I just read some very interesting commentary from a guy named Barry Kibrick, a real dynamo of a person who hosts a public television tv show about books called Between the Lines.

I could not recommend it more highly. He gets top-flight authors from all realms and does truly in-depth interviews that are riveting. There ya go, that’s my plug for Barry. He’s top-notch!

Anyway, in regards to the “hysteria” surrounding the swine flu, he said this today…

I want to comment about some of the hysteria revolving around the “Swine-flu” concern. If this actually becomes a pandemic, or just a mild case of the flu, obviously certain precautions for good health must always be a part of a daily regimen. However, panic never leads to anything. For overall good health I leave you with these words by Dr. Edward Schneider, a past guest on Between the Lines with his book What Your Doctor Hasn’t Told You and the Health Store Clerk Doesn’t Know

Surely take appropriate precautions during this time, but please don’t stop “plunging into life’s offering”, for they are a wonderful tonic for overall good health.

How awesome is this advice? And being that it is so good, how come we don’t teach this stuff in school? I mean I try to but I am certainly made to feel by the state mandates that I am “off topic” when I do. It certainly isn’t in the standards anywhere. Bubble tests never make inquiries into this kind of stuff.

And so I wonder, why are our schools so out-of-touch with what is valuable to making a good life? And how great would it be if we had a pandemic that swept our nation which actually decided to eliminate the buffoonery of so many of the ill-guided attempts at schooling currently in place.

A pandemic to be solved by a vaccine characterized by common sense.

Ah, when pigs fly…

I love when the media tosses numbers around because they can make people look either brilliant or foolish. For example…

Check out this great story, the tale of Sharron Pearson. Sharon is the first student from the Los Angeles school to be accepted by Oxford Tradition. She has a scholarship but figures she needs $2,500 for airfare and other expenses.

That story resulted in this story, a follow-up about, you guessed it, Sharon Pearson, the first student from the Los Angeles school to be accepted by Oxford Tradition. (The money came a flowin’!)

Makes your heart kinda go all weepy, doesn’t it? People are, I believe (actually I have to believe this otherwise I couldn’t press on in this world) fundamentally good.

But as I said, when the media tosses around numbers it can also make us look foolish. Take for example this story about our impending college graduate shortage.

Do you wanna know why there’s no hyperlink to a feel-good follow up? Because right now, my faith is a bit low that numbers like the ones cited in the story are going to spur enough people into action. I mean the Governator keeps slashing the education budget as if it’ economically prudent in the long term to short change today’s kids in terms of funding their education and the resistance we see being offered to his ideas is feeble at best.

Makes us look pretty foolish, doesn’t it.

Obviously, there are a heck of a lot of people working their tails off so that we don’t end up in an “I told you so” nation… but don’t say they never told us so.

Walking to the parking lot after school today I cruised right past our girl’s softball team. As they headed out to the field to play a game, dressed proudly in Lynwood Knights gear top to bottom, I heard an enthusiastic, “Hi Mr. Alan,” from one of the girls on the team.

I looked up and saw Patti. (Not her real name.)

“Hi, Patti,” I replied with a smile. She shyly looked down and continued on. Me, I went to the car with a smile on my face as well. Why?

Because a year ago at this time, I was seriously worried whether or not Patti would still be a part of Lynwood High School. She had “drama” going on like no one’s business. Friends who got jumped, she ditched/missed a ton of school, had an older sister who she went to the abortion clinic taking Patti with her for support (a sister who had already dropped out of Lynwood and was NO WAY going to share the news with her parents) and on and on. Patti was someone I felt a great deal of concern for. Bright, but troubled. Intelligent but tempted. Good but attracted to being bad as well.

She was already at one of life’s great forks, at a mere 15 years old.

But there Patti was, getting ready to go play girl’s softball against one of the local schools in, what I am sure would be, a fierce match.

That moment reminded me of why sports are so great. I have no idea what turned Patti around — or if it’s gonna stick — but seeing her doing something so “regular kid like” brought warmth to me today. Playing sports helped to save me when I was a teen, I am sure of it. And then, as I got older, the personalities of various sport’s stars and a deep discovery of the mental aspects requisite to really succeed in sports helped get me through the next series of wild frontiers in my 20′s.

Some people think things like girl’s softball is just, well… girl’s high school softball. Other people know it can be all the difference in the world to a young person’s life.

You can’t make this stuff up.

My 2 1/2 year old is in pre-school now. Today she picked up a cell phone and pretended to have a conversation.
“Who are you talking to,” asked her teacher, Cindy.
“I’m talking to daddy,” she replied proudly.
“Oh,” said Cindy. “Is your daddy at work?”
“My daddy doesn’t work,” answered my daughter. “He’s a teacher.”

LOL, right?

Apparently, the anti-tenure, union-busting, down-with-the-bums, teacher movement has already infiltrated deeper inside Sitomer territory than I ever imagined.

But funny as my daughter’s comments were, I realized, in a way, she is kinda right. I mean of course, I work. But I don’t really view teaching as work. It’s more than that. It’s my profession. It’s my vocation. It’s my avocation. It’s what I love. It’s where my passion exists, my interests lay, and where a part of my soul gets filled. Sure, I’d love to have 100 million in the bank so that I did not need to teach, but I do not want to not teach. I just get too much out of it.

It’s dorky, I know.

I guess I am just one of the lucky ones in that I do not dread when the alarm clock rings and it’s time to go to “work”. That’s probably why my daughter had no idea about what the teacher was referring to. Every day when I kiss her goodbye in the a.m., it’s because daddy is always off to go “teach” — never “work”.

Though it is work, it’s also so much more.

I just got back from a day spent out at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. This is a gathering on the campus of UCLA where readers, writers, fans of the written word, students, the famed, unknowns, and bestselling authors from all over the country come to read, sign, chat about books, sell books, buy books and simply celebrate the written word. Not a couple of spinsters from Rhode Island, mind you, but the entire West Coast of the country seemed to be out there today. (Well over a hundred thousand people.) Packed — I mean PACKED — crowds with some of the most famous authors in the nation sitting side by side with absolute nobodies (yep, I was there… LOL!). All in all, probably over a million books available from self-published first timers to genuine literary legends, all of them gathered this weekend to celebrate… you guessed it… books.

It was rockin’!!

Especially because I got to meet S.E. Hinton today. I mean this is the author of The Outsiders, a book which people claim gave birth to the Young Adult novel. Let’s just say that without this genre of fiction, yours truly truly might not be yours truly.

But that wasn’t even the best moment for me. The best moment for me was that I brought my 2 year old daughter out there (this is her second time in attendance — we got a little streak going) and let her choose whatever she wanted. Her choice of titles today yielded an Eric Carle book. (Yep, he was out there today.) And right now, before she goes to bed tonight, we are reading The Very Busy Spider.

Me, I am gonna spend the night with a new title by Thomas Newkirk called Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones. I hear the book is great.

And if does for me anywhere near what Eric Carle did for my little girl, consider me a lucky ducky.

Mark Twain once said about his demise, “Tales of my death are greatly exaggerated,” I say, “Fables about the death of reading are exceedingly hyperbolic.”

READING IS ALIVE IN AMERICA. Very much so. Matter of fact, I’d suggest that we are all reading more than we ever have before. Books have simply become a part of the reading pie and not the whole darn thing — yet folks are still drinking ‘em down.

And it looks like they will be for quite long time. Is the book sky really falling? Seems to me, not so much.

Wow, here’s a shocker! As the NY Times so expertly points out, poor schooling leads to poor economic circumstances that negatively affect both the kids who are ill-served as well as the nation as a whole.

No duh? I mean the next thing they are going to tell us is that the iPhone has become kinda popular.

I have absolutely nothing against self-evident journalism. In a way, it’s good that the Times is drawing attention to this reality. But isn’t this just oh-so-obvious? I mean who doesn’t recognize the negative impact of poor schooling? The poorly-schooled, the well-schooled, the old-school and the new… really, who doesn’t know this!? From the homeless to Harvard, U.S. citizens understand the importance of education. We see it more and more every day.

Of course, stats like this about the dismal Achievement Gap between Latino/Black kids and Whites/Asians — straight out of the article — are great to hear…

The report concluded that if those achievement gaps were closed, the yearly gross domestic product of the United States would be trillions of dollars higher, or $3 billion to $5 billion more per day.

But they also smack a little of “No shit, Sherlock”, don’t they?

And then, of course, the politicians try to spin it as if “all we need are good teachers and everything will be honky dory.”

Well, yes, we do need good teachers. (I, for one, will never defend a lame educator.) But we also need good tools, strong support, wide-ranging involvement and a more fiercely concerted effort to improve things on a variety of fronts. I mean when a kid ditches class, gets no encouragement from home, hangs out with the wrong crowd and on and on, this is self-evident to the front line teacher. But really, how much can they/we/I do? I face it all the time. Yes, I sweat this stuff!! I, contrary to what you are supposed to do, take this stuff home with me. For example it’s Saturday and I am really concerned about a girl named — I’ll change her name — Ree because she is on her way to just becoming another drop out stat. Ditching, hanging with the wrong crowd, Boys, Boys, Boys on her brain, thinks she smarter than any kid who has ever walked the halls of Lynwood High and all the “schemes” aren’t going to catch up to her. I mean, I hate to say it, but unless she turns her ship around and fast, I give her 18 months before she’s just another inner-city statistic.

She’s smart enough not to have this happen to herself but she ain’t acting that way. She ain’t acting that way at all and as the old saying going, “If you play with fire long enough, you are going to get burned.”

Ree, you have no idea. None at all.

And I’ve told her this to her face. Many times. I’ve tried being nice, overextending myself, flipping out, bringing in counselors, contacting parents — and nothing has worked. And right now, I feel all alone in my quest to “save” Ree from herself.

So when Mr. Klein says all we need is a good teacher, I say, well, I try to be a good teacher but hey, what more can I do? Those stats you are using to demonize the members of my profession kinda hurt when circumstances like this are such a big part of the equation for the front line teacher.

Yes, good teachers are SUPREMELY important. But there’s more to it… a lot more.

Wow, what a shocker.

I have a love/hate relationship with Open House. I initially hate it because I will have left my house about 6:00 am and not returned home til about 9:00 pm. Trust me, that gets old quick. On the other hand, seeing my kids without their “student” masks on is always insightful and heartwarming. I forget just how adult so many of my students must be. They care for younger siblings, interpret English for their non-English speaking parents and carry the dreams of their family’s deepest aspirations for success in America with them as they try to navigate me assigning them “Dissect the theme of ________ in a well-written essay” for homework many, many times a year.

Sometimes, it’s gotta be tough.

However, I just had a student — male, Hispanic, 15 years old — come into my room with 2 parents and they wanted to know everything. His grades, attitude, attendance, work ethic… goodness were they on me about him. And he was looking at the floor, somewhat ashamed/embarassed. But our conference ended with me telling this student that he was lucky, that there are scores of kids at this school that have no parents coming to see me, no parents asking thoughtful questions, no parents making deep inquiries and really working hard to know what’s going on in their teenage son’s life.

And this student is a good kid. Well behaved, polite, smart, does his homework, not hanging with the wrong crowd (as far as I know but with teens today, does one really ever know?), on his way to college one day.

Yep, lucky. Though he might not really feel it so much now, this kind of involvement, their active engagement is going to have shaped — for the better — his future life.

Really, how many times on this ning have we discussed the importance of parents? And if Open House proves anything, it proves that. I mean the kids who are failing, is it a coincidence that their parents haven’t come to see me tonight? Virtually all the folks who came in this evening are parents of kids who are earning a B+ or higher.

It’s not rocket science. Parents matter!! And meeting the parents of my students is always a joy for me. Goodness, I love Open House.

But I can’t wait for it to end so I can finally get out of here as well. Another long day almost in the books.

Parents, parents, parents. When they are on my side I feel like I can move mountains with my kids. And when they are not, the hills to climb becoming so much more steep.

Seems as though a total collapse of the free world’s financial markets has a silver lining: that kids are thinking twice before dropping out because there are no jobs for them if A) they leave school early and B) are citizens who do not have any sort of formal education. As this article points out, every crisis has a silver lining, right?

Seems to me that America has become far too much of a country that requires a crisis before taking intelligent action to deal with the circumstances BEFORE matters escalate to the level of calamity. From New Orleans and the levees to Wall Street and the financial market/housing bubble crisis to gangs in the inner city to the dropout crisis becoming an absolute economic and social albatross for our nation, we are, in far too many ways, a nation of reactors instead of proactive problem solvers.

And we pay for it each and every time.

As a parent, I don’t allow my 2 year old daughter to cut herself with a sharp kitchen knife before I take the knife away from her. My daughter doesn’t get access to knives of any sort in the first place. But as a country, we allow ourselves to play with fire time and time again, much to our detriment.

When it comes to students, being proactive about matters is one of the best lessons I think I can ever hope to teach them. Fixing the mentality of our entire nation might be a bit ambitious but today, Earth Day, it might be time to think about becoming just a wee bit more green, don’t ya think?

Spring Break was exceptionally rejuvenating for me this year because I worked so hard and so long and travelled so many miles across the United States speaking, signing books and the such in the weeks prior to my time off from Lynwood that the first few days were a virtual collapse of the mind, body, and spirit. And while the alarm clock was kinda jarring today (first buzz at 5:17 am) I drove to school feeling excited. Things to do, books to read, minds to stretch, and so on.

And then I was hit with the worksheets.

State standardized tests are coming and I was literally given hundreds of pages of worksheets to prepare for the days and days of bubble tests coming up in May less than 8 minutes into my first day back on campus.

I immediately became despondent, angry and frustrated. (Pretty much morphing into the stereotypical demeanor of most teachers in our country today, right?)

Then I looked at the worksheets. (Much to my credit, mind you. Usually, I just dump them in a cabinet til the year is over with before looking for a recycling bin. After all, hundreds of pages of material as taken straight from the website of the State Dept. of Ed is rarely, if ever, something worth taking notice of. True tree killing to the worst degree. Come to think of it, our school photocopier must have been groaning for hours to get all the English teachers in our department sets of this mess. No rest for the weary, Mr. Machine. We gotz bubbles to serve!)

Anyway, I looked at the worksheets to see with an open eye what they were all about. And what did I see, mind you? Was I wrong? Was I falsely assuming a reality which was not there? Nope. I saw absolutely what I expected to see, that using worksheets to teach any sort of material in this day and age is simply a terrible approach to education. The state wants us to teach dialogue so Worksheet A has practice bubbles on discerning the tone, meaning and impact of dialogue.

Mr. Alan has kids actually speaking to one another in different tones and tongues in order for everyone to see, live, breathe, hear, feel and taste how dialogue truly can impact the meaning of text.

Do you know how fun it is to do this with a group of kids?

Can you please pass the salt?
CAN YOU PLEASE PASS THE SALT?
Can you PLEASE pass the salt?

Do all three mean the same thing? With teens, it’s way more exciting, real, practical and academically effective to teach the impact of dialogue my way — so into the cabinet went the worksheets and out came the real art of teaching.

And until they put me in a cabinet, that’s the way it’s gonna be.

I saw John Wooden on PBS last night, the legendary coach of UCLA basketball who won like a ba-zillion NCAA championships. His feats are almost unparalleled in the world of sports but the reason I think he is still so darn interesting to so many people — he’s nearly 100 years old and still speaks, signs and does appearances — is because he developed a sort of life philosophy that transcends mere sports.

He calls it the Pyramid of Success and without a doubt it is a tool from which ALL YOUNG PEOPLE (heck, all people) in this country can derive tremendous benefit.

There are so many things that this triggers for me that I could write a book about his book — it’s truly that spectacular. But out of all the things I could address right now, the thing that spoke most to me last night was when Coach Wooden said, “Above all, parenting is the first profession.”

Wow. I mean this is a guy who is Hall of Fame huge in his professional accomplishments and the number one area in his own career, the arena which he considered professionally preeminent above all, was being a good parent. And this outlook on life is what he considered to be the core foundation to all his other “life success”.

Values drove the way he lived his life. And if you look at the pyramid, you see that each and every element is something that falls under an individual’s control. Success was a by-product of proper conduct, proper living, proper preparation, right attitude and right effort. He talked about how bad breaks were inevitable, both in the world of sports and in the game of life, but how one responded to the inevitable adversity almost always trumped the circumstances of the adversity itself.

He raised his own kids from this perspective, he coached his team from this perspective, and his legacy to us all will be, not the banners that hang from the rafters which proclaim him a “winner” many, many times over, but rather the ability he provides all of us to bring these tools into our own lives.

How much would education change if the parents of this nation took the counsel of Coach Wooden to heart? And if the parents won’t do it, then does it not falls to us, the teachers of this nation, to pick up the slack? If every student owned — rather took ownership over applying the principles illuminated by Wooden’s Pyramid — I think fantastical strides for our schools and our nation could be made.

Funny how we have all these great tools at our disposal, but, I wonder, if they go unused, what’s the point in even having them?

Parents, teachers, administrators and lay folks — seize the pyramid! I know my own life is better for having worked hard to do so.