Summer Daze...

Dear Maria,

I think my lapse in writing was due to a wretched combination of heat and humidity, but now a week of cooler weather is in the offing and I want to get my homework done so that I may have more time to play outdoors. Forgive me my absence and my fuzzy reasoning which is nothing more than good old-fashioned excuse-making.

Thanks for sending along the article your governor’s rather sudden change of heart regarding Common Core. Now that I have enough time to read articles from around the nation—and even enough time to follow links found on links—I find myself bemused by the rhetoric being twirled about in the name of political posturing. I would be more than bemused but am held in check by the plight of classroom teachers who must surely feel bewildered by what seems to be the test-of-the-month proposals that some administrators and elected officials are bandying about publically.

Of course, since I don’t feel the classroom effort in such a visceral fashion these days, perhaps being amused might be the zenith of my reaction to the ongoing bombast coming from all directions. On more issues than education.

So I have a notion to take a look at correlations between poverty rates and low-performing schools. Or to wonder about some sixteen-year-old fleeing parents and family and friends and, by traveling the length of Mexico, hoping to arrive somewhere with a future that might offer more than violence. Careful where you relocate, kid.

And thank you for adjusting your admonition from last year’s “to stay in the fight” to a more benign “at least to think about the issues”. My default—albeit simplistic—is are my ideas actionable? And the answer is, please. No. Or, no when I choose not to pick up a shovel and get back into the trench.

Keep sending me links to articles you think important, and I will read them and sometimes let fly—ideas only, no bombs bursting in air. The tasks in my world now are writ smaller, to wit, I listen (and in this art I will need much more practice), I encourage, and I offer up a prayer as needed.

Apropos of nothing in particular, the cardinals have become the new bullies in the trees—the young elms out front and the oaks in the back that are closest to the feeder. Apparently the bluebirds are summering elsewhere.

Keep cool.

Warmly, srk