The End of an Era

Yesterday morning, a stack of ungraded essays in front of me, I finished watching “Frost / Nixon,” a fascinating account of the television interviews that planted the disgraced president firmly in the camp of the forgotten. As the credits started to roll, I punched the eject button and slid the DVD into a plastic sleeve, then into the signature red envelope, and padded downstairs and outside to plunk it in the mailbox.

This is a scenario I’ve repeated hundreds of times since we joined Netflix in 2003, soon after we were married. I convinced Rob that it was a more economical solution than paying for cable; plus, I argued, we would be able to watch movies of greater diversity and intellectual caliber than the drivel on HBO. And although my first pick was, ironically, Top Gun, we did watch many more unusual gems over the years.  Nearly half of my rated films (which number 1954) were watched via Netflix, and we were happy and loyal customers.

And now they’re screwing it all up.  First, by raising their prices an inordinate amount (our service went from $10 per month to $16.)  Second, by backtracking to explain that they are really splitting the company in half to capture both the DVD-by-mail and the instant-watch markets.  Third, by choosing the name Qwikster for their new DVD service: it’s trite, juvenile and comes with its own set of problems.

Like everyone else, I’ve grumbled about having to choose between two services, both of which are useful (on principle, I refuse to accept a 60% price hike.)  We’ve rented 503 discs from Netflix over the last 8 years, but we’ve watched 490 on-demand movies, and in all likelihood that number would rise much faster if we’d kept both.  (As an example, the last two discs I had to return yesterday shipped in mid-July and late August, and I only just got around to watching them both; meanwhile, we watched dozens of movies and TV shows on the website.)  But part of me feels like canceling the membership altogether, simply out of protest.

So I’m taking the coward’s way out — that is to say, I’m postponing my decision.  We’ve placed our account on hold for three months.  The semester is usually too busy to watch many movies anyway, and in the meantime we’re holding out hope that a better option will present itself.  (Blockbuster has proven itself incompetent during two trial periods, but I’m hearing good things about Hulu Plus.)

I don’t mean to romanticize a business merger, but truthfully, I am a little sad that they’re changing.  This was a company that was really, really good at one thing: you could get almost any DVD from or to their warehouse in one day, so that you could almost watch a different movie every night.  Customer service was streamlined and simple (no questions asked if a DVD never arrived or wouldn’t play correctly — they simply shipped another one.)  I can’t imagine they’ll be as successful doing what everyone else is already doing — putting free or low-cost content on the Internet for all the world to see.  But, for old time’s sake, I wish them luck.

Ten Years and a Day

It’s hard to say what kind of a day it was, ten years after the most horrific tragedy I have ever known.  Two years ago I wrote about my experience on that day and the way it has never left my consciousness; yesterday was no exception.  It was a day of remembrance, tears and bleak thoughts.

It was also, in many ways, a day like all others.  Liturgy in the morning, bracketed by baptism and memorial services.  Two baby boys joined our family, neither of whom had waited for the hospital.  One was born on the bathroom floor, the other on the apartment steps — they were that eager to begin their earthly lives.  After communion I held the more placid of the two; he was a warm, firm lump in my arms, stirring every now and then to nurse an imaginary breast in dreamland.

The memorial was for all those who had died in the terrorist attacks and recovery efforts.  We did not read this prayer by Bishop BASIL (although I have visited the church Rod discusses in the introduction — a remarkable place); it was a memorial service like all the others we have served for parents, friends, cousins and co-workers who have left us, from our point of view, too soon.

We often spend time with friends on Sunday, and yesterday was no exception.  My high-school best friend had a baby shower and surprised me with two guests I hadn’t seen since our graduation; we spent time catching up and looking forward.  On the way home, I stopped to see the friends I had made ten years earlier when, in desperation, I fled my school’s campus in search of a safe place.  My goddaughter brought us peanut butter crackers as we talked over the noise of the football game.  We had dinner with our church family: melt-in-your-mouth pulled pork, velvety rice pudding, and laughter until our stomachs hurt.

But in between, and often during, these rituals of faith and friendship, I couldn’t shake the thought that this was a sad day.  During my hours in the car, I listened to the dedication ceremony at the United 93 memorial, which I was lucky enough to visit this past summer.  The speakers, each eloquent in their own way, gave messages of hope and inspiration, but also of grief.  One disagreed with the conventional wisdom about recovery — to recover, he said, would be to lose the bonds that linked us to those we had loved and lost.  The pain helps us remember, and in its own way, it is sweet.

Later, I heard the names at Ground Zero: two people read about a dozen names each, and ended with personal tributes to their own relatives.  It was almost too painful to hear, but it would have been harder to turn it off.  I listened, tears in my eyes, in rapt attention.

That night, I opened (for the first time in three months of delivery) a copy of the New York Times and read, cover to cover, a special section about the decade of rebuilding in the city.  Fiances who had not married. Children who had not recovered.  Buildings that had not been built — and some that had.  Photos of the moving memorial at Ground Zero, where waterfalls mark the footprints of the missing towers, framed by names of the dead.

Between rainshowers I drove home; I pulled over to take the above photo of a tribute on the roadside.  It would have to represent all the groups I had seen waving on overpasses, the flags flying at homes and churches, and the thoughts in my own heart about this ordinary, iconic day.

Public Speaking 101

Thanks to our fearless governor for providing the following stellar examples of what NOT to say at a press conference:

Repeat Yourself

“It is the height of stupidity and the height of selfishness for any citizen to stay in Ocean City and put a burden on and risk the lives of first responders by being foolish, being stupid, or being selfish,” O’Malley said.

Run On … and On

“This is a mandatory evacuation order. It is not something that the mayor of Ocean City or I have ordered lightly. It has not been done in modern times and people need to get off the island of Ocean City and not be a burden to their fellow citizens or to first responders who are going to have plenty of other important work to do.” 

Meanwhile, my wise and selfless in-laws are safely inland, dreading their next trip to the beach.  In Baltimore, we’re preparing for several days of rain, some heavy winds and possible loss of power — nothing like what the coastal population will face.  Our thoughts and prayers are with them.

The Perils of Modernity

As part of my music organization project, I went through boxes and boxes of books given to me by a friend from church when she moved to a retirement community.  Stuck between them was a paper she had written for an English class in 1960:

Living in the middle of the twentieth century seems to be characterized primarily by one factor: Speed.  Everyone is in a hurry to do things, see things, go somewhere, or run away from something. Often one who merely sits and meditates is considered to be slightly wacky because he is not “on the go.” Everyone seems to be consumed by a feverish desire to go so that it has been increasingly difficult for people to relax and to learn to relax.

Having a sense of humor and being able to recognize and enjoy good humor is a primary asset in coping with the speed, pressures and tensions of modern life.  Therefore, it is important for every teacher to do what she is able to do in developing a sense of humor in her pupils.

True then and now.  Bravo, Miss Mary.

The Endless Summer

My school raised several million dollars for a major addition to the building, which was to take place over the summer.  Anyone who’s ever observed an ongoing construction project knows that deadlines are seldom met, so when the first day of school got pushed back several times, now holding at 10 days later than the original, our gleeful gratitude far eclipsed our shock.  However, the gift of a week and a half, just when I’m starting to get depressed about all the things I didn’t accomplish this summer, is nothing to sneeze at.  Here’s my plan:

• Clean the house from top to bottom.
• Organize all the junk in the basement.
• Sell one or two more unused pieces of furniture (I’ve had pretty good luck with Craigslist, despite a preponderance of flaky people who simply stop responding when they’re no longer interested.)
• Weed the gardens and harvest remaining produce.
• Go through my piano and vocal music; purge and reorganize.
• Catch up with friends I missed all summer. 

The real surprise? An earthquake that unleashed widespread devastation in the area this afternoon.  We’re slowly digging our way out from all the havoc.

Backchannels and Consumerists, All

Ironically, I’ve been reading the New York Times much more frequently since it instituted a monthly article limit; the “most popular” list is now tailored to my specific interests (philosophy, education and cooking) and I can read at my leisure through the loopholes of Twitter and my cell phone.

Unfortunately, this often leads to an elevated heart rate at an inconvenient location.  Last week, waiting for a delayed plane, I read this flippantly upbeat suggestion that teachers embrace social networking as a classroom tool:

With Twitter and other microblogging platforms, teachers from elementary schools to universities are setting up what is known as a “backchannel” in their classes. The real-time digital streams allow students to comment, pose questions (answered either by one another or the teacher) and shed inhibitions about voicing opinions. Perhaps most importantly, if they are texting on-task, they are less likely to be texting about something else.

Forgive me, but this is about as silly as encouraging your children to experiment with drugs in your own house, since “they’re going to try it anyway.” Our attention spans are already hopelessly short, and our ability to relate on a human level severely hampered:

“When we have class discussions, I don’t really feel the need to speak up or anything,” said one of her students, Justin Lansink, 17. “When you type something down, it’s a lot easier to say what I feel.”

Of course it is, Justin.  It’s always easier to type an angry e-mail instead of confronting someone, or to text “luv u” rather than declare your feelings outright.  Why are we encouraging this, then, instead of helping our students to focus on the interactions and articulations that make them uniquely human?

If I’d read that piece with openmouthed indignation, I read this condemnation of the college experience with a wistful sigh of resignation:

In a typical semester, for instance, 32 percent of the students did not take a single course with more than 40 pages of reading per week, and 50 percent did not take any course requiring more than 20 pages of writing over the semester. The average student spent only about 12 to 13 hours per week studying …

Not surprisingly, a large number of the students showed no significant progress on tests of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing that were administered when they began college and then again at the ends of their sophomore and senior years.

The article goes on to mention colleges’ tendencies to invest in residence and athletic facilities and to rely on student opinion forms as the main barometer of an instructor’s skill in the classroom – which pushes instructors to be pushovers, which further dilutes the academic rigor of the school.  I’ve certainly seen this in my graduate school, where I’m at the top of every class through a reasonable, but not burdensome, amount of effort – embarrassing, really.  College should be hard.

Well, harrumph.  That’s what I get for reading the paper.

In Case You Weren't Worried

Here are three great, thought-provoking articles about education and society, all of which should do the trick:

1. The sad truth about Internet research, which English teachers have been saying for years: students, even the intelligent and conscientious ones, don’t know how to absorb and integrate new material into their work.  In the best-case scenario, they cobble together research papers from quotes of academic sources.  In the worst, they lift chunks of text from Wikipedia and eNotes and drop them into presentations, and are then shocked when plagiarism-detection software finds it: “I didn’t mean to copy.”  I think they actually don’t know what copying is.


2. The digital revolution has spawned a generation of students who can’t focus; yes, it begins with simple rudeness in their private lives, but it carries over easily into the school hours, when they spend a whole class period “researching” with nothing to show for it — having been distracted by fluff and sidebars.


3. Peter Thiel thinks that higher education is the next bubble.  It represents wealth and safety (prestige, salary, job security) and we are willing to incur massive debt for it:

“A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed,” he says. “Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”

Headline Watch

Lauren always finds the best ones:

Family Of Man Killed After Police Pursuit Sues Officer

The questions never end.  Neither, seemingly, do the badly-placed prepositional phrases.

Where Modern Schools Fail: Two Views

Following are two interesting articles I've been sitting on for a week. I can't figure out how to relate them to each other, and they come dangerously close to breaking my Lenten vow, but they are both very well-written and thought-provoking (and technically not *my* words, so I can skate by on a technicality.)

First, a lament to which I can relate very closely, published anonymously on Daily Kos: although I haven't had to deal much with the results-oriented, tests-driven attitude in a private school, thank God, I know it's prevalent in the public sector and I've encountered it quite a bit in my graduate work.

So again, I'm compelled to revisit the idea I posted some time ago in a diary - the people attempting to "reform" education are not focusing on what truly matters: the students, as human beings learning to reach their potential, and teachers as educated, professional human beings capable of making appropriate judgments in their own classrooms. They're focused instead on the "Return on Investment" testing potential in a kid that, according to Teach 4 Success and other companies that attempt to "fix" education, learns the same way as every other kid in the room, and teachers who are supposed to teach them as if that were the case.

Second, an op-ed from the Mormon Times, which is not normally at the top of my reading list, but lands there when one of my favorite authors needs a forum to sound off.  He begins with a chilling anecdote about an awards assembly at which the sports prizes are accompanied by long speeches and the academic honors are read off in a hurry at the very end.  Then he thinks seriously about the effects of such a system on the kids who have chosen to succeed in school -- and the church that has effectively refused them sanctuary:

The kids who slide into drugs or sex or drinking or petty crime — we do a good job of keeping doors open for them because all these sins have consequences and sooner or later they realize their mistake and want to repent and return.

But you can't repent of being studious and smart and skeptical and questioning and unconcerned with style because these are all strengths. It's no surprise that middle- and high-school culture usually treats young people with these virtues as if there is something wrong with them for not being like the "normal" kids — but LDS culture should be a haven for them.

Instead, it's at college where many of them are first treated as if being studious and thoughtful is actually cool. When they finally have peers who respect them and the eye-rolling is replaced with rapt attention, it's so flattering that too many are seduced into abandoning the gospel in favor of the contradictory and unfounded ideas that pass for "intellectual opinion" in the world today.

"LDS" could be "church," or even "school," really.  This attitude is disturbingly prevalent -- so many extracurriculars seem to get promoted ahead of academics, and the consequences are real and dire.

Happy Monday, everyone!

You Really Like Us!

1) The Newseum* does.  Free admission in April to any teacher with a valid ID.

2) The Container Store does: 15% off in 2011.

3) Jo-Ann Fabrics & Crafts does: 15% off through August 31.

4) Ann Taylor LOFT does: 15% off indefinitely.

5) Barnes & Noble does, sort of.  20% discount on "most" books, toys and games.

*In case you didn't know, the Newseum is pretty much my favorite museum.  Except for maybe the liger museum. Or the Decoy Museum, though it's a little disappointing once you realize it's, well, a decoy . . .