I graduated from high school in June 1963. I was tall and thin, and wore my very blonde hair long. It is fifty years later and I am still tall, not at all thin, and wear my rapidly whitening hair long. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
We have a class reunion person, a gal who seems to think the greatest activity in the world is staying in touch with people from “our class” and then arranging reunions so we can attend and wonder who the heck that person is! Because I’m single, it’s awkward to attend the more formal functions, so I did opt for the Sunday afternoon barbeque at the 45th reunion – and sort of recognized a few people, actually knew two people, and had no clue who the others were, nor what their lifetime accomplishments were. No one was impressed with my career as a classroom teacher, the reaction akin to the old saw “those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach.” I’m proud that I spent thirty-five years in front of a podium at both the high school and the college levels. I made a contribution to society that didn’t net much in financial and/or societal returns, but I know that many of “my” students have gone on to live productive lives.
The 50th reunion is looming large, coincidentally in the same time frame as my cataract surgery. I’m not enthusiastic about attending this event, not even the barbeque, and I can use my surgery as a reason not to make the drive and socialize with people I barely remember and with whom I share so little personal or professional history. The reunion gal, however, wants a huge turn-out, so she’s on every level of social media hyping the event and haranguing us to attend.
The invitations are in the mail, so I have to make a decision: should I go, or should I stay ... home.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Monday, May 20, 2013
waiting and watching
The asphalt was taken up; a huge hole was dug, then filled in. The water truck seems to run 24/7 in a sometimes futile attempt to stop the gale-force winds from redistributing all the sand on my street to the street due west. Heavy-duty equipment has become part of our daily lives as the sewer pipe installation continues in the neighborhood.
Today, I'm waiting and watching to see what happens. There is an expensive brick wall around the perimeter of my front yard. The construction crew put an orange arrow from the street to the wall, then from the wall inside my yard to a spot just shy of the landscape circle. A huge bucket wielded by an obviously bored bucket operator gouged a huge piece of real estate on the street side of the wall and turned it into yet another ditch. Just prior to breaking for lunch, he stopped -- and now is back for the part of the arrow inside the brick wall.
I paid to have the wall installed, and it was not cheap; however, it was done correctly, with a nice deep cement footing anchoring it in place and rebar reinforcement. It's not something I want to see gouged with the big bucket, so I walked out to talk to the man supervising the equipment. He said he'll do his best, but another worker told me, "No problem, we'll dig under the wall. It won't be damaged."
I'm waiting and watching because I'm not sure I believe any person who assures me that it's "no problem." I've already been told that we have to pay whatever it costs to hook up to the sewers from the house, and that we have to do that during a specific time frame. We also have to hire and pay for a crew to fill in the septic tank, although I've never had an issue with mine and don't see why it can't just be left as it is. And, we have to pay through an added assessment to our property taxes for the total cost per household for this project, which means my payment will go even higher next year (my housepayment has increased by $400/year over the course of the past 10 years due to increased taxes and fees and assessments over which I have absolutely no control). I wish I had the money to just pay all these costs, but that's not my reality. Or the reality of anyone else in the same boat.
I'll let you know what happens.
UPDATE: my wall is still in one piece and the big machines have moved down the street, so guess everything is okay. My next-door neighbor was not so lucky: the crew broke her water main and she's again without water! Last week, it was the landlord who hadn't paid the water bill, then the water company charging a reconnect fee that the landlord wouldn't pay. She's had a rough couple of weeks, but she keeps on keeping on.
Today, I'm waiting and watching to see what happens. There is an expensive brick wall around the perimeter of my front yard. The construction crew put an orange arrow from the street to the wall, then from the wall inside my yard to a spot just shy of the landscape circle. A huge bucket wielded by an obviously bored bucket operator gouged a huge piece of real estate on the street side of the wall and turned it into yet another ditch. Just prior to breaking for lunch, he stopped -- and now is back for the part of the arrow inside the brick wall.
I paid to have the wall installed, and it was not cheap; however, it was done correctly, with a nice deep cement footing anchoring it in place and rebar reinforcement. It's not something I want to see gouged with the big bucket, so I walked out to talk to the man supervising the equipment. He said he'll do his best, but another worker told me, "No problem, we'll dig under the wall. It won't be damaged."
I'm waiting and watching because I'm not sure I believe any person who assures me that it's "no problem." I've already been told that we have to pay whatever it costs to hook up to the sewers from the house, and that we have to do that during a specific time frame. We also have to hire and pay for a crew to fill in the septic tank, although I've never had an issue with mine and don't see why it can't just be left as it is. And, we have to pay through an added assessment to our property taxes for the total cost per household for this project, which means my payment will go even higher next year (my housepayment has increased by $400/year over the course of the past 10 years due to increased taxes and fees and assessments over which I have absolutely no control). I wish I had the money to just pay all these costs, but that's not my reality. Or the reality of anyone else in the same boat.
I'll let you know what happens.
UPDATE: my wall is still in one piece and the big machines have moved down the street, so guess everything is okay. My next-door neighbor was not so lucky: the crew broke her water main and she's again without water! Last week, it was the landlord who hadn't paid the water bill, then the water company charging a reconnect fee that the landlord wouldn't pay. She's had a rough couple of weeks, but she keeps on keeping on.
To err is human; to cheat is, well, cheating
Back in the day, there was a philosophy predicated on the ethical belief that cheaters never prosper from their actions. The way the wheel turns, in today’s academic environment the cheaters are earning the A’s, while the ethical minority struggles to earn an honest grade that still qualifies them to continue with their education. Sooner or later, contrary to what we all would like to believe, the honest student succumbs to the will of the majority and joins the cheaters who consistently outscore them on standardized testing. What the teachers don't seem to understand is that too many perfect scores on any test doesn't mean a class mastered the content; it means that there is cheating running rampant among the students.
Test banks, along with the answer keys, are prolific online and easy to obtain for anyone who has the financial means to make the purchase, especially if a dozen or so students all contribute to the buy. Textbook companies make these materials available for instructors; however, if they are available to one consumer, they are available to all consumers. There are no checks and balances that require a purchaser to have administrative approval for the purchase: any credit card will be accepted and any purchase put through. The test banks are often downloaded to the buyer's computer at the time of purchase, which means that buyer can sell to anyone who wants a personal copy of the materials.
True/False and multiple choice answers are easiest scored by using a Scantron answer sheet and a scoring machine; thus, the test banks/answer keys focus more on that form of testing rather than, perhaps, a short written response that demonstrates each student’s mastery of the concepts being tested. It’s a matter of time/money for the TAs (teacher’s assistant) who are often solely responsible for grading the exam instruments: in a class with 300 students, the time it could take to hand-score short written responses, at 5 minutes per student per question, becomes several hours, and those hours have to be multiplied times the total student enrollment the instructor is assigned in any given semester. Compared to using the Scantron system, which scores both true/false and multiple choice responses literally as fast as the user can put the answer card through the scoring machine, the answer for the teacher and assistants is time, rather than educational outcome.
And, believe me, we all want to believe that "our" students won't cheat: they won't pass the answers from one section of the same course to students in other sections of that course; they won't purchase materials from the students who took the course last semester to ensure a good grade this semester; they won't download required semester papers from the internet and put their own names onto them and submit them as original student work; they won't go online and buy the test bank.
For the student, the ethical position eventually becomes untenable when dozens are getting perfect scores on the heavily-weighted objective quizzes and tests, while the honest student may be missing answers and receiving a lower grade. No one tells the educational institution or the teacher that the high-scoring students have the test bank and answers to all the Scantron-based testing instruments: no one likes a snitch. The ethical teacher could renumber and/or remix the questions from the test bank to help guard against unethical student use of test banks. It would take a bit of time, but cutting and pasting on a computer and then making a new master Scantron test answer sheet could help to minimize the prolific cheating activity that students take as their data-driven right.
Ideally, an ethical individual would not cheat regardless of the price paid to remain honest; however, success in educational institutions is based strictly on exam scores … and to err is human, but to cheat becomes divine when cheating along with everyone else simply creates a level playing field.
Test banks, along with the answer keys, are prolific online and easy to obtain for anyone who has the financial means to make the purchase, especially if a dozen or so students all contribute to the buy. Textbook companies make these materials available for instructors; however, if they are available to one consumer, they are available to all consumers. There are no checks and balances that require a purchaser to have administrative approval for the purchase: any credit card will be accepted and any purchase put through. The test banks are often downloaded to the buyer's computer at the time of purchase, which means that buyer can sell to anyone who wants a personal copy of the materials.
True/False and multiple choice answers are easiest scored by using a Scantron answer sheet and a scoring machine; thus, the test banks/answer keys focus more on that form of testing rather than, perhaps, a short written response that demonstrates each student’s mastery of the concepts being tested. It’s a matter of time/money for the TAs (teacher’s assistant) who are often solely responsible for grading the exam instruments: in a class with 300 students, the time it could take to hand-score short written responses, at 5 minutes per student per question, becomes several hours, and those hours have to be multiplied times the total student enrollment the instructor is assigned in any given semester. Compared to using the Scantron system, which scores both true/false and multiple choice responses literally as fast as the user can put the answer card through the scoring machine, the answer for the teacher and assistants is time, rather than educational outcome.
And, believe me, we all want to believe that "our" students won't cheat: they won't pass the answers from one section of the same course to students in other sections of that course; they won't purchase materials from the students who took the course last semester to ensure a good grade this semester; they won't download required semester papers from the internet and put their own names onto them and submit them as original student work; they won't go online and buy the test bank.
For the student, the ethical position eventually becomes untenable when dozens are getting perfect scores on the heavily-weighted objective quizzes and tests, while the honest student may be missing answers and receiving a lower grade. No one tells the educational institution or the teacher that the high-scoring students have the test bank and answers to all the Scantron-based testing instruments: no one likes a snitch. The ethical teacher could renumber and/or remix the questions from the test bank to help guard against unethical student use of test banks. It would take a bit of time, but cutting and pasting on a computer and then making a new master Scantron test answer sheet could help to minimize the prolific cheating activity that students take as their data-driven right.
Ideally, an ethical individual would not cheat regardless of the price paid to remain honest; however, success in educational institutions is based strictly on exam scores … and to err is human, but to cheat becomes divine when cheating along with everyone else simply creates a level playing field.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Family Time
This past weekend was a family weekend, spent traveling to Vallejo for my nephew’s graduation from California Maritime Academy, one of the California State University system’s campuses located on the water of the San Francisco Bay area, and a beautiful campus with a quasi-military feel to it. We took two cars to the event, leaving from Santa Barbara and making the drive with time to spare before the 1:00 pm seating deadline: reserved seats were only held until 1:00, a half-hour prior to the formal ceremony. If you aren’t seated, anyone can take your seat – and we did so, sitting quite comfortably in the third row from the front.
After the graduation finished, we returned to the house in which my nephew and a few other new graduates lived. They are doing the typical “ready to move out” thing, with the couches going to the curb, the bathrooms in need of professional cleaning, and the rug someone else’s problem. The guys don’t care about things such as cleaning deposits because they are already paid with "gone" money and they are anxious to move out and move on. Now. Today.
It was a nice party, populated with more older adults than younger adults, and an on-going barbeque and smoker provided delicious meat treats to accompany the tables filled with salads and sides. Delicious food, nice company, and shared joy at the completion of this stage of the “children’s” development. Some of the grads will continue with their educational goals and others will go right into full-time employment, but all of them will move on, so having the grads, their families, and these friends together perhaps will not happen again, so lots of photos.
The photo I chose for this update includes my youngest brother, his wife, three of his four daughters (the fourth daughter was trying desperately to survive her final exams for the end of her first year at Harvard), the graduate (still partially in uniform), and me..jpg)
On the drive home, we stopped in Salinas to enjoy barbeque at Salinas City Barbeque, a small restaurant housed in an old family residence. The dinner was one of the best restaurant barbeque dinners I've eaten, including the sides (beans, cole slaw, potato salad, or a baked potato), the toasted bread freshly baked each day, and Ma's Homemade Berry Cobbler, which I took "togo." Believe me, the mixed raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and apples, topped with a cookie crust, didn't need the additional scoop of ice cream to add to its deliciousness.
I enjoyed dessert back at the family home, sitting outside on one of the benches set under a shady tree and basking in the glow of rehashing an excellent weekend vaca. Fair winds and following seas blessed us all.
After the graduation finished, we returned to the house in which my nephew and a few other new graduates lived. They are doing the typical “ready to move out” thing, with the couches going to the curb, the bathrooms in need of professional cleaning, and the rug someone else’s problem. The guys don’t care about things such as cleaning deposits because they are already paid with "gone" money and they are anxious to move out and move on. Now. Today.
It was a nice party, populated with more older adults than younger adults, and an on-going barbeque and smoker provided delicious meat treats to accompany the tables filled with salads and sides. Delicious food, nice company, and shared joy at the completion of this stage of the “children’s” development. Some of the grads will continue with their educational goals and others will go right into full-time employment, but all of them will move on, so having the grads, their families, and these friends together perhaps will not happen again, so lots of photos.
The photo I chose for this update includes my youngest brother, his wife, three of his four daughters (the fourth daughter was trying desperately to survive her final exams for the end of her first year at Harvard), the graduate (still partially in uniform), and me.
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On the drive home, we stopped in Salinas to enjoy barbeque at Salinas City Barbeque, a small restaurant housed in an old family residence. The dinner was one of the best restaurant barbeque dinners I've eaten, including the sides (beans, cole slaw, potato salad, or a baked potato), the toasted bread freshly baked each day, and Ma's Homemade Berry Cobbler, which I took "togo." Believe me, the mixed raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and apples, topped with a cookie crust, didn't need the additional scoop of ice cream to add to its deliciousness.
I enjoyed dessert back at the family home, sitting outside on one of the benches set under a shady tree and basking in the glow of rehashing an excellent weekend vaca. Fair winds and following seas blessed us all.
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