Leap Year in Penzance

In case you haven't yet noticed, 2012 is a Leap Year. This every-fourth-year occasion is of course necessary to keep our calendar from going totally haywire. In fact, Wikipedia says in part, "The Gregorian calendar was designed... so that the date of Easter... remains correct with respect to the vernal equinox." It isn't my intention to write about the EQUINOX, however, but the accompanying PARADOX.

Which Paradox? Why the piratical one, of course, woven around Leap Day in Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance. If you haven't seen this silly bit of business about aristocratic pirates and an incompetent general with a lot of daughters to marry off, you should. The traditional and correct G & S version is available in several forms on disc from you-can-guess-where online. But the most accessible way to see it is to track down the movie version with Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt. It takes a few small liberties with the score so Angela Lansbury can sing the fabulous tune,
     "This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
       Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter!"
 But in return you get the angelically divine Rex Smith, and Kevin Kline as the pirate king swinging from the crows nest wearing a mustache and flowing, open-necked shirt. Tame by today's standards, perhaps, but still worth watching.
      "And it is, it is a glorious thing
       To be a Pirate King!"

The Paradox revolves around Frederick, a young man freshly released from servitude to the dread Pirates of Penzance after attaining his 21st year. Frederick meets and falls promptly in love with the virginal Mabel, daughter of "the Very Model of a Modern Major-General," who has lied about his parentage to save himself and his daughters from the pirate's clutches.

The only problem is, Frederick wasn't signed up to serve till his 21st year, but his 21st birthday. And since he had the strange luck to be born on February 29, he's only celebrated five of them. When this is pointed out to him, the "Slave to Duty" tells Mabel he must return to the pirate band for another 60+ years. "It seems so long," she laments as she promises to wait for him.

In the mean time, the local constabulary is screwing up it's courage to capture the fierce pirates, lamenting as they sneak about that, "A policeman's lot is not a happy one." But don't worry, in the end the pirates are tamed, and Mabel and Frederick aren't the only ones who get their Happily-Ever-After.

I have a college friend who performs a Gilbert and Sullivan play every year with a local group in Michigan. I think I saw that they're doing Pirates this year. I wish I lived close enough to go. There aren't many chances to see any of the operettas these days, and that's a pity. At their best they are bright bits of fun with catchy tunes and clever lyrics. Perhaps the most famous piece G & S wrote is the Major-General's song from this one:

"In fact, when I know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin",

When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a Javelin,

When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,

And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",

When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,

When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery—

In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy—

You'll say a better Major-General has never sat has he.

For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,

Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;

But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,

I am the very model of a modern Major-General."

When you think about it, Leap Year doesn't get much respect as a holiday. No songs, traditional foods or raucous parades. And that's a pity, because a day that only comes around once every four years deserves more. So this year I'm inviting you to join me in celebrating the paradox of February 29 with a trip to the coast of Cornwall, and a rousing chorus:
     "Hurray for the Pirate King!
      Hurray for the Pirate King!"

Top Love Poem of All Time

Yes, it's a big claim to make, that one can select the top poem on a subject that has been written about more than any other. But I believe I can make a good case that I have done it here.

Speaking of love, the love between a mother is daughter is often complicated.
For all that you gave me, Mom, thank you.
For my short comings and failures, I'm sorry.
I'm glad you're with the Lord finally, but the space you leave behind will never be filled.
I loved you.

Sonnet 43
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death."



So ends 14 days celebrating love and poetry. I hope you've enjoyed reading them. I'll return later with more normal posts.

Sonnet 29

This atypical love poem is truly one of the world's best. Truly Shakespeare the poet at his finest.

"When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings."

Tomorrow, the world's greatest love poem.

Shall I Compare Thee...

Today we have one of the best love poems ever written in the English language, Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

The Dueling Poets: Marlowe vs Shakespeare

Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare were both born in 1564. But Marlowe was a product of the educated upper class, a university trained classic scholar and translator. The darling of the disaffected elite of his time, he rose to dominate England's literary and dramatic scene. Shakespeare, on the other hand, was forced to withdraw from school at the age of 14, when his father's fortunes began to fail. Though most scholars deny the claim that Marlowe actually wrote the plays we attribute to William Shakespeare, there's no doubt that Christopher Marlowe was a brilliant writer. Among other works, he gave us one of the most memorable love poems of all time. After reading it you will find one of Shakespeare's many great love sonnets. Compare them for yourself, dear reader.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

-- Christopher Marlowe

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-- William Shakespeare


Read Well, Friend


I found another version of the fourth line of Marlowe listed several times online. In fact, one site published it both ways. Bartlett online uses the version I printed above, and that is the most common. But a few sources say "And all the craggy mountains yield," instead.

She Dwelt Among Untrodden Ways

"She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mosy tone

Half hidden from the eye!
---Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!"

-- William Wordsworth

love in lower case

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)"

-- E. E. Cummings

Love that Spans the Ages

One of the most poignant love poems ever written, William Yeats When You are Old and Grey.

"When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars."

Enjoy those beautiful words, then when you're ready move on to consider a different kind of young lover, by A. E. Housman.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
'Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.'
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
'The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.'
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

Read Well, Friend

Jenny Kissed Me -- More Than Once

"Jenny kissed me when we met,

Jumping from the chair she sat in.
Time, you thief! who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in.
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;
Say that health and wealth have missed me;
Say I'm growing old, but add-
Jenny kissed me!"

-- Jenny Kissed Me, Leigh Hunt

There's a fun story -- actually there are two -- behind this cute poem. Hunt was a neighbor of poet and author, Thomas Carlyle and his wife Jane, aka Jenny. One story says that when Hunt visited to tell them he would publish one of Thomas Carlyle's poems, Carlyle's wife, in a very uncharacteristic move, jumped up and kissed him.

The other story is that one winter Hunt was ill for so long that when he finally recovered and went to visit, Jane jumped up and kissed him as soon as he appeared. A few days later one of the Hunt servants delivered a note, "From Mr. Hunt to Mrs. Carlyle." It contained the poem, "Jenny Kissed Me."

Oddly enough, someone wrote a song based on this poem, which seems to have been recorded by several crooners in the 1050's. You can see Eddie Albert sing it, and hear him recite the poem itself, here. There's a different version by a High School ensemble here. Finally, watch this recitation of the poem only here. As interesting as these versions are, I think I prefer just reading it myself. How about you?

Read Well, Friend

There are also numerous written parodies available on the web. Clearly this poem strikes a favorable chord with many.

She Walks in Beauty

"She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!"

And another still by Byron:
"There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like Thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charméd ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming:
And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep,
Whose breast is gently heaving
As an infant's asleep:
So the spirit bows before thee
To listen and adore thee;
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean."

-- Lord Byron

Read Well, Friend

A Poem for Betsy

Today I wish my beautiful, amazing daughter Happy Birthday. Every year she grows more special to me, and I'm so proud to be part of her life! In honor of her, I present here a poem she enjoyed as a child -- a tale of love and adventure. Happy Birthday, Betsy!

The Owl and the Pussy-cat by Edward Lear

I
"The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,

And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!'


II
Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?'
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

III
'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon."

Runcible is a word coined by Lear. If you've read his poetry you know that he uses it to describe various items, like a hat, a rat, and a goose. In the

illustrations to another poem drawn by Lear himself, a runcible spoon looks like a ladle. Despite that, dictionaries today usually define it as a three-pronged curved fork.

Read Well, Friend

For more Lear click here.

Poems for Young Love

"O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies not plenty;
Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure."
-- William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene III

As I finished reading this my mind immediately went to...

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry."
-- Robert Herrick, To Virgins to Make the Most of Time

Finally, speaking of roses we have A Red, Red Rose by Burns.

"O my luve's like a red, red rose.
That's newly sprung in June;
O my luve's like a melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
Till a'the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o'life shall run.

And fare thee weel my only Luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!"

Read Well, Friend

Love Poem #1

"If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile her look her way
Of speaking gently, for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of ease on such a day'
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee, and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheek dry,
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity."

-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese #14

This is the first of what I hope will be fourteen love poems for fourteen days.

Read Well, Friend

Winnie-the-Pooh Day

Today, according to the A Kids Book-a-Day Almanac, is officially Winnie-the-Pooh day. In honor of the august occasion, (but it's January, not August, Pooh grumbles. Yes, I know that, I tell him...), anyway, in honor of the occasion, I will present you with a few of Pooh's thoughts on education, spelling, and other brainy stuff.

I will admit, first, to being a Pooh snob, and thus only using quotes he actually said, as reported by Mr. Milne. Those other people have no business putting words in his mouth. (Actually, he says, his mouth is empty right now, and he wouldn't mind a bit of honey or condensed milk, but never mind the bread.)

So, Pooh on reading:
"I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me."

Spelling:
"My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places."

"You can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY," (speaking about Owl), "even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count."

And here's one from Eyore:
"This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it."

Pooh on thinking:
"When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it."
I know what you mean, Pooh, I often feel the same way when it's time to write on my blog. (You do? he asks. I assure him I do. Then might we have a little something to help us feel better? Perhaps, I say.)

In the mean time, here's a little winter poem for you, from my good friend, Winnie-the-Pooh.
"The more it snows (Tiddely pom),
The more it goes (Tiddely pom),
The more it goes (Tiddely pom),
On snowing. And nobody knows (Tiddely pom),
How cold my toes (Tiddely pom),
How cold my toes (Tiddely pom),
Are growing."

Good-bye and keep warm.

Read Well, Friend

Teaching, Reading, and Workshops: Or is The Book Whisperer Enough?

Because I'm hoping to get back into teaching soon, I've been reading a lot about education lately. It's been a long time since I was surrounded by teachers, and times, and methods, have evolved. Of course, all the new governmental regulation is changing the face of education yet again -- for better or worse. But those are conversations for another day. For now, I've been reading, marking up, and taking notes on about a dozen books, mostly about language arts. Specifically, I've recently read four books about teaching reading. Yesterday I read The Book Whisperer by Miller, and today I'm into The Art of Teaching Reading, by Calkins.

Miller is a woman after my own heart. Bring them into a classroom rich with wonderful books, and have them read, she says. Time spent reading makes readers better, and the best readers are the best writers, communicators, students, and test-takers. But Miller teaches 6th grade Language Arts and Social Studies, so students are coming to her with at least some rudimentary ability to read. She doesn't need to wrestle with phonemes or phonics, letter formation or spelling sight words. What would she do differently if she taught Kindergarten or First Grade, I wonder? Has she ever had a student who can't read or write? I'd like to know how she would deal with the need to provide appropriate books and support to a non-reader who had already been held back once or twice, or a foreign student with no English. Perhaps these situations haven't come before her. If they have, I wish she'd write about them. (I know she has a website, but I haven't visited it yet.)

Two of the books I purchased, (see below), are specifically about Reading Workshop, a method of organizing reading instruction with a large group lesson, small groups, mini/strategy lessons, book partnerships, book clubs, reading journals, individual conferences and independent reading. (As you can imagine, not a small part of these books is spent discussing planning and organization.) At the center of a Reading Workshop is supposed to be the child, reading a book of their own choosing, hopefully at their independent reading level. We know from many studies that when kids have plenty of time to read books they want, they become better readers. But looking at sample schedules, I see that of a 90 minute block, independent reading is often only 20-25 minutes, and kids are being pulled out of it for small groups and one-on-one conferences with the teacher. Also, while they're reading, they are often armed with sticky notes reminding them to stop and predict, question, or record their reactions to something they've read. So I wonder, how much time are these students actually spending inside their books? Are they able to get caught up in the story, knowing that at any moment they might be called for a meeting, interrupted to discuss theme or strategies to sound out words they don't know? Again, grade level matters here. Twenty five minutes focusing on books is quite a while for a five year old who may not have had any experience with books before coming to school, but perhaps not enough when you're eleven and desperate to finish Harry Potter. Miller's contrasting attitude, leave them alone and let them read, is appealing. She relies on a weekly response journal, and talking with her kids about books to gauge comprehension. They also do occasional book commercials and recommendations. I just wish I knew more about the level of the students who come into her room.

Calkins also advocates the workshop approach. "During independent reading, teachers confer with children individually and in partnerships. A teacher may also gather a cluster of children together for a strategy lesson around a shared text.... A teacher may also gather a small group for a guided reading session.” p73. I can’t help but wonder what message this sends our kids about reading -- that it’s something to do to stay busy till the teacher is ready for you? Yet I totally understand the fact that teachers are dealing with a limited amount of time to teach, a great number of demands on that time, and a wide range of abilities within one classroom. When I was in school, (back in the old days...) we had USSR or DEAR, Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading, or Drop Everything and Read, in which even the secretaries and janitors were encouraged to curl up with a book for 20-30 minutes every day. Now we seem to have Read Until Some Thing Interrupts, (RUSTI?)

Any decent teacher will tell you that instruction depends on grade level and the individual needs of the students. I know that. But I can’t help but wonder, as I read these books on reading instruction, how much of what we do to teach reading is still based on what we think kids need, as opposed to what will actually help them become better readers, writers, and thinkers. I wish I knew. I guess I’ll keep reading, in hopes of finding out.

Read Well, Friend



The Art of Teaching Reading, Lucy McCormick Calkins
Making the Most of Small Groups, Debbie Diller
The Book Whisperer, Donalyn Miller
Teaching Reading in Small Groups, Jennifer Serravallo

In Flanders Field

Ypres, 1915
Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, Canadian Major John McCrae became overwhelmed by his experience in his 17 days as a surgeon near Ypres, Belgium. He later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

While there he scribbled these lines:

"In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."

-- Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

I salute those who have lived, and died, for their country.

More Edu-speak

"Show me a kid who understands that he is 'synthesizing, analyzing and evaluating the validity and reliability of information from multiple sources,' and I’ll show you a wise, old owl, aka curriculum writer."
- Melinda Ehrlich, in response to this article in Education Next, Data-Driven and Off Course.

More on it later. Until then,

Vote and Read Well, Friend

This is Teaching?

I know I've been out of education-speak for a while, but what does this mean? "...a constructivist design process should be concerned with designing environments which support the construction of knowledge, which...provides an Intellectual Toolkit to Facilitate an Internal Negotiation Necessary for Building Mental Models"? I posted this lovely bit of edu-speak on Facebook a while back. I'm studying to take a Principles of Learning and Teaching (Praxis II) test to get re-certified to teach, and found this "explanation" on a university website.

Why do college professors and researchers, (and politicians, I might add), so often think that big words and complicated phrases are a sign of big intelligence? I know that special areas of knowledge need specialized vocabulary, but shouldn't that vocabulary help clarify, not obscure, meaning? To what degree does language like this serve as some sort of group marker -- "If you can talk like this you're one of us and if you can't you're obviously not, you inferior, teeny-brained life form."

What particularly kills me about this is that it's taken from a site designed to help explain these topics to education students. I got my degree 30 years ago, so I've been out of the "research talk" loop for a long time, and I'm not surprised at finding myself needing to make an effort to wrap my head around some of the vocabulary again. But if someone who claims to be a teacher can't explain their point more clearly than this, I think there's a problem. What is teaching but, on some level, the quest to make the currently unknown knowable to our students? If those who teach our teachers can't or won't do this, then why are we so surprised that people aren't learning?

Communication should be the foundation of teaching. If I have the background needed, and the desire to learn, and you can't explain it in a way that makes sense to me, then guess what? Maybe YOU'RE NOT A VERY GOOD TEACHER! That goes for my college Calculus teacher who thought writing the answers to the practice problems on the board and then walking out of the room was teaching. And to my Tae-Kwan-Do teacher who kept telling me I wasn't holding the baton-thingy wrong, but wouldn't tell me how to correct it. If you can't explain constructivism to me in a way I can grasp and apply, then there's a problem. Maybe you don't really understand it yourself. Maybe it's a very vague concept, and thus probably not all that useful to some fourth grade teacher in a real classroom anyway. Or perhaps you're not really trying, but using lazy thinking and regurgitated phrases. But it's also possible that you're not good at explaining things so others can understand them. In that case, perhaps you shouldn't be teaching, and certainly not teaching those who will be teaching our young. If you can't lead by example, then maybe it's time for you to get out of the classroom and let in people who can.

Back to the flash cards. "Constructivism is a theory of learning based on the idea that..."

Read Well, Friend

It's All Moot Anyway

It came up first on Says You!, that PBS radio game of "words and whimsy, bluff and bluster" that's always entertaining. When they asked their panelists to define the word moot, you just knew there had to be a catch. It means not worth talking about, right, a moot point being something that's already been decided? Not exactly. It turns out moot is a bit like inflammable -- it does and it doesn't, if you get my meaning. Yes, one definition of it is "of no legal significance," probably because it's already been decided. I always thought that's what a moot court was -- law students sitting around arguing cases that had already been decided, just for the practice. But it turns out that the word moot is also defined as "arguable or open to debate, as in 'that's a moot question.'"

It got worse when I turned to Merriam-Webster online for help. There it's considered perfectly fine to use moot as a verb meaning to bring up for discussion, i.e. "broach", but it's obsolete to use it in terms of a legal debate, though a moot court is still one in which law students argue hypothetical cases. Oh well. Glancing further down I see that Merriam-Webster thinks that the words moot and mute rhyme, which they clearly do not, so I now feel justified in throwing their opinion out all together. The baby and the bathwater approach works just fine for me, thank you. However, I still have two pretty contradictory definitions using moot as a adjective -- 1. Debatable or 2. Not worth debating because it's already settled or has no meaning.

By the way, the word moot comes from the Ole English gemot which was a meeting of freemen where various affairs and legal issues were discussed. That comes from the Germanic word motam, also meeting. So though the word-pure among us consider that moot actually means worthy of holding a meeting and discussing, it seems we in the US, at least, have taken the legal idea of a hypothetical debate, and turned moot into a word not worth talking about. Thus my frustration while watching Law and Order: SVU yesterday when I informed the actors, "Who cares who gets jurisdiction, you just proved he was insane at the time of the crime so it's a m--t point!" Help! I obviously need a new word for the second meaning of moot. Any suggestions? I suppose I could say hypothetical, but it just “ain’t got that swing,” you know?

Oh, and if you’re looking for some help rhyming, please don’t turn to Merriam-Webster. Moot and mute, indeed.

Read Well, Friend

Rules for the Aspiring Detective, Part Two

Here are the last five of Robert Knox’s 10 Rules for Detective Fiction from the Golden Age of Mysteries.

Rule #6. “No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.” Personally I don’t mind the occasional accident helping to unmask a killer. After all, bizarre events do happen in real life. (Just ask me about my last two years, for example...) I’ll also accept some intuition, mostly in amateur female sleuths. We’re rather known for it, after all. But it must be born out by the facts of the story, which the detective must unearth before the end. What I personally don’t like is smugness on the part of the detective who has a perfectly good reason for suspecting someone, but refuses to reveal it. That's is another reason Sherlock Holmes will never be my favorite guy, though I like some of the stories about him a lot. The Speckled Band, for example. Come to think of it, there is a kind of a secret passage in that story, and another favorite, Hound of the Baskervilles, appears to have a supernatural element to it, (rules #2 and 3.) There may be a trend here...

Rule #7. “The detective himself must not commit the crime.” I like this rule, because it keeps me from feeling the need to peek to the end of the book, just to be sure I can trust what I'm reading. I did once read a book where the criminal turned out to be the sleuth, and I was thoroughly disgusted when I realized I had been tricked that way. Without trust between the writer and audience, reading becomes too much of a mine field for me to enjoy. I’ve never been a big fan of the kind of speculative fiction that keeps me off balance while I’m reading. Too much like real life, perhaps? No, part of the appeal of a mystery is the sense of write and wrong in these stories. Just like in a real western, there must at least one good guy, and I want to know who he is.

Rule #8. “The detective is bound to declare any clues which he may discover.” No more scenes of the detective slowly unfolding a piece of paper, turning it to the light to read it more clearly, then -- folding it back up and sticking it in his pocket. A real man, or woman, shares his clues!

Rule #9. “The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any thoughts which pass through his mind: his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.” Now these are Robert Knox’s words, not mine. But let’s admit it, Watson can be very dense sometimes. I used to worry about his patients, wondering if a man as slow as he was could really be a decent doctor. Fortunately, his physician/neighbor spends so much time covering for him, is patients were probably pretty safe.

Rule #10. “Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.” Or even then. I mean, really. What kind of self respecting mystery writer relies on a body double, twin, or long-lost relative to make their case? In the same vein I dislike undisclosed marriages, innocent looking people who turn out to have worked for the SS or MI-5, and secret wills. In Ngaio Marsh’s The Final Curtain, Sir Henry Ancred has the details of his new will read aloud. When his subsequent death is explained by the existence of a quite different version he had drawn up at the same time, I always cry “Foul.” Mysteries are supposed to be full of lies, cheats, and trickery -- but that’s supposed to be the criminal, not the writer or the sleuth. After all, it can be a scary world out there, and a girl needs to have someone she can trust.

Read Well, Friend