Enjoying my ignorance

I have been a fan of Public Television since the 1970s. Each week Harry and I religiously watch Nova and American Experience on PBS. I enjoy these programs so much although they can make you feel pretty ignorant. Nova documents many of the most amazingly complicated and wonderful things that are going on in the world of science today. American Experience makes it clear how much American history I either don't remember or probably never knew in the first place. The Brit I live with knows more American history than I do (because one of his wives got so tired of questions she couldn't answer that she bought him The Oxford Companion to American History: now, alas, sadly out of date).

The origins of Nova were, as with many television shows here in the States, as a British series back in the seventies. My love of Nova I attribute to my father. One of my earliest happy memories was standing with him out in our backyard when I was about four as he explained the constellations and planets to me. Back in those days you could see many more stars in the city than you can today. I remember feeling awestruck at the beauty and immensity of it all. Nova's many programs on the cosmos bring back those feelings of wonder I remember experiencing as a child.

Each month my Dad would go to the drugstore a few blocks from our house and buy the latest Scientific American magazine. He read it cover to cover, and I remember paging through it as a child, looking at the wonderful photographs and wondering how anyone could understand what they were writing about in this magazine. Well, for me, that never changed: I was not destined to become a scientist. My last effective science class was 10th grade biology, since I failed college geology; but my love of science has never failed. Now, as I watch the men and women scientists on Nova, I am awestruck at their brilliant minds and grateful for the good things they do for the world.

In school I hated the way history was taught. I loved to read historical biographies but I hated history textbooks. Today there is more of a focus in schools on studying history through original source materials, novels, biographies, autobiographies and film. Like many people, I watched many years ago the Ken Burns series on the Civil War on PBS. I was shocked at how little I knew about that fascinating and horrific period of our history. American Experience has beautifully crafted programs on all the eras and personalities of American History (not Sara Palin so far, however, and I have yet to let her guide me through Alaska). Now when I watch the programs, I just relax, accept my ignorance, and learn something.

The NOVA Science Now series, now airing, examines, among other things, whether technology can defeat global warming or whether it is too late. In other words, can the technology that created these world-changing and potentially world-ending problems now solve them? American Experience covers all eras and personalities in American history. Recently we watched excellent programs on Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Both series have won countless awards, including scores of Emmys.

I recently learned that both series have teacher web sites that include free digital libraries, video and audio segments, primary source materials, teacher guides to episodes, maps, galleries etc,. etc. School history classes never need be boring again!

In our current era of complex and volatile politics, it cannot hurt to know a little more history, because, as we all know, history tends to repeat itself. A couple of weeks ago I listened as an American politician who hopes to run as the Republican candidate for president pontificated on Egypt. It was very clear that world history was not this politician's strong suit. Historical ignorance can be a dangerous thing in a politician.

As carbon dioxide continues to spew out into our atmosphere, it is comforting to think that there may be hope that technology can save the planet for future generations. In the future we may be looking more to the scientists and social scientists, rather than to the politicians, to keep our planet viable for future generations.

Substitute Tales

Last night I took several calls before I accepted a middle-school art classroom. The machine voice said the students would be doing basket weaving and paper mache. Perfect, I thought, how hard can that be? Some days the hardest part of the day is walking those long hallways and climbing all the flights of stairs with the arthritic knee. Good exercise though.

My favorite sub jobs this year have turned out to be in the Immersion Schools, and in my sister's middle school ELL classroom. In the Immersion Schools, students begin their language studies in kindergarten and continue through 5th grade having most subjects taught in Spanish or French. My sister's classes have students from all over the world who are learning English.

The Immersion Schools have young, energetic native speakers from the French- and Spanish-speaking worlds who work as teaching assistants in most classes. At French Immersion last week I worked with a pair of adorable teaching assistants from a city in the north of France. I sat at the teacher's desk correcting some math papers while the students were at lunch and I heard what I thought to be smacking lips. I looked up and saw the two assistants stealing a kiss at the door. Those French, so romantic! Most of the time these young people are very excited to have their supervising teacher gone for a day (probably because you can get away with a little kissing if you want to). These temporary immigrants get their chance to be in charge and do things the way they want to do things, the French way or the Colombian way, not the American way. Culturally, there are big differences in teaching styles. I, of course, encourage their professional growth in every way. "Don't mind me," I tell them. "I'll just sit here and read the New Yorker on my Kindle while you teach. Let me know if you need anything or if I can help you in any way."

Some days in the life of a substitute are more challenging. An eighth grade Spanish class I had last Friday really took it all out of me. I had two class-clown types, one wearing huge glasses and one with a fake cast on his finger which he would move from one digit to the next, and several blondes in those silly boots the girls all wear, who were freshening up their makeup. All this would have been fine, but I had a bucket-load of curriculum I was supposed to cover. Did I mention it was also the last day of Winterfest Frenzy Week and all any of them wanted to do was get out of class early so they could get good seats at the assembly? I took a three day weekend to recover.

I have leaned that your dealings with office staff, teachers, and para-professionals are usually very friendly, helpful encounters. Sometimes you will find people in these roles, however, who suffer from borderline personality disorders and who enjoy being verbally abusive to you. You have to be able to go with the flow. It helps if you pretend you have no problems with all the new technology teachers use nowadays, at least in the school districts I sub in. You do not mention you are from the ditto machine and film projector era, although your wrinkles probably give you away. Since I usually go to a new place each day, I prepare myself to meet up with the unexpected and/or ridiculous. To maintain your sanity, you have to take the job seriously and not seriously all at the same time. After all, tomorrow is another day and there are no papers to correct at home that evening, no meetings to go to, no report cards. You just need to get to bed early, as mature ladies should anyway.

Last week, while on a two-day stint at the Spanish Immersion School across the street from us, I found myself falling in love with my second-grade class. The regular teacher had been absent many days, the school secretary told me, because her pregnancy was not going well. The kids, instead of turning into demanding whiny brats, had become fiercely independent, saying that their teacher had told them why she was gone and they, though they knew, could not tell anyone what was wrong with her. They insisted they could take themselves to lunch, to gym, etc. They took their own attendance and lunch count. They spoke Spanish to each other without any encouragement and they politely corrected my bad grammar when I spoke to them in Spanish. They furiously focused on their academic tasks with enthusiasm and got along with each other without any fuss. Teaching assistants from Venezuela and Colombia came in to teach math, art, and social studies lessons both days. These kids were so adorable that I wanted to stay on, but they found a really fluent sub and I was told to hit the road.

So, Pueblo basket weaving went well this morning, all ten of the ninth graders stayed on task and now I have a nice long break. Coming up this afternoon are three back-to-back classes of paper mache. Students are making Shawabti dolls. These artifacts were found in the tombs of Egyptian mummies. The gods would call upon the dolls to do the work the mummy did not want to do on it's way to the afterlife. King Tut had 401 such dolls in his tomb, one for each day of the Egyptian year. Not a bad concept, too bad you had to wait to be dead for them to go to work for you.

Maybe I will sneak out for a calming capuccino at Starbucks before the flour and water and newspaper starts flying.

PS. It turned out to be a really fun afternoon. I had a student who had just returned from three years in Egypt. His family were in Cairo and they camped out at the airport for a week before they could get out. He had some good stories to tell.

Cupid wounded, but not dead.

My feelings about Valentine's Day have changed over the years. I have grown up at last, perhaps. It has been a long time coming. My sentimental relationship with the holiday started when I chose to get married on Valentine's Day in 1971 to Alexis's dad, Jerry, when I was 20 years old.

My ex-husband, Jerry, as it turned out, was not a fan of Valentine's Day, and looking back on my choice of that day to marry, it now seems sort of silly. February 14 fell on a Sunday that year, an unusual day of the week to get married. Most weddings are planned for Friday evenings or Saturdays; but, true to form, I thought it very romantic.

I remained an emotional adolescent well into my early thirties. I actually thought Charles and Diana would make a go of it. During the television engagement interview back in '81, Charles was asked if he was in love with Diana, and he said, "Well, yes of course we are in love, whatever that means." I recall Diana looking at him sideways, truly shocked and embarrassed. It was a little late to back out, but she probably should have.

There were a couple of bad omens on my wedding day. I spilled gravy on my white gown during the dinner after the ceremony, and as we left the reception we found our little red Fiat had been badly smashed up in the parking lot by someone who did not leave a note. Royal marriages and even those which take place on Valentine's are not necessarily destined for happily ever after.

I think a lot of men hate Valentine's Day. It can be a deadly day for idealistic romantics, young and old. Expectations run high and the ways your beloved can screw up are unlimited. Singles can find the day sickening or depressing. My ex-husband refused to give in to all the hype of heart shaped candy boxes and red roses (and my latest husband is not much better in that regard!). I, of course, was confused and hurt by his behavior and as they years went by I grew angrier and angrier. I know now, of course, that our marriage had more serious problems than Valentine's Day protocol. Growing up and facing that reality was painful.

A recent new book reviewed in the New York Times, The Michelangelo Effect, by Tara Parker Pope, caused me to pause a bit and think about marriage in some new ways. Pope claims that partners in positive relationships sculpt each other in ways that help each of them attain valued goals. A spouse or partner who encourages you to learn new things in life is someone you are likely to remain committed to over time. The author believes most people want to learn and grow in life, and long term relationships that allow and foster growth have a better chance of happiness and longevity. Long marriages, she writes, are not necessarily good marriages.

My present marriage has a bit of the Michelangelo effect going for it. Each of us has grown in our own way over the last decade, and we have grown together in many ways. We encourage each other's endeavors and are able to work as a team on a wide range of projects if we just give each other space and appreciate each other's strengths and weaknesses. Harry builds the shelf, I find the perfect plants to put on the shelf. I insist we go to the Georgia O'Keefe museum in Santa Fe to buy some prints for the condo and Harry frames the prints. I now feel like I am living in an art museum, a cheap museum (though we have several originals), but a museum none the less. He cooks for a dinner party, I make dessert and set the table. I'm an enthusiastic tourist, he plans the trip and drives. I blog and take pictures, he edits and grumbles about my repeated grammatical solecisms. He gets on my nerves, I get on his!

I am nearly finished reading a biography of Beatrix Potter. Potter married late in life, and she and her husband together are responsible for the pristine nature of the English Lake District. They worked separately and side by side to preserve much of the northern countryside through the National Trust. I also read somewhere this week that George Eliot supposedly said, "it's never to late to be what you might have been." Eliot, a famous Victorian woman writer, was an unattractive and very intelligent woman who, because of her lack of beauty, was told by her culture that she was destined for spinsterhood. She cared for her father until he died and then she ran off with a married man and had a 20-year loving and creative relationship which she treasured. Beatrix too cared for her parents for decades but struck out on her own, married, and crafted an amazing life.

My second marriage at age 54, (actually my third because #1 husband and #2 husband were the same man) has in many ways allowed me to fulfill many dreams I had all but given up on in my life. I have traveled to places I only dreamed of seeing. I fulfilled the dream to teach abroad which I abandoned in my twenties when a hurricane hit Honduras, forcing the cancellation of my Peace Corps trip which had been scheduled for a year. Another dream to speak Spanish came partly true while I was living and teaching in Mexico for two years. I now comprehend Spanish pretty well, but speaking fluently, not so much. After thirty years, I finally have a house I love that needs no major restoration and a daughter who is realizing her passion in grad school. I also developed a badly arthritic knee and neck over the last few months. Who could have dreamed?

Virginia Woolf said Eliot wrote novels for grown-up people. I have never read Eliot but I liked Woolf's remark so I ordered the PBS video series of Eliot's novels from Amazon as a Valentine present for myself. I feel I have grown up over the last 60 years and I should celebrate that! What better way to celebrate than to shop on line?

I still love Valentine's Day, but I can buy my own chocolates and flowers. My friend Lee told me that my favorite, See's chocolates, can now be found at Southdale. I might even get Harry a box! Valentine's Day is about love and I have been fortunate to have loved much in my life. I am still a die-hard closet romantic, but I have learned to be a bit more grown up about love. [Editor's note:do any of you believe that Jeanne is a closet romantic?] My expectations are a bit more intelligent and realistic, so, bring on the George Eliot and pass those chocolates!

Life, some liberty, and some happiness for Egypt

Over the past twelve days I have watched closely and read about the events in Egypt, since my sister was scheduled to go to Egypt in March. As I followed the unfolding drama, I found vivid memories of the Tiananmen Square massacre came flooding back into my mind. The parallels between what happened in China and what is presently going on in Egypt are striking.

Twenty years ago, my naive heart and my tendency to wear rose-colored glasses helped me believe the Chinese government would surely negotiate with the protesters, giving in to their political demands for economic change and democratic reform. Instead the Chinese government sent in the tanks which opened fire on the crowd after nearly six weeks of standoff. My generation experienced the assassinations of JFK, King, Malcolm X, and Robert Kennedy. We also lived through the Civil Rights Movement and Viet Nam, so I should have known better than to get caught up in the image of the man with the flowers standing in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square. I should have remembered the Bob Dylan lyrics to Blowing in the Wind back then and remained skeptical of meaningful political change with regard to human rights.

The nineties, however, turned out to be a decade when many Communist governments all over the world began to collapse. Now, in the Middle East, we are seeing the power of dictatorships and ruling oil-family despots begining to show cracks. Today the Internet, Twitter and Facebook connect people of the world in powerful and previously unimaginable ways. The world (yes, including our State Department) was shocked when Egypt ignited this month. Perhaps these new technologies coupled with the fervor of younger generations living under tyranny everywhere will no longer be underestimated. The youth bulge in the Middle East is beginning to make it clear that they do not have the tolerance for the rules of authoritarian regimes in power for decades. The youth of Egypt stood up against Mubarak, using technological tools to organize the masses armed only with rocks, which they used only when attacked. Unbelievably, the older generation joined them in protest. Scenes of the elderly, families with children, the rich, the poor, the educated and the uneducated were seen in the Egyptian crowds filling our television and computer screens this past week.

Several weeks ago, my sister Julie bought the plane tickets to Egypt, and two weeks ago she and I went to Barnes and Noble, where she bought Arabic for Dummies and Lonely Planet: Egypt. Her trip with both my nieces was the trip of her dreams. Lifetime friends of Julie's, Pat and Carlos, have worked as diplomats in US embassies all over the world for twenty-plus years. The couple are presently in their final foriegn post in Cairo, and they invited Julie to come and visit them. On Tuesday of this past week, the US government airlifted the couple's daughter out of Egypt on her 14th birthday. The parents remain in Cairo, living no longer in their home, but at the embassy. Julie is worried for her dear friends.

Late Thursday night I took off my rose-colored glasses and went to bed with a heart that was breaking for the Egyptian people. As I slept, the sun would rise over the pyramids and the horror would begin. I fully expected to wake up to learn on Friday morning that tanks, which had begun to encircle the perimeter of the Tahrir Square on Wednesday, had been unleashed on the protesters in the square. Reporters and photographers from all over the world had been run out of the square on Thursday; so,it seemed there would be no documentation of the massacre to come. My fearless favorite, Anderson Cooper of CNN, was holed up in an undisclosed location in Cairo. He and his camera crew had been roughed up and chased out of the square. Cooper was now reporting from an undisclosed location and his eyes kept darting around the makeshift broadcasting center as he told of the day's developments. His usual self-confident, fast-talking manner was gone: he looked scared to death.

I woke up the next morning, sat down with my coffee in front of the TV, and could not believe what was being reported. Tens of thousands had once again joined the protesters, many of them injured, in Tahrir Square. All over Egypt, in big cities and small, people en masse were marching and rallying to the call for Mubarak to resign. It seemed safe to put on those rose-colored glasses again, at least for now. Mubarak said in a speech on Wednesday that he would not step on down because Egypt would sink into chaos. Is this man insane? Many courageous and sane Egyptians are ready to embrace chaos over the oppression they have lived under during Mubarak's reign. One of the unforgettable scenes for me this week was a human chain of hands encircling the famous Egyptian museum with all its treasures from the great Egyptian past, protecting it from looters and those who would have destroyed it.

There was singing and dancing today in Tahrir Square, but the euphoria will end, and the reality of forming a new government, if and when Mubarak steps down, will undoubtedly entail bloodshed, hardship and confusion. But, for now, my heart is with the Egyptians as they dance and sing and march. I know a bloodless revolution is not of this world, but let us acknowledge a most amazing thing has happened in the world. Egyptians now dare to hope the oppression they have lived under for decades will come to an end. The future is indeed unknown in Egypt, but the hope is still alive that all Egyptians may someday become a democracy where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are a reality not just for the rich and powerful minority, but for all. Let's all put on rose-colored glasses for a bit and enjoy the moment!!!

Please, not another Tiananmen Square

The events of this past week in Egypt made me flash back to 1989 as we Americans sat glued to the television watching as the Chinese rallied in Tiananmen Square for governmental change. We watched with our hearts in our throats as the man who stood in front of the tank with a bouquet of flowers in his hands. The protests went on for weeks and then, the massacre.

The past week we have watched as thousands of Egyptians from all walks of life marched in the streets demanding Mubarak's resignation. Our hearts are again in our throats. Today came the Mubarak thugs on horses and camels with whips. The die-hard protesters remain in Tahrir Square tonight armed with rocks. Hundreds have been injured, unknown numbers killed. Tomorrow, I fear the worst.