Kidisms

I love working with kids. At any academic level. High, low, or in between, the things they say and do often make me smile, and sometimes even make me burst out laughing.

EP was on a roll today.

~ A fly was buzzing around the class during Math this afternoon. EP dubbed it "Albert Flynstein."

~ We have been looking at Greek myths. EP approached me just before the dismissal bell rang and claimed he knew who had authored all those stories. "Dr. Zeus!" he exclaimed with a grin.

I am still smiling.

The Duke's Descent

Friday night was our turn to host dinner group, and we decided to host a murder mystery. Craig and I used to do these games with friends for New Year's and other times, and had many tucked away in our game closet. A bonus was that, since we'd not done any in a decade at least, we could redo them because neither of us could remember the whodunit!

Lisa was a HUGE help in putting the party on. She decorated the house as a 1930s British hunting castle, the scene of the "murder."

 The fireplace looked a bit like a library in a wealthy duke's home.

 One of my porcelain models served to promote the horsey/hunting scene.

 The buffet.

 The "sideboard." (Lisa is quite creative!)

 The piano was covered in sheet music of pieces that would've been popular during the time period, including the Brandenburg Concerto.

 The dining room became the banquet hall.

 I love my china! It is Cumberland by Noritake.

Not only did she help decorate and serve, Lisa helped her father get ready for his role as Rogan S. Coundrel.

 They went for the broader mustache option.

 Gwen and Rogan.

 Misty and Spinner (Pat and Lisa Connolly.)

 Lon and Eve (Tim and Loni Gibb.)

 Lon and Dame (Eric and Bryn Seymour.)

 Eric really got into his part. And I found feathers shed from Bryn's boa after they left wherever she had been!

The friendship was wonderful, the food delicious, and the banter witty and fun as the mystery played out.

And to my surprise, I was the murderer! I have probably done ten to fifteen of these mysteries, but never been "the one." That was the icing on cake for me.

A Patriarchal Blessing to Remember

A patriarchal blessing is a once in a lifetime experience in our church. It is very, very special, and Craig serves as the patriarch for our church in this part of Indiana. As such, nearly every Sunday afternoon we welcome someone into our home for their blessing. It may be a weekly thing for us, but we never forget that this is a highly sacred experience and that we are blessed to be part of these people's once in a lifetime experience.

The folks who come to us have all sorts of backgrounds - young, old, new convert, long time member, terminally ill, healthy, troubled, happy, searching. Each person has a story, and we love getting to know them a bit and feeling the spirit of the Lord during the time they are in our home.

 Craig and I do all we can to make sure those who come to our home feel welcome and are able to relax and have a peaceful, memorable experience. I think most of the time we succeed at that.

Today was an exception. A BIG exception.

We had a beautiful (inside and out) young woman from Frankfort this afternoon. She was bubbly and thrilled to be receiving her patriarchal blessing. She positively glowed in anticipation as she sat on our couch, chatting with us.

As Craig spoke with her and made sure the information on her blessing recommend from her bishop was correct, I began to smell something burning. From my chair, I could see that the kitchen was filling up with smoke. I quietly stood up and unobtrusively hustled into the kitchen.

When I pulled open the oven door (a roast for dinner was cooking) more smoke poured into the kitchen. I hastily hit the range vent fan and opened the back door. But the smoke did not dissipate.

Bending down to look in the oven, I could tell the source of the smoke was some spilled broth from a previous meal, and that there was a lot of it left to burn off. The smoke continued to build, so I closed the oven door, turned the oven off, and headed upstairs to get a fan, afraid that soon the smoke alarms would begin screaming.

(And that would not be conducive to the spirit at all!)

Craig poked his head around the corner and asked if I needed help, and Lisa met me upstairs and helped me grab a fan to vent the kitchen. As she and I traipsed through the living room, I apologized to our guest. She smiled and said not to worry, someone made a wisecrack about this REALLY being a blessing to remember, and we all got the giggles.

We soon got the smoke cleared out of the house and went back to the business of patriarchal blessings.

But the comedy was not over.

As she sat in the chair and Craig picked up the microphone, suddenly Shakira began blasting. The girl's phone was in her purse on the couch; for some reason, Pandora had spontaneously turned on! Our guest was very embarrassed, opened her purse, and quickly shut down her phone. I  shared with her that the same thing had happened to Lisa early in the summer during Church - Pandora spontaneously starting despite the fact that the phone was not in her hands but put away in her purse. That seemed to lessen her embarrassment.

The blessing itself went smoothly. And when it was over, she thanked us sincerely for hosting her, saying it had been as special as she had hoped. We again laughed a bit at how it had unfolded, but in the end, the spirit of the Lord was there and the blessing was given.

Her patriarchal blessing certainly was the experience of a lifetime in more ways than one, and I doubt any of us will ever forget it!

There's Some of Me!

I was at St. Elizabeth East this afternoon, waiting for Craig's mom to come out of surgery after she had her right hip replaced. My attention was caught by a glass case on the wall in the waiting room.

A display of different implants for artificial joints!

Since I have three of them inside me, you'd think I would not find this display creepy. But I really did. 

At the Risk of Sounding Crazy #3

Finally, the unusual phenomenon I saw that most closely resembles "typical" UFO sightings, almost to the point of being comical.

Trust me, it was not comical.

Not in the least.

#3, Urbana, Illinois, early to mid 1990s

Back before my joints and bones began wearing out, I used to walk quite a bit. We had a beautiful Springer Spaniel named Duffy, and he was my walking buddy. One day, I'd gotten the kids all off to school and decided to take Duffers on a walk to the field at the end of Florida Avenue where there were trails through the grass and he could safely play off-leash.

We had not been out too long, and he was happily running through the tall field grass, making waves in it as he joyfully bounced around. (There's a reason they call them Springers!) I was standing just where the street ended and the countryside began, and looked up at the beautiful morning sky.

To my surprise, coming across the field was a brown-red cigar-shaped pipe. (Stereotypical, I know, but that is what I saw.) It made no noise as it came quickly floating through the air and appeared to be two to three feet long, flying fairly low over the ground. (It was a bit above my head, so maybe 7-9 feet high.)

At first I thought it had to be a remote controlled airplane or something. But it was totally silent, even eerily so, and it had no wings to help keep it aloft. The shape was simply a tube with some projections (as I remember it now, twenty five years or so after the incident, it was sort of submarine shaped. Certainly not the shape of a remote controlled airplane.)

As it flew over the field, the object made a jog in the air so that it was now approaching me.

And then it stopped. Right in the air several feet in front of and above me.

"There has got to be someone flying this thing and having me on," I thought nervously.

The thing sat in the air, no sound, no lights, nothing.

Waiting. Maybe watching.

I felt panic bubble up inside me, looking all around to see if I could spy someone operating the thing.

The tube continued to just hang in the air with no means to stay afloat that I could see. The silence was eerie. And terrifying. Whatever it was and how it worked, it did not make sense to me.

How did it just hover there? Without making any noise? And what was it doing waiting by me?

At that point, Duffy came bouncing out of the tall grass nearby, and so I spun on my heels, grabbed him, and took off at a fast clip toward home. I looked back over my shoulder, and the thing was gone. Disappeared in a blink.

I was pretty shaken when I arrived home.

In the ensuing years, I have thought a lot about that morning and what I saw. Rationally, I tell myself that there has to be an explanation, and yet, the object defied any natural laws of physics and science that we know of. Even with advances in technology over the past twenty five years, I think the way it acted is still outside the reach of current capabilities.

While I did not feel the sense of foreboding and brooding I'd felt from the dark shape I'd witnessed at Sunnycrest Park, nonetheless I felt unsettled and afraid as it hung in front me me, motionless in the air, as though it were observing me.

Like a specimen under a microscope.

And I don't want to think about THAT any further.

At the Risk of Sounding Crazy #2

My second experience with something abnormal in the sky included my children, although they never knew what was playing out in the sky above them.

#2, Urbana, Illinois, mid to late 1980s.

The Urbana Park District used to offer free movies in the park during the summer. (VCRs were still new, and so most people did not have the luxury of watching a movie any time they wished in the comfort of their own home.) Since we had a large family and no money, movies in the park were a perfect activity for us.

Sunnycrest Park on Florida Avenue was the location. Craig had an evening class to teach or a meeting to attend (I don't remember which), so I loaded up the car with blankets, bug spray, and bambinos, and we headed over to stake a claim on a choice grassy spot. Gradually the sky darkened and the movie began.

Now, I am a horse lover, but I am NOT a unicorn lover, so the film, The Last Unicorn, didn't hold my interest. I had lain back on the blanket and was finding constellations in the sky while the kids focused on the giant screen, their attention completely captured by the movie. As I lay there, suddenly an irregular black shape, very flat and huge, abruptly came in from the south and stopped right over us. 

I cannot guess how big it was, but I could see it because it was blocking out the stars. I knew it was not a cloud; it was black and flat, plus it was moving against the direction of the prevailing wind. And clouds don't just stop, holding in place motionless. 

The black shape did not change in size or scope, and like a blanket, hung over the park. I got the sense that it was massively large and, just as clouds can be, could be seen from several areas in town should anyone look up. (And maybe they did; I don't know. I never heard any reports on the phenomenon. But then, I didn't make a report, either.)

I also got a sense of... foreboding? Oppression? Brooding? It's difficult to describe although I still remember the feeling all these years later.

No other adults noticed the shape as it loomed over us. I remember feeling a need to press myself down against the ground in the hopes that whatever it was could not "see" me. And I was frightened for my children. Should I gather them up and run? Shout out to the other adults in the park and point to the sky? What should I do?

Before I could decide, the flat, black shape began moving, reversing its direction and going back in the direction from which it had come. I remained pressed flat in the grass, shaken by what I had seen. When I finally sat up, I did ask another parent or two if they had noticed anything unusual in the sky, but the people to whom I spoke had not. (And I did not tell them what I had observed over the park.)

I remember that, when the movie was over at last, I hustled my children into the car and home, glancing up at the sky in case whatever I had seen returned. I even ducked down a bit as we walked across the grassy park and back to our car, instinctually trying to make myself smaller and less visible.

So, what had I seen? I have no idea. It could not have been a cloud; they do not look like that or act that way, in daylight or at night. Clouds simply do not swoop in, hover motionlessly, then suddenly whisk themselves off in the direction from which they just came.

The sense of vulnerability coupled with helplessness at knowing I could not protect my children from whatever it was I saw returns whenever I think back to the incident and has remained with me ever since. And sometimes I look up at the night sky, wondering if perhaps I shall see it again.

I hope I never do.

At the Risk of Sounding Crazy #1

This afternoon I was looking at news headlines and trends, and one caught my eye. In India, the military recently reported that a UFO had been sighted while their troops were doing practice exercises.

I tend to stay away from stories about UFOs and rarely read them thoroughly (including this particular report.)

Why?

Because I find them terrifying. Not scary. Not frightening. Panic-driven terrifying.

You see, I, too, have had three experiences where I saw unexplained phenomena in the sky. Three separate incidents, years apart, and in two different states. The first was more puzzling and a bit unsettling than anything else; the other two absolutely terrified me. I don't think I have ever written down what I saw and, aside from a few close family members, I have never spoken of them. It is time to at least write them down in my journal. 

What happened is true. I am not a liar nor do I make up stories for attention. I think the fact that I have kept quiet all these years proves that.

#1, West Lafayette, Indiana, late 1960s

There used to be a gravel path between Soldiers Home Road and Cumberland School directly across from the intersection of Overlook Drive and Soldiers Home Road. The parents of school children on Prophet Drive, including my own, built it so we could walk to school safely. (You can still see a remnant of the path if you know where to look. Makes me smile when I drive past that spot.)

One summer afternoon I had walked over to Barberry Heights to play with friends, and about 4:00 in the afternoon was walking back home heading east on the path. I remember the sky was that brilliant summer blue and completely cloudless. That's what made the white disk in the sky all the more noticeable. I remember stopping in my tracks when I spied it and a sense of unease coming over me. The disk was stationary in the sky over the woods and fairly large, about the size of a pencil eraser.

I observed it for what seemed a long time. It did not move; it simply was there. I ran through ideas in my mind as to what it could be, but nothing came to mind that would fit the description of a motionless white disk in the sky. I remember turning my back on it, facing west, and thinking that surely when I turned around, it would be gone. But it wasn't. When I turned back and checked, it continued to hang in the sky.

The more I watched it, the more uneasy I felt. I was alone on the gravel path, and so there was no one to turn to and ask, "Do you see what I see?" or to at least step closer to for comfort. I started walking home again, moving quickly because I was scared, and glancing up at the sky occasionally in the hopes that the object would disappear. 

The disk never moved from its spot in the sky until suddenly it vanished. It was there one moment, and gone the next.

I told my mother about it when I reached our home. She took me seriously, but could not explain what I had seen. "Maybe the sun was shining in your eyes and you were seeing a reflection of a white blood cell," she offered. (We both knew that was a stretch.)

So what did I see?  Forty plus years later, I still have no idea.

But I DID see something, and watched it for an extended period of time.

Of that, there is no doubt.

The Class of 2013 - 2014

The students came back to school today. I have a large class (twenty nine students) so we're a bit crowded, but we'll make it work. The students seemed so sweet and eager to learn, and we had some good laughs as we got to know each other.

There are a couple of unusual things about this year's class:

~  I have two sets of siblings - one is a set of 5th grade fraternal twin boys, the other is a 4th grade sister and her 5th grade brother. I've had siblings before, and lots and lots of cousins, but never two sets of siblings at the same time.

~  A child with hemophilia. This student just got out of Riley Hospital in Indianapolis after having a procedure and cannot begin school until Monday.

~ A boy with an artificial leg. I have no idea why he has a prosthetic; his parents have not shared anything with me about it yet.

~  A student who has a brittle bone disease and is unable to participate fully in P.E. and other rigorous activities. The parents have not given me any information about this health issue.

I find it odd that two of the three families of children with health problems have not contacted me to share information about their child. In fact, for the child with brittle bone disease, it was the P.E. teacher who approached me with that news. Same with the child with the artificial leg - another teacher pointed it out to me before I had noticed it.

I am tired tonight, but it is a happy tired, and I am looking forward to tomorrow.

Rock Star Moments

Teachers have a lot of "rock star" moments - because we're visible in a building, lots and lots of children know who we are, even if we don't personally know the child. Siblings and friends of our own students especially like to tell us that they "know you because "so-and-so is in your class."

We go out in the community and learn that, if a child is waving to us at Meijer, and we haven't a clue who it is, we're having a rock star moment. I've learned to either simply hold a conversation as though I know who the child is, or to say, "You must go to Hershey" at which their faces light up that I KNOW THEM, TOO.

(Kind of like Will Ferrell in Elf when he sees Santa and excitedly exclaims, "I KNOW him!!")

Another of these rock star moments is that several times a week, between 3:00 and 3:15, I get a little knock at my class door. Upon opening it, I usually discover a couple of children, box of cookies/cupcakes/brownies et al in hand. Often they just stand and smile, and so I have to wing it a bit.

"Why, is it your birthday today?" (Vigorous nod.) "It is?? Why, happy birthday!!"

Then they nod and grin again, and hold out said treat to share. (Note to self: check my 2013-2014 supply of birthday pencils to give as gifts to the birthday kids.) Sometimes they get up the nerve to speak to me and tell me who they are and why they wanted to give me a birthday treat, other times I return to my class and have to ask my students who had been at our door!

Last night at the Hershey Open House I had a wonderful rock star moment, better than receiving a battered brownie or cupcake, or smiling at children in the community. I was standing in my classroom with my back to the door speaking with a new family when suddenly  I was grabbed around the waist from behind in a hug. Then another set of arms, and then a third and even a fourth! The triplet sisters of a former student and another sibling were all giving me a hug en masse, giggling as they hugged. I bent over to hug them back, and then one looked up at me and pointed to her tooth.

She didn't say a word, and I couldn't see anything special (or amiss) about the tooth, so I just said, "Wow! That is so cool!" and that little first grader beamed up at me as though I'd made just the right comment. I wished them all good luck for the upcoming school year, hugged them one more time, and off they trotted.

Unlike a real rock star, I don't make a lot of money at what I do. But teaching is not about money, it's about the joy of touching children's lives. And that is priceless.

Almost Time!

Tomorrow I begin the 2013-2014 school year, with the kiddos beginning on Wednesday. I am looking forward to times like this:

 This is last year's class, and yes, I am in there somewhere.

We're looking together at a book they made me as an end of the year surprise. (I am on the left and holding the book.)

Saying goodbye to the sweeties is tough, but half of them return and I get another "half class" coming into the 4/5 Gifted and Talented class, so there is some comfort and solace in that.

Bring it on!

A Friend's House Fire

An long-time hobby friend of mine had a house fire in July, and most of her upstairs was a loss. All the family is okay, thankfully, but sadly two pets were lost. Wendy has been in the process of cleaning up, sorting, and replacing, and last night she posted some pictures of her own collection which was heavily damaged.

 She says what the smoke and the fire didn't get, the firefighters did as they worked to put out the fire.

Some of her pieces had the legs melt - the standing model second from the right has some melted plastic puddled around his feet.

Other pieces bloated in the heat - look at the first three on the right, top shelf. You can see how some of their bodies and necks swelled.

Like me, she has been collecting for decades. Unlike me, Wendy collects some of the real high end horses; each piece here in this photo was about $100 when newly purchased, and become even more valuable to collectors as time has gone on. (I'd estimate that the pre-fire worth of just these pieces is $2500.) 

I don't have many of the high end horses - I prefer the older, vintage models. But I do have a large collection.

 In 2011 I got a current value guide and toted up an estimate of what my collection was worth. At the time, I was thinking that it might be a good idea to get some insurance on it. The 2011 evaluation of just the plastic horses was $28,000 (I did not have a current value guide for the chinas).

I haven't done a head count for a while, but I would estimate I have about 1,000 pieces, more than I had in 2011. 

Wendy's house fire, and the loss of so much of her collection, is a sobering reminder that perhaps I ought to act on purchasing that insurance. 

Change Engenders Sadness

Ever wish that things would stay the same and not change? Sometimes I do, especially when the change means I won't be seeing people I care about anymore. And even though I know that the change is what needs to happen.

Still, I have moments of sadness. Like when I opened my file drawer and pulled out these:

My outgoing 5th graders' files! 

I will relabel them and use them for my incoming 4th graders. Those students will use them for two years and then the cycle will start again as they leave Hershey and move on to East Tipp.

I felt such a sadness as I pulled off the names of those former students. Such neat kids. Bright. Promising. Wonderful futures ahead of them.

Staying in the 4/5 Gifted/Talented class just isn't an option. Nor would it be good for them.

Still, my heart hurts as I think of them and know I won't see their smiling faces pop through my doorway every morning.

Changing the names on the files was harder than you might think.

How Do You Laugh When a Fist is in Your Stomach?

It's not easy! But it can be done as I discovered this afternoon.

I went to see Dusti Chase for physical therapy today - Dusti has worked with me many times and has become a good friend in the process. This time around, I am seeing her because my tailbone has curved to the side and is out of place. (Makes sitting rather tough.)

Since she's seen me so many times in the past and knows my history, Dusti checked several other things and she discovered that:

~ My gait was off. I was taking much shorter strides with my right leg than with my left because my hip muscles were so tight.

~ My pelvis was out of alignment with one side pushed forward ahead of the other.

~ My back is full of bony growths and arthritis.

~ Muscles and tissues by the hip flexor were knotted and needed releasing.

And Dusti put her fist in my stomach to treat that by doing a myofascial release.

Myofascial releases are no picnic. The pressure alone hurts. But that's not the only painful aspect. When Dusti presses on the problematic muscle, heat and pain radiate up and down that tissue, in this case, my right thigh. And it lasts because she keeps pressing down, down, down without stopping in order to get the muscle and surrounding tissues to relax and release.

It is difficult to talk during the process as it literally takes my breath away, it is so intense.

At last there is a sense of the heat and pain "drawing back" to the point where she is pressing, and that means the muscle has relaxed and lengthened, and you feel better. (Even more so when Dusti removes her fist from your belly. Oof!!)

Since we've become friends over the years, we chat and laugh while she works. Even though it is tough to talk when she is doing a myofascial release, we were conversing today, with my side of the conversation mostly whispering as a result of the extreme discomfort.

And then Dusti said something funny and I got the giggles.

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!

How do you laugh when someone has their fist in your stomach??

Not very easily! The more I tried to stifle the laughter, the more the laughter bubbled up. We must've made a bizarre picture had anyone been standing there - Dusti nearly up to her wrist in my tummy and me lying on the table whisper-laughing and gasping that I had to stop laughing.

An hour later, I left Dusti's office walking with a more normal gait and the loosest-feeling hip I've had in a long time. I also have a "tape wedgie" - since the tissues around my tailbone had also had a myofascial release (burn, baby, burn!) she's taped my backside up to give the tissues time to heal around the tailbone. And she taped me up REALLY well - let's just say there's some very firm support back there! I have to endure my tape wedgie for a couple of days before I can peel it off.

"You'll be sore tonight," were Dusti's parting words, and she was right. I am very tender and just want to chill out and not do anything that requires movement. But I also feel better than I have for weeks.

And that is worth having a fist in your belly and enduring a whole lot of discomfort.

Cheating Scandal in the Top Echelon

Recorded in this blog has been my frustration with (now former, thankfully) Tony Bennett, Indiana State Superintendent of Schools and (also now former) Governor Mitch Daniels and the havoc they wreaked on education in Indiana. I know of good teachers who retired from or left the teaching profession as a result of sweeping"reforms" the two made while in office.

Personally, I have been affected, with countless hours being added to my workload as I had to plan, write, implement, document, and finish "goals" that showed I was doing what I was supposed to do.

With Bennett not trusting teachers to be honest (and in all fairness, I would assume that not all are) I could no longer manage my ISTEP testing; instead, the building principals had to, and my tests were kept under lock and key, with me being allowed to see them only as I checked them out (counting each copy and then signing my name to account for the tests), had the students take them, and then returning them immediately (again, after counting them and then signing my name) to ensure I had no opportunities to cheat or change scores.

Seeing the state make an error on Hershey's score a few years ago, assigning us a C instead of the A we'd earned, and a formal protest and request for inquiry made by Dr. Scott Hanback, TSC's superintendent, only to have the state acknowledge their error but be told that, since the grade was already posted on their web site, it was too late to change it.

I thought of all these incidents when the story broke last week that Tony Bennett had himself cheated and manipulated scores for political gain. (Note that teachers and administrators caught doing the same in other states have lost their jobs and been prosecuted.)

To say I am angry would be an understatement. The result of the fallout was that Bennett resigned from his lucrative position of Superintendent of Florida schools (lucky Florida!) but the long term effects? Still ongoing in Indiana, and will for years, I would guess.

In the meantime, I am singing Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead and am hoping that he is prosecuted for his crimes to the fullest extent of the law.

Here is the original article from the Associated Press.

Chief Tony Bennett built his national star by promising to hold “failing” schools accountable. But when it appeared an Indianapolis charter school run by a prominent Republican donor might receive a poor grade, Bennett’s education team frantically overhauled his signature “A-F” school grading system to improve  the school’s marks.

Emails obtained by The Associated Press show Bennett and his staff scrambled last fall to ensure influential donor Christel DeHaan’s school received an “A,” despite poor test scores in algebra that initially earned it a “C.”

“They need to understand that anything less than an A for Christel House compromises all of our accountability work,” Bennett wrote in a Sept. 12 email to then-chief of staff Heather Neal, who is now Gov. Mike Pence’s chief lobbyist.

The emails, which also show Bennett discussing with staff the legality of changing just DeHaan’s grade, raise unsettling questions about the validity of a grading system that has broad implications. Indiana uses the A-F grades to determine which schools get taken over by the state and whether students seeking state-funded vouchers to attend private school need to first spend a year in public school. They also help determine how much state funding schools receive.

A low grade also can detract from a neighborhood and drive homebuyers elsewhere.

Bennett, who now is reworking Florida’s grading system as that state’s education commissioner, reviewed the emails Monday morning and denied that DeHaan’s school received special treatment. He said discovering that the charter would receive a low grade raised broader concerns with grades for other “combined” schools — those that included multiple grade levels — across the state.

“There was not a secret about this,” he said. “This wasn’t just to give Christel House an A. It was to make sure the system was right to make sure the system was face valid.”

However, the emails clearly show Bennett’s staff was intensely focused on Christel House, whose founder has given more than $2.8 million to Republicans since 1998, including $130,000 to Bennett and thousands more to state legislative leaders.

Other schools saw their grades change, but the emails show DeHaan’s charter was a catalyst for the changes.

Though Indiana had had a school ranking system since 1999, Bennett switched to the A-F system and made it a signature item of his education agenda, raising the stakes for schools statewide.

Bennett consistently cited Christel House as a top-performing school as he secured support for the measure from business groups and lawmakers, including House Speaker Brian Bosma and Senate President Pro Tem David Long.

In early 2012, Bennett proposed a sweeping overhaul of the way schools earned A to F grades, including adding new measures for student test score growth and college and career readiness. The new rules were universally opposed by a wide spectrum of education interest groups on the left and right, from urban schools to charter schools to the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, at a January 2012 hearing of the Indiana State Board of Education. Critics complained that the new rules were difficult to understand and potentially unfair to some schools.

In February of that year, Bennett’s office put out a simulation, showing what grades schools might have earned if the new system were in place but based on only part of the data that would be included in the new system. The number of A’s crashed by more than 20 percentage points to 24 percent statewide, and F’s doubled to 10 percent, resulting in calls to reconsider the new system.

Among those complaining were charters schools — not one charter in the state recieved an A in the simulation. Advocates asked how traditionally high performing charters like Christel House, Herron High School and the Tindley Acclerated School had not received higher grades.

At the time, Bennett insisted that the new system was a work in progress and revisions were underway. But his office seemed focused heavily on Christel House over other charters and traditional public schools, according to the emails.

Trouble loomed when Indiana’s then-grading director, Jon Gubera, first alerted Bennett on Sept. 12 that the Christel House Academy had scored less than an A in the latest revision.

“This will be a HUGE problem for us,” Bennett wrote in a Sept. 12, 2012 email to Neal.

Neal fired back a few minutes later, “Oh, crap. We cannot release until this is resolved.”

By Sept. 13, Gubera unveiled it was a 2.9, or a “C.”

A weeklong behind-the-scenes scramble ensued among Bennett, assistant superintendent Dale Chu, Gubera, Neal and other top staff at the Indiana Department of Education. They examined ways to lift Christel House from a “C’’ to an “A,” including adjusting the presentation of color charts to make a high “B’’ look like an “A’’ and changing the grade just for Christel House.

It’s not clear from the emails exactly how Gubera changed the grading formula, but they do show DeHaan’s grade jumping twice.

“That’s like parting the Red Sea to get numbers to move that significantly,” Jeff Butts, superintendent of Wayne Township schools in Indianapolis, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

DeHaan, who opened the Christel House Academy charter school in Indianapolis in 2002 also operates schools in India, Mexico and South Africa, said in a statement Monday that no one from the school ever made any requests that would affect Christel House’s grades.

Bennett said Monday he felt no special pressure to deliver an “A’’ for DeHaan. Instead, he argued, if he had paid more attention to politics he would have won re-election in Indiana.

Yet Bennett wrote to staff twice in four days, directly inquiring about DeHaan’s status. Gubera broke the news after the second note that “terrible” 10th grade algebra results had “dragged down their entire school.”

Bennett called the situation “very frustrating and disappointing” in an email that day.

“I am more than a little miffed about this,” Bennett wrote. “I hope we come to the meeting today with solutions and not excuses and/or explanations for me to wiggle myself out of the repeated lies I have told over the past six months.”

Bennett said Monday that email expressed his frustration at having assured top-performing schools like DeHaan’s would be recognized in the grading system, but coming away with a flawed formula that would undo his promises.

When requested a status update Sept. 14, his staff alerted him that the new school grade, a 3.50, was painfully close to an “A.” Then-deputy chief of staff Marcie Brown wrote that the state might not be able to “legally” change the cutoff for an “A.”

“We can revise the rule,” Bennett responded.

Over the next week, his top staff worked arduously on the problem and by Sept. 21, Christel House had jumped to a 3.75.

When the new grades were released statewide on Oct. 31, grade changes were vastly different from the February simulation, with schools seeing much milder swings in their results. The worst grades were a bit more common, with F’s rising by just two percentage points to 7 percent. A’s dropped just 6.5 percentage points to 41 percent of all schools.

One of those A’s was Christel House.

My Apex Year

The bulletin board where I post each year's class picture got me thinking as I rearranged it Saturday.

This is my apex year in education - my sixteenth year of teaching. I was a stay-at-home mama for sixteen years prior to teaching. When school lets out in May, 2014, I will be at the apex of the time at home/time as a teacher balance point.

There's a part of me that wants to be able to say that I was a stay-at-home mom for longer than I was a teacher. Being a mother is the most important "job" I think a woman can have (or do.) But teaching is a critically important job, too - any time you work with children, whether you are nurturing them at home or school, you are playing a vitally important role in the life of a child.

And I am pleased to be able to say that I have been blessed to do both.

Five blank spots remain on that bulletin board. Will I work another five years? Longer? I don't have an answer to that. I still feel like I have something to contribute to children; that folks haven't yet begun whispering behind my back, "When is that old fossil going to retire??"

As long as I continue to feel I have something to offer, I hope to remain in the classroom. And when my time has passed and I do pin up that very last class composite photograph, I hope my life will still be involved with children on one level or another.

Mother. Teacher. Mentor. Friend.

The possibilities are endlesss.

2014 - The Year of the Baby

In Chinese culture, each year is connected to an animal (rabbit, goat, horse, etc.) and the cycle repeats every twelve years. (Missing the year of the horse by three years, I was born in the year of the rooster. I guess that's better than being born in the year of the pig!)

Well, in Isenbarger culture, 2014 will be the year of the baby.

Cole and Emily were the first to announce. They are due in January.

 A text was sent with this picture and the question, "What's on your summer reading list?"

While visiting Kyle and Ashley in Florida, Ashley sent Craig and me this picture.

 (Isn't Corinne darling?) Their baby, #4 for them, is due in February.

A day or so later, Ashley and I were sitting on the beach watching the waves roll in when we got this unexpected text from Andrew.

She and I looked at each other, raised our eyebrows in unison, and went, "Hmmmm."

We were right. Sunday as were were driving home from Florida, Jessica called and announced their good news. They're due in February, too.

That will bring our family total to twenty-one. Wow. Are we blessed or what?

The Joy of Teaching High School

One of the joys of teaching is the relationships you develop with your students. Since you're together much of the day, you get to know each other well. I know elementary teachers get a lot of heartfelt notes and little presents; I didn't realize high schoolers would do the same. (Makes sense, though; they're kids, too!)

At the end of school this past year, Sarah received one of the most touching notes I have ever seen in my career when she left Clear Creek Amana High School this May to move to Colorado.

This was left on her white board by one of her students.

Sarah also went out with an unusual bang. Earlier in the school year, she had agreed to let an up and coming band, Jocelyn, film a music video in her classroom. The video just was released.

It's fun for me to see Sarah's things in the background of the video - and I like the music, too. One of the band members was a student teacher.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday, me!! It's August 1, and time to celebrate!

When I was a kid, August 1 (not my real birthday, that's August 28) was a BIG DEAL. I remember having trouble going to sleep on July 31 because I was so excited for the next day.

Why? Because on the first of every month, Captain Kangaroo sang "Happy Birthday" to children who had a birthday that month, and August was mine. In reality, it was to every child watching out there in TV land who had an August birthday, but I thought it was really, truly for me. From someone I loved (and still do) along with all the other members of the Treasure House.

 Dancing Bear, Bunny, Captain Kangaroo, Grandfather Clock, Mr. Moose, and Mr. Green Jeans.

(What's funny is that, as I searched, I found a lot of references to the monthly event by other people, all of whom thought the Captain was singing just for them, too!)

I have looked online for quite a while trying to find a clip of the birthday song they would sing, and all I can find is a newer version. But I did find the theme song which I was already humming, and when I played it, I was humming just a half step off pitch. How's that for a memory? I must've heard that song a lot of times in order to ingrain it so firmly in my memory!

So, a cheery Happy Birthday to me and to all the thousands of other folks who still remember waking up on August 1 in anticipation of having the Captain and crew of the Treasure House sing.

Just to them.

And thank you, Captain Kangaroo. You made my birthdays special.