Definitions of work and school are being re-invented on the fly.
Around here these days, kids are working hard at making a living, and grown-ups are working hard at educating and being educated.
None of the people in my house actually WORK for someone else in exchange for wages now, but we're all incredibly busy anyway; and all bringing home the bacon, one way or another. My husband is a teacher, so he teaches kids. All ages, all subjects. School is continuing in our area - although nobody's getting paid for it by the state, because school funding has been diverted temporarily (let's hope!) to other needs. Is this true everywhere, I wonder? What are other communities doing with thousands of bored teenagers roaming the streets?
When the school year began, Bruce, eight of his teacher-friends, the high-school principal and the middle school librarian just voluntarily reconstructed the educational system in Bremerton on a sort of ad-hoc basis.
The students who are interested in continuing school - and there are lots more than I expected - voluntarily use their rationed Internet time to stay in contact with their little web of teachers.
The schools have gotten a lot more neighborhood oriented, for lack of transportation, and reflect the new values we've developed since petroleum started to fail. For example, on our street, we have a horticulture "pod", which is led by a former real-estate agent and master gardener.
She knows dirt; )
In the "pod" there are six middle-school and high-school kids who live on the next street or up by the park; there's my downstairs neighbor and her two adult daughters and five young grandkids; there's the old lady across the alley with all the nice canning equipment; and there's me and Gavvy.
The "pods" generally have a practical purpose besides education. We're pretty serious food producers in our neighborhood. We learn about soil, and what makes healthy soil; we save and share seeds; we compost; we design garden spaces; we plant and irrigate; we weed and control pests; we watch the plants grown through their life cycle, and learn of their biology; and we harvest, preserve, and cook. Pretty good chunk of education mixed up in there.
All of us are learning according to our interests, sharing what we know, and all of us are working. I have even dragged out my college biology texts for the occasion; )
(There are more academic "pods", too - or more research-oriented, I should say. Calculus is not dead.)
Another thing I've noticed is that the rhymes and songs we're coming up with to amuse/teach the little kids are different. They've been drained of their oil; )
Here's a little something from the Madrona Street Hortipod...Gavvy's new favorite.
Howdy U. Pickamellen
Looket alla yellamellens
stack'd in a heap
wonder which allamellen
i'm gonna keep
heffamellen thunkamellen
tink tink tink
settem back down
for'n yetamellen sleep
pushamellen givamellen
not too soft
green at the stripey, cushy on top
holdem to your ear and
thump thump thump
rollem on home and WHACKEM ALL UP!
Showing posts with label school district. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school district. Show all posts
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
Having a ball
I refuse to accept a life without joy, without culture. What good is it to be human if you can't dance?
Yes, yes, the Navy's got my knickers in a knot.
They've been making a few changes around the school district; most of them for the worse, in my opinion. I suppose I could have predicted that their definition of "necessary" would be different from mine.
For example: Gavvy's school has been closed. Bruce (my husband) says all "non-essential" classes around the district have been cancelled until further notice. Surprisingly, they weren't referring to math; ) They mean art, dance, drama, choir, band, special ed(!)...even languages like French and Spanish are considered "non-essential". In other words, they seem determined to suck all the remaining happiness out of the kids' lives. The parents around here just duck their heads and go right along, same as they always do. The other teachers have been around long enough to know when to keep their mouths shut... but not Bruce, of course.
He argued with the new Navy-issued Super about it until the guy threatened to put him in jail. Apparently somebody from the admin office intervened - funny, she's usually fighting with Bruce, not for him - and the other teachers got him out of there before he could do any more harm to his job prospects.
Really, he doesn't have anything to worry about. Nobody else wants to babysit.
On other subjects, the ferries have stopped. Even the Bainbridge ferry to Seattle, which is where half of Seattle's (rich) lawyers and (rich) accountants live. It's some kind of terrorism threat, according to the news. I'm more likely to believe that, with the ferry system operating so close to the bone for so many years, the state just doesn't have the money to put diesel in them now. And no doubt the Navy sees them as "non-essential", or else they can't justify appropriating that much fuel just to keep the peninsula workers happy.
Still, that's a few thousand more Bremerton, Bainbridge, and Vashon workers and professionals who can't get to work.
I'm on the planning committee for the local farmers market, and we've all agreed that it should probably remain where it's always been; in the Silverdale hotel parking lot. Nice central location. Problem is, the farmers can't afford to drive the food to the market from the farms around Silverdale, Poulsbo, Kingston, and we've even got a honey supplier from up in Port Gamble... and still break even.
Now the Navy, while they don't see the need for organic produce (it doesn't come in a can tattooed with letters and numbers, does it?), can definitely get behind the idea of local food; it means self-sufficiency. Very military.
Their budget for fuel is pretty loose, so once we found the right person to propose to, the rest was a piece of cake. We got a (refrigerated!) diesel truck, a fuel card, and a pair of twenty-somethings in uniform named Williams and Fish.
I've got a two-seat Zenn, which isn't much good for carpooling, but I can fit a fair amount of stuff in the back...so I'm taking vegetable orders and bringing boxes back to Bremerton. Note to self: If down to less than half-charge, you can't get up Andersen Hill with a hundred pounds of produce in the back; )
Anyway, back to the theme of joy.
Item 1: We're not letting the school go to the dogs. There are no non-essential subjects, and no non-essential students. I'm calling Gavvy's teacher to see if there's anything I can do.
Item 2: We're planning a neighborhood ball. Yes, you heard me right. There's going to be dressing up, dancing, and laughing until dawn in the gymnasium of the elementary school down the street. Now, to figure out the best way to broach this with our keepers.
Item 3: We're learning how to garden. Seems there's more to it than putting seeds in the dirt and throwing some water on top, and some of the old people in our neighborhood are really good at it. Now, to get up the nerve to go talk to them.
Item 4: We're not going to live in fear, or pessimism. Reality is what it is; and you might say it's not that bad for us, so we can afford to fart clouds of sunshine. You might be thinking your neck of the woods is so steeped in violence and need that you can't help but despair. But I argue that - no matter what - we've got the choice to live with hope, love, and optimism, even if it seems insane. Better to be insane and human, than "realistic"...and much less.
The Seattle Electric Vehicle Association meeting was cancelled, because of security, or lack of it. I suggested we move it to Bremerton. I might be irritated at Big Brother, but they do keep the crime under control. Nothing's decided yet.
Yes, yes, the Navy's got my knickers in a knot.
They've been making a few changes around the school district; most of them for the worse, in my opinion. I suppose I could have predicted that their definition of "necessary" would be different from mine.
For example: Gavvy's school has been closed. Bruce (my husband) says all "non-essential" classes around the district have been cancelled until further notice. Surprisingly, they weren't referring to math; ) They mean art, dance, drama, choir, band, special ed(!)...even languages like French and Spanish are considered "non-essential". In other words, they seem determined to suck all the remaining happiness out of the kids' lives. The parents around here just duck their heads and go right along, same as they always do. The other teachers have been around long enough to know when to keep their mouths shut... but not Bruce, of course.
He argued with the new Navy-issued Super about it until the guy threatened to put him in jail. Apparently somebody from the admin office intervened - funny, she's usually fighting with Bruce, not for him - and the other teachers got him out of there before he could do any more harm to his job prospects.
Really, he doesn't have anything to worry about. Nobody else wants to babysit.
On other subjects, the ferries have stopped. Even the Bainbridge ferry to Seattle, which is where half of Seattle's (rich) lawyers and (rich) accountants live. It's some kind of terrorism threat, according to the news. I'm more likely to believe that, with the ferry system operating so close to the bone for so many years, the state just doesn't have the money to put diesel in them now. And no doubt the Navy sees them as "non-essential", or else they can't justify appropriating that much fuel just to keep the peninsula workers happy.
Still, that's a few thousand more Bremerton, Bainbridge, and Vashon workers and professionals who can't get to work.
I'm on the planning committee for the local farmers market, and we've all agreed that it should probably remain where it's always been; in the Silverdale hotel parking lot. Nice central location. Problem is, the farmers can't afford to drive the food to the market from the farms around Silverdale, Poulsbo, Kingston, and we've even got a honey supplier from up in Port Gamble... and still break even.
Now the Navy, while they don't see the need for organic produce (it doesn't come in a can tattooed with letters and numbers, does it?), can definitely get behind the idea of local food; it means self-sufficiency. Very military.
Their budget for fuel is pretty loose, so once we found the right person to propose to, the rest was a piece of cake. We got a (refrigerated!) diesel truck, a fuel card, and a pair of twenty-somethings in uniform named Williams and Fish.
I've got a two-seat Zenn, which isn't much good for carpooling, but I can fit a fair amount of stuff in the back...so I'm taking vegetable orders and bringing boxes back to Bremerton. Note to self: If down to less than half-charge, you can't get up Andersen Hill with a hundred pounds of produce in the back; )
Anyway, back to the theme of joy.
Item 1: We're not letting the school go to the dogs. There are no non-essential subjects, and no non-essential students. I'm calling Gavvy's teacher to see if there's anything I can do.
Item 2: We're planning a neighborhood ball. Yes, you heard me right. There's going to be dressing up, dancing, and laughing until dawn in the gymnasium of the elementary school down the street. Now, to figure out the best way to broach this with our keepers.
Item 3: We're learning how to garden. Seems there's more to it than putting seeds in the dirt and throwing some water on top, and some of the old people in our neighborhood are really good at it. Now, to get up the nerve to go talk to them.
Item 4: We're not going to live in fear, or pessimism. Reality is what it is; and you might say it's not that bad for us, so we can afford to fart clouds of sunshine. You might be thinking your neck of the woods is so steeped in violence and need that you can't help but despair. But I argue that - no matter what - we've got the choice to live with hope, love, and optimism, even if it seems insane. Better to be insane and human, than "realistic"...and much less.
The Seattle Electric Vehicle Association meeting was cancelled, because of security, or lack of it. I suggested we move it to Bremerton. I might be irritated at Big Brother, but they do keep the crime under control. Nothing's decided yet.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Hummer-flogging Petrophiles
I've been calling them the Hummer-floggers, or Petrophiles, or other disparaging terms for so long that I forgot they sometimes actually make themselves useful: I'm talking about the huge Navy community here in Bremerton, thanks to the naval shipyard on one end and the submarine base on the other.
Started calling 'em that because we've got a huge autoplex here - for a relatively small town - and all those boys from the ships and the Naval hospital seem to have driven off the lot with a Hummer or some other unsightly land-tank. I keep telling 'em that driving a giant gas-gobbler doesn't REALLY compensate for anything, but I've never felt like I got through; )
Anyway, I KNEW there was a good reason I wanted to situate myself in the warm, hairy lap of the Navy: They live here. The officers - the doctors and nurses at the Naval hospital, the scientists and metallurgists at the shipyard, and all the other military middle-class that makes the floating blue world go 'round - they all own homes here, send their kids to school here, and will retire here. It just follows that they're going to make it their business to take good care of it.
Now the Navy has quietly taken over Bremerton and Silverdale. I hear they've "secured" the whole Olympic Peninsula, Whidbey to Pt. Townsend to Pt. Angeles, too. I don't know whether this is a good thing or not. Our family isn't remotely Navy - in fact, we're overeducated bleeding-heart liberals - and all the mindless goose-stepping usually gets on our nerves.
It's hard to turn down good help, though.
They're making sure the civilian hospital stays supplied with equipment and staff, putting uniformed patrol on the streets, in the schools, in the grocery stores, and at the gas stations.
They've taken over the (diesel) city buses, which are now free and run a lot. Uniformed Navy personnel are driving the extra city bus routes.
My husband's job (he's a substitute teacher here in the Bremerton School District) isn't in any danger; in fact, he's got more work than ever. Lots of the regular teachers around here actually live in the outlying areas where the improved city bus service can't reach them. Consequently, the administration has gotten pretty desperate to staff the school. I hear they're tapping the Navy for that, too. Why not.
The compounding pharmacy in Maryland that's been shipping Gavvy's special vitamins to him since he was born actually called me yesterday to say their supplies might be unstable, and would we like to order an extra bottle, just to be sure? We don't really have the money, but I ordered two extra (they're about 75 dollars for a month's supply, but shipping has gone from 6.95 a package to 21.50). I'm feeling optimistic about business and pessimistic about continued availability of the vitamins, so I went ahead.
For most of us, vitamin supplements are sort of a luxury. For my beautiful son, an urgent necessity. Because of a chromosomal abnormality, his body will eat itself alive without the antioxidants.
I can't think about that too much.
Anyway, the news is basically good from Bremerton, thanks to the Navy. Everything still works. Sounds like naptime is over, so I'll say goodbye until next week.
There's a meeting of the Seattle chapter of the electric vehicle association on Tuesday night, and my presence has been sweetly requested. It'll be interesting to see what my buddies are doing with their alternative transportation. Only good deeds, I hope; )
Started calling 'em that because we've got a huge autoplex here - for a relatively small town - and all those boys from the ships and the Naval hospital seem to have driven off the lot with a Hummer or some other unsightly land-tank. I keep telling 'em that driving a giant gas-gobbler doesn't REALLY compensate for anything, but I've never felt like I got through; )
Anyway, I KNEW there was a good reason I wanted to situate myself in the warm, hairy lap of the Navy: They live here. The officers - the doctors and nurses at the Naval hospital, the scientists and metallurgists at the shipyard, and all the other military middle-class that makes the floating blue world go 'round - they all own homes here, send their kids to school here, and will retire here. It just follows that they're going to make it their business to take good care of it.
Now the Navy has quietly taken over Bremerton and Silverdale. I hear they've "secured" the whole Olympic Peninsula, Whidbey to Pt. Townsend to Pt. Angeles, too. I don't know whether this is a good thing or not. Our family isn't remotely Navy - in fact, we're overeducated bleeding-heart liberals - and all the mindless goose-stepping usually gets on our nerves.
It's hard to turn down good help, though.
They're making sure the civilian hospital stays supplied with equipment and staff, putting uniformed patrol on the streets, in the schools, in the grocery stores, and at the gas stations.
They've taken over the (diesel) city buses, which are now free and run a lot. Uniformed Navy personnel are driving the extra city bus routes.
My husband's job (he's a substitute teacher here in the Bremerton School District) isn't in any danger; in fact, he's got more work than ever. Lots of the regular teachers around here actually live in the outlying areas where the improved city bus service can't reach them. Consequently, the administration has gotten pretty desperate to staff the school. I hear they're tapping the Navy for that, too. Why not.
The compounding pharmacy in Maryland that's been shipping Gavvy's special vitamins to him since he was born actually called me yesterday to say their supplies might be unstable, and would we like to order an extra bottle, just to be sure? We don't really have the money, but I ordered two extra (they're about 75 dollars for a month's supply, but shipping has gone from 6.95 a package to 21.50). I'm feeling optimistic about business and pessimistic about continued availability of the vitamins, so I went ahead.
For most of us, vitamin supplements are sort of a luxury. For my beautiful son, an urgent necessity. Because of a chromosomal abnormality, his body will eat itself alive without the antioxidants.
I can't think about that too much.
Anyway, the news is basically good from Bremerton, thanks to the Navy. Everything still works. Sounds like naptime is over, so I'll say goodbye until next week.
There's a meeting of the Seattle chapter of the electric vehicle association on Tuesday night, and my presence has been sweetly requested. It'll be interesting to see what my buddies are doing with their alternative transportation. Only good deeds, I hope; )
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