Rick Devos admits ArtPrize is "crazy crap"

No, it's not an ArtPrize entry. But it might have greater artistic value.

. . . in today's GR Press. The MLive comments are priceless. One suggests we should be thankful that Devos has "created something out of nothing" and that those who aren't are simply jealous and have never done anything meaningful with our lives. Here's what I posted in response:

Rick did not create something out of nothing. He "created" ArtPrize by capitalizing on his family name and tossing some trust fund money into the prize pot. Those of us who have lived our entire lives in GR and have been educated in art have every right not to bow down/genuflect/kiss his ring and "be thankful" that we have him in our lives. 

We're not Scrooges, either. We'd just rather be known for something of high quality than, in Rick's own words, "crazy crap."

Next year, I will enter myself, dipped in copper paint, hanging from a cross, holding a scrap metal sculpture of a cute animal, perhaps a hedgehog. I will place myself in the B.O.B. parking lot. And I will end up in the ArtPrize Top 10.

Put this on the MUST SEE movie list for December

Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close. Wonderful novel. Stellar cast. U2 in the trailer. Goosebumps as I watched it.

Good News, Bad News: Saudi Women Can Vote Edition

Oh, the irony.

It's the end of R.E.M. as we know it

I don't feel fine.

If a picture is worth a thousand words. . .

 . . . then we'll never be able to "read" the pics uploaded to Facebook. Not in one lifetime, anyway. In the last twelve months, we've taken 10% of ALL the photos in the history of the world.

In Taylor's Wake. . .

While the focus on GRPS Superintendent Bernard Taylor is on the question of where (or if) he'll land his next gig, now might be a good time to revisit where he was before making his presence felt in our fair city.

Where was he, you ask? Why, Kansas City, MO, where he helped close half the schools before heading north. The Missouri Board of Education has just stripped the district of its accreditation. 

By the way, KC is looking for a new superintendent. What are the chances they'll take back Taylor?

Do As We Report, Not As We Do

There ought to be a law.  "No media outlet can print a story about the crisis in education until all of their writers/reporters can spell."

Especially when the correct spelling is in the accompanying photograph.

Bow Tie World Record: THE VIDEO!

Visual proof of our participation in The Tie Bar's Guinness World Record for most bow ties tied at the same time.


 We got our geek on.

RIP Borders

Today marks the last day of business for Borders Books. CNN has a fitting tribute to the one-time #2 bookstore in the country:

A shame, because when done right, there's something about a bookstore.

It's a library, a gathering spot, a refuge, a journey. Often it's small, maybe an 800-square-foot storefront jammed into a city street. Or it's idiosyncratic: an old house or converted barn, a rambling lobby or strip-mall space. It may not even be in your neighborhood, but that's where you go.

At its best, it's crowded: sometimes with people, always with books -- books stacked to the ceiling. Books lined up in bookcases. Books spread out on tables, highlighted on platforms, displayed in twirling, 5-foot-high wire racks.

Don't know what you're looking for? That's part of the adventure. A bookstore is governed by serendipity. You walk in and the world falls away. There's no rush. It's just you and the books, these pockets of words and paper that somehow transport you to a different place. 

Take a look at the slideshow and see if you recognize the font Borders once used (image #9). Recognize it?

It's used today by Schuler Books and Music. Here's hoping Schuler doesn't meet a similar fate.

A first-person account of 9/11

Rhett Miller - singer, songwriter, and member of Old 97s - lived through the terror in NYC and wrote about the experience in his journal.

We keep running until we get to the water. Smoking fragments of glass and metal rain down on our heads. E and I hold hands while we run. I pull her across the street and we use the FDR as cover, running beneath it so debris doesn’t land in our hair. I sneak two looks back. The smoke, the faces, the bloody people running and screaming. 

Breathing feels like chewing and swallowing. We don’t stop running until we get well beyond the Brooklyn Bridge, and the breeze off the water has cleared out the air. I’m wondering about our building. Did the windows hold? Are the others trapped in the basement?

Read the rest here, and download two demos Miller wrote and recorded shortly after 9/11.

Study Break Video

Dear Students,

Stop freaking and grinding. Try this.

Love,

Your Chaperones
 

For the students who missed class tonight

A favorite poem by Tom Wayman

Did I Miss Anything?

Nothing. When we realized you weren't here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours

        Everything. I gave an exam worth
        40 per cent of the grade for this term
        and assigned some reading due today
        on which I'm about to hand out a quiz
        worth 50 per cent

Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose

        Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
        a shaft of light descended and an angel
        or other heavenly being appeared
        and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
        to attain divine wisdom in this life and
        the hereafter
        This is the last time the class will meet
        before we disperse to bring this good news to all people
                on earth

Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?

        Everything. Contained in this classroom
        is a microcosm of human existence
        assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
        This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
                gathered

        but it was one place

        And you weren't here

For the Teachers

Tomorrow begins a new school year in Michigan, land of the beleaguered teacher. Many of us have taken pay cuts, pay freezes, or learned that we're no longer teaching in the school we've been in for years.

We hear presidential candidates, some of whom have a tenuous grasp on facts, rally the base with talk of eliminating the Department of Education so parents can have the right to teach what they think is best (like myths instead of science). 

We read our local newspaper's coverage of what the "think tanks" think should happen in our schools, knowing all they want are charter schools and a right-to-work state (ask Florida and Texas how those are working).

We read the comments on MLive.com to find out how much we're hated, and how ill-informed those cowardly, anonymous posters are.

We attend professional development sessions that urge us to teach to all types of learners - auditory, visual, kinesthetic - only to find there's no significant research to support that these differences exist.

We attempt to keep up with technology by incorporating Web 2.0 features on our blogs, wikis, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. Some of us have schools filled with new iPads. But, so far, the research shows these gadgets and gizmos aren't increasing test scores.

Not that we believe test scores are the be-all and end-all, either. We know that it's not necessarily what students learn in school, or when they learn it, that matters, but that they know how to apply critical thinking strategies, and can tell the difference between fact, opinion, and outright lies.

You'd think we wouldn't want to go back to school tomorrow. But you'd be wrong. We go because it's our calling. Our mission. Our purpose. Because we love learning and want to share that excitement with our students.

We go because we know that every once in a while, we'll inspire a student. Some of these kids will actually say we made a difference in their lives. And maybe one, like Charles Blow, will even write an op-ed to honor us:

It was the first time that I felt a teacher cared about me, saw me or believed in me. It lit a fire in me. I never got a bad grade again. I figured that Mrs. Thomas would always be able to see me if I always shined. I always wanted to make her as proud of me as she seemed to be that day. And, she always was. 

In high school, the district sent a man to test our I.Q.’s. Turns out that not only was I not slow, but mine and another boy’s I.Q. were high enough that they created a gifted-and-talented class just for the two of us with our own teacher who came to our school once a week. I went on to graduate as the valedictorian of my class. 

And all of that was because of Mrs. Thomas, the firecracker of a teacher who first saw me and smiled with the smile that warmed me on the inside.

Of course, we won't see that op-ed in The Grand Rapids Press. But we'll see it in the hand-written thank you note from a student or parent, in the smile from the silent kid who gets the subtle joke, or the Facebook post thanking us for making college seem so easy.

So we'll toss and turn tonight, just like some of our students, in anticipation of hearing the halls fill with students carrying new notebooks, of watching them enter our rooms and ask "Is there a seating chart?," and of welcoming them to a new year filled with endless possibilities.

We will go back to school tomorrow. And we will make a difference. For as Henry Adams said, "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." 

Labor Day: How Much We Work

The average work day worldwide is still 8 hours long, but not in the US. We work 8.3 hours a day!

On this Labor Day

Convicted for forming a union - The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Since 1894, America has celebrated the efforts of the American worker on the first weekend in September. Labor Day is a "creation of the labor movement," which also brought us:

• the 40-hour work week
• workers' rights
• fair labor laws
• the WEEKEND
• and the middle class

Today, however, unions and the middle class are struggling. Public employees have become scapegoats for the country's economic ills, while fat cat corporate CEOs invest in the political campaigns of Tea Party candidates who will do their bidding. Unions are frustrated by the lack of action on the part of President Obama, too.

Our newest Poet Laureate, Michigan's Philip Levine, writes about the working class, especially those on the lines of what used to be our state's bread and butter, the auto industry. From his poem, "What Work Is":

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is—if you’re
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it’s someone else’s brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours of wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, “No,
we’re not hiring today,” for any
reason he wants. 

This post is, of course, personal. I am a union member. My union is under constant scrutiny, some deserved, but most of it unwarranted and politically motivated. A few years ago, I discovered I was descended from a long line of laborers, some who were severely punished for trying to form a union. The Tolpuddle Martyrs, six Dorset farm workers, were shipped to Australia for the crime of having "taken an illegal oath." 

On this Labor Day, I remember my forefathers and their struggles, and hope that American unions regain their respected place as a provider of steady employment and fair labor practices.