Missy, Everybody's Little Sister for Quite a Few Years!

One of my warmest memories of Missy is of the year that we were at Schneider School in Columbia, South Carolina.  She was in the first grade, and I was in the sixth grade, and after her class let out, she'd come upstairs to talk to the big kids in sixth grade.  I don't remember exactly how this started, but I think she thought that if her sister were in the building, of course she should come in and say hello.  She always assumed that because she was so welcoming, she would be welcomed, and she was.  We had a teacher that year who seemed to understand that part of education is feeling connected to other people, and the teacher liked Missy as much as the kids did.  So she'd let Missy come in and show us her drawings and give us the scoop on what was happening in first grade.  Missy became everybody's little sister that year, and we always looked forward to her visits.  Years later my friends from that sixth grade class attended a different high school, so I'd see them only occasionally.  But when we met, they'd always ask me how I was doing, and then they'd ask, "And how's Missy?"  After all, she was their sister, too!

This memory of Missy represents some of the qualities that I loved so much in her.  She was very friendly and very warm.  She loved her family, and she was always welcoming more people into her family.  None of us will ever forget the special brightness she brought into our lives.  

In Memory of My Sister Missy, Whose Birthday Is Today, August 31, 2014

Before I share my own tribute to Missy, I want to share this poem our sister Suzy wrote about the photo below,  "Moments in  Sisterhood/Snapshots from an Album, From my Mind." 

Easter, 1960?

Matching dresses, mother-made

Yours with yellow ducks

Mine, lavender bunnies

Two brown-haired girls smiling

My hand in yours.

Summer four years later

Squatting in the dirt

Our backyard baseball diamond

Snowball posing too, fluffy white

We smile at the camera

Your pixie, my crooked braids

You'd pedal a blue bike

Me on the seat

Up Forrest Drive

To the donut shop

Knowing the clerk would whisper

"Y'all like a lemon-filled today?"

Your talkative friendliness, the welcome currency

Then back towards home

Down Forrest Drive to Stratford Road

Me perched on handlebars

You pedaling strong

Saturday night, the Stones

You   me     David

Entire jars of Spanish olives!

Hotdogs--on buns!

Spaghetti--from a can!

And a peacock spreading a tail of living color

Bedtime

Our white and turquoise room upstairs

Double bed beside the window

Watching pines against the sky

Moments in our childhood

Like squares of an afghan

Sewn together for a lifetime of warmth

You and me

Sisters.

Studying Foreign Languages--Does It Make You a Better Teacher of ESL/EFL?

This questionnaire is to help ascertain what teachers of ESL/EFL learn about teaching ESL/EFL from the foreign language courses they take.  I'll be talking about this at the CATESOL conference on March 4.  My presentation will be called "Doing unto Others as You Wish Others Had Done unto You."  I have some "wishes" in the form of suggestions from my own experience studying foreign languages, but I'd like yours.
Could you take a few minutes to fill out this questionnaire and return it to me via Dr. Womack's box?  Thanks a lot!  Tina Martin

Age---Sex---Native language---Foreign language you have most recently studied ____

Year you studied this language___The course was __intensive (more than 1 hr/day)
                                                                             __non-intensive (1 hr./day or less)

1.  Relative to what you might have done with the time, was your study of this language useful to you as a teacher of ESL/EFL?


2.  In what way did your foreign language study help you most as a teacher of ESL/EFL?

__Made me empathetic towards foreign language learners.
__Gave me a better understanding of linguistic processes
__Provided a living model of language teaching methods
__Gave me an insight into what NOT to do as an ESL/EFL teacher
__Provided a review of grammatical terminology
___Other___________________________________________________________

3.  Please describe the overall approach used in the course (audio-lingual, notional, eclectic, etc.)

4.  Describe what you liked and disliked most in the approach.  (Use back!)

5.  Please describe the classroom methods most frequently used (dialogue memorization/recitation, pattern drills, communicative drills, etc.)

6.  Describe what you liked and disliked most about these methods.

7.  If you had been the techer of the course, what wouldyou have done differently/similarly?

8.  Do you have any thoughts, in addition to the ones already expressed, that you'd like to hear expresssed at the CATESOL conference?  If so, please write

         Your name___________________________phone number___________________

I'd like to talk with you.


As I see this for the first time 36 years, quite a few things jump out at me.  Maybe I wouldn't say ascertain again.  I'm glad I used contractions.

Doing Onto Others as You Wish Others Had Done unto You--the worst presentation I've ever witnessed

A CATESOL presentation called "Doing Onto Others as You Wish Others Had Done unto You" given in 1998 (I think) was the worst presentation I've ever witnessed, and I was the one who gave it.  I don't know what happened, but when the time came I was so incredibly nervous that I just stopped at five minutes and asked that lame questions teachers sometimes ask in the classroom, "Any questions."  Thankfully, almost no one was in attendance.  But my husband was, and a few friends who'd been in the MA program at SFSU were also there.  Even one of my professors, Mr. Thurston Womack, who in the classroom looked at his watch every time I began to speak because he knew mine wasn't The Silent Way, was there--and he lied through his teeth about how well I had done and even showed me his evaluation--four stars--because he was so alarmed by--and maybe a little grateful for--the stage fright that had put so quick an end to my presentation.

So...why am I mentioning this now?  Two weeks into retirement, I've had the chance to do whatever I feel like, and today I felt like reflecting on trips to New York, specifically the  trip I took when I chaperoned a couple, two graduate students of my dad's at USC, to New York, and in an effort to figure out just when that trip was, I started a timeline that led to my opening a trunk labeled "Childhood and High School" and doing a lot of reading, listing, and even tattling on people--to those people themselves-- about their pasts.  (I found a long letter from 1962 from a friend who spoke about her reading--Brave New World and Eyeless in Gaza--and the boy who'd given her the reading list, so I had to write to her.  I was also writing him--less--because we've been trying to arrange a time for Javier and me to visit him and his wife up at Napa.)

But...more to the point, I came across the mimeographed questionnaires I gave to teachers to see what they had learned from their experience as teachers.

I'll type up the form and give it in the next post.

David and the Beatles, Paul McCarney at Candlestick Prk

My brother David loves the Beatles, so I get Beatles-related gifts for him.  But I'm not quite sure what to do about the articles on Paul McCartney at Candlestick Park, 2014.  Seeing Paul McCartney looking so old (72) might be hard for David, who I think is still thinking of the mid-60's, before he (given a choice) went to Napa State Hospital and came out only in the late 1990's, when Governors Reagan and Wilson wanted only the criminally insane to be kept there.  The article in the West Portal Monthly says "It was a poignant reminder that the Sixties were over.  Way over."  

The Browning Version Play, Movie, Interview

          How interesting after years of admiring The Browning Version that it's only now that I realize the play is one-act and doesn't have the applause-by-formerly-creeped-out-boys that the Michael Redgrave and the Albert Finney movie versions have!  I thought the interview on Audible, by LA Theatre Works producer Susan Lowenberg was between acts.  It comes at the end.  This means that I should be able to do a contemporary version following the structure exactly.  But the big difference between Crocker-Harris and me is that I am always suspicious of student motivations and regard expressions of thanks and appreciation  as either bribes or acts of kindness, rarely as sincere!  That wasn't always the case.  In my version, the teacher will have just seen the feedback online.  For some reason I see it all in the office, but it could be my home.  Who will my unfaithful spouse be?

            I'm really off-put by Susan Lowenberg's failure to follow up on certain comment made by her interviewee, Michael Darlow, who wrote a 1979 biography about Terrence Rattingon.  Why, for example, was The Browning Version panned in the United States? She doesn't ask.  She doesn't even seem particularly interested.  Interviewers should be like Oprah Winfrey, who really cared!

           I just read a review of the 1994 film version of The Browning Version  by Roger Ebert, and I'm reminded why I didn't particularly like him.  He obviously wasn't familiar with the play, and he didn't seem to understand the movie or the characters.  I'm sure he couldn't identify with Crocker-Harris.  He'd more likely identify with the more popular cricket star supplanting him as the final speaker.

The Importance of Not Being Earnest

I've been listening to Terence Rattigan's The Browning Version because I want to write a more contemporary play about a failed teacher about to retire.  It's very interesting to me that the word I finally saw an apt description of me is one Crocker-Harris uses to describe himself:  Earnest.  Of course, this earnest man, while recognizing that he is not liked, is really stunned to hear that he's descried as "the Himmler of the Lower Fifth."

The Importance of Follow-Up

Back in my teens and twenties when I dated, the guy usually asked me at the door when he could see me again.  That's certainly a form of follow-up, indicating that he enjoyed taking me out enough to want to try it again as soon as possible.  Women also talk about the importance of a telephone call  the morning after and are disturbed when there isn't one reassuring them that it had all been wonderful.  I have a man in my life who is so good about responding and expressing appreciation (even when he may not really feel it--as with Stern Grove) that now my thoughts and feelings about follow up are directed more towards friends--and towards me.  Am I good about follow-up?  The morning after a dinner with friends, do I send an e-mail thanking them?  I think I do.  I hope I do.  I feel good when people think of me the morning after s dinner or whatever I've invited them to...and I feel bad when they don't.  It's not just the "manners" aspect of it.  It's the human connectedness, as corny as that may sound.  I've reached out to them, and when they're silent the next day (or week or for months and months), it feels as if they've just moved away, broken that link.

Parading Best Teachers!

Yesterday Javier and I saw Boyhood, the critically praised (and truthful, engaging) film by Richard Linklater, following a boy for 12 years of his childhood, 6 to 18.  In the movie the mother (played by Patricia Arquette, the actress I liked so much in Ethan Frome and whom David Foster Wallace did NOT like) goes back to college after being a single mother, marries one of her professors, and eventually becomes an instructor herself.  She tells a young Spanish-speaking worker who's doing a job for her, "You're smart.  You should be in school.  Go to night school at a community college," and in a later scene, he's done just that.  He thanks her for saving his life.  In spite of that, she tells her son "I thought there's be more to life than this."

Hmm.  I find movies about inspirational teachers so depressing because I wasn't one of them.  Why am I the only teacher except for the protagonist in The Browning Version who failed at inspiring and winning the love of all?

In addition to the Boyhood scene, Parade came out with a list and people voted!

Who's the best teacher from TV or film?

John Keating from Dead Poets Society 23.57%  

Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid 18.91%  

Miss Frizzle from The Magic School Bus 12.02%  

Jaime A. Escalante from Stand and Deliver 11.76%  

Mr. Holland from Mr. Holland's Opus 8.63%  

Professor Dumbledore from Harry Potter 7.26%  

Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter 5.88%  

Gabe Kotter from Welcome Back Kotter 4.98%  

Charles Xavier from X-Men 3.34%  

Dr. Henry Walton Jones from Indiana Jones 1.64%  

Will Schuester from Glee 1.17%  

Miss Norbury from Mean Girls 1%  

TUI: Teaching under the Influence Don't Drink and Teach

          I read in this morning's paper about a teacher in Arizona who took a taxi to work because she realized that she was too drunk to drive.  Later in the day (how much later?)  her students reported her for yelling and cursing at them, and they found her blood-alcohol level was  2  1/2  time the legal limit for drivers.  I wonder what the legal limit is for teachers!  Her classroom equipment included a bottle of vodka and white wine but also orange juice, so--hey!-- it wasn't as if she were drinking it full-strength. In 2011 she was fired from another school for getting drunk on the job (not just being drunk; with those classroom supplies she was able to continue drinking throughout the day), but I guess she didn't put that on her application for another job after that question, "Reason for leaving?" 

 I think of teachers who use restraint about being too critical in their corrections or in their verbal responses to questions that show they weren't paying attention, and then there are teachers like her imitating Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher.  I'm sure this teacher had a serious addiction not to mention psychological problems, but it is amazing what goes on before it comes to the attention of those "in charge."

Kathleen Jardine

"Teacher allegedly drunk in classroom," Associated Press

http://www.azfamily.com/news/Teacher-accused-of-being-drunk-at-school-271259201.html

Same Time, Wrong Day

I fell asleep to Ann Patchett talking about writing and woke up with Ann Patchett talking about her dog.  I looked at the clock and, seeing 6:45, thought that it was Sunday morning and I had to be  at the Y at  7:00, Stern Grove at 8:00!  Then I realized I was looking at PM, not AM!  Life gets exciting when you're a segmented sleeper and you've had a very intense day--an afternoon at a memorial gathering following a morning of planning just how you'll fly from San Francisco to Zurich to wind up at the right train station when your best German friend arrives and, four days later, departs before you catch the plane from Zurich to New York, where you'll see your wonderful son (the one doing the calculating and online clicking for your planning) and your Best Friend in Fifth Grade.

A Trip to the Tenderloin

I took MUNI to the Civic Center yesterday to avoid that parking dilemma I faced at the Mission Campus where I was picking up the material for the Enrollment Campaign and got 4 minutes of parking per quarter.  Besides, in a car you don't get to hear a guitarist at the base of the stairs and see a bazaar when you get to the street level.  I liked taking in the whole scene.

 In the Coalition on Homelessness, 468 Turk, the person at the desk said, "I love city College.  It's bullshit what's going on there now."  I knew he didn't mean our courses!  In fact, he said he might take a course or two himself.  I also met the man he called his boss, Miguel.

The Cross Cultural Family Center was right next door to a store with a poster advertising a way to send money back home during Ramadan, and so I wasn't surprised that all the women there were wearing hijabs.  The very warm and welcoming woman I talked to said she had a son who'd be going to CCSF, so she was really happy to find out about the Saturday help with enrollment, etc,  and the other flyers, which she acknowledged would be shared with people besides her son!

 I emphasized the importance of getting the flyer about Saturday to people in time, and I was told that they'd put it up right away. 

 My last stop was at the Vietnamese Youth Development Center, where two young men expressed thanks to CCSF for our outreach, and one of them quoted the phrase, "Education is power."

I'd gone to the Tenderloin when I was taking CCSF material around to bookstores in several areas, and I spent a little bit of time there when I was taking a course in Comparative Religion and visited a mosque.  But this walk gave me a new perspective.  I saw the Exit Theatre, where I've gone on occasions without realizing that it was right next door to the VYDC.   A cousin sent me a wonderful video about a man who sets his sewing machine down in what they called "The Tenderloin National Forest" and sews whatever people bring him to sew on the 15th of every month.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G0J0RmcV8c

I was thinking of the days when I thought SRO meant Standing Room Only!  I was also touched to see hotels named "Camelot" and "The Ritz." 

On my way back from the MUNI, I took this photo:  

I wonder who the buyers will be!

Trading, Off Wall Street, 1993

Today I took Luz deep down into my basement, and we organized a few boxes.  It seemed right that I found a video labeled "Seems Like Old Times" because so much did.  But I see that I had an evil sense of humor when I was teaching low-level non-credit classes:

Just in case you can't read this, it's called "Trading."

Two sisters are watching their children playing.

Little Boy:  I have an orange.  But I want an apple.
Little Girl:  I have an apple.  But I want an orange.
Little Boy:  Let's trade.

The boy gives the girl his orange.  The girl gives the boy her apple.

First sister:  Look at our children.
Second Sister:  I'm looking.
First Sister:  I always wanted a daughter.  Now I have a son.
Second Sister.  I always wanted a son.  Now I have a daughter.
First Sister:  Let's trade!

The first sister gives her daughter to her sister.  The second sister gives her son to her sister.

Javier's Aging Wisdom and an Insight into Travel

Yesterday I reminded Javier that, while we've traveled together other years (Costa Rica 2004, China 2006, Peru and Ecuador 2007, Santa Fe 2009 & 2013), we haven't taken a trip together this whole year.

He told me that he felt urgency about selling his houses, and I asked why, since his brother is still living in one of them.  He explained that the second one has just become vacant so he should strike now, and there was one more consideration.   "I've got to act fast before I get any older because pretty soon my decisions are going to be cuckoo."

He then said that we could travel together next summer, 2015.

"You really like to travel, don't you!" he said.

I thought for a split second, scrunched up my nose and said, "Not really!"

We both laughed that this came after I'd been campaigning for a trip.  But the truth is that I like to live in a country.  I don't particularly like to travel through it.  However, if we can spend more time there than on our way there...

Another bit of Javier's wisdom was about a man who'd stopped on the freeway instead of doing the smart thing as Javier did when he got a flat tire and kept going even though it damaged his wheel. He knew we might be killed if we stopped moving.

"A wheel costs about five hundred dollars.  A life is worth about a thousand.  So it's bad business."

CCSF Flyers We're Posting around San Francisco

CCSF only $46/unit apply and enroll blue flyer

4 by 6" flyer with languages taught at CCSF: (American Sign Language, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Filipino, Russian, Spanish)

Free ESL classes for adults at A.P. Giannini Middle School 6:30-8:35 pm  (beginning and Intermediate--free except for textbooks

(Taught by Civic Center Campus faculty, I guess.)

Music flyer for Fall 2014

Beginning Piano

Beginning and Intermediate guitar to "unleash your inner American idol!!" 

Jazz piano with award-winning pianist  Rebeca Mauleon  (whose father was my Spanish teacher long, long ago, when Rebeca was 8 years old!)

Women's Studies Department

Medical Evaluation Assistant Certificate Program

Medical Office Assisting Program

Health Information Technology Program

Medical Receptionist Certificate Program

Cardiovascular/Echo Technology Program (CVT)

Solar Training in Solar  Electric and Solar Hot Water

Construction Classes

Department of Journalism course

Broadcast Electronic Media Arts

Paralegal/Legal Studies Program

Feldenkrais Awareness through Movement class