Words...

As I woke up this morning, in that space where my mind has kicked in and started churning the things that need doing today, but before my eyes can open, I was thinking about words. Well, I was thinking about the little girl's birthday party we're going to this morning and the fact that I always gift books. And somehow it jumped from that to adult illiteracy!

I was wondering what it would be like to live in a world excluded from words, and how that would affect every part of life. I'm sure illiteracy isn't as big of a problem in this country as it is in others (I'm speculating), but I know it still exists here, because I've seen commercials on the subject.

Think what that would be like! I couldn't write my thoughts to you, and you couldn't read them. I wouldn't be able to check out your doings in Facebook or blogs (oh my!). I couldn't read the newspaper, or read street signs while driving. I couldn't read nutrition labels, or warning labels, or instructions.

Imagine how that would put me at the mercy of those around me. Could I hold a job if I couldn't fill out an application or sign an employment contract? Not being able to read contracts, would I be scammed at every turn?

And how would I pay bills?

I'm sure there are so many other ways I would be affected that I can't even fathom. I know it would be possible to get through life without knowing how to read. It could even be possible to hide the fact that I couldn't. But what a lonely and isolated space to live!

My son is finally showing interest in learning to read. Last year's kindergarten experience probably set him back quite a bit in this area, and I've tried hard not to push him. He's almost seven. By the time I was his age I was firmly and completely lost in the world of words. He is surrounded by books in this house. I have bookshelves stuffed everywhere, and most of them are overflowing. And that doesn't even count the books I read and trade on paperbackswap, those books are kept in boxes.

He watches me chat with friends online. And he's especially interested when I'm chatting with his dad or grandma. He wants to type to them too, and I like watching him try to figure out how words should be spelled. I don't usually correct him because I don't want to color his experience with negativity, but it's interesting to me that he can read a word well, but turn around and write it completely different. It's interesting how those two things don't seem to connect in his brain.

I wonder what it would be like to not be given this opportunity to explore words. How do you get to adulthood without knowing how to read? Does it require ignoring everything in school, or is it from not attending school at all?

Words are such a consuming part of my life, I wonder what it would be like without them.

Being Female

Jeff McQ has again astonished me with his insight into this issue on his blog. After reading his post, I wanted to talk about my feelings on this point. Granted, I will say right now that this is from MY perspective, and may not be how you feel. But to be honest, this topic has shaped my life, and who I am, so I appreciate the opportunity to tell my story, and the people who are beginning to listen.

I recognized a difference in the treatment of men and women from an early age. I've never felt like I had the same opportunities that I would have had were I a man. I never once felt I could be "whatever I wanted to be." I grew up resenting my brothers for their blatant wasting of their advantage. I worked hard, studied hard, played by all the rules, just to be given the chance to prove myself competent.

I watched my mother accept her role as a servant to her husbands because she felt that that was her place. I listened to her teach that lesson to my older sister and I. I rebelled against this, determined not to subjugate myself to men. Having five brothers who did not carry the same responsibility or have the same expectations set for them, I felt the unfairness first hand. Why should I serve them, just because they were born with a penis?

As I've said before, much of this was cultural, and some was religious influence.

Early in my life I felt disdain for everything feminine. I viewed the female role as weak, and vowed to fight it everywhere I could. I decided young that I would never have children. Having children was a definite disadvantage. Having ultimate responsibility for a child automatically put the woman into a less respectable role. I sensed the feeling to be that a woman's place was in the home with the babies, and therefore she could not be trusted to be objective in other decisions.

This opinion was reinforced when I entered the workforce. Everyone talks about the inequality of pay. I believe we are making strides in that direction. However, the inequality goes much further than pay. It is much more insidious in the subtle exclusions, the slightly condescending tones, the delegation of tasks that the men consider unworthy. And all of this is reinforced when a working woman has children.

Of course women have the right to maternity leave to go have babies, but when I worked in the office, I could hear the contempt when men spoke of this "time off". I also watched the erosion of her position while she was out. And if she chose to extend her time at home with her baby, the feeling of "taking time off" was only amplified. Never was it viewed as important that she spend what time she could with her newborn. It was always about the inconvenience of her time away and the fact that fathers did not get this time off. (Family leave for men is a relatively new idea, and I've been out of the workplace long enough that I cannot justly say how this has changed the atmosphere surrounding maternity leave.)

And this continues to be an issue when it is predominantly the mother who takes time off for sick children, or doctor's appointments, or school scheduling.

I know, I know. This isn't true for everyone. I also know that it is becoming much more in fashion to have involved fathers who take their turns with this. But I now watch kids for a living. I know who to be call when a child is sick. I see who is taking the time off to come pick that child up.

I can relate to Jeff's comments about being more masculine in the workplace. I tried very hard to do all the right things. Then, I left to have my own son. I knew the moment that I decided to get pregnant that I was making a mistake. Soon after returning from maternity leave I was laid off.

This was 2003. People were getting laid off all over. Finding work was not easy, and I tried branching into other fields. After a couple of poor employment choices I started my childcare.

It was humiliating for me to be pregnant. It was like I was admitting that everyone was right, and there is nothing else for women than this. Even though I know this isn't true, it feels like I must prove myself every day in a man's world.

I hope, for the sake of the next generation of girls, that it doesn't continue to be this way. Thank you Jeff, for letting me have my say. And oh! Happy Mother's Day.

Entitlement

I find that I'm getting quite exhausted with the sense of entitlement that seems to abound today. Maybe I see more of it because of the area in which I live, but I think I'm getting too old to be tolerant of it.

This rant got started on my way home from school last night. I'm a fast driver. I'm not the fastest on the road, but I know I drive faster than the speed limit. I get so frustrated with people driving in the fast lane, going five miles an hour over the speed limit, who think they should not move over for the line of traffic piling up behind them.

I used to think it was just their being rude. I could see them thinking, "I'm going over the speed limit. I SHOULD be in the fast lane." And they would be completely clueless, or just pissed off if I went around them on the right. (Yes, I know that's technically illegal.)

So I would think, "where did they learn to drive? Did they miss the lesson on slower traffic moving right?"

But tonight I came to the realization that it's more likely a sense of entitlement. I think people just don't care. They are driving. They feel entitled to drive wherever and however they want, regardless of how it might impact anyone around them.

And driving isn't the only thing. The entitlement reaches into every inch of people's lives. Kids think they are entitled to everything they see on tv, adults think they are entitled to everything their neighbors have, everyone thinks they are entitled to a retirement whether they plan for it or not.

I know those are general statements, and may not necessarily apply to YOU, but why do you think we (as a country) are busy bailing businesses out for failing, over-paying union workers, "stimulating" the economy with taxpayer money, giving mortgage "relief" to people who can't pay their mortgages so they can keep a home they can't afford, and on and on...

Does this bother anyone else?

I'm finally excited...

... about the possibilities in this master's program.

Let me back up. I don't know how much I've said about this program. It's a Master's in Education with an emphasis on Art in Education. Well, not being a teacher, nor having any interest in being a teacher, the education part of it was a dubious choice. But I am in childcare, and technically that is the educating of very young children, so although it's a stretch, it qualifies.

I do enjoy teaching/training, although not for school-aged kids. So, another justification for the program was the potential to use it to get into a corporate training position. I have worked in the software industry, and my first love, the reason for my undergraduate degree, was to implement and train corporations in the use of ERP software. I have done some of that in the past, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have a knack for getting into everyone's business, learning what they do, and applying it to the big picture of a company. An ERP system is a multi-module software for manufacturing firms that essentially centralize all the information from the various working departments of a company into a single database. The first time I went through an implementation it was amazingly fun to learn how to use every part of the software, apply that to what I knew of how every department worked, and then teach them how to best use the software to benefit the whole company.

So, I figured a master's in education would give me the necessary edge to get back into the corporate world after a 5-7 year hiatus in childcare.

The emphasis on art has been difficult. I am not an artist. I am not even a budding artist! I have no natural talent at any artistic thing. I have a logical, problem-solving mind that can be assigned a project and can try to figure out how to accomplish the solution. Which may (in the case of my quilting projects) be construed as artistic, but is actually mostly puzzle work and problem solving!

So when it came time to find a "pathway" for my thesis project, I was really scared. The options were: 1) myself as an artist developing/learning/journaling the acquisition of a new art form, 2) myself as an artist journaling/narrating how I apply this art in my classroom, 3) myself as a teacher developing a curriculum that incorporates art into the classroom, 4) myself as a teacher doing teacher research on how to collect and collate data to support curriculum change, or 5) advocacy.

We discussed these pathways on the first night of class. We discussed them again the first night of the second semester. We are now at the end of the second semester in a five semester program, and just now getting into what those pathways mean. I'm sure a large proportion of the class knew immediately what which pathway they were going to choose. After all, almost everyone in this cohort is a teacher, and at least twenty percent of those are art/music/drama/dance teachers.

Not being a teacher, nor an artist, I was very scared. Of the five pathways, all I could see as a possibility was advocacy. However, every time the discussion on pathways happened in class, the instructors would start with pathway one, work their way to five, then with all the interruptions and questions, by the time she'd get to five, it would be "advocacy is about trying to make a change in leadership or policy. There probably aren't many of you that would fall into this category." (So you see where their focus lies!)

So it's near the end of the semester (one week left!) and it's time to write the proposal for our thesis. The instructor has given me the go ahead on an idea to create a website, which I wrote according to her guidelines, but I have no idea what pathway it falls into. I'm assuming it's five, since none of the others apply to me.

Last night we presented our thesis proposals to a group of other students in our class. We separated by pathway, and there were surprisingly five other students taking pathway five. Two of the others are also creating websites. I am excited about this. After hearing their proposals, I am even more excited. They had some great ideas, and some of them are as far removed from "art in education" as mine! I think I finally found something to sink my teeth into.

I'm still not sure where the culmination of this degree will take me, but hopefully, with some of the ideas I heard last night, there might yet be a place for me with something I can be passionate about. There's hope.

Stomach Flu

It's Monday morning, and I finally feel better. Last week I had a nasty stomach flu sweeping through my house. Every one of my kids who were here last week from Tuesday to Friday has now had it. Thankfully, it is quick to hit, and quick to move on.

My assistant was in the second wave of victims. One night of profuse vomiting, and by the end of the following day, she felt fine. I, however, can't seem to vomit, so any kind of stomach bug just seems to linger on and on. Finally, after 3 days I seem to be feeling ok.

It has been a good time to be sick, however, since it's been raining for days. In May!! If I wanted rain in the summer I would live in Seattle! I know drought is bad, but still. Rain in May!

My thesis proposal is due this evening for peer review. I've been plugging away trying to write somewhat intelligently, but not really impressing myself. I guess I'll see how easily impressed my peers might be! I'm afraid my proposal is so far way under par for graduate level writing.

And now it's the beginning of the month, which means a ton of month-end paperwork to fill out. Ugh.

I didn't intend this blog to be an online journal, but rather a voicing of my opinion on various matters. However, since I haven't had an opinion, apparently, in quite a while, I figured I'd just fill you in on what's been going on with me!

The Carsino Show

Ok. I admit I've been avoiding this blog. It's not because I don't have anything to say, either. I've been a little overwhelmed lately, and instead of feeling the release of writing out my issues, I've turned it into one more thing I should be doing. So, I've been avoiding. Typical.

But last night my husband and I went to see a show. It was something I had to do for school. I only have three weeks of school left, and had to get one more theater viewing in before the end. So, considering that I've left it to the last minute, I looked through what was playing, and there wasn't much to choose from!

Interestingly, the tiny theater on Sutter Street in Folsom was featuring a Thursday night performance of The Carsino Show! Ok. I'd never heard of it, but it fit my timing perfectly. From the website it looked to be a two-man comedy show. I was a little off on THAT point.

The cast of 12 had a whole musical set up around the set of the Carsino Show. This was supposed to be the mafia's knockoff version of the Johnny Carson show. It was funny.... most of the time.

The funniest part was that we were the only audience. Granted, the theater is tiny. I think it seats 50. Tops.

But still, being the only audience is a lot of pressure! I mean, what if we didn't find their jokes funny?

The guy that played Carsino's sidekick was funny, though. I could tell he was somewhat ad-libbing in response to our reactions, and his timing and delivery were awesome. And you know me (or most of you do, anyway), I can be loud. And I laugh a lot. Loudly. Usually at the most inappropriate times.

Needless to say, I was an active audience member. And the show was funny. So it wasn't hard to laugh at all the right places. Plus, I got a little into being "cast" as the audience... My husband said I had a larger audience than they did!

At the end of the show, the cast all came down to talk to us, and every one of them commented on what a great audience I was. One guy even commented on how they could hear me backstage and were laughing at my laughing at even the smallest thing! Oh well. I told him I get that a lot!

It was fun and funny. I'm still chuckling about it! And the best thing of all... they invited us to come back to their other show for free! Woohoo! They said: "When you call, tell us you were the woman who laughed at the Carsino show and we'll comp your ticket!" Ha!