Oooh, that smell, do you hear your death knell,
Corporate money to hell, beat you hard and well.
Fictionalized people, that’s more than odd; but consider us a firing squad,
Riddling each and every corporate bod, on your CORPses shall we trod.
Follow me, I’ll be a guide, toward corporation genocide,
Corporations too big to run and hide, it’s about time you impostors died.

Humans you shall never be, soulless as you are, you see,
Not I, he, she, you or me,
Shall ever pronouns speak for thee.
So suck it up, soon beckons the end,
Of your lifeless parade of let’s pretend,
You have no breath, you love no friend,

Fictions created with power’s ties,
No tears will meet your mass demise,
No tears shall seep from true human eyes,
No wails will fill your polluted skies.

We shall wrench the veils from those monstrous, mutant faces,
Put you all in your proper places,
You may not stand in our rightful spaces,
With human beings which have no living traces.
To cremate or bury we cannot
do,
No such rituals are possible for getting rid of you,
Amendment XXVIII will have to do,
An extinction way beyond overdue.

Quote:”what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams.”

Here’s the link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy?fb_action_ids=2643021989890&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_ref=U-eNWK0vDLQDhK4yudIxzmzJ-CFCONX01FRS-33thvXXX&fb_source=other_multiline

If you have time, there are two excellent other stories articulating the relationship of all this to public education and the effort to limit and marginalize community participation in the education of our children.

Quote: “This group, The Foundation for Educational Excellence, is high profile and is headed by Jeb Bush and funded by folks like the Gates Foundation and the Walton Foundation. They recently had a “summit” attended by Rupert Murdoch and Bill Simon (Walmart Pres). Their goal is simple and it in no way has anything at all to do with our children or with human learning for the advancement of human caring and understanding; it has nothing to do with justice. It is simply this: they want to create an exploitable market out of educational systems; you and your children as consumers of learning content.

It’s here:

http://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/news/2011/11/op-ed-occupy-movement-should-set-sights-on-standardized-testing/

And:

Quote “For much of the past decade, the New York City Department of Education has engaged in a variety of reform efforts, which have undermined public participation in the city’s public school system.

here:

http://btownerrant.com/2011/10/17/occupy-school-reform-against-stealing-our-public-schools/

I don’t feel that the play was worth the $100-plus per ticket we paid, especially given our seats, but I did enjoy it. I like Four Seasons’ music well enough; it doesn’t make the cut for my iTunes library, but it’s not something I turn off if it comes on. One thing about theaters, I am really grateful I am not any taller. Some of those damn seats are downright claustrophobic.
This weekend it’ll be Standing On Ceremony, which garnered some nice reviews in today’s New York Times. Not that I’m a big listener of critics.
I have been downloading and listening to a lot of audio-described movies lately, and somewhat neglecting my iBooks collection, which as of a few hours ago includes Bill Maher’s New New Rules. I did start that today, and I’m quite pleased so far.
Let’s see: In the past week, I’ve listened to Red Dragon (second time, though the first with description); The Reader (excellent, though disturbing); , Sense and Sensibility, (not a Jane Austen fan and I despise so-called “chick flicks” so I wasn’t that impressed; “Sweeney Todd” (yuck!), The Molly Maguires, (okay), and The Wind That Shakes the Barley (awesome; I shall listen again, as I’ve listened to these in spurts of time, rather than at one sitting). I’ve got 2012 queued up on the iPhone; never bothered with it before.
Last week I finally bowed to the inevitable and decided to stop participating in our family’s ritualistic watching of 2-1/2 Men. Alan is becoming increasingly annoying, Walden is a schmuck without Charlie’s delivery, and though I’ve always particularly enjoyed Jake, Berta, and Evelyn, it just isn’t worth it. I was tempted back to the fold by the coming attractions of Jake announcing he got his girlfriend pregnant, but I quickly figured out — and announced — that it was a dream of Alan’s. Blah, blah. I’m out again.
Getting an MRI with contrast for my foot tomorrow — yes, still trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with it. Well, time for bed, and a few more New New Rules.

My aunt was my maternal grandfather’s cousin, and she *loved* to dance. She loved people, and parties, and fun. My grandfather — long, long before he became my grandfather, of course — would take her to local dances. When she got home, her mother would beat the crap out of her, since only “bad girls” went out dancing. People asked her then, and later, “Why did you keep going out dancing when she would beat you?”
Her response: What’s a beating, when you had a good time?”
(Hey, some people *include* a beating as a good time, but that’s another story entirely.)

You live and breathe inside my veins, within my heart and head.
There is hunger that goes beyond food’s harsh necessity.
Blight that cannot harm, despite its slow, incremental spread,
It feeds and grows on my resolve, on dreams and hopes in me.
Affected, infected, I do not question the unquenched:
For sure I will be back to seek the part of me entrenched.

The play is about four people — two women and two men — who wish to be writers. They each pay five grand to have a writing seminar for ten weeks with Leonard (Rickman), who rips them apart in order to make them extract every last iota of their talent. No holds barred.
Each of the five characters is sometimes sympathetic, sometimes not. They are all well-developed, nuanced, and credible. There wasn’t a single bad performance.

The dialogue was sometimes somewhat superficial, but this was made up for tenfold by the times when it was downright insightful, quite humorous, and/or poignant. Most of the expletives were strategically placed, but I found about a third to forty percent of them unnecessary and distracting — this coming from someone who has no problem slinging foul verbiage when I feel it is warranted.

OK, so you are wondering, you of prurient mind, from whence comes my title. Ah, you naughty minions!

While I often found myself thinking (while reading the HP series and when watching the movies), that Severus Snape seriously needed a really good lay to improve his attitude, and Alan Rickman made him far more sympathetic than my imaginings while reading, I have never been one of those fan fic folk who wanted to snog Snape. No, thanks. (Although it is tempting to consider what a Potions master could whip up or ingest in order to make certain things more pleasing to the palate, but I do most definitely digress).
Leonard, on the other hand, once you had a full viewing of his entire character, once you got a glimpse of the vulnerability, pain, frustration, and humanity in the jumble of cynicism, brutal honesty, barbed commentary, and merciless manipulation, I could definitely understand why two of his students end up sleeping with him. (Actually, I confidently predicted this outcome to Gary and Samantha about the seemingly hard-to-get, frigid Kate — oops, was that a spoiler? Maybe. Maybe not. Doesn’t matter. Maybe it does. I don’t care. Leonard can edit and revise between my lines any time.
Next weekend, it’s Jersey Boys with some friends, and the weekend after that it’s STanding On Ceremony with Gary, Sam, and one of my colleagues. (No, I have no problem with my twelve-year-old son attending plays about marriage equality — he just wasn’t interested.)
OK, time to read and exercise. I rarely read, and only infrequently post, on Twitter or Facebook these days. The former is too superficial, and the latter has become such a nightmare of inaccessibility, I’ve just about given up on it. It’s so gratifying to know that Snark Suckernerd is throwing money and opinions at education reform when he can’t even ensure that his child is universally accessible to all. Another pathetic rich prick who suddenly knows everything.

I am physically doing well. The foot is much better, though still often bothersome. I have lost sixteen pounds and an inch off my waist thanks to Atkins. Since starting ATkins, I have more energy and sleep much better.

Work is as good as it is probably able to get. Gary is fine. The kids are fine. Some people in my family are not fine, but I have no power to help that — this sucks, but there are a lot of things I do not have power to fix, and that is something I am constantly struggling against.

Lately, I have distanced myself from things like this blog, twitter, and Facebook. I just feel like I am not properly nurturing something inside me. I hunger to read all the time, and to write poetry. Then, I feel agitated when I do not have the time and the concentration needed for the poetry writing, and I have always hated interruptions when reading something that has ensnared me.

I feel the pull of the autumn. I know that is what I mean, but I am not sure how to describe what I mean. When I am outside, and can feel the air, smell the air, hear the wind move through the trees, and feel and hear the leaves underfoot — when I hear the tapping and plinking of acorns falling, small animals scurrying under bushes, I feel like something is pulling me toward it, but I do not know what or where or why.
I feel as if I am missing something, but I am not upset. I feel as if I have everything, but it is holding me at arm’s length. AGain, I am not talking about friends, family, health, or work. It’s something else, and I can’t place it.

It reminds me of that feeling you get when you suddenly realize you forgot something somewhere, but you know you just are not going to be able to find it, no matter how hard you look. Again, I am not upset or angry or anxious over this. Just restless, antsy, driven to find and fill the void.
It might just be the need to read and write, those constant compulsions which insinuated themselves into my life for years, and that I have worked to suppress for the sake of life’s necessary deeds.

I am lately plagued by lines of poetry popping into my head, or out of my heart, or both. It seems never to happen in a place where I can stop to jot them down. It feels as if almost anything, anyone, anywhere can turn into a poem.

So . . . you might be seeing a lot of disjointed scribblings in these parts: random outbursts of verse. Will it help? I’m not sure, but I must answer the call when I can. Otherwise, it feels like a threat to my . . . what? SElf? Essence? Neither sounds right; in fact, essence sounds downright hokey. I’ve been questioning, and pondering, and considering for weeks now. Normally, I would not wait this long to write about something so central to my thoughts. I have been analyzing it, trying to tease the layers apart to find what’s at the core. Maybe it’s just me there, waiting for me to figure me out.

Last year, teachers at my District 79 GED Plus site were told that we would be piloting a program called Writers Express. It is meant for students in grades 3-12. It is a program based on self-contained lessons that build upon one another, but would be great for our ESL and literacy students because each day’s lesson stands on its own.
Its origins were touted orgiastically: two teachers in Massachusetts had developed the program from the results of a writing camp. The result was a surefire writing program that was thin on the boring, smothering hands of grammar and mechanics, while big on positive, specific feedback from teachers and peers, and focused on the big picture, the story being told.

OK, I thought. I’ll bite. We have few materials as it is; why not?

when I was finally given a copy of the first book in the series “writing Personal Narratives,” I thought it was a reasonable program: for elementary school and whole language proponents. It was not, however, meant in any way, shape, or form for literacy students — quite possibly ESL students, and quite possibly for certain literacy students: motivated, well-attending, well-behaving, and reasonably supported outside, as well as inside, the school setting. There are definitely students who can flourish with this program — but few of them will be in our population.

So why am I trying it out on my students, despite the fact that I was not chosen as one of the piloting teachers? Three reasons:

1. It gave me materials I could work with which were sanctioned by the district; I had access to them, and my para and I could easily prepare materials in a timely manner; I would save hours writing from scratch or finding materials.
2. I saw this as a fantastic opportunity to do some action research on a much-ballyhooed program which was chosen, as far as any of us is aware, without input from those of us in the trenches.
3. I knew that if the program was inferior, I could tweak it.

Let me tell you, folks: tweaking is my existence with this program. It starts off reasonably enough: ten or so lessons laying the groundwork and easing students into the right mind-set for building personal narratives. However, the inadequate attention to grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc., is disturbing, counter-intuitive, ad totally wrong for a program who students routinely indulge in poor attendance, who hate, or failed to achieve, in a traditional school setting, and who are not destined to be with any particular teacher for an entire year. Therefore it is highly unlikely that any student will experience the full program, and unless the teacher, or another teacher, is working on grammar and mechanics improvement at another time during the day, these students might develop some creativity and stamina, but it will not be grammatically pretty. Add to this the fact that as the lessons do incorporate some semblance of grammar: subject verb agreement, capitalization, and punctuation, subjects and predicates in sentences (in *that* order*!!!), the journal prompts cease to have any connection whatsoever to the skill drills and targeted instruction.

The program is exceptionally routinized, and the teacher is encouraged to do and say things that are redundant, scripted, and boring. While our students may not be bookish and overly scholarly, they can smell bullshit miles away.

I have spoken with colleagues about what on earth possessed the individual(s) who made the decision to give this program a whirl with our population. I no longer have to wonder. I can see clearly now: the feign is gone.

WEX (as this miracle writing cure is called), is owned by an outfit called Wireless Generation. Cute, huh? Even more adorable is the fact that none other than News Corporation owns Wireless Generation. You know: News Corporation: Rupert Murdoch, education privatizers, and teacher bashers, technology trumps humans for teaching. Remember Chancellor Joel K.? Come on, it hasn’t been that long. Yeah, that’s right: the ineffectual, failed lawyer, know-nothing, Bloomberg crony who left — and joined News Corp. Yessiree. GEtting the picture now? I am sure many a quiet, convivial conversation was had *encouraging* the powers that be that WEX was a perfect fit for our students. Ah, the way things eventually fall into place.

It is, in a nutshell, an *absurd* program for literacy students, particularly when those in our program are forced to waive special education rights or not have a place to study for their GED’s. I am told the WEX folks are rewriting the lessons to meet the needs of our students: you know, changing a journal prompt which asks students to write about a moment during recess to writing about a moment during lunchtime. Wow, that’ll really motivate 17- to 21-year-old urban students with children, and/or jobs, and/or homelessness, and/or criminal records and/or substance issues and/or gang affiliation. REal stuff! DEscribe your cold school-provided cheese sandwich or your drama at Taco Bell.

Aside from all this, GED Plus has adopted specific portfolio and graduation expectations for our students, which is certainly a good thing. The problem is, while students are working on “personal statements” for their portfolios, they are being asked to do “personal narratives” for WEX. This leads to confusion and some overlapping, and frustrates them.

Let’s look at another little fact. The GED exam is being revamped and rewritten. There are plans for using computers to take it: great, we have one computer lab for all students, a laptop cart which teachers are afraid to use because they do not want the responsibility of ensuring that all of those laptops make it back into the locked cabinet, and no printers in the classrooms which do have one computer. How are students with poor typing skills and little computer savvy (yes, they exist, and we have many of them) supposed to tackle this technology with enough confidence to take the GED, *and* learn all of the literacy skills they have been struggling to gather throughout their lives?
The writers of the GED have stated unequivocally in the hearing of colleagues at my site that they are changing the personal opinion essay to an expository essay, based on information given to the students. WEX does have an “expository writing” book of lessons. However, that book is not the one given to us. From the standpoint of any logical, forward-thinking, logistically-minded educator, does any of this make sense?

Of course not. No matter — it all makes sense in the boardrooms of News Corporation, at City Hall, and in the offices of DOe puppets who would not know one of our students if he or she saw one on the streets, and who would not know what to do in a classroom if lives depended on him or her teaching the students whose lives they are crippling with thoughtless, impractical, and crony-centered decisions. WE have no money, so we’ll throw money at this nonsense, and bash and blame and fire teachers when it does not pan out.

What I really, really would like is quite simple: Give me two academic years, and classes with no more than fifteen literacy students, and I will teach them to write well. On my terms. Using my methods. Goodness forbid. No thinking, motivated, dedicated teachers need apply — if they do, they’ll crush it all out of you, and destroy young, confused, uncertain lives in the process.

News Corp. and the Business of Education (video)