Like most schools in Texas, the one I visited this morning is gearing up for the State Assessment (TAKS) Exams coming up in the next two months. The first couple of classrooms I visited, along with the principal and an assistant superintendent, were the usual — children sitting with copies of released tests from previous years and teachers timing their responses. Teachers said things like, “The TAKS is going to want you to know this,” and, “I know this isn’t exciting, but you may need to know this for the TAKS.”

I took a deep breath, silently telling myself not to fall into any pre-conceived notions, to try and find gems among the dull stones of conventional, “drill and kill” test preparation. Just as I was steeling myself for more of the same, at best, the principal said, “Why don’t we move over here to the science labs.”

She said it almost as an aside, as if we could have just as well skipped it, and I’m so thankful we didn’t. The eighth-grade science classes were getting ready for the TAKS, as well; however, there were no release tests anywhere to be seen. No digital timer clicking down the minutes they were to be seated in silence, puzzling over word problems, or yawning, or drooling, or looking out the window, imagining they were anywhere else but here.

Instead, the science teachers had set up three stations in each of the three labs we visited. Each station had a hands-on cooperative lab that corresponded to an area that would be covered on the exam. The students heard nothing about the test, however. No one apologized for having them do the work. No “outside adversary” in the person of the standardized exam. Just teachers rotating with the students, doing measurements, making educated guesses, predicting, and then analyzing results.

There was not one bored kid in that room. They were working together, and laughing together, and they were learning. When that test comes along, they will have had real, physical experience with a good deal of what they’re being asked to recall.

Those of you who’ve known me for a while may be surprised to hear my saying things that could be interpreted as somehow “pro-standardized testing.” During my time in New York, I was quite active in the anti-testing movement. What I’ve come to understand is that while we may wish to replace exams with more authentic, interesting, engaging forms of assessment, we still need to get our kids to pass these tests in the meantime.

I thank the folks I visited today, because they helped me to understand that there is a right way and a wrong way to prepare students for tests. We should think about this lesson, as we consider how to do instruction in general. We don’t have to bore children, and then wonder why they stop coming to school, all the while blaming those nasty tests. And we can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing — allowing tests to drive the way we teach, so that it becomes predictable and boring to the point of holding kids hostage. Instead, let’s take ownership over the material, and do everything we can to make it fun and engaging for our students.

It takes some time for me to get geared up for these monthly flights to Dallas. (I’m leaving for another one tomorrow morning.) Not to bore you with the details, but there’s some preparation involved — both in terms of paperwork, and also getting ready emotionally. Even though it’s only two nights and three days each time, it feels like longer.

Tonight was the real kicker. Still tired from an after-school nap, Jackson, my five year-old, sat next to me at the dinner table, kind of leaning on me. My seven year old was on my other side, also leaning, when he said, “Jackson, why are you crying?”

When I looked over at Jackson, there were real tears running down his cheeks. “I don’t want you to go, Daddy. Please don’t go.”

This was a new reaction for him. Normally, there’s something like a disappointed “Awww,” which moves quickly over to extortion, as he begins to make a play for a present. This time, that other shoe never dropped. He just cried. My heart heaved, and I nearly joined him.

“It’s okay, baby,” I said, “don’t cry. I won’t be long. Just a couple of days.”

I wanted to explain to him that Daddy is not only lucky to have such a good job, that he likes, he’s lucky to have any job at all in this economy. A child will not understand it, and besides, he’s crying for a very basic reason. And it’s something the whole family can relate to, because we’re all hitting it at more or less the same time.

The fact is I’ve been taking these trips for a year now, and it’s been hard on all of us. Jackson, being the youngest, is expressing it more directly than the rest of us are. I want to tell him and Jeanette (Diego seems to be taking it best) to just hold on for one more year, till the grants I’m managing expire in February 2012. At that point my work will likely be more rooted at the service center, with only occasional trips.

Until then, we’ll need to hang in there. We’re taking our own trip at the end of April, as a family, and I think that will help, too. It isn’t just the fact that I’m going on an airplane that bothers Jackson; it’s that I’m going on an airplane without him.

If you’re a writer of fiction, looking for character names, you may want to consider going to one of the many anagram generators on the Internet and entering your name. I did that for Daniel Fuchs, and here are a few possible character names:

For men:

Alec Dunfish
Ace Lundfish
Chas Dunlief
Sean Dichful

For women:

Nica Feldshu
Luca Endfish
Luca Denfish
Shena Cidful
Ilsa Chudfen
Lisa Chudfen (Ilsa’s sister?)
Luna Cedfish

If you’re not looking for character names and you just want a few chuckles, try opening up your search, and including your middle name. Here are just a few of the many returns (over 88,000 total) I got for Daniel Runyan Fuchs:

Enchilada Fury Nun
Sunny Arachnid Fuel
Unafraid Lunch Yens
A Chained Funny Slur
A China Deny Unfurls
A Larch Dies Unfunny
A Raunchy End Sinful

This is what one does when one has insomnia, or no new ideas to blog about.

Try it. It’s fun!

http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

At age 7, during my first semester of second grade, I wrote an imperfect haiku:

A dog is made of love. And so is a bird.

And so are you.

I should start right off by telling you I am not a Trekkie. Or a Trekker; however, some might make the argument — rightly, perhaps — that the fact that I know what these terms mean suggests that I am both. At any rate, what brought me down this particular road was a comment that a friend of mine made on Facebook, when she said, “I know it’s old economy, but I really enjoy buying magazines and books that can be held in my hands, not just on my iPad.”

I was one of those many earnest people who responded with my agreement. I made some overly-precious remark about how much I’ll miss being surrounded by books in bookshelves in “The Future.” That’s when I flashed on Star Trek: The Next Generation and realized that Captain Picard had a Kindle long before it was invented. I remembered the way a young actor in a red shirt would come officiously onto the bridge with a little plastic rectangle, hand it to Picard who would tap it a couple of times before handing it back to the extra and getting back to his captainly duties. Paperless society. No books. Just Kindles, or whatever they called those plastic rectangles.

Then I remembered a visit I had recently to a middle school in Fort Worth that is using their grant money to shore up their science department with technology. They bought a classroom set of these really cool probes that can help the kids find everything from heart rates to air temperature to barometric pressure. “It’s a freaking tricorder, I thought.” Those Star Trek writers foresaw this device, too.

Remember how ridiculous you thought it was that in the Star Trek future every individual would be packing a little hand-held communicator that flipped open? Hello? Look around.
The only error they made on Star Trek is that you never see anyone walking in the background talking on their cell phones, er, I mean “communicators.”

And finally there’s the lovely Lieutenant Uhura, who had everyone beat. Back in the mid 1960’s, and check out what she’s rocking. Yep: It’s a Bluetooth.

(This comes from Deborah Meier’s Education Blog which I highly recommend. The first comment was posted by “Anonymous,” and the second is my reply to him/her.)

I find it interesting that we can draw such different conclusions from your list of headlines. If the public has been complaining about teachers for more than a hundred years, is it not reasonable to look askance at the teachers?

Ask yourself this one question: What is the quality of conversation in the lounge with your fellow teachers?

(And my response…)

This obsession with, well, farts. I won’t say “flatulence,” because that’s just too fancy. We enjoy farts and most things fart-related. (Don’t worry; I won’t be too longwinded about this topic. I mean, how much is there to say about it, really?)

I only bring it up because as the chauffeur, I am subjected to a daily dose of (no, not actual farting on the part of my kids; I’d proudly say that in true, pull-my-finger father fashion, I probably put them through much more than they do me) fart JOKES.

Lately, it’s gotten pretty bad. We listen to the Wizard of Oz soundtrack on the way to their school. They have taken to replacing every other word with fart. I know it’s juvenile and ridiculous, but try singing this out loud (you know the tune) without laughing:

“The house began to fart. The kitchen took a fart.
It landed on the Wicked Fart
In the middle of a fart,
Which was not a healthy situation for the Wicked Fart.”

Oh, come ON! That’s funny.

By the way, just as an aside, when I was their age, we weren’t allowed to say “fart.” It was considered a Bad Word. The euphemism of choice in our household was “bottom burp,” as in “Danny, did you just do a bottom burp?”

In retrospect, I just find that hilarious!

Hey, I think I just figured out where the boys got their obsession from!

Okay, so I’m driving home from work on Springdale Road, slowing down for some traffic up ahead, when one of my favorite classic rock tunes of all time, Won’t Get Fooled Again by the Who, from their “Who’s Next” album, comes on the radio.

I’m going to take the plunge and order Marcel Proust for my Kindle. It used to be that buying Remembrances of Things Past made you a weightlifter. Now, thanks to technology, no more lower back pain when reading the masters.

I don’t know which came first — this blog, or my tendency to travel around the different epochs of my life. This is what prompted my Proustian meanderings. (Who am I kidding? I’ve been reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo for what seems like an eternity. How am I ever going to get through Proust?) Today, as I made my way from the Technology and Training Center, where my office is located, over to the Administration Building for a meeting just next door, something hit me. I’m not sure if it was a breeze, a ray of sunshine, or a combination of both. Maybe it was the sound of that breeze as it worked its way through the canopy of trees that surrounds our complex, or the scent of a budding flower. I think it had something to do with being in a campus-like setting during the time of year when the weather starts to take a turn for the better.

Suddenly, I flashed on a patch of dirt and grass across Marshall Street from the Generic Bar in Syracuse. We called it something with the word “Beach” in the title. It was either just “The Beach,” or “Generic Beach,” or “M-Street Beach.” Something. We would go into the Generic, buy our beers and cocktails, and then take our places on that patch on the other side of the street and watch the world go by on M. Street. We were peaceful, so the cops never gave us any trouble. I remember my friends Jem, Kenny and I once joking drunkenly at the expense of our number-one basketball star at the time, Dwayne “Pearl” Washington as he walked by with his entourage. We couldn’t help noticing that he had a huge rear end, something we hadn’t quite realized watching him work on the Carrier Dome floor. “Hey, Jane!” we slurred, just quietly enough so that he couldn’t hear us, “get your books outta your butt. Why are you carrying your books in your butt?” No one else got the joke, but it killed me, Jem and Kenny.

It was such a joyous time, as that iceberg of a campus turned into one of the most beautiful places you’ll ever visit in the warmer months. I’m no meteorologist, but I’m guessing that the same lakes and glacial formations that make for arctic freezes and record snowfalls also somehow account for the crystalline blue skies of summer up there in Central New York.

There were a few spots where we gathered during the thaw. The Beach was only one of them. Others included Fraternity Row on Walnut Park, where beer flowed and bands often played in the spring and summer. The quad is an obvious one; I picture sitting on the steps of Hendricks Chapel, or throwing frisbees, shirtless. There was Thornden Park, overlooked by some students, but to me one of the great treasures of that campus, and even Oakwood Cemetery, where I took many pleasurable walks during my time as an undergraduate up there.

College is such an important time in a young person’s life; it leaves an indelible impression on the soul. I wonder if my friends who do college counselling — Tara, Eva, Erik, and the rest — think about this much, as they send their kids out there into the world. Knowing them as I do, and knowing they are all such good souls, I have no doubt that similar images of springtime on campus come up each time they shepherd another one off into the Great Unknown that will help determine the rest of their lives.

Over three hours after it began, the 2011 Academy Awards have finally come to an end, and just like every year, I was riveted by every moment. There were a number of good ones, including a surprisingly lovely speech by Christian Bale (although I noticed they’re saying on Facebook that he forgot his wife’s name; I think he chose not to say it, for some reason known only to him), and the “F-bomb” coming from Melissa Leo, who I loved in “Treme” and “Homicide, Life on the Street”. So happy for both of them, and it’s clear that I’ll need to go see “The Fighter.”

I’ll obviously need to see “The King’s Speech,” as well.

There will be cynical reactions to Kirk Douglas’s piece, but I was touched to see him on that stage. And, as my wife (what’s her name? Oh, yeah, Jeanette) said, James Franco and Anne Hathaway were “forgettable” as co-hosts. In my opinion, Anne came off as trying too hard, and James came off as not having prepared all that much. (In fact, he’d flown in for rehearsals on the weekends, due to his workload as a PhD student at NYU.) There were the usual clunky bits that you can’t help but think should have been cut to avoid the inevitably long run-time. This year, the “musicalization” of “Harry Potter” and “The Social Network” was a time-waster, although I’ll admit the “Twilight” punchline “Doesn’t this guy own a shirt?” was good for a chuckle. I always find the “In Memoriam” bit moving. This year the experience was odder than usual, however, as my five year old, Jackson, sat next to me, astutely saying, “Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead,” after each person’s image was flashed on the screen, until I asked him to stop. The ones that made me saddest were Pete Postlewaite, Dennis Hopper, and Patricia Neal.

Throughout my life, Oscar night has been a big deal. My mother used to pop popcorn and make fudge for us. More recently, before leaving New York, Jeanette and I got into Oscar Pools and we hosted a memorable party for the awards the year before we moved. I used to actually see all the movies before the Oscars, but nowadays, my life is a little too hectic, and movies are a little too expensive, so I no longer know anything about the films, other than the buzz that’s out there. I saw “127 Hours,” which impressed me, and solidified my admiration for James Franco. I bought the DVD of “The Social Network” and enjoyed it; however, I have to confess I don’t see it as “best movie” caliber. That being said, I’m happy for Aaron Sorkin, who was an undergraduate at Syracuse University during the years I was up there. Go Orange!

I know it’s fluff. I know it’s emblematic of a decadent culture. I know there are other, more important things the money could be spent on. But I can’t help it. I have always watched the Oscars, and I probably always will. Next year, Jeanette and I are hoping to host our first Austin-area Oscar party. So don’t make any plans for Sunday, February 26, 2012….