Lighter and Brighter

After all that reading about death, I am ready to be out in the sun. It is a bit too hot to head out after 9 or 10, but 6:30 or 7 in the morning is just about right. The dog and I watch the sun come up over the mountain to the side of our house as Ken heads out with his tools to plant more tomatoes. We've had so much rain that Ken has had to replant. We are hoping we'll have the right amount of rain to keep everything growing. The strawberries from Ken's garden this year were heavenly. We are looking forward to the tomatoes and watermelons now.
Unfortunately, I have a brown thumb so I leave the planting to Ken. I'll help with the harvest and canning which is a joint effort. In the meantime a new mystery is brewing inside my brain and I have to get it on the small screen.

Death

Death is a common thread. THE BOOK THIEF is told by death. It is a beautifully written book that, like THE HUNGER GAMES, is very provocative. I just read both. After reading HUNGER GAMES, I don't think I want to see the movie. Children killing children in order to survive is not a redeeming theme. Young people are fascinated with war and death because they have not, for the most part, at least in America, been part of senseless death. Now nature is bringing that guest who snatches up our souls and children are not so fascinated. It is too real. It is too arbitrary. Even when Death is expected one never can know when it will arrive.

Education

I was a middle school math teacher in another life. I loved teaching, but I was not paid commensurate to my expertise or experience. I spent over 100 hours a year at my own expense and usually on my own time in inservice programs even though I'd taught off and on for 30 years, had a master's degree, and was only required to spend 20 hours a year. That is how much I wanted to know so I could help prepare students for the 21st century.
The fight to underfund the schools further and to undo the tenure laws infuriates me. Tenure was instituted over a century ago in order to protect teachers from the political fickleness of school boards and parents. The situation has not changed. Often school boards are made up of people other than educators who don't understand the standardized tests used to judge the efficacy of a child's education. I'll leave the discussion of those tests to another day. It deserves a further discussion.
Despite my expertise, desire for excellence in teaching in my classroom, and my concern for each individual student, I was often pressured by parents to give their children a particular grade. Note the word "give." The child did not deserve a good grade because of hard work toward improvement or meeting the state curriculum standards if they did not get what most parents believe is a good grade of A or B. If they improved, they received consideration in the grade for their hardwork and improvement  or if they simply met the state curriculum standards with or without improvement, they received the grade that demonstrated their mastery. Without tenure I am sure I would have been either transferred or fired because I had so many influential parents who had misplaced concern over a grade.
If schools are not adequately funded, then well motivated and educated teachers are going to other professions that pay a living wage. They are the backbone of your child's education. Materials for the students and the teachers to use are the building blocks.
Also an administrator who understands excellence in teaching in every subject is essential. There is a reason they are called principals; they are the principal teacher. If they are supported by their superintendent and school board, the administrators have the tools in every state to challenge a teacher's tenure. The law can exist and poor teachers can be dismissed.
I don't plan to use my blog as a soap box, but I am watching the news and see our country undoing a hundred and fifty years of building  public school systems that attempt to serve every child. I agree that there are bad teachers in those systems. I agree that not every child can be served in an excellent way as the systems are run today. But don't throw out one of the few protections good teachers have to continue to use their expertise to bring children to their potential.
What do I think should be done? Fund teacher education at the state level and institute challenging end testing to eliminate teachers who are not adequately prepared. Fund teacher internship programs that match teachers of excellence with non-tenured teachers, but give those expert teachers a stipend for all the extra work involved in teaching another teacher. Most importantly hire excellent administrators who know what to look for in new hires and who will be able to support their best teachers and cull their weakest ones. Lastly, don't depend on standardized tests to tell you if your child is succeeding. Instead, pull up your state's standards on-line. Inquire about how they are being instituted instead of your child's grade. Every teacher should be able to answer that question and show you which standard is being met by lessons and projects.

Sweetheart roses

There is a beautiful sweetheart rose bush planted near our driveway. The flowers are delicate pink and have the most delicious fragrance you can imagine a rose can have. When we moved and uprooted it to bring it to the mountains, I talked to it every morning. I said you can bloom where we have planted you and I'll work at blooming, too. Well, it has done grandly, putting forth a luxurious amount of blossoms from late April to early November every year. I'm not sure I've done as well, but I am still here and still working at emulating our rose bush.

Strawberries

I love strawberries and this year we have a bumper crop. The ones from the lower field are particularly sweet and they will  only produce a little while longer. The ones from the upper garden plot are ever bearing so we'll have them all summer and fall. They are good but not as good as the others. However, the many baskets we bring up daily are beginning to wear heavy on me when I have editing to do. I want to freeze and preserve as many berries as I can. We also like to share our bounty, but even with all that there are a lot of berries to care for. I wish I was motivated to edit when the snow is on the ground instead of when the berries are on the plants. The snow and cold seem to slow down my brain as well as make movement off the hill impossible. Spring energizes me but not enough to get everything I want to do done.

Rain

Rain has come to mean many things to me. Here in the mountains it is what makes the earth rich, swells the creeks, and grows the spring plants---if you can get them in the ground. That is a difficulty with rain; it makes the earth soggy and a tractor sinks in soggy ground.

Our strawberries were planted last fall and this spring they have given to us abundantly because of the rain. Last Friday I picked 12 lbs. to take to our children in the eastern part of the state. Last night Ken picked two more baskets. Rain brings food from our land.

Rain also means I work inside the house which moves the writing moves along in the daytime, not just at night. It makes my cubby hole of an office a place to feel snug and warm because with the rain this spring comes unseasonal cold. The high today will be 56. It is mid-May.

So rain makes my world fertile this spring.

Meanwhile my heart goes out to the many people from Missouri to Louisiana to Tennessee(let's not forget Nashville) who find the rain life changing. It has no enchantment and is destructive in the worst ways. And then there is Texas which longs for rain, is thirsty for it, prays to God to give it for the land, for the animals, for the people. May we all have the right amount of rain the rest of the year.

What Happened to April?

I have been away from my blog but not my computer totally. In early April my daughter and her children and I went to Williamsburg, one of my favorite places in all the world. This daughter also loves the city as did my grandchildren by the time we left. Then came a trip with friends to the beach. In between I continued to read plays for SART, critiqued my classmates' manuscripts, and worked on the edits for my own two manuscripts. It has all been a whirlwind of fun. I am back at home and ready to write with a new mystery taking shape that is set in Williamsburg.