Become long enough in the tooth as an educator and you’ll realize that with the dawn of each new calendar year also comes the DONAROBA (Dawn of a New Round of Buzzwords and Acronyms) in the world of reading, writing, literacy and schools.

It’s a COS (Confection of Scholarship) concocted by BBs (Bureaucratic Buffoons) about which you better not GCWYPD (Get Caught With Your Pants Down).

Luckily, my EIDE (Experience in Dissecting Edu-babble) can help guide you through the upcoming MOH (Morass of “Huhs?”) many readers of this column will surely face over the course of the next 12 months.

And so, without further ado, here’s a heads-up on the 2012 POO (Pipeline of Obfuscation).

Without a doubt we’ll all be in P4C-Core (Preparing for Common Core) mode. Unless you live in an NFM4UH (No Federal Money for You, Honey) state because Common Core is not on your DSDOE’s (Dysfunctional State Department of Education’s) to-do list. And while the BOSTs (Bashers of Standardized Testing) will be out in full force, the DOA’s (Defenders of Accountability) will be right there to meet them head on. Indeed, the bloody street fight pitting teacher versus teacher, administrator versus teacher, politician versus teacher and parent versus teacher will – sad to report - continue.

Unfortunately, this arms race is not contained to any one, single battlefield meaning that it will be a time of war on many fronts. We’ll have the BUTULs (Break up the Union Loons) versus the PTUAACL (Preserve the Union at Any Cost Loons), we’ll have the AOBCSTTNROTC (Advocates of Blindly Chartering Schools Though They’re Really Not Outperforming Their Counterparts) lobby versus the QSOADAGETWDKS (Quit Stealing Our Average Daily Attendance Gripers Even Though We Do Kinda Stink) lobby, and of course, we’ll see the CEBM (Corporate Education Billionaire’s Mafia) take on any and all comers who dare to question their insight, ability or motives.

Indeed, each of these clashes will go toe-to-toe on television, on the internet, and on Capitol Hill during the first 11 months of 2012. And why only 11 months? Well, it’s an EY (Election Year) which means that the CPWPAL (Cartoonish Politicians Who Pander and Lie) will be out in full force telling you anything they think you want to hear in order to secure your vote. Come December ‘12, they’ll all be back to their tone-deaf agendas.

Not to spoil your New Year’s diet plans, but since I come from the philosophical school of SPESDSS (Sugar Provides Emotional Solace During Stressful Situations), I suggest you plan on packing a few extra jelly doughnuts in your lunchbox this year. The kind with the GGO (Good Gooey Ooze) injected into them. When the seas of schooling get rough in the months ahead, you’ll thank me in spades.

Of course, the world of literacy instruction won’t be spared from all the tumult. The WGTNMFFF (We Gotta Teach New Media, Forward, Forward, Forward) progressives will launch lots of grenades at the ITCOTLNJTTTMETIDNRKHTUTTM (It’s the Content of the Lesson, Not Just the Technology, That Matters… Even Though I Do Not Really Know How To Use The Technology Myself) crowd. And though I do not consider myself to be all that prescient, I do believe this one is a battle that will most likely last for at least another decade.

The DOCs (Defenders of the Canon) will stand nose-to-nose with the AOYAL (Advocates of YA Literature). The EO (English Only) faction will knock heads with the BI (Bilingual Instruction) believers. And the WMDAWCTROTS (We Must Do Anything We Can To Raise Our Test Scores) crowd, well… who won’t they fight?

But curiously, there will be “shades-of-grey” skirmishes as well, such as when the fearful PEFOTOEWALOJs (Prepare ’Em for the Test or We’ll All Lose Our Jobs!) employees find themselves in conflict with LIAMTJTBT (Life Is About More Than Just the Bubble Tests) workers. Interestingly, this is will be a quarrel where members of each sideline find themselves opposing yet simultaneously sympathizing with their counterparts on the opposite sideline, a real head-scratcher indeed.

So what more can you do beyond arming yourself with jelly doughnuts to make sure your PFTQ (Preparation for this Quagmire) is where it needs to be as the calendar year turns? To that I say, think MBAS (Mind, Body and Spirit).

To fortify your mind, think like a child.

To nourish your body, I recommend green apples.

And when it comes to your spirit, well… has any teacher ever really gone wrong watching this?

Alphabet soup has long since absconded with literacy education, public schooling and cogent administration. Therefore, in 2012, you might as well just EMOTS (Expect More of the Same) because you know soon enough someone is gonna PALOHMROOTBACIONP (Pull Another Load of Horse Manure Right Out of Their Butt and Call it Our New Policy).

Death brings a book rec. Who wouldda thunk?

I blogged about a man’s passing yesterday and one thing I didn’t mention which I now feel I ought is that Fred was a reader. Big time. It’s not something lost on me that 1) I know my fair share of “successful” people and 2) to a person, I can’t think of one of them who is not a reader.

I wonder if the next generation, the one being raised with the web and such, will prove the corollary, however anecdotal, different?

Are all these folks I know who are successful successful because they read or did they become successful as a by-product of being a reader? I really do wonder.

During the eulogy, his son mentioned his father’s favorite book of all time? (No, not anything I have written but I do think that because I’m an author Fred held me in a little bit of a “we’re in the club” light as he’d written books in his field of medical specialty himself.)

His all time favorite title? A book I’ve never read, A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT.

Sure, I’ve seen the Brad Pitt movie – and I really, really liked it – but as the son spoke about why his dad was so nuts for this book, I realized, “Man, I gotta read this novel.”

So death brings a book rec. Who wouldda thunk?

Death has come to visit. No one escapes. The person who passed was a good man, dare I say great, yet he and I were not close in any sort of life-long type of way.

I knew him. He was someone I greatly admired and in attending the services for him the other day, I left the funeral a better person than I had entered.

I’m assuming a man who leads a well-lived life probably has that effect on many. Funerals are wonderful for inspiring deep reflection. My experience was no different.

Funny, too, how I’ve often seen a lot of white lies at funerals. Convenient forgetting of details. I mean I have never been to a funeral where someone stood up and said, “Ya know, Joe was a schmuck.” People frequently romanticize those who have passed; they forget the cruddy things and sensationalize the dormant (if not entirely non-existent) qualities, perhaps for their own sakes as much as for holding with appropriate decorum. However, this funeral was remarkable in that there was so much genuine appreciation for the way the man had lived his life. It was like the sentiment of, “Well played, sir” (followed by a quite gentlemanly English tip of the hat) was the predominant viewpoint cascading through the room.

No need to go into too much detail about this person’s identity though. The guy to whom I refer was simply a guy who married his childhood sweetheart, proposed with a cigar band ring, entered medical school four days after his wedding and then turned himself into a renowned cardiologist. The classic self-made man who became a leader in his field, a philanthropist and, most significantly, a wonderful family man.

Speaking of family, his two children blew me away with their eulogies. Each spoke with more strength and courage than I think I believed was in them considering the suddenness of their father’s demise. It was if a generational torch was passed right in front of my eyes – and, as probably goes without saying – I wept like a baby at the beauty and sadness and truth in their words. Is it ironic to be flooded with inspiration to live well created by death?

As a writer, a reader and a consumer of American mass media characters live and die all the time. But when the real thing taps a nearby shoulder, one invariably reflects.

Is there anything more encouraging that that of a great example? Prayers to you and your family, Fred. And thank you.

As I walked off of a middle school campus in Brockton, Massachusetts earlier today after doing a series of huge student assemblies for the incarcerated – I mean, scholars – a moral conundrum struck. There, as school let out and I crossed back to my vehicle, a few kids were tossing a football around. (Or rather, tossing around a football, I should say… as you’ll see why in a moment.)

Happens all the time across America everyday, right? And then, out of nowhere, I heard the scream right next to me: “Look out, you’re gonna get ranned over!”

And sure enough, a boy was preparing to dash into the middle of a car-infested street to chase down an errantly thrown football. That’s when my stumper, my perplexity, the riddle amongst all riddles set in.

“Should I save the boy or correct the grammar?”

No one ever prepared me for such dilemmas when I was working on my Master’s degree, I tell you that.

The child blindly stepped off the curb, keyed in on only one reality: get that football.

And yet, the other boy had just used the word “ranned”? (Seriously?)

Could I remedy both potential calamities at the same time? Impossible, I deduced. Should I lurch for the child with an eye towards the oncoming vehicle, I’d surely lose out on my opportunity to remediate the faulty verb usage of the incorrigible on the curb. Yet, if I addressed the notions of syntax, participles, faithfulness to the queen’s english and diligence to to matters easily referenced by Strunk and White, then a kid could be ka-putt.

What to do? But there was no time to think. Instinct took over.

I extended my arm, grabbed the kid and pulled him close.

“There is absolutely no such word as ranned,” I said. “Never, ever incorporate this vocabulary word into your speech again, okay? Ranned is NOT a word!”

Then I turned and walked serenely away, my back to the loud, yet oddly unfazing screeeeech.

Always, remember, we must do all we can to save ‘em one kid at a time.

As my second day of NCTE 2011 is upon me, it’s almost unreal to reflect upon the professional incredible-ness this conference has delivered to my doorstep as a YA author.

Without a doubt, as a writer, NCTE has changed my life.

At the great risk of name dropping, I am now going to name drop… partly because it’s very much a “pinch me” type of reflection I am currently experiencing.

I’ve shared a stage with Walter Dean Myers, Laurie Halse Anderson, Gordon Korman, Jaqueline Woodson, Gennifer Choldenko, T.A. Barron, and many, many more. I’ve dined with Dave Barry, Rick Riordan, Avi, Mo Willems, Ridley Pearson, Rosemary Wells, Sara Pennypacker, Norton Juster, Coe Booth, Melissa De La Cruz, Ned Vizzini, and many, many more.

Like how cool is that? In football, the top-tier players, when they score, simply walk into the end zone, hand the ref the ball and “act like they have been there before”. Well, Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m. I am going to be sharing a stage with Jon Scieszka. On the outside, I guess there is a part of me that’s going to “act like I been there before” but on the inside, I think that if I lose my sense of child-like giddiness about how entirely rockin’ it is to be able to work along side of some of the best of the best in the publishing industry, then that will be my sign that, “Yo… you’ve become jaded.”

Plus, right after the session I do with Jon, I am going to be signing yet another new book of mine at the Disney booth – one they are giving away FREE on a first come, first serve basis starting at 12:30 in the exhibit hall. (They only have a coupla hundred yet year after year they run out. NERD GIRLS BOOK 2: A CATASTROPHE OF NERDISH PROPORTIONS is getting ready to launch.)

To become blase’ about any of this really would be a sign of losing perspective, wouldn’t it? I mean WOW!

I once saw a documentary piece on Pixar and how Steve Jobs had instructed the architect who was building HQ to physically design the building so that nooks and crannies were hard to find and “collision points” were everywhere. Why did he do this? Because he felt that the best ideas often came when people were walking down the hall and bumped into other people… because in that moment of collision (or was it serendipity) excellent ideas were born via unscheduled, relaxed, low-pressure conversation and collaboration.

Whenever I leave NCTE it often feels as if this has happened to me. And nowadays, the week before I venture there, I just sense that somehow, someway, through some sort of some-thing, I will have an offhand encounter that will lead to an offhand conversation that will ultimately result into an explosion of personal insight.

Here’s a Jim Burke story to illustrate the point:

A bunch of years ago at NCTE Jim and I sat down for a coffee. We used to meet for dinner every year until “scheduled dinners” stole away our ability to do this (and boy do I miss our sushi date, Jim, if you are reading this). Anyway, during this coffee break I ran a kooky new book idea up Jim’s flagpole.

All I really had was a title at the time and a small premise.

“I have an idea for a new YA book of fiction, a comedy,” I said.

“If I may be so bold to ask, what is it?” Jim replied. (Jim is always unfailingly polite… unlike the blustery moi.)

“Well, here’s the title… ERECTION! It’s about a middle school boy who gets busted with a boner in math class.”

Jim broke out laughing. Now the thing is, none of this was premeditated. I do not even think I arrived at the conference planning on pitching Jim an idea for a book, one that I sensed would certainly engage boy readers. (The holy grail, in a way, these days.)

However, the moment Jim busted out with a belly laugh I had a flash of insight that this book was even funnier than I suspected. And would be relatable in a way that was more than I expected. And would be touching the taboo yet staying within bounds in a way that was more than I expected. And that’s when I knew I had to write this book. Jim’s sensibilities weren’t offended at all. (My fear.) And humor, as I suspected, held the potential to carry the day when it came to tackling a difficult subject. (Like male puberty.) Jim literally was the first person I told about this idea and even though that was years ago, a seed was planted at NCTE that afternoon which I knew I’d one day HAVE to harvest. (NOTE: this idea morphed into my new book THE DOWNSIDE OF BEING UP which has garnered the first starred review of my fiction writing career.)

Of course, all of this happened by happenstance, by running into one another when we each had a moment. Though I have no idea whether or not Steve Jobs would have liked my book, I do think he would have knowingly nodded at how the idea was born and cemented.

Attending conferences live and in the flesh will deliver a plethora of tremendous insights for those who make the trek to Chicago this week. Perhaps it will be a lesson plan that unlocks a kid who has previously been a really tough nut to crack? Perhaps it will be a person you meet while waiting in line for a mid-day snack that makes you remember why you love being a professional educator deep in your bones? Perhaps it will be a book editor who gives you your first break, a principal who offers you a new job or an online friend who suddenly becomes more than a mere avatar. Heck, you might even learn something while sitting in one of the sessions listening to one of the tremendous presenters. (Shocking, I know.)

So why should folks attend more conferences. Because serendipity awaits.