I heard a bit on NPR the other evening about how this huge number of Los Angeles elementary school teacher names are going to published, with data about their students’ improvements (or not) on standardized test scores.

All I could think in response was, “Yet another way to remove responsibility from the parents.”

Yeah, I’m married to a teacher. He works hard at his job, he makes a difference in his students’ lives.  And yes. There are teachers who suck, don’t care, do the minimum to get by.

What gets me, though, is all these new initiatives that are designed to impact student test scores, arguably to improve them – most of them involve punitive measures against the teachers.  I’m sure there are people out there who hear about them and react, “Yeah! Make teachers accountable!” and I’m not saying they shouldn’t be – but even with all the hours a child spends in school, the school is not a vacuum, and the teachers can only effect so much change. They certainly can’t beat the children anymore, like they could when I was in school. Much of the fear that accompanied my childhood education is gone – I was terrified of my principal, most of my teachers, and the faintest notion that any of them would call home to my father. God, not that.  Discipline in school can be sparse or completely absent, probably out of fear the angry parent will sue the school for violating their child’s rights. I’m not saying getting thwacked was the right solution, certainly, but discipline can exist – and it takes a lot of work and effort on every person in the school, from the administration to aides, all working in a consistent manner.

My opinion is that there is an inherently flawed premise: All students want to excel on the test.  The assumption in all of the standardization, and resulting measurement of teachers, is that the kids want to do their best on these tests.  They’ll study each question, spend all the time they need or are given, striving to do their very very best.  This isn’t a correct assumption. For you, for me, for most people who read my blog, sure – we were motivated to do well on our tests, because it was probably rewarded (or expected!) at home.  If that isn’t fostered at home, you are expecting a hell of a lot of initiative from a ten-year old to find the drive and desire and energy, no matter how hard it may encouraged in the classroom.

Look around this city and its suburbs. Look at where you see the “good” schools. It doesn’t matter which side of the state line it is, but I can bet you this: the strongest schools are where the  parents are more involved in the education of their child. When that child leaves school, they go home to an environment that continues to encourage good study habits and achievement. Long-term goals involving education to get there.  Accountability and responsibility. Proper diet, nutrition, strict bedtimes and limitations on tv/internet/video games.  We see the breakdown in family structures, the absence of good parental modeling, yet we can’t do anything about it because the “rights” of being a parent in this country are beyond reproach. You can buy a car and drive it, but you better have passed a driver’s test, and carry the proper insurance on it or you face consequences. There are no licenses or permissions -or even training- given to parents.

So, back to those teachers in L.A. who will have to see their efforts reduced to a statistic on a page. What if your job hung in the balance, dependent on all these other factors you can’t control?

Update, 8/29/10: Apparently The Onion had a similar idea, but with its usual delicious dark humor twist. NSFW for language, enjoy!

In The Know: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don’t Give A Shit?

I have a fascination with Lady Gaga, I’ll admit it. I have always loved dance music, and she churns it out like salt-water taffy. But her videos – lord – they are something else. She makes mini-movies with bizarre storylines, insane costumes, and all with a healthy dose of sexuality bordering on soft-core porn. Take a look (fair warning for those watching at work – there’s swearing and a nearly-nekkid GaGa):

I love it. I think her latest video is exceptional because it unabashedly works product integration into the show – who’d a thunk Lady Gaga could elevate making a sandwich with Wonder Bread and Miracle Whip to such heights? She flashes her Virgin Mobile phone at us several times, and the old-school Polaroid gets props as well, and the prison guards use the PlentyOfFish dating site. Even Diet Coke (I do miss you, friend) has a supporting role – in the form of giant hair rollers. A fast-food joint also gets a nod, and Quentin Tarantino’s infamous “Pussy Wagon” is resurrected. I’m sure there are more brands there – this is just my takeaway from watching it once. Also got a chuckle out of the guard’s line, “I told you she didn’t have a dick”… a little GaGa fuck-you to the internet speculation that she’s a hermaphrodite or really a man. At this point, who cares?!

Just as OK GO had to secure a sponsor for their equally brilliant (though wildly different) Rube Goldberg video, in order to allow embedding, I expect we’ll see more product integration in videos like this – and it won’t feel bothersome because we’re being highly entertained. Embedding videos means the record company isn’t making money off the views, but if they can get their nickels another way, through sponsorships and product placement, it allows videos to be more viral, gaining more exposure for the artist. OK GO left their label EMI at least in some part because of the control they were exacting over their video distribution – and OK GO is actually one of the most viral-video-creating bands, ever. (Think of how many times someone sent you a link to that treadmill video!)

So, because I can, here’s that video from OK GO:

21-paintball-gun salute to our indie boys, and if I had a crazy rotary telephone hat to tip in your direction, Ms. Ga, I would.

So, my strongest memories of Psych 101 was the day we got of frickin’ lab rats, and our escaped. I had the most ineffectual lab partner, so it was up to me to catch the damned thing, and nary a pair of gloves was to be found. I did name him in honor of my math professor, who gave me some of the best advice and counsel all through school. (Notably, “Five hundred years from now, Jennifer, none of this is going to matter.”)

Anyway, when you put a rat in a Skinner box, your lever is hooked up to a computer and you have to read the data and adjust the settings and basically, everyone ends up proving his theory, which is that behavior that is rewarded is repeated, and behavior that is rewarded RANDOMLY has the highest degree of repetition.  If you push the lever and always get a pellet? You only push the lever when you need a pellet. (Interestingly, this also applies if the reward is distributed on a regular interval – three times gets you nothing, but four is the magic number? You know to push that sucker four times when you need a pellet. And then you wander off to watch Law & Order re-runs until you need another pellet, rinse & repeat.)  If you push the lever and never get a pellet? You learn pretty damned quickly to regard the lever as a very boring shelf in your Skinner box.

But.

If you never KNOW when you’re going to get a pellet, that without any lever-hitting pattern, one appears randomly, then you, little rattie, will punch that lever ’til your paw pads are raw, or you turn into a crispy-fried over-tanned smoker hammering “Play 3 Credits” on a slot machine. (Vegas may be artificial, but they ain’t stupid. Or poor.)

And today, I saw and felt the parallels, that job searching is like being inside a giant Skinner box. I have watched myself rise and fall emotionally, feeling elation, hope, depression, excitement, despair, enthusiasm, pessimism, optimism, fatality and confidence, and today, when the little “plook” noise alerted me to a new email, and I saw it was for another interview, I felt my heart soar once again with enthusiasm and excitement. Because no matter how many ways I circle (or circumvent) the various HR departments, or network myself, or talk to people, or put myself out there, or send in resumes, there is no guaranteed pattern of response or consequences. Of course I keep doing it, not  for the soaring arc of hope the random positive brings, but because I want to work, be useful, get off unemployment, be around people, talk about ideas, work with clients, DO STUFF.

Not just punch a lever.

I met with a freelancer today & got a project she doesn’t have time to do.

While I was meeting with her, I got an email from a former co-worker, with a freelancing project that may come to fruition down the road.

While I was answering the email on the second project, I got a message on Facebook that my friend sent my email and name to his old boss who’d just posted they needed media freelance help.

My mind is whirring. And whirling. And wondering.

Is it a sign?

Wowza. Spend one week flat-out sick, spend the next week flailing and catching up. And discovering that I am still not as jaded as I’d like to believe. What’s up with that? I want to take everything life gives me like Kathleen Turner would, with almond eyes half-shut, gazing unflinching at the bullshit and nodding to myself, “Yep. Saw that coming.” Then I’d toss back a shot of whiskey and laugh.

My husband  is an amazing judge of character. He has met people and told me later to watch out, or that he got a bad vibe from them, or that he doesn’t trust them. Inevitably, he’s right.  I just realized how self-serving this could sound -  since he decided to marry me, that would mean he’s STUPENDOUS at character assessment, eh? But I envy his unfiltered eye. I find I tend to give people some benefit of the doubt, or I see their association with other people I like and trust and transfer that to them, or I just go off the face value of things, and I don’t make instant determinations or decisions about people.  And sometimes that can really bite you in the ass, because not only is the bad behavior unexpected, but the trust you invested up to that point has been betrayed.

Not going to bother elaborating, it’s not bloggable anyway, I just know that I can’t trust everyone, and I have to temper my expectations of people. I would prefer to not become cynical in the process! I had lunch yesterday with an old friend of mine, and I was telling her about some of the crazy things that have been going on, and there’s one situation where five of the six people involved are all confused and spending time worrying about it, and me? I’m the freaking poster child for the Tao of Pooh. I shrug. I narrow my eyes. I smile, and toss back a shot of scotch. And laugh. Because I can’t control it or influence it or even predict it, and therefore, I should spend my time minding my knitting, instead!

It is SO FREEING. To just stop caring about  every single thing. Including the potential things. (Believe you me, I haven’t mastered this, but I’m going to trumpet when I do to remind myself it’s possible!) I have spent a better part of my life in the role of Piglet (if you have read the Tao of Pooh this will make sense… Pooh is the model of Buddhism), racing and worrying and fleeing and running with the balloon and being so frantic he eventually pops the balloon.  And I sure as hell don’t want to be Eeyore, god love him, but that dude’s a goddamned downer.

Long ago, I toyed with the idea of volunteering at a hospital that was near my apartment. I met with the volunteer co-ordinator, a man, probably 20 years my senior. I’ve never forgotten one observation he made, because it was so wildly inconsistent with my view of myself. He said could see me in the emergency department, because he felt there was a calmness about me, that would be reassuring to families coming in under crisis. I still don’t know if I fully believe him, or if he was just looking for someone to fit a need. But I liked it. My thing is that if I have room to panic, I do. I ruminate, I dwell, I worry. But if someone else is doing it, I tend not to. I fear we’ll all lose our way if someone isn’t minding reality.

So, discovering someone’s true colors, and the resulting anger and sense of betrayal, well, it’s normal. But today I feel confident and centered. Ten years ago I would have been frothing at the mouth for weeks.  Don’t get me wrong. I love to be agitated, I love sensory input and drama and zombies and things to move at a brisk clip. But I also enjoy – now more than ever – the ability to not be drowned by that wave.

In some ways, I think, the peace and perspective are results of my father’s death, and the ebbing away of some of my grief. I will cry, be immobilized by my sadness, for moments as short as a minute. Yesterday, for example, I was listening to a story on Morning Edition about Darwin, and how he and his wife were so different philosophically, yet when their daughter Anne died, it brought them even closer together. The author of the biography believes that much of his grief influenced his writings. I’m going to quote the part that really resonated – it’s the author’s viewpoint of Darwin, and it was so beautifully put:

Darwin is stating what “we now call the existential dilemma,” says Gopnik in his biography. He is saying there are two things that are true:  One is that everything dies, and things die for no reason and to no apparent end. And their death is painful. And, that process of living and dying produces something amazing and beautiful and astonishing.

The process. Amazing and beautiful and astonishing.  I love when things so profoundly move me, like a sharp twisting of muscle, when they resonate in my core like the vibration from a bass cello.  My own evolution from inexperience and naivete.

1. OK, my first random ort is from the current issue of People magazine. Ya know, Sexiest Man Alive issue, blah blah blah (I get my People fo’ free! Rep gift.) I used to get US, too, but they finally figured out I don’t run ads in there so away it went. Anyway. I enjoyed the cover story (Hugh Jackman! Yes, I agree with the title!) and then happened upon this little four-page segment, where hot studly men had SCRATCH AND SNIFF circles on their photos, and you could smell the cologne they wear. Or at least say they wear. This is one brilliant bit of marketing, I think. The publisher was very careful to state that subscribers who’d requested scent-free issues did not receive this, and so on and so forth, and while none of the fragrances grabbed me by the collar and made me want to rush out and buy a bottle for the Wo? I laughed. Every. Single. Time I sniffed. Because how funny is that, I’m holding a sexy-hottie man’s picture up to my face, engaged in something I think would be pretty intimate to do to them in person, especially since I’m sniffing Chris Meloni’s neck. Only one brand name – but what a great way to get your product in the hands of engaged readers. Especially when it’s on Michael Phelps’ torso!

2. I have a cold. Bleah. We have been the House of Illness for too long – starting with James’ gout, and then he got pneumonia, and now that he’s on the mend, I’m on the decline. It’s not the worst cold ever? I’m just congested and feel like I’m in a stupor. (Except when I’m snorgling Taye Digge’s photo. I can still smell, obviously.)

3. I Wish I Had Taken A Picture #2: (yes, out of order) I just cleaned our stainless-steel coffee pot. It was really getting on my nerves, and despite trying to scrub it, the coffee stains weren’t budging. It looked like we’d been using it without even a rinse for ten years. (which isn’t true!) So to the internets I went, and, by god, there were a couple of solutions – dishwasher detergent, or OxyClean. Well, we use those little toss-in tablets, instead of powder or liquid, so I trundled downstairs and got some OxyClean. HOLY CRAP. It immediately started foaming, and because I’m nebbish and curious, I couldn’t walk away, so I poured off the foam and -gasp- started to see silver. I added more water, got out the scrub brush, did a few swipes, and gaped in amazement as I poured off a latte-colored mixture of suds and coffee oils, to see a like-new interior. IT WORKS. I’m pleased as punch. Kinda makes me wonder what in hell it’s doing to our clothes, though!

4. I Wish I Had Taken A Picture #1: The other morning, I went to let the dogs in, and it was that super-chilly morning, the one reminding us that it really is winter-time, and two dogs were waiting at the door, and came flying in. In the dark, I assumed the fleeting black dogs that passed me were the usual two who wait at the door: Polly and Suzy. I whistled for Tripper. Heard rustling, then a metallic clanking. Tripper likes to find random things all around the back yard & in James’ shed, so I yelled at him to “LEAVE IT!” and to come in. I can tell there’s a dog at the base of the stairs, and there’s more metal dragging. So I flip on the light, and it’s SUZY, and she’s decided she could could just go through the decorative fencing we’d put up around the grass garden. Uh, well, she did go through, HALF WAY. She had about 6′ of fence attached to her midriff. So out into the cold I went, asking her if she thought she was Winnie the Pooh or something, and quickly stretched the wire so she could step out of it. She was elated, scampering & jumping around, and all I could do was shake my head. And wish I’d snapped a photo of her ‘in fence’.

Next week’s Thanksgiving, which means a short work week for most, a big meal with family and friends, and for many, a big day of shopping. I’m thinking about finally breaking the habit and not going out. I believe I got rather cranky last year and didn’t really find anything we needed, even among the deals. Guess it depends on who’s name I get for Xmas gift-giving, I suppose. If you’re curious about whether or not it’s worth your while, you can always scope out the Black Friday sales flyers ahead of time. I always wonder who it is that’s scanning them and sending them in, hm? Someone at the printer? Someone at the newspaper? I think this year, nobody should even care about the deals getting leaked, most companies will be glad for the business any way they can get it. Happy Saturday night!

So my pal Laura posted this quiz, and while the little floaty-talking lady bugged the crap out of me, her quiz and results felt dead-on. (But then, I always wonder: are there five other results that would also feel dead-on?)

Jennifer’s Motivational DNA Type is PVE, (Production-Variety-External): The Champion

Champions enjoy a challenge and love to win. They are charming and enthusiastic leaders. Champions are natural persuaders. They don’t mind being the center of attention and are good at working with others while advancing their own ideas. Champions tend to be engaging and charismatic. They are skilled at getting things done in spite of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. In fact, obstacles just make tasks more interesting for a Champion. They are quick decision makers and can be impatient with those who are not. As solid negotiators, Champions are willing to compromise to get the job done. Champions have an innate ability to get others to follow their lead.

PVE Motivators: Challenging assignments, authority, profitability, freedom from supervision and control, opportunities for advancement, contests, public recognition, deadlines, calculated risk and popularity.

PVE De-Motivators: Strict controls, protracted analysis, “group think,” and deliberation without meaningful action.

Quick-Start Tips for Goal Achievement:

1. Your motivational type is always busy. It’s imperative that you create space in your schedule to devote exclusively to doing what is necessary to achieve the goal. The time will not magically appear. You must block off intervals to work on your goal.

2. Competition and commensurate rewards are powerful motivators for your motivational style. Design a contest with like-minded achievers who have the same goal. The first one to cross the finish line wins the big prize.

3. Make sure that the process is enjoyable. Invest the time and intentional focus to find fun ways of achieving your goal

K, so, I had to bold the ‘de-motivators’, because if one sentence could describe the culture of my former employer, that’d be it! I laughed out loud. And yes, while most people will say they don’t like “group-think”, I abhor it. My father instilled in me a deep need to question things, particularly if everyone is going along with it. Probably why I’m skittish about organized religion. And, yeah. All those motivators are spot-on. Money, a deadline & an enormous task? LOVE. I seriously just perked up out of my cold thinking about the prospect of such a challenge.

Someone should give me a book deal, stat.