It’s a fun party question to ask, “If you could meet anybody, who would it be?” Me, I love people and couldn’t really narrow my list down at all. Truthfully, I find so many folks interesting – especially the weird ones (who gravitate towards me like a magnet, I might add… no names mentioned). But usually people mean the question in terms of which famous person from history [dead] would you like to meet?

Still, I have a list a mile long. But probably at the top, I’d have love to have met some of the biggie writers. I’m talkin’ canonical Mo Fo’s.

- Dostoevsky

- Victor Hugo

- Hemmingway, Thoreau, Franklin, and Billy Boy Shakespeare!

Could you imagine sipping tea with Poe?

How about going for a row boat ride with Emerson?

A late night cafe con leche with Cervantes?

Me, I think the writers would be fascinating but then again, I’m a book dork. I mean chatting art with Monet, design with Michelangelo, or love (and ears) with Van Gogh would be hot!

And I am not sure if one could beat a clam bake with Dali or a barbecue with Picasso, either

Let’s not forget music. Perhaps there might not be a more tickling reaction to be had as giving me the chance to put a pair of iPod ear buds on Beethoven’s head so that I could expose him to the artistry of Justin Beiber.

But still, if I had to choose a famous dead person I really have no idea which way I’d go. It’d be a “thinker” though, of that I am pretty sure. The military folks never intrigued me as much as those with a philosophical bent. (Not that military guys aren’t thinkers, but I’ve a luvah, not a fighter.)

Lamb with Aristotle? Yes.

Turkey sandwiches with Stonewall Jackson. Eh, I’d take it, but not even a top 100. And though I am sure he’d eat my liver if he heard me say this, Dr. Seuss intrigues me far, far more than Attila the Hun.

Who would you choose? And why? Me, I have no idea. (But secretly I have always wished I was the one who wrote Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure a movie where two high school kids time-travelled and got to have a great time with all kinds of famous dead folks).

Einstein, Voltaire, Plato, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses… it’d be great to share some chips and salsa with any of these cats, too, I think.

I’ve also noticed that my list is notably male. I blame patriarchal history. In a battle of Charles Dickens vs. Jane Austen, I’d take Charles Dickens every time. That’s not to say Jane wouldn’t be a kick in the pants – and only a fool would suggest that sharing a front porch and a glass of lemonade with Emily Dickinson wouldn’t be pretty outstanding – but the guys do seem to dominate my thoughts. Sure Getrude Stein, Sylvia Plath, Mother Goose (actually, she might crack my top 100; I’d just sit there with warm cookies and milk and drool the afternoon away) they all hold an attraction. (And now that I think about it, Jeanne d’ Arc would be a “let’s have some bouillabaisse” pick for sure). But the dudes certainly feel like they are carrying the category for me. (Perhaps there’s an argument for castration to be had in the reason why, somewhere.)

If I could only pick one? No idea. (But W. Somerset Maughm feels like a top 5.)

The real problem with reading is what you end up learning as a result of being a reader. For example, this week I learned that…

According to the NY Times, there is a list of the “Seven Least Trusted Banks” in our country. Not wanting to get screwed in case their is some kind of financial crisis, I use two banks these days instead of one.

Smart consumer that I am, my banks are numbers 1 and 2 on the list (Bank of America and Chase). However, my primary bank is their number two and their number two is my number one. That’ll teach ‘em.

Maybe I should just post my secret pin number on this ning?

In another story, I read that American Airlines is now going to charge $8.00 for airplane blankets. They say it’s due to economic conditions.

Hmm, I wonder how long before their is a memo circulated to all pilots to set the internal cabin thermometer to 47 degrees.

If American Airlines really wants to make money, they will pass out free brownies to every passenger that comes on board, lace them with horse laxative and then charge two bucks for entry into the bathroom, two bucks for toilet paper, two bucks for soap to wash your hands… and then $10 bucks to skip to the front of the line.

They’ll have mid-flight bidding wars for access to the john! Talk about working the bottom line.

And finally, Blue Cross has raised my wife’s health insurance premium a whopping 38%, over one hundred dollars per month.

No joke here. This is real. Congress, however, is investigating this greed. But when we read that bill we saw the real problem with reading: you comprehend when you are being royally screwed.

But no, we don’t need health care reform.

If I was going to craft a list of the top 10 books of the 20th century in our nation’s English classes, the ones that have most shaped, informed, been taught, and so on, I have a feeling The Catcher in the Rye would make the list.

Today we note that the author of that work, J.D. Salinger, passed away yesterday at the age of 91.

I always really liked the fact that Salinger was a so-called “recluse”. Especially since in this day and age, the rush for media attention on behalf of every Tom, Dick and American Idol Harry kinda irks me. I mean here’s a guy who has sold about 250,000 copies of his book a year every year for about five decades. (Wow, right?) And yet, his last official interview was in 1980.

How much do I wish that Ann Coulter’s last official interview was in 1980, huh?

And Salinger’s last published work was in 1965. But do you think he stopped writing? Personally, I don’t. Does that mean someone is sitting on a few manuscripts that might be genuine treasures?

Does that mean that Salinger had a bonfire filled with manuscripts we’ll never get to read. Or better yet, assign theme papers about.

Discuss the theme of angst and rebellion evidenced by Holden Caulfiend in the novel The Catcher in the Rye and illuminate why the protagonist’s nervous breakdown represents the breakdown of the modern American family’s sense of genuine intimacy. And be sure to use MLA format.

Sheesh! Teenagers everywhere should be kneeling that he never published again. It saved them mountains of 5 paragraph essays!

Maybe a grandkid will inherit a bounty of books written by his grandpa that will one day see the light of day? And maybe, what we got is all we’ll get.

Was he liberated by his success or a prisoner of it? Probably both.

Either way, as an English teacher I just hope someone is going through his attic. After all, there are essays to assign!

America’s definition of wealth is warped. And the definition of wealth we teach our kids is skewed as well. (After all, I should know. I think the way I have been taught to think about ideas such as “worth”, “value”, “assets” and so on are exceptionally demented being that the monetary association is always my first and foremost barometer for these definitions — when I know in my heart that family, health, service to others and so on are much more meaningful to me once I slow down and count up all my chickens.)

Let’s be honest, in the United States, people use money like a scorecard. We publish the salaries of movie stars, big-name athletes and CEO’s. The higher one ranks, the “better” a person is. And come on, isn’t salary — or lack thereof — one of the prime reasons so many people treat educators in a condescending manner? I tell ya this, a lot fewer people would hit me up with the ol’ ,”Oh you’re a teacher? I really admire the work you do. It must be so challenging yet rewarding,” pity-talk I often get at holiday parties if I was banking an 8 figure salary.

Instead, they’d be schmoozing me up for hot tips like, “Yo, let’s say I was at Bloom Taxonomy level 3 preparing for a unit quiz. Got any sweet “ins” on how I could get all the way to level six without sacrificing classroom management in the process of trying to hyper-engage all the different learning styles in my classroom?”

That’ll be the day, right?

Additionally, to the uber-rich, it often feels like — at least to an outsider looking in — that no matter how much money they have, it’s never enough.

What are they still seeking, I’ve often asked myself. I mean, how big of a steak can one person eat?

Interestingly, I came across this comment from Eli Broad, a man on the Forbes List of billionaires, about what the latest financial turmoil means to the people of our country. Broad says…

It’s not any longer simply about how much money you have, what your assets are worth. The happiest people I’ve found are in science. These people have three times the IQ — maybe I’m exaggerating. They have a higher IQ than I do. They love what they’re doing, they have a good family life, they’re satisfied. People are going to take a look at how we define wealth, and not just in financial terms. They’ll ask, what am I accomplishing? What am I going to leave behind? What am I doing with my kids? How am I going to help my community? I’ve not led a balanced life. If I had it to do over again, maybe I might lead a more balanced life.

Haven’t we all been indoctrinated to believe that by reading the Forbes List of billionaires we are also reading a list of those who are the most happy and satisfied in life? Haven’t we all been served a glass of kool-aid that gets us to believe that the more we possess, the more we are fulfilled?

Are we now at the dawn of re-evaluating wealth? Does 2010 ring in a year when fulfillment is part of the equation in determining one’s “assets”?

Will the ghost of my “level of income equates to my level of value in this world” ever stop haunting me?

Cause that’s the tainted Kool-Aid I done drunk.

Newsweek just came out with their annual list of America’s best high schools. On one hand, I really do love this list. Why? Because year in and year out it brings education to the front page of one of America’s most popular magazines. And as the old saying goes, there ain’t no such thing as bad publicity — just no publicity — and our country sure could use some extended dialogue about our schools. Particularly our high schools.

So thumbs up… especially for giving me an inferiority complex.

Though I checked the top 10, and the top 100, and the top 1,000, my own school wasn’t listed. (As Don Adams used to say, “Missed it by that much.”) So of course, before I dared to dispute the rankings, I decided to see how these rankings were determined.

Reading this made me feel better. Essentially, it’s a multi-page document acknowledging how preposterously subjective these rankings really are. Simply put, there is no “objective science” to evaluating a school. For the Newsweek piece, which is sure to make a big splash in Dallas, Texas, they arrive at their numbers through a formula called The Challenge Index.

Read the article for their explanation/justification/rationalization of why their Challenge Index has merit. Whether one agrees or not, it’s interesting to see their perspective on what makes for a school that deserves high praise.

They do raise one other point that certainly deserve a little bit of a chat though. As the article states…

Question: How can you call these the best schools or the top schools if you are using just one narrow measure? High school is more than just AP or IB tests.

Answer: Indeed it is, and if I could quantify all those other things in a meaningful way, I would give it a try. But teacher quality, extracurricular activities and other important factors are too subjective for a ranked list. Participation in challenging courses and tests, on the other hand, can be counted, and the results expose a significant failing in most high schools—SO far less than 6 percent of the public high schools in the United States qualify for the NEWSWEEK list.

As we face questions of merit pay, sanctions against those who are under-performing, blue- ribbon honors for those who do, the impact of socio-economics and community culture on a a school’s AYP and so on and so on, it’s easy to see why people get so down about their rankings. THEY ARE JUST SO DAMN SUBJECTIVE! I mean the fact that my school has a teacher who literally save a student’s life this year by talking them down off the ledge of suicide wasn’t given any points for credit by Newsweek. Go figure.

Ultimately, what our schools are supposed to do and what they being asked to do are, in so many ways, two entirely different conversations. It’d be nice to see Newsweek devote a sidebar to that, huh?

Congratulations to the schools that are on this list. Really, I mean it. It makes no sense to pull others down — we need to be hoisting more schools up. And for those who “missed it by that much” don’t worry, the thorny stick of NCLB will be coming to demonize you soon enough.

At my school, it has already arrived.