Class discussion was very lively.
Students often lingered after class to continue the discussion, and at the time I was very hostile to technology. Not just computers, but even things like roads. We had been studying the English enclosure act, and I was uncomfortable about the idea of efficiency. At the next class, he wrote “Productivity Sucks” and “Inefficiency Kills Me” in huge letters on the board. It was the basis for class discussion.
He was a tough grader, and he also turned assessment ideas on their end. When he handed papers back, one student might have a check on top, one might have 85, one might have A-, another might have “very good” written on it, another would have 4.5, and still another would have no marks on it at all. Students would look around, frustrated. What does this mean? How do we compare these grades? He told us not to be “grade mongers.” In those days, at the end of the semester, you had to wait for the college to mail you the semester’s grades, and it took a few weeks. So professors often posted final grades on their office doors after they submitted them. This professor would post the list, and the grade was different depending on whether you counted down from the top or up from the bottom. Now I realize he was applying constructivism to assessment.
On the first day of class, he said “raise your hand if you are a freshman,” immediately upon walking into the room. After looking around, he told the students with their hands in the air “I have signed drop forms on the table in the front. You’re out of the class.” (He’s wasn’t joking.)
We’ve stayed in touch all these years, chatting on the phone, meeting for dinner or at important occasions, and years after graduation, he wrote me recommendations for my master’s and doctoral degree programs; I distinctly remember the envelope for the master’s degree one was very fat. Probably his recommendation alone would have gotten me accepted.
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