Swan Song

                A colleague I met on the day of the departmental final greeted me with, “Tina, I hear this is your swan song!”

                “La!” I sang out, hitting a high C or perhaps blungeoning it, in an effort to emit at least one note of my swan song. 

            This seemed very appropriate, this talk of a swan song, because with every day closer to retirement, I was following the San Francisco Chronicle’s articles on the fate of our school, with headlines like these:

“CCSF’s dealine could be extended/Accrediting panel can give time to shape up, feds say” and

“Supporters want CCSF deadline extended,” reports by Nanette Asimov, May  14 and 15, 2014, respectively.

“Extenstion allowed for CCSF, feds insist/Accreditation panel’s deadline approaching,” report by Nanette Asimov, May 21, 2014

“Give City College time to improve,” editorial and “Put woes in context,” letter to the editor by Mike Solow, chariman of the CCSF chemistry department, both on May 22, 2014.  

          City College was not ready to sing its swan song.  

           But even more fitting was the report on a family of swans at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.  Apparently the caretakers knew that there was no point in the female swan's hatching her eggs because the ducklings would be killed by their father in the mating season, when he saw them as rivals.  So the caretaker had put ceramic eggs in the place of those the mother first laid, but they hatched anyway, and on May 21^st there was an article with photo of the swan chicks on water.  This was followed by  the sad news that the baby chicks, called cynets (pronounced sing net, as in sing.net according to the Internet), had disappeared, which was what I was going to be doing though not, I hoped, victim of a snapping turtle, big-mouth bass or an owl, the suspects in the case of the gone-swans.

            Now they are part of my retirement collage. 

CCSF Graduation Ceremony, May 23, 2014

When I arrived on campus, I saw police--our wonderful campus police--and wondered what was going on.  Then maybe hearing strains of "Land of Hope and Glory"/"Pomp and Circumstance", I realized it was graduation day and Dustin Lance Black, Oscar winning screenwriter for Milk, would be speaking.  They hadn't announced that until the very week of the ceremony, and I thought I'd lost my chance to attend.  When I was looking for tap water for my pitcher for the students giving their final presentations from 10:30 to 12:30, I saw three colleagues--Laura, Lia, and Lisa--working on placement tests, and I commented to them that even though I knew the song was all about world domination, I still got choked up when I heard it.  (Of course, this year when I'm graduating from 32 years of teaching at CCSF plus 2 years in Tonga, 1 year in Spain, and 2 years in Algeria, was also the50th anniversary of our CHS graduating class, when we also walked down the aisle to that music.)  I skipped my college graduation and my MA graduation--if there were one. 

I saw Michelle, a biology instructor, in cap and gown, and I knew that it was too late for me.  But I hadn't known how easy it would be to get to the bleachers!    So I joined Lauren Muller, head of IDST, in the bleachers, and I really am glad I did!

I'm going to start with the last part of the program because that's the part that interests Bill.

Lance Black was brought here from London by Rafael Mandelman, a columnist for the Bay Times and something-or-other at the Harvey Milk Center.  

Hi, Bill~

                You were asking for more details, so I’ll share my notes with you!

                Apparently Rafael Mandelman was instrumental in getting Dustin Lance Black to our graduation.  He was in London!  What do you know about Rafael Mandelman?  I see that he’s a columnist for the Bay Times.  I know he supports Campos for the State Assembly.  Anyway, Dustin Lance Black seemed really, really young!  He began by saying he’d wanted to be cool, so he’d worn his sneakers, but then he’d seen a graduate with even cooler footwear.  He asked the very willing graduate to show us, and I’m not sure from where I sat in the bleachers, but I think he had on high heels. 

                Then he talked about speaking in Pasadena and going to UCLA but feeling that CCSF was the most significant place he could speak. 

                He then told a couple of stories.  One was of his growing up the only Mormon in San Antonio, Texas, where everyone was “coloring inside the lines.”  The principal ruled by fear, and he heard from his own church that next to murder “sexual impurity” was the worst sin.  When he heard the word homosexuality, he didn’t know what it meant, but he realized it had an x in it and might be useful for Scrabble.  He also heard the words pansy and faggot.  When a friend named Troy said, “I’m Jewish,” Black said, “I think you can change that.”  Difference was wrong.  He went to Hartnell Community College, and even though he stayed closeted among those who knew him, he started going out to the Castro and West Hollywood.  (?)  He said, “Community college experience is far more valuable” than any four-year college he knew about.  (I think I mentioned that he went to UCLA.)  Then he told a story about his mother, “a good southern mom,” who joined his group of friends for a pasta dinner, and they all assumed that he had come out to her and that she had come to the dinner knowing he was gay and his friends there were also gay.  So while he was in the kitchen, they started talking to her and telling her their stories, and she responded like the good listener she was.  When Black finally came out of the kitchen, she said, “Well, I like your friends—one in particular.  But I told him he ought to pay when you go out on dates.”  Then she gave him a big hug, and he understood that the way to communicate was through stories.  So he encouraged graduates to tell their stories to build bridges, “a coalition of the us-es.”    (I think that’s Harvey Milk’s phrase.)  He also encouraged people to “think on the ways that you are different.  Your differences are what make you marketable, beautiful”  (I didn’t catch all the other adjectives, but you get the gist. )   He also referred to the lavender graduation the previous night. 

                All of the talks were good.

                I hadn’t planned on going, and they announced Dustin Lance Black as the commencement speaker only at the last moment—maybe just last week.  (Maybe there was some uncertainly about his making it from London.)  I’m glad I went on the spur of the moment—right after giving my final final-- because all the talks were worth-hearing!

                xoxo      Tina

"Ah, the Browning Version," I thought when a former student came by to praise me

"Ah, the Browning Version," I thought when a former student came by to praise me after my second and final class ended at 12:10.   He told me how wonderful I was and how much he'd learned from me.
 "Oh, thank you," I told him, wondering who'd put him up to this.
When I was a child and someone would be nice to me--maybe even two people--I'd reason that they'd heard I was going to die so they should be nice to me in the short period remaining.
"That's heartwarming in a profession when a teacher is accustomed to heartbreaking experiences"
(Maybe I didn't tell him exactly that.)
My first class had listened impassively as I told them about active listening and showed them and made them do.  (Do means coming up to the overhead, fairly new in 1964, and showing us something.)  The second class had been a little bit  less annoying (or maybe I should say annoyed by me and all my efforst0 than the first class, but that wasn't exactly uplifting (heartwarming).  I was in good form--enthusiastic, fully engaged, never bored, just boring--, but my students were not interested or engaged, and they don't know the word enthusiastic.  Only I was any of these things.  ("When in a class of 32 your reach one student, you have 31 to go."  I may have one or two down, which is to say up.)  I'll write more about seeing Robert S. on the stairs laden with carrot cake, flowers, and $200.00, the note from my office mate Bob about Tonga, Algeria, Spain, and Serramonte beckoning & my response.  But I'll end with the part about the Browning version, the student kind to an old professor about to retire as he faces his life of failure as a teacher.  (In The Browning Version, play and film, it's even worse because the teacher also sees his marriage dissolving the same semester.  Having already dissolved two marriages, I'm happily ensconced in a relationshp that works---for the moment.  We never know when an earthquake will shake up our world.
He said he's seen something about me online.
"Something mean?" I asked, reflecting.
"It talked about all the countries you'd lived in, so I think maybe that's why you are so good."
Oh, he wasn't talking about Teacher Review.  He was talking about what I'd written about myself on Faculty in Review. 
The Teacher Review says, "And she makes you sing with her."

That's right.  That's what she does, and that's what she did today in both classes before the visit by the Browning version.

In Conclusion, Once Again!

I'll be leaving (eventually) for my final class session with my speaking and listening students.  Here's the song I'll make them sing with me.  (I'm so mean!)

In Conclusion  ESL 142 Spring 2014

To the tune of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy

Before singing, please circle the day of your final presentation and test.

ESL 142 001—circle Friday (May 23 from 10:30 to 12:30)

ESL 142 002—Circle Monday (May 19 from 11:00-1:00)

(first melody)

Our last day before our finals we prepare for sites unseen.

Singing  to a deaf Beethoven of such things as campus green.

He can’t hear the  syllable-stress code,

But were he living,  he’d comply,

Actively conducting surveys, following up each reply.

(first melody)

“In conclusion” are the two words passive listeners want to hear.

They’ve been sitting, waiting, hoping that the end would soon appear. 

Now it’s come, but let us be sure they don't hear, "That's it" or "Uh, I'm done."

Ending with a good conclusion has effects and can be fun.

If presenting “What’s active listening?” after explaining you can say,

“Thanks for being active listeners on this presentation day.”

(Second melody)

         

Monday/Friday morning, we’ll have our final.

          Right in this classroom we will meet.

          Meantime may your final tests

          All reach conclusions that are sweet.

In Conclusion Final Class

These are the students from my final class, the ones who brought in a party for me this morning.  They are from Algeria, Belaruz, China, Ecuador, Guatemala, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam.

In Conclusion

In conclusion, they say, are the words that fill listeners with hope and joy:  The speaker is about to finish--hooray!  But we've found that giving a good conclusion is the universal weakness of our students in our speaking and listening classes.  They say, "That's it" or "That's all" or "I'm done" or simply walk away without having left that "lasting impression" we talk about.  So tomorrow I'm going to make some suggestions for conclusions on a number of topics, and that's going to be part of their evaluation form. 

This is appropriate for the week that is my "In conclusion" after thirty-two years at City College, and after having taught (with just a few years off) since 1970!

So I'll give some "in conclusion" pictures, one or two at a time.  These are two still-life photos shwoing what the students brought in today for a party for me.  Sandra of Guatemala brought the roses, and Ahmed of Turkey brought the cake from Whole Foods.

Constance Garnett, Translator of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons

An Open Letter to Jon Carroll on Translations from Russian

Dear Jon Carroll,

Just last night at BookShop West Portal, I asked Julia Glass a question about translations because it’s been on my mind since I read two different translations of Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons.  I had one on Audible, and I thought it was so clever that I wanted to mark it up in my print version, which turned out to be a different translation.  I found the section of the book where I thought the dialogue was so clever, but it wasn’t translated into dialogue at all; it was told as the protagonist’s thoughts!  Isn’t there a big difference between thinking something and saying  it out loud? I would think that the author has the right to decide whether something is spoken or thought, but I wouldn’t think that was the prerogative of the translator.  But now, reading about formal versus dynamic equivalence in your column, I’m beginning to wonder.

It was several years ago that I noticed this discrepancy, but it made me aware of the difference translators  can make.  So now   I made every effort to find out who the translator is for the Audible version of books, but sometimes this information—so readily available in print—is not available on Audible. 

What do you think about this?

Your reader in the original English,

                Tina

Brain in Gamma as News Flows Through

Morning reading:  "LOL your way to transcendantal bliss?  Om, yeah!"  I read this yesterday but read it again this morning to get my brain in gear or, more accurately, to get it into gamma, which is what humor can do just as well as (better than, I say!) meditation.  I also read Mike Hale's 2009 review of Wonderland, which I looked up yesterday because of my comparing psychiatrists' going to the psych ward with teachers going to campus.  Finally read Joshua Pechthalt's "Accreditors gone wild--time to call for rationality" from Apri 27, 2014.  Agreed with Jonathan Zimmerman's Open Forum piece  "Donald Sterling and the end of privacy," pointing out that that loathsome racist should have the right to privacy and learned about Louis Brandeis, who expressed concern about privacy back in the 1890, when photos could be taken and printed in newspapers without the consent of those photographed.    Read about the 17-minute delay in reporting the disappearance of the Malaysian jet after it went off the rador at Kuala Lumpar (which I vowed to learn to pronounce) and was reported by the Vietnamese who didn't see it on their radar.  Looked again and Swans and ceramic eggs, cynets and father trying to kill his sons.  (Seen as competition in mating season?)  "Whale-watch rivals sparring over spouts" is about Dana Point, a city so well-known for whale watching that it has an annual festival dedicated to whales.  An Iranian mother showed mercy instead of asking retribution and kicking the chair from underneath a man to be hanged for killing her son (and became a heroine instead of a soft-on-crime target) in Iran, where there were 369 public executions last year.    But most compelling of all was the case of the Lodi man--now appealing his conviction--who always sounded innocent and framed by those I suspected knew that he wasn't guilty but needed to make it look as if we need the "security" forces invading our live and dragging "suspects" out of their homes with trumped up charges.

Time for the Y!