Sunday, May 28, 2006

The most significant thing that happened this week was that Andy was denied admission to the AISD Gifted and Talented program. This was important to me because I think he's bored in class, and next year is the God !$%^&&!!! TAKS exam. He's the best reader in his class, meaning he will get completely ignored in a regular classroom while the teacher spends all of her time working with the two or three totally helpless kids. At least Mills is a good school, with a really good student body, so the peer pressure works in favor of academics rather than against it. I have to say after speaking to the counselor, I'm convinced AISD hasn't been sued enough. The admission program in more litigious school districts seems to be based entirely on taking a test. Here, however, there's a whole bunch of subjectivity in the process. I talked to the counselor, and she said that he lost out in two areas: his "academic scale" (I presume this means grades, but PhD's in education don't speak standard English) and, God forbid, his parent nomination wasn't high enough. The parent nomination is the form I filed out. I, HIS MOTHER, cost him admission to the gifted program. Now, after hearing from some friends on this one, I have grave doubts about a program for gifted students that relies at all on parent input. What difference does it make if I'm an idiot? For that matter, and more related to the litigation thing, why does the district care whether or not I'm brilliant, so long as Andy has the mental capacity for the work he'll be expected to do? A friend of mine analyzed this as a test for the parents, as in trying to find out just how much of a monster I'm willing to be to make sure Andy does his work. My mother-in-law, a former elementary school teacher, suggested that this was a way to eliminate gifted students with bad parents, which then makes life just a whole lot easier for the teacher. I agree with both suggestions.The most disturbing thing about requiring parental application is that it automatically excludes gifted kids from any background below middle class, and quite a few of the middle-middles as well. Think for a minute: how many parents who themselves didn't finish high school, or don't speak English, or work two jobs so that their family can both eat and get vaccinations and antibiotics when necessary are going to complete a two-page form to get their child in a class with more homework? This is a nice way of avoiding the problems of really smart kids in bad schools. Having been a really smart kid in a less-than-stellar school, during the 1970's, heyday of dumbass "reforms" designed to allow us to express our creativity but not necessarily to impart nasty old facts to us, my sympathies are entirely with the kids here. (And yes, that was an extremely long and complicated sentence. $50 fine from the Grammar Police.) There is nothing worse than being a bright kid from a bad school. Within the school, your choices are to be picked on by lackwit bullies for showing an interest in class work, or become a discipline problem and win status with brains by creatively solving the problem of how many ways one can drive a teacher insane. Outside of the school, everyone assumes you're a moron because that's all that school generally produces. No wonder these kids become problems. The average kid stuck there is bad, but losing brilliant kids to boredom and bad habits costs us so much, when saving them costs us so little. In this case, just the price of a test. The form itself was laughable. I can imagine the average Joe Sixpack father of a bright kid reading it and finding confirmation for every public school horror story every reported on talk radio. A couple of the sample questions will demonstrate:
Does your child use adult words? Yeah, and you should how well he does the hand gestures!!
Is your child interested in adult problems and issues, like political issues or pollution?
(This is my real answer, not the snarky one about how much they liked him at the Davos summit in April.) I am very careful to avoid exposing Andy to very much in the way of adult problems, because I don't believe that a seven-year-old is emotionally prepared to think about thinks like global warming or the Iraq war. He does have a strong interest in learning about the past, as in knights and heroes, and information about his ancestors and their lives. I believe it's more important for him to develop ethics and empathy before he starts applying himself to his duties as a citizen.
There were other questions about his desire to solve problems creatively and some such. How much I longed for a question about his hobbies or pets. Something normal. But no. Apparently if he hasn't rewired the cars to run on eggshells and coffee grounds, he's not GT material. The rest of the process was more objective. She said his IQ was tested at 110, which is the high end of average, defined as 100 +/- 10 points. Why they can't say 90 - 110 she didn't explain, but he's at the higher end of average. He did much better on the math part of the testing * 114, well withing qualification range * than he did on the verbal part. In fact, he got a perfect score on one component of that, only missing out on the part of the test designed for 5th graders. This rather amazes me, given that Steve and I think mathmetics is a plot by the aliens to distract us so they can invade. Andy and Aaron are products of a devious breeding experiment in verbal ability, but math just wasn't in there. More to the point, Andy makes bad grades in math, "adequate," instead of the "skilled" and "advanced" in all his other subjects. This is either proof that the school got the wrong set of test scores, or further evidence that he belongs in the gifted program because he's so bored in regular class. He didn't do so well on the "traits, applications and behaviors" and on the portfolio of class work. Personally, I think this is too subjective for them to consider, since boredom, dislike of classmates, or other emotional traits can obscure the results. While I'm thinking about it, this part of the test is vulnerable to a Title VII challenge. I don't have a hard time believing that, say, black or Hispanic boys would never pass it. Think about this for a minute. You're a teacher, with a budding Will Smith in your class, who is clearly gifted but also a major pain in the butt. How easy it will be to call the kid "unmotivated" and keep him in boring regular classes, reserving the coveted gifted program for dimmer but harder working kids. Now, I have no problem with rewarding hard work, but not by confusing it with better mental wiring. Give that kid an accelerated class, but put Will in the gifted progam where he can learn to like school. Andy lost out because he isn't very good at "applying himself." Gee, thaaaat's a shock. A seven or eight year old boy doesn't like to work hard and only does what he needs to get by. Never occured to them that at least one solution is to give him MORE stuff that he needs to get by on. Finally, they consider creativity and memory. Andy did really well on memory, which is no surprise, but not so well on creativity. I don't know how you make a kid more creative, or for that matter how you could tell such a thing in one morning's test, but I'm not going to hire consultants to improve this. For that matter, I think they're wrong, but, again, how is it possible to argue against something so fluid? I am generally very happy with AISD, and it really surprised me that they came up with a policy this lame. Andy has had good teachers at Mills, who have allowed him to read books more advanced than his grade level, and have put him in faster reading groups and other more enriched areas. The problem is that there's only so much the regular teacher can do. I'm now going to try and get him in something called a "cluster class," which is somewhat accelerated beyond the regular material, and with more emphasis on one or two subject areas. I'll report on my success later.
posted by Kitty 6:29 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, May 23, 2006

I'm going to have to figure out in the next few days how to post pictures. My tomato plants have begun to produce, and the fruit is gorgeous. I planted four heirloom varieties: an orange and red striped one called "Mr. Stripey," a green one called "Green Zebra," a beefsteak, and a brandywine. The brandywine has me worried because the first three or four blossoms fell off without setting fruit. Brandywine is one of the world's most beautiful tomato varieties, dark plummy red and almost fluted. Just gorgeous.
posted by Kitty 6:55 PM 2 comments
Wednesday, May 17, 2006

The baby wrens have fledged and flown, which makes me both sad and yet amazed. They went from eggs to avian teenagers in 24 days. And I think Andy's growth is quick. We survived the sleepover. Four eight-year-old boys. I liked all of 'em. I'm sure I've made myself hated among parents for providing my son with an X-box, which all of the boys adored. I actually hated the idea of video games before we got this one, and now, of course, I'm converted. Now, not all games are welcome in my home. No "first person shooter," nothing involving evading the police or committing crimes. Same rules as movies: no on-screen blood and the good guys have to win. Within those guidelines, however, X-box has lots of nice stuff. Most Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks movies now have associated games, which is kind of fun. Andy is particularly fond of "The Incredibles" and "Chicken Little." His all-time favorite, however, is Lego "Star Wars." This is the familiar movies acted out by Lego dolls on Lego sets. It includes the parody movie "Revenge of the Brick," adapted from the last movie. I have to say Lucasfilm's masterwork is better done with small plastic figures than with live actors. Inspired by the "Da Vinci Code," the lastest wretched piece of dreck to make the best-seller lists, I have been thinking about bad books I liked. I'm a real novel snob, so other than paperback mysteries, I don't have a lot of fiction to confess. My real failing is celebrity biographies, especially autobiographies. If the celebrity is a movie star from a family of European aristocrats, that's the best. I had load of fun last year reading Christopher Lee's autobiography. His grandfather was an Italian marchese and his mother a countess. Gramps escaped from Italy, where his support for Garabaldi had made life uncomfortable to Australia, where he became part of a travelling theater company. Gramps was, in addition to being from the oldest of European noble families, an accomplished operatic tenor. Still, it must have been something to go from a palazzo in Rome to outback shantytowns. I'd love to read a book about him. More on this later, when I have some time.
posted by Kitty 5:46 PM 0 comments
Saturday, May 13, 2006

Wow, three posts in two days!! I'll never keep this up. I just found the following website: http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/13.html, which I highly recommend. I learned from this site that one of my obsessions has a name: caconomenology. Caconomenology is the study of ugly names. For years I've kept an informal list of some of the horrors inflicted on innocent babies by their presumably stoned parents. I had no idea that anyone else shared my hobby, but apparently there is a growing set of people appalled by idiotic monikers. Please, visit, and I hope sincerely that none of you had parents that did anything this bad to you.
posted by Kitty 1:07 PM 0 comments

In further honor of Mother's Day, I thought I'd add a post about our newest houseguests. We have a pair of Carolina wrens and their four hatchlings living on our back porch. I can't get a picture, because their corner is too dark, and because I don't want to scare the kids or the parents by hovering over their nest. Here's a link for information about Carolina wrens: http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/Infocenter/i7180id.html They have pictures, song recordings, and general information about habits and such. Why did I pick this for Mother's Day, when yesterday I complained about housework? Well, it seems that Carolina wrens are the perfect example of daddy sharing housework. The wrens mate for life, quite faithfully. They are resident year-round in one territory, established the first time they mate. The interesting thing is that Pops is an extremely involved parent. In fact, he'll take over childrearing once the little darlings are avian first-graders, so Mom can go have another clutch of eggs at another place in the territory. Judging from this pair, Dad takes over a ton of drudge-work. From shortly after dawn until sunset, the adult bird flits around the yard, catching yummy bogs -- spiders, mostly -- and hauling them back to the nest for the babies. Thanks to this devotion, we have four hatchlings peeking their tiny feathered heads out of the nest. Dad's involvement in the icky part of childrearing means he had more offspring going into the next generation. Thus, we have natural selection supporting the idea that Dad ought to pull his own domestic weight. More dishes washed, more genes going out into the future. Happy Mother's Day.
posted by Kitty 6:33 AM 1 comments
Friday, May 12, 2006

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought I'd write something about the new Caitlin Flanagan book, "To Hell With All That." Ms. Flanagan has said that she wants her book to be a Valentine to the Fifties housewife, whose domestic skills brought order and civilization to her unruly brood. If only. Ms. Flanagan is a skilled writer, finding absurdity in almost any situation. The much-described scene in which she screams for the nannie Paloma to come and clean up her son's vomit is worth the price of the book. It is, however, one of the few times Ms. F. actually manages to make fun at her own expense. That is the great flaw in her work; she doesn't really see the irony in her own position as a writer with a household staff who nevertheless posits the superiority of domestic life for women. That brings me to the other great problem with her work. She has expressed a desire to honor housewives - she wrote an essay for the Atlantic Monthly complaining that women no longer describe themselves as housewives, they are "stay-at-home Moms," shifting the emphasis from wifehood to motherhood. Ms. F. does not consider that shift a good thing. Her most controversial paragraph, judging from the number of times its been cited in blog posts and reviews, describes the dismay of the modern husband at the thought of talking his wife, who, among other problems, is "economically independent of him" into having sex. He decides instead to watch ESPN. It isn't clear why her economic indepence would make him prefer Stanley Cup highlights to intimacy, but it bothers Ms. F. A lot. I think one can find some enlightenment on this point in the response Ms. F. made to a letter writer who suggested that Ms. Flanagan's husband should help with the housework. The response is the letters to the editor section of the June 2004 Atlantic. Ms. Flanagan states, "Why would I want to? [make hubby share housework] He is the head of the household, and I treat him as such." ARRRRGGH!! Having done the world the enormous favor of being born male, hubby is forever exempt from doing anything unpleasant. Of course, Ms. F. doesn't do any of it either, so I suppose she's being fair. Still, the implication is that the rest of us should give our husbands clean houses, hot food, sex, and never insist he tear himself away from SportsCenter to wash dishes. If she wants to lionize domestic work, this is NOT the way to go about it. Assigning icky chores to women alone doesn't raise their status. We've been stuck with icky stuff for thousands of years because women were, presumably, too stupid to do anything else. Keeping it that way just means that domestic chores continue to demand scant respect. This makes me sad, because I agree with Ms. F. that most of civilization takes place at home. If we don't mind living in chaotic hovels about to be seized by the health department, wear ratty, dirty clothes, and eat entirely from McDonald's, well then, by all means ignore domestic life. But for the overwhelming majority of us, that live without servants, one of the two adults in the house will have to cook and clean. Even if we're lucky enough, as Steve and I are, to be able to hire a cleaning service regularly, someone has to manage the daily spiffing up or the place becomes unbearable during the two weeks between visits. Also, the maids don't cook, do dishes, or make the place orderly enough for their cleaning to be effective. I want dishwashing and laundry to be regarded as the necessary tasks they are, not as punishment for the sins of Eve, which is what Ms. Flanagan makes it. It would not be fair for me to rag on Caitlin Flanagan and her gendered vision of cleaning and to fail to address the leftist variant of her idea. A number of feminists, most notably Barbara Ehrenreich, have expressed the opinion that it is exploitive for middle-class households to hire someone to clean up. I do not understand why paying someone to vacuum is so much worse than paying someone to, say, repair the roof, mow the lawn, or unclog the drains. Hiring work is hiring work. The implication in Ms. Eherenreich's stance is the same as Ms. Flanagan's: domestic work is worse than any other kind. It is my personal opinion that regaining private life, including establishing some dignity to housework, will be one of the issues dominating the 21st century. We settled the public life questions in the 20th century. No one much argues in favor of any other form of government besides full-sufferage democracy. We fought two world wars and spent fifty years in an almost-war over the question of who has the right to govern or choose those who govern. Now, we need to settle the question of who provides the civilized citizens to establish that liberal democracy. We could have a worse start than to decide that housework doesn't come with a chromosome assignment.
posted by Kitty 6:14 PM 0 comments

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought I'd write something about the new Caitlin Flanagan book, "To Hell With All That." Ms. Flanagan has said that she wants her book to be a Valentine to the Fifties housewife, whose domestic skills brought order and civilization to her unruly brood. If only. Ms. Flanagan is a skilled writer, finding absurdity in almost any situation. The much-described scene in which she screams for the nannie Paloma to come and clean up her son's vomit is worth the price of the book. It is, however, one of the few times Ms. F. actually manages to make fun at her own expense. That is the great flaw in her work; she doesn't really see the irony in her own position as a writer with a household staff who nevertheless posits the superiority of domestic life for women. That brings me to the other great problem with her work. She has expressed a desire to honor housewives - she wrote an essay for the Atlantic Monthly complaining that women no longer describe themselves as housewives, they are "stay-at-home Moms," shifting the emphasis from wifehood to motherhood. Ms. F. does not consider that shift a good thing. Her most controversial paragraph, judging from the number of times its been cited in blog posts and reviews, describes the dismay of the modern husband at the thought of talking his wife, who, among other problems, is "economically independent of him" into having sex. He decides instead to watch ESPN. It isn't clear why her economic indepence would make him prefer Stanley Cup highlights to intimacy, but it bothers Ms. F. A lot. I think one can find some enlightenment on this point in the response Ms. F. made to a letter writer who suggested that Ms. Flanagan's husband should help with the housework. The response is the letters to the editor section of the June 2004 Atlantic. Ms. Flanagan states, "Why would I want to? [make hubby share housework] He is the head of the household, and I treat him as such." ARRRRGGH!! Having done the world the enormous favor of being born male, hubby is forever exempt from doing anything unpleasant. Of course, Ms. F. doesn't do any of it either, so I suppose she's being fair. Still, the implication is that the rest of us should give our husbands clean houses, hot food, sex, and never insist he tear himself away from SportsCenter to wash dishes. If she wants to lionize domestic work, this is NOT the way to go about it. Assigning icky chores to women alone doesn't raise their status. We've been stuck with icky stuff for thousands of years because women were, presumably, too stupid to do anything else. Keeping it that way just means that domestic chores continue to demand scant respect. This makes me sad, because I agree with Ms. F. that most of civilization takes place at home. If we don't mind living in chaotic hovels about to be seized by the health department, wear ratty, dirty clothes, and eat entirely from McDonald's, well then, by all means ignore domestic life. But for the overwhelming majority of us, that live without servants, one of the two adults in the house will have to cook and clean. Even if we're lucky enough, as Steve and I are, to be able to hire a cleaning service regularly, someone has to manage the daily spiffing up or the place becomes unbearable during the two weeks between visits. Also, the maids don't cook, do dishes, or make the place orderly enough for their cleaning to be effective. I want dishwashing and laundry to be regarded as the necessary tasks they are, not as punishment for the sins of Eve, which is what Ms. Flanagan makes it. It would not be fair for me to rag on Caitlin Flanagan and her gendered vision of cleaning and to fail to address the leftist variant of her idea. A number of feminists, most notably Barbara Ehrenreich, have expressed the opinion that it is exploitive for middle-class households to hire someone to clean up. I do not understand why paying someone to vacuum is so much worse than paying someone to, say, repair the roof, mow the lawn, or unclog the drains. Hiring work is hiring work. The implication in Ms. Eherenreich's stance is the same as Ms. Flanagan's: domestic work is worse than any other kind. It is my personal opinion that regaining private life, including establishing some dignity to housework, will be one of the issues dominating the 21st century. We settled the public life questions in the 20th century. No one much argues in favor of any other form of government besides full-sufferage democracy. We fought two world wars and spent fifty years in an almost-war over the question of who has the right to govern or choose those who govern. Now, we need to settle the question of who provides the civilized citizens to establish that liberal democracy. We could have a worse start than to decide that housework doesn't come with a chromosome assignment.
posted by Kitty 6:14 PM 1 comments