Perspective

I have work at 6am tomorrow, so my husband did me the favor of waking me at 6 today... and while I'm normally not a great morning person, today I'm glad I got up. I have the day off so there was no stress about getting things done before work, or packing a lunch (I need to start packing lunches the night before). I took the dogs for a nice leisurely walk before I even had breakfast. We explored a neighborhood we hadn't been through before and we found all kinds of interesting things, like an abandoned house at the far end of our street, a tiny front yard planted entirely in strawberries, and some lovely city views.

Looking South toward downtown.

And then we came home and the dogs crashed and I made tea and let the chickens out and sat on the porch sipping mint tea and watching my three little hens scratch in the compost pile.


  I'm glad I took a walk.

Belladonna.

 Oh, by the way. We adopted another dog, because one was not enough for husband dearest. Sigh.

Anyway, we're walking along, just me and the two dogs, and I started noticing that Mystra, our older dog, looked like a downright saint walking calmly next to the new dog as he bounced from one edge of the sidewalk to the other, trying to yank my arm off, tangling the leashes and marking telephone poles. And I thought, isn't that funny, because if you asked me last week I would have said she's the most horrible walker ever. But Zepar (the new dog) has the power of making our poorly-behaved five-year-old look like an obedience school graduate. Perspective is everything.

And it hit me that she's been making incremental improvements all along, but it's been slow progress and sometimes unsteady, and I had stopped looking for improvements because I was thinking this was as good as it got and I was feeling like Sisyphus rolling that damn boulder, at least as far as trying to get the dog to walk nicely was concerned.

Abandoned garden.

We get stuck in ruts sometimes, where a situation has gone on so long - like drowning in student loan debt, or being "bad" at math, or trying to get the kids to pick up their toys, that we stop seeing change. We stop looking for change. We expect things to go on forever just the way they are because we are tired and used to them this way, and sometimes we think: I'll stop fighting, because what difference does it make?.

Sometimes all it takes to get us out of the rut is a little bit of perspective.

Looking south-west at the river valley.

My life is pretty boring.

I think this blog needs a makeover. What do you guys suggest?

I'm fond of garden stuff. I can kinda draw. I don't know. I like using the blogger themes because they're easy but they're boring and I'm tired of boring. My life is boring enough.

I'm off work till this evening. This will be my second short day in a row and I worked 4 early hours yesterday and will work 4 very late hours tonight, so it's like having an entire day off in between. Kinda neat. I'm enjoying it, because work is still ok but I don't love it (does anybody love their job? Am I being unreasonable to say that I'd like to want to go to work?) and time off is precious.

Speaking of makeovers, on Saturday after work I caved and got a flat of 20 (ok, 18. Two were dead, empty cells) marigolds. Yesterday (Sunday) I planted a neat line of them next to the lavender where my seeded marigolds had failed to grow, and had a bunch left over and was staring contemplatively at them when Rick got my attention.

"Look at this!" he said.

He was pointing to the tiny space on the other side of our porch steps, which is just a pie-slice bordered by a concrete walk. It contains our gas meter and until yesterday it contained a lot of weeds. This year it also contained lemon balm which is only technically not a weed because I did plant it intending to grow and harvest it. But it's spread from one corner of the yard to ALL the other corners in a ten foot radius. It's coming up in the middle of the yard! This plant doesn't just spread. It flings itself in every direction and thrives. We even yanked some out of the sidewalk four feet below the main plainting and on the other side of a concrete retaining wall. Note to self: Don't let the lemon balm flower and go to seed this year.

But back to the little pie-slice. Rick yanked out ALL the weeds (no small task, I assure you) and left me a nice, well-turned patch of dirt. Not very good dirt, but plain boring plant-something-in-me dirt all the same. He was going to leave it alone but I thought: I have marigolds, and there is an empty space that could use some color! The front of the house has had a makeover from empty boring weed-filled space to slightly less empty, colorful, weed-free space. Well, mostly weed-free. We still need to mow. I did clear the weeds out of the edge beds, though.

I also thought I was rather clever for having bought enough marigolds that they somehow perfectly fit into the front of the little pie-slice. They're spaced a bit far right now but they'll fill in. I hope. I know annuals like better soil and I didn't amend mine one eensy weensy bit. I think they'll deal, though. I'm a lazy efficient gardener, after all. I don't bother with such things as soil amendment for my annuals! They're going to die this fall anyway and have to be replaced! (Remind me to find some short perennials for that pie-slice).

What do you think of marigold as a background color for a blog? Too bright?

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

No post last Friday. Last week went all roller-coaster on me. I felt good at the beginning of it and did actually make some progress on both the laundry and the dishes, cleaned the litterboxes two days in a row (!) and managed to be at work on time and without forgetting anything. I even got some work done on the rag rug, albeit very little. I didn't manage to get 'round to plastering, but I was feelin' proud... and then my motivation left entirely and I started waking up congested and thought I was getting sick again! Thankfully thus far it seems to be just a reaction to the weather (which has also been roller-coaster-y).

Rick's without hours for a while because his company's client severed the contract without warning, which is really really annoying and a little disheartening. We were just starting to get ahead and now we're going to have to work to keep afloat again. We can't live on just my income! So that's now a worry, and my focus on the house and garden is out the window. He won't be out for long, I hope!

On the other hand, I did manage to work out a settlement payment on a longstanding overdue debt, which means there's one less credit card in my portfolio and one more "PAID IN FULL" being sent to the credit reporting agencies. I'm excited about this and grateful for my sister whose generosity is matched by her intelligence and beauty (ok, I'm sucking up a little, but she did send me the last bit I needed to pay the debt before the settlement offer expired, and I can't say "thank you" enough!

So anyway, after all the progress I made at the beginning of last week, by Sunday nothing was done again and I felt awful about it. I've been avoiding posting for two days now so that I can catch up again. I'm still not really caught up, but at least there's a load of laundry in the dryer and I managed to clear one side of the sink (the other side and the counter are still piled with cooking utensils and cutting boards and bowls, oh dear...).

Today was beautifully mild and very warm, but the wind is roaring out there tonight, and I think we're due for some more rain/snow. I can't wait for spring!

Are you a Christian?

My friend Nicole, who blogs at A Reader's Rumination, once again linked me to a meditation on Boundless that reminded me of something I wanted to share.

Disclaimer: While I'm hardly the best example of living a Christ-filled life, I do try to be a good person, and I do think that behavior is the best witness of all if you want to share Christ (or anything else) with someone. Being at peace will draw others who naturally want to know how you manage it. I find my strength in my husband and my friends more than in God directly, but I appreciate His work in others' lives and I wanted to share how my own experience with finding joy fed into someone else's interpretation of me (and made me an inadvertent witness to the gospel):

I had a horrible headache the other day. My sinus headaches come and go, and they're not so much painful as disorienting, making it harder to focus and making my entire head feel stuffy. But I was at work, and work is customer service - focusing on someone else's needs, doing what I can to make them happy. I tried my best to get through the day with a smile for my own sake as well as everyone else's.

It surprised me that I managed it at all, and I was worried that I was coming across as fake, too cheerful or too forced at times because it was all I could do to keep smiling if I stopped to think about my headache. I found two things: first, if I focused on the customer and not on the pounding in my head, the pain wasn't so bad. Second, if I stopped complaining and started focusing on little joys, like making a good connection with someone, finding the perfect shade of lipstick for her to wear at a wedding or successfully teaching a new makeup technique, I didn't seem fake at all. Even if my smile felt forced to me, the women I waited on saw someone genuinely focused on their needs. They smiled more, too. They complimented my customer service. It didn't take away the pain of the headache but it did reinforce that my attitude was more important than my physical presence. Anyone could have helped them pick a lipstick, but not everyone could have done it with a good attitude.


The last compliment I got was from a profusely thankful woman who told me that I was not only a good salesperson but clearly a good person overall, and as I was closing the sale she leaned over the counter and asked conspiratorially: "Are you a Christian?". She took me by surprise. I didn't think I gave off a Christian vibe, with my bright purple nail polish and complete lack of religious jewelry... but I guess it was my attitude that she found Christian-like.

I'm not sure if I lied when I said "yes". I don't read the Bible much and I don't fear God (I do love our creator, whether he/she/it is the ideal of a Christian god or not). I don't attend a Christian church (or any church at all). I have friends who do those things, which might make me a Christian by association if nothing else. But I think in the larger sense of the word - a "follower of Christ", not someone who attends a certain church or reads a certain book - that I am in fact Christian. I try to live by a moral code which includes many of Christ's teachings - love and kindness toward others, appreciation of the many good things I am given, and reflection on the nature of God and the lessons of the Bible. I appreciate Christ's story for what it tells us about Him and about ourselves. And I'm trying to live up to His example not because I'm told to but because it's a good example for everyone, Christian or not. I don't think Christ complained much, and He kept working even if people didn't always show appreciation for His work.

Compliments are rare in the service industries and it's easy to get bitter and gripe and moan about your headache, the poor pay, the long hours on your feet and the seemingly distant attitudes of management. Co-workers often feed into the negativity, supporting complaints with listening ears and complaints of their own. I know a few who are so negative that you can almost see the cloud they've hung over their heads like a warning sign: There's no sunshine in my life! Stay away!. Most of them claim to be Christians. Few of them realize what their poor attitude says about their commitment to Christ. I think my customer was one of the few who understood what an attitude can say.

I probably wouldn't have lost the sale if I had said "No." She might have been surprised, but I don't think it would have caused an uproar. It isn't very Christ-like to lie, even when you're unsure of the answer. I could have said "I'm not sure." I don't think I would have offended her. I don't know why I said "yes". Maybe to feel like I belonged to her group of "good people", maybe because sharing religious beliefs is not something I expected to be doing between sales on a very busy day. It was easier to say yes than explain my complicated stance on religion and religious labels.

Looking back, I think that if she takes away my behavior as a good example of what Christian behavior should be, it won't have done any harm. After all, aren't we supposed to find joy in life? Aren't we supposed to celebrate our being and the little miracles and accomplishments of each day? If Christians are supposed to follow Christ's example, we need to be doing a lot more loving and a lot less declaring of war. Christ never led nor fought in a holy war even against the least of his enemies. Even the money-lenders and vendors in the temple were not hated, only admonished and the animals driven out*. He did not complain about them later to his friends. He did not let his suffering get in the way of his love, his joy, his peace. Neither should we.

Question of the day: Are you a Christian? Or are you Christ-like?

*Here's a good reference with a discussion of the Cleansing of the Temple and its symbolic language, which indicates less violence than readers might originally see in the story: Christian Think Tank

Summer Challenge 2: The Weekend!

This weekend's Challenge Task is to read a series of articles on Christian Dating, and to respond to them with agreements, disagreements, and the ways we would, could, or have applied the principles put forth. I don't plan on reading all 8 articles at once, but I'm going to consolidate my responses as well as possible, so I'll be taking notes as I go. I'll sometimes include quotes so that you can reference what I'm responding to. The articles are written by Scott Croft, an elder at Capitol Hill Baptist Church where he runs relationship seminars, and an attorney.

Right off the bat, I'd like to note that Mr. Croft has no credentials related to relationship or marriage counseling, psychology, sociology, or even theology (aside from a year as a "pastoral assistant"). FotF doesn't even tell us what kind of attorney he is, so I checked with Google. If this is him, he's in "litigation", mostly the 'business and gov't' kind. Therefore, his experience as an attorney is completely irrelevant to the matter of Christian Dating.

So why tell us he's an attorney at all? It's a basic rule of sociology: Anyone with a Degree is More Important Than You and Knows Better, and is therefore Qualified to order you around. There have been studies done on obedience to authority figures, and it clearly works in real situations. Even I have experienced the obedience phenomenon when I tell people I was a Behavioral Therapist. Isn't psychology fun?

Regardless of Mr. Croft's lack of actual related credentials, let's assume he's a smart guy and has enough general life experience to give us some dating suggestions. We'll start with the first article: Biblical Dating: An Introduction. He begins with a pair of Basic Assumptions that color the entire series: Inerrancy of Scripture and its close cousin Sufficiency of Scripture. Basically, Scripture comes from God and is therefore neither flawed nor has errors, and also therefore it is Sufficient to guide Christians in all areas of their faith and life; nothing is left out of God's Instruction Manual.

Ok. So we start with a definition of biblical dating:

We may define biblical dating as a method of introduction and carrying out of a pre-marital relationship between a single man and a single woman:

1. That begins (maybe) with the man approaching and going through the woman's father or family;
2. that is conducted under the authority of the woman's father or family or church; and
3. that always has marriage (or at least a determination regarding marriage to a specific person) as its direct goal.

While I've never been a fan of the whole "asking her father" thing, it does help when starting any relationship to have adult guidance and good role models to look to for help when things get awkward or difficult. Authority is something entirely different, and I do take issue with that. I have no problems with #3, though. Dating for me was never about getting into short, semi-casual relationships "just because". I've always considered it to be a search for a mate. I don't think casual dating makes much sense from either an evolutionary standpoint or a moral one. People are built for love and attachment - the goal of all life on earth is to reproduce, and in our case that goal includes hanging around long enough to properly raise our young. So marriage, or at least a settled domestic partnership, is a good idea, and therefore dating ought to lead toward partnership.

The rest of the article bashes on modern dating. He makes a few good points - that many people are entering the dating world entirely self-centered, looking for the person who fills their wants and needs without thinking about whether they are ready to fill someone else's wants and needs, that others are only dating to fill some basic emotional or sexual need without looking for the future commitment, and in doing so are keeping themselves satisfied in the short term but damaging their ability to commit to marriage in the future. Our system is flawed. But do we have to return to 300AD to get around that? Wouldn't advocating personal responsibility and attention to the needs of others get you the same result? The historical and social context for our current dating behavior bears examining; is this 'trend' going to continue, or will a few more generations experience the backlash of single mothers and unattached 40-somethings, and be pushed into marriage earlier than we were?

[derail]Mr. Croft mentions regret - in the context that he has never heard a Christian not express regret for a sinful relationship before they turned around and started living a more Godly life. It's not surprising. Most cultures (and Christianity is a culture) will encourage you to look back on the time before you came into the fold as one of disgrace, or at least one of ignorance. Why? Is it so important to alienate ourselves from our pasts that we must be told that not a single one of our companions has ever accepted past behavior as a good or necessary thing? I firmly believe that everything we experience is a chance to learn about ourselves and the world, and that we put ourselves into situations because we subconsciously know (or, if you will, God knows) that we can benefit from the lessons we will receive. If you regret something, you haven't learned everything you could from it, or are denying the lesson. I've made quite a few "mistakes" in my time, but I work every day to understand why and to eliminate regret. Life is too short to look back with sorrow and guilt, and besides, isn't thankfulness a lot more spiritually mature? So I strive to be grateful for the lessons I've been given, instead of regretting that they had to be taught. [/derail]

Now I'm going to nitpick at the biggest issue I see with Biblical dating. "Men initiate, women respond". Men are, of course, put into leadership roles in the Bible.

Hollywood's perfect woman runs with the boys, knows what she wants, and is aggressive en route to getting it — especially romantically. Hilariously, Hollywood even writes these characters into period pieces, as if the normal woman at all levels of society in the 18th and 19th centuries was a post-feminist, post-sexual-revolution, "there-ain't-no-difference-between-me-and-you" libertine.

Take one look at 18th century London with 10,000 prostitutes top-to-bottom, courtesans to streetwalkers, and tell me that society hasn't always had its share of "liberated" women! The "normal" woman back then succumbed to a lot of peer pressure when she chose a husband and lived a "normal", quiet, meek life. The "normal" woman had to live with her husband taking a mistress and say nothing, as it was common for him to do so and in some cases encouraged, especially when the wife wanted to avoid pregnancy (contraceptives being neither readily available nor Godly)!

Historically, ancient Rome (from which Christianity sprang) was a patriarchy, and most societies since have been patriarchal. There are few surviving female voices from those times to tell us whether they liked their roles in the household; whether they struggled as women today do with their expected roles; whether their husbands left their togas on the floor. There's been debate since 200BC regarding women's independence and authors in all eras have blamed women to some degree for ruining families by taking on male roles, whether it was owning land or money in ancient Rome or having the ability to work outside the home in more recent times. There's nothing new about the debate regarding male and female roles. It's rather telling that despite Mr. Croft's insistence on the vague historical ideal of women as meek and willing participants in the Patriarchal order, a good hard look at history says that the ideal has existed as long as written history, and so have the "recent problems" regarding marriage and family values. I'd much rather hear "either can initiate, as long as they do so with honesty and good intentions". Defined roles are not bad (see my post "Femininity" regarding gender roles), but I think the definitions should be left up to individuals.

(Sunday's Thoughts)
Now that I'm through with the reading I realize: I wanted to get mad at these articles. I fully admit that I went into this Challenge geared up for a full-on "Logic vs. Religion" rant about the various ways in which Biblical dating was both absurd and cheerfully ignorant of real life situations. Despite that initial reaction on my part, the rest of the articles are fairly straightforward and agreeable. Even though I'm still tempted to pick God right out of the equation, the guiding principles - communication, getting to know not only the person but his/her friends, family, etc to better judge compatibility, taking it slow - are all sound concepts to apply to dating in general, Christian or not. And of course, it reminds us not to leave our friends behind in our zeal for finding a mate. (Keeping a healthy social network is another post on its own)

Really, despite Mr. Croft's repeated assurance that Biblical Dating does not include "playing at marriage" and warns against too much intimacy and getting to know someone "too well" before marriage, lest a breakup cause more damage than it really should, he does advocate a lot of getting-to-know-you kinds of discussions. Discussions are GOOD. What he doesn't advocate, clearly, is finding out whether your potential husband leaves his socks all over the house by moving in with him. I guess you should just ask his mother! In all seriousness; I would bet that the most awkward part of marriage is learning to share your space with someone else. Suddenly you have two dressers, the closet is half full of someone else's clothes and there are socks on the living room floor. Old habits are hard to change, and again he gives the advice that to solve potential problems, you must communicate. Nothing wrong with that!

I think that what I am most having a problem with is the idea that women need to subject themselves to some invisible authority who will make all of their important decisions for them. I love the quote "If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it is yours (love it forever). If it doesn't, it never was." And really, that's what women are advised to do in this series of articles - let go of the control.

The Lord is sovereign. If it doesn't work out with a particular guy because he didn't step up, the Lord will cause something else to work out. He knows what is best for each of us, and all of us must learn to trust him — especially about things that are really important to us.

The wording is enough to get under my skin! Even though the meanings are similar, the first quote puts control in the hands of the reader; the second puts it in the hands of God. I guess this is something I have to work through - my own desire for control. But that's another blog entry on its own, and a lot more learning ahead. For now, I'll just say that I have not been forced to submit to my partner but that I do on occasion simply because I love him and respect him. And really, that's what dating should be about - respect for the other person; wanting to find someone who is worthy of that respect and who can not only help you in your own growth, be it spiritual or material, but who can be helped by you. All relationships are a two-way street, and I think a lot of people forget this.

I'm glad these articles reminded me of the work it takes to willingly put your partner first in a relationship, instead of selfishly asking them to put you first. The challenge certainly gave me a lot to think about this weekend!

Summer Challenge

Before I tell you about the Challenge I am taking on, I'd like to give you some background.

I really dislike and distrust Focus on the Family. I have for a while; even during my adolescent years when my father was doing his most intense spiritual searching and taking me to churches along the way, listening to FotF on the radio, and handing me FotF-approved tape sets on relationships, I wasn't sold on their approach. I thought them shallow; trying too hard to appeal to as many people as possible, spewing the same thoughts over and over again in a desperate attempt to brainwash listeners without ever encouraging true thought or growth in faith. And I think I've finally pinpointed why I disliked them so much: They Lie.

An excerpt:

Our young believer listens, and two subtle evils begin to work in his life. Focus On The Family first admonishes our believer to keep listening, because their programs will help heal the damage in his soul. They don't just come out and say it, but the message is clear. If he wants to learn how to be a better Christian, he need look no further. In other words, they set themselves up as the authority on moral living. This little device hooks our young believer. If he rejects what's being broadcast by Focus On The Family, he is rejecting the information God obviously wants him to hear.

He keeps listening, and over time the second evil takes root and does its damage.

Focus On The Family tells our young Christian what good Christians do. They talk about how to love correctly. They talk about how to talk correctly. They talk about how to believe correctly. They talk about all the evil sins our Christian should avoid. But unfortunately, they inadvertently use themselves, their speakers and their leaders, as examples of what good Christians do. They do this by holding up their own interpretations of Scripture as God's will for our young believer's life.

Now, FotF recently sprouted a new website/media offshoot called "Boundless", aimed at single twenty-somethings and young married couples. They're trying their hardest to be the Cool Ministry on the block, which to me is both ridiculous considering their already large following (why conform to our "immoral" society's ideas of 'cool' when you already have 3-5 million listeners?) and scary - I don't want people like my sister and brother-in-law being targeted by an organization that preys on the weak and confused, especially when they're using FACEBOOK as a way to get their message across!

So when I stumbled on the Boundless Summer Challenge through a pair of Christian friends of mine, I wasn't terribly impressed with the whole idea of Boundless, or the Challenge itself - I mean, they're offering an iPad for "the person who completes the entire challenge and writes us the most compelling final essay". (Keep in mind that the only way they know you've completed it is by you following them on Facebook, which gives them access to your wall and your Facebook Notes, in which you are expected to keep a daily journal of the "tasks" they set). Maybe it's just me, but the idea of offering any prize at all for a challenge which is supposed to be about immaterial, spiritual growth seems a little like... what's the word I'm looking for?... desperation? Hypocrisy? Reeking of underhandedness - ah, duplicity!

Still, the idea of participating grew on me despite the threat of winning an iPad. For a start, I noticed that nowhere in the selling points for the challenge does it mention that it's Christian-only or even that it's directed at any given God or Faith. In fact it's not until the first Task appeared today that the word "Christ-followers" (not Christians!) was written in relation to the Challenge. Well, I'm a follower of Christ, if you translate that to mean "I follow the Golden Rule!". And since "The primary benefit in this Challenge is growth in godliness and the enjoyment of fellowship.", I'm going to translate "godliness" as "cleanliness" (no, not really, but I thought that'd get a laugh), that is, enlightenment. I'm going to use this challenge for growth toward Nirvana and the enjoyment of the fellowship of humanity.

So! While I'm not interested in using the Boundless Summer Challenge as a way to improve my relationship with Christ, I'm going to follow along anyway. The first task is a 3-part: Register on Facebook, pray, and ask people to join. I'm not interested in the iPad, so I feel no need to register with these people and allow them access to the most private parts of my public life (Because I do actually have privacy settings enabled; I'm not sharing my information with the entire world!). I consider this blog entry my official, formal registration for the Boundless Summer Challenge. "Praying" (or at least meditating) I will do. If I come up with any interesting thoughts I'll share them later today. Finally, asking: Consider this my invitation for you to join me on my 31-day journey through faith and spirituality. Regardless of your faith (or lack thereof), you are welcome to use this challenge to improve your relationships with people, study whatever religious texts you feel will help you in your journey, and meditate daily on how to live a better life (whatever "better" means to you is ok). If you'd like support, a dialogue, or just want me to know that you're participating you are welcome to leave a comment with a link to whichever website, profile, or blog you'll be updating for the next month. The challenge starts today, but you can join any time during the month (unless you're joining with them on Facebook; they set the deadline at Monday, July 12). Here's to a month of spiritual growth!

Oh, and for the friends who are doing this, especially N: I am going to pray not that you don't condemn yourself if the new baby prevents you from completing these tasks, but that you never feel or are ashamed of the "condemnation" of FotF and its members; that you remain innocent of the greed and anger that cloud its work and that your faith and companionship with your husband grows stronger not because of a few days spent in contemplation but because of a life well-lived with honor, compassion, and grace.

I leave you with this:

"How much better it would be if we could just remember that our Basic Assumptions are just that: assumptions. We do not know for a fact that anything is true because we are humans, and our minds are interpretive machines. We may believe something with all our hearts and still be wrong. We might fight and die, or even kill, for our interpretation of truth, but it won't make it any more true. All we can do is learn as much as we can and then remove everything that cannot be true and start seeing what is left. It'll never be a perfect truth, but at least it won't be a self-created one based on our personal or our group's own Basic Assumptions."

Agitation

Today, we finally got our new washer and dryer. It was supposed to come last week, but with all the snow and the city's refusal to plow our "tertiary" (read: unimportant, unless you're the people living on it) road, the delivery truck refused to come up the hill and deliver our stuff. They managed this refusal from the bottom of the hill. I was steamed, let me tell you... but today the snow held off well enough for them to haul the two big boxes in, cursing at the snow and the large basement step, and set things up. We had to do some last-minute running to get everything in position but now our first load is in and we're happily saving money with a high-efficiency, agitator-less washer.

I've been excited for the washer all week the way a kid is excited for a new toy. For one thing, this means we don't have to drive across the city to use grandma's 70's-era appliances, which have ruined at least 2 of my sweaters by mysteriously shrinking them and take forever to dry heavy loads because the dryer overheats and has a long cooldown cycle. For us, the washer/dryer in the house is a convenience. We could have kept using the ones available at grandma's, but we managed to afford a set of our own. And it got me thinking (what doesn't, these days?).

First thought: poverty. Yeah, yeah. I'm wearing that welcome mat thin. It struck me full-force today just how badly we treat the poor, though... and how even a simple thing like doing laundry can hurt. See, we've been in the position before (when we moved down here, in fact) of having to visit a laundromat and PAY to do our laundry. One huge basket and $10 in quarters later, half my jeans were still damp and we'd run out of money. Keep in mind we weren't even paying for detergent - we brought our own. What do the poor do? They certainly aren't getting much help as far as washing clothes is concerned. I wonder as I look over my own struggles what the people living so far below my income level can possibly do about laundromat fees. Even people with washers in their apartment complex have to pay - often a couple of dollars per washer. How do the poor manage to pay? At college the washers started at $1.10 my freshman year, and by my senior year were up to $1.50. Those who could go home on weekends never used the dorm washers.

Which brings me to kids washing clothes. A good number of people I knew at college didn't know how to separate light and dark clothing, let alone read tags, wash red shirts alone to remove excess dye, or not shrink things in the dryer. Many of the students at my college were there on scholarships; some though had no excuse for not knowing how to do laundry, other than the fact that no one taught them. I don't know about other households, but I was taught how to do the laundry and so were my sisters. But it seems that a lot of kids are missing out on this essential part of life, and it makes me worry. Parents seem to put a lot more emphasis on good grades and lots of sports practice than on good life skills these days.

It also makes for an interesting comparison to autistic kids, many of whose parents can only wish that their child will be able to do his own laundry one day. I see a lot of treatment plans for kids on the spectrum that call for self-help skills like making sandwiches and folding clothes - stuff most of us take for granted. It's interesting that while the rest of us are busy worrying about whether our children will be doctors or lawyers, the parents of autistic kids have it right and are worrying about whether their child will be able to make chicken nuggets without burning the house down. I guess having a kid with a developmental delay really makes you re-think your priorities.

The above is not meant to downplay the frustration that comes with raising kids, especially autistic kids. Parents with kids on the spectrum often do want to be able to dream normal dreams for their children. They want to be able to blithely mention that Timmy's growing up to be really good at math, and might become an engineer, or that Susie won an award for her high school speech competition. For most, autism takes away the opportunity to dream, and replaces it with a daily struggle to complete the most mundane tasks. I've worked with 11 year-old kids still in diapers, with first-graders who couldn't identify the letters of the alphabet. It's not easy to teach those kids how to tie their shoes, let alone read the instructions on a box of macaroni and cheese, follow them properly, feed themselves and clean up after eating. To get a deeply autistic child to that point would be a lifetime effort in many cases.

[offtopic]
And speaking of autism: I've been reading a news follow-up on that mother who killed her son in NY earlier this year. To have an 8 year old who can't even tell you he's hungry, let alone that he loves you... what a distressing idea. But it seems to me she was going about things the wrong way. The article quotes friends who describe her as a woman on a crusade - one even goes so far as to suggest that her "devotion" to finding a cure for her son was itself something twisted by her own motivations: "[one friend] believes her obsession was ''a control issue, the feeling that she would be the one to save that child, almost a salvation quest.''" They mention that for all the money she had, she didn't have a secondary caregiver (nanny, babysitter, behavioral therapist). Hmmmm.

I get the impression that this woman really was somewhat insane. Whether she ended up that way or started that way we'll probably never know. She certainly could have used help with her child, but for some reason reconsidered sending him to specialized schools or finding a state which would provide good wraparound care. She spared no expense on strange, cutting-edge treatments but refused to let the child out of her own hands. She seemed so desperate for help... but only if she was the one to give it. And I wonder: are the overbearing/underbearing parents I so often see with kids on the spectrum simply showing normal human behaviors on high alert due to their child's diagnosis, or is a parent with one of those two polar personalities showing gene expressions which in a child may become autism? It certainly seems that some parents show obsessive or otherwise autistic behaviors themselves (but have no diagnosis), but no one has yet studied personality traits of parents in relation to their child's diagnosis, and I doubt it'll happen soon - likely it would be seen as adding insult to injury to claim that our personalities affect our child's abilities.
[/offtopic]

Well, the washer's caused the basement drain to back up and spill rich, black silt all over the basement floor (third time this year the drain's done that... first two times were due to sudden thaws after long cold snaps). Guess it's time to call a plumber. Still, I'll take a backed-up drain over a laundromat any day. The basement is warm, the washer works beautifully (and quietly!), and sooner or later the snow will melt and give me an excuse to garden while the laundry does its thing. I already have onions and peas and lettuce and mint sprouting. Onward, spring!

So I've Been Thinking...

...and if you know me, thinking is never a short-term process.

(halted while I go do the dishes and further ferment these thoughts). On a related note: I don't mind doing dishes - the reason I put them off till Midnight on a work night (given that I called off work this evening because of a sore throat and slept half the day, I'm not quite tired yet anyway!) is because I hate the back aches that come from slouching over our not-quite-tall-enough sink. Sometimes being tall sucks.

Right, but back to the thinking. I've been reading more than I had before Christmas, given that it's midwinter and I've been calling off sick a lot (yet another issue that needs to be addressed, but will probably be put off till I get my taxes done and see if I'm getting anything back to pay the doctor), and that I got as a Christmas present a wonderful, magical gift card to Half-Price Books, which makes good on its name's promise with a great variety of fun stuff.

So in the last few weeks I've consumed a book on school bullying, a bestselling journalist's exploration of the working-class life, and a selection of essays by New York Times journalists about the class divide in modern America. (I link to Amazon, because it has pictures and reviews. These should be available in your local library system if you'd like to find them for yourself). I'm now starting another poverty-related book: The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shippler.

Aside from the bullying book, which I picked up because I'm one of the survivors of school bullying, these books are variations on a theme which has starred heavily in my experiences, especially since I started my current job. The issues of class and income in our country are ones I have long been aware of in some form or another; they influenced how I was raised and how I currently live. And sometimes, they make me feel really uncomfortable, depressed, or just plain mad.

Poverty is a tricky thing to define but in this country there is little argument that poverty describes a pretty big group. Dictionaries say things like "Lack of the means of providing material needs or comforts" (American Heritage), "Want or scarcity of means of subsistence" (Webster's International, 2nd ed). I like the third definition: "The state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions." (Webster's Collegiate). Poverty in this country holds that connotation - of someone who can't afford what the "rest of us" desire. A lot of the "poor" that I know are quite happy where they are, including my father who despite occasional sighs over the availability of funds to pay the gov't their due (in land taxes and the like) seems rather content to chase turkeys around the yard and dig up potatoes with his girlfriend. Is he "poor"? Yes. Is he lacking in love, housing, or food? No!

I have no doubt I'll never be rich in the traditional sense of the word. I'm too far in debt; even if I got a better job tomorrow, worked my way up to a decent middle-manager position with great benefits, won enough on a lotto ticket to pay off my debts and continued to save for the rest of my life, I wouldn't be rich. And so I fall firmly into the lower class at the moment, with vague hopes of becoming lower-middle and a homeowner in some far-distant future. I figure I'll be rich in other ways, with laughter and friends and loving family and a great-looking veggie garden. But even if I make all my homesteading dreams come true, I'll still be "Poor", which strikes me as very odd, and a very undesirable label. And from this vantage point, the books I'm reading ring very, very true, and bring up a lot of food for thought about why I'm so bothered by poverty and class-ism.

The books say things like this:

"Breaking away and moving a comfortable distance from poverty seems to require a perfect lineup of favorable conditions. A set of skills, a good starting wage, and a job with the likelihood of promotion are prerequisites. But so are clarity of purpose, courageous self-esteem, a lack of substantial debt, the freedom from illness or addiction, a functional family, a network of upstanding friends, and the right help from private or governmental agencies. Any gap in that array is an entry point for trouble, because being poor means being unprotected... With no cushion of money, no training in the ways of the wider world, and too little defense against the threats and temptations of decaying communities, a poor man or woman gets sacked again and again - buffeted and bruised and defeated. When an exception breaks this cycle of failure, it is called the fulfillment of the American Dream." (The American Myth, as the author later calls it).
The Working Poor: Invisible in America. Shippler, David K. (New York: Vintage, 2005), p5.

After some personal observations this week that brought reality sharply home on the heels of having read all this scholarly discourse, I wondered what we can do (and more specifically what I can do) to alleviate the problems we're seeing. If there are so many widely-read books out there about poverty and class issues, why are there so few widely-promoted organizations devoted to fixing them? If so many people struggle in poverty every day, why aren't more of them working -together- to ease the struggle? And a question for the politicians: if the struggle with money is such a serious problem that the President is now admitting that the so-called middle class in America has been struggling since before the recession, why is consideration of this growing class of between-the-cracks Americans not higher on the list of things to look at when passing legislation?

Readers of this blog know me as a huge proponent of education - something that would alleviate the skill deficits of many working poor, would improve self-esteem and (hopefully) add purpose to lives, and might even improve friend networks as students (both kids and adults) meet teachers and workers who would support them instead of dragging them down. However, teaching a person won't guarantee them a job (that's the economy's problem). It won't provide the help they need from the gov't or private charities (volunteering is a good option, but not the only one!), and it won't set a better starting wage or give the option of advancement. And for the middle class, it's hard to say that education would have helped them avoid low-interest variable rate mortgages, overspending on brand-name "necessities" and chasing that terrible cultural belief that You are defined by Your Stuff. Education may teach you how to pursue a better life, but it won't guarantee you'll get there or even that you'll be immune to people who prey on insecurity to sell goods. A lot of highly-educated families are now paying the price of keeping up with the Joneses.

Then there's the question of whether it's even possible to eradicate poverty and class, and if so, whether it's a desirable option. Poverty provides our economy with cheap unskilled labor, which in return provides the consumer with cheap goods and services, which creates an upward cycle of saving and spending for both company and individual. The only ones who fail to benefit in this upward cycle are the working poor who eventually disappear into the shadows of their employers' skyscrapers. If they did benefit, eventually someone else would have to replace them at the bottom. We can't pay everyone in our society $14/hr (what a study in Nickel and Dimed quotes as a "living wage"). If we did (and if companies actually dealt with it and didn't immediately make the problem worse by outsourcing their factories to China and thus removing the jobs entirely from our market), the prices of goods and services would rise immensely to make up for the new "wealth" pouring into the hands of the poor, as well as the increased cost burden on business... and we'd be back to square 1, only with inflation to boot. In economic terms, in order to keep capitalism afloat, someone somewhere has to lose.

Some people go willingly into this sacrifice. They don't mind the long hours, the tedious and often body-breaking labor, the low pay. They have other loves - stargazing, their kids, their tiny gardens. Others hate it but have no escape and still others willingly try their best to break free only to be beaten back down. But the ones who choose to live a quiet, frugal lifestyle are never thanked; the ones who attempt and fail to rise are rarely comforted. I've always wondered why the mantra that "hard work will get you somewhere" is so rarely confronted and so often upheld as the absolute Truth in this place where hard work is as likely to turn around and bite you as it is to lift you into the executive's Comfy Chair. David Shippler provided some food for thought on this one, as well:

"...the American Myth also provides a means of laying blame. In the Puritan legacy, hard work is not merely practical but also moral; its absence suggests an ethical lapse. A harsh logic dictates a hard judgment: If a person's diligent work leads to prosperity, if work is a moral virtue, and if anyone in the society can attain prosperity through work, then the failure to do so is a fall from righteousness."

I've seen that attitude at work; it prevails in comments online when I or someone else offers the information that they can't afford this or that, it shows itself when a co-worker sheepishly admits they shop at a thrift store and then hastens to add that it's only for play clothes for the kids - as if wanting to save money is the same as not having any to spend.

Then again there's the other side, the anarcho-socialist railing against The Man that riles up the traditionalists and at first glance makes sense to a lot of disillusioned youth - that poverty is not anyone's fault but that the poor are victims: of corporations, the government, the rich and all their bad influences. I don't like that reasoning, either. It excuses the poor for their bad decisions because most (but not all) decisions can be traced to a lack of options or a lack of education - and therefore it is the system's fault that people end up poor, drug-addicted and in gangs and it's the system's responsibility to get them out. A lot of people, especially a lot of borderline-poor people, use this as an excuse for why they do the things they do.

And I feel like if these attitudes don't change - if people continue to think that hard work is all that's separating a single mom on welfare from the suburbanite couple the next neighborhood over, or conversely that the suburbanites are somehow repressing the poor by supporting sweatshop labor to make their angora sweaters, we'll get nowhere in the discussion of how to alleviate poverty. And I do want to alleviate it. I think a lot of the reason I'm bothered by poverty is that I've seen the higher levels of it - places where my parents lived for a long time, where the term "paycheck to paycheck" doesn't just describe your work schedule but your life schedule - waiting for the money that barely covers the bills, worrying about missing a day or the car breaking down or the school taxes, scared of your dependence on things going just right, unable to gain security on your own and yet too far above the poverty line (by $10 or by $1000) to get help. That kind of balancing act, the fact that someone who is making enough to "get by" isn't really secure or happy at all, is what bothers me - that, and the fact that if you're in this group, you don't talk about it. It's a silent struggle, and admitting it is an exercise in shame, because of the poverty stigma and the worry that you really aren't good enough, after all.

Then there's abject poverty, which is in a class all its own. While the moderately poor and lower-middle classes have to worry every week about whether the next paycheck will be enough to keep a roof over their heads, the abject poor are worried about whether they can stay with their mothers or sisters much longer. They have the longest climb to food security, their own space to live, and for many of them, a regular job. They are the least educated and the most desperate, and they are the ones I most want to help, even though I'm still trying to help myself get steady. I feel like I'm part of a shipwreck, clinging to a board while the lifeboats sail away, and still trying to dive back into the water to pull more people up, even though it may cost me the board and make rescue that much more difficult. Having lifeboats help would be better still, but lifeboats are organizations of people, and they're not all thrilled about the risk of tipping the boat - they may not save someone unless the water is shallow or rescue is already imminent.

In reality, poverty is not an extreme of laziness or repression. It's a sliding scale between personal choices and poor support systems, and it will take a combination of societal help and personal responsibility (there's that big bad R word again!) to dig most people out of abject poverty. I want to be part of that societal safety net. I try to help myself first (personal responsibility!), because saying "no" can be the difference between sinking under the combined weight of hangers-on, and keeping a few afloat. I make sure the rent is paid before I give to charities; I make sure we have enough to eat before I offer food to the neighbors. But I'm also trying to lead by example. I want people to see that even though I am barely keeping my head above water, I can still hold out my hand. I want others to think about doing the same. I think that selfishness is a terrible sin when so many people in the worst circumstances can find it in themselves to be selfless. I think that community safety nets in the form of shared gardens, resource centers, and mentoring can really improve quality of life, even if they don't improve income levels, and I think that connecting someone to the health of their community in such a vital way as growing food together, cleaning up the neighborhood, or running programs for the kids is a measure of security, a hedge against dropping out and letting go.

After a lot of thought on this issue, I think that I'd really love to spend more of my time working on the problems of poverty - getting people away from their friends' tiny apartments and into a place where they can afford to take a day off work, fix a car, buy furniture, take night classes... even if we can't "solve" the poverty problem, I think it's our duty as human beings to help each other find security: food security, housing security, safety in their own homes and the knowledge that their kids aren't going to turn to drugs as the "only way" to reach their dreams of wealth. Poverty may always need to exist to provide room for wealth, but it shouldn't have to mean starvation in one of the most prosperous countries in the world. Poverty should be stability. It should be the knowledge that you are still important in the system and the gratitude of those who rely on your labor. It should be a chance to improve yourself, but the security of knowing that even if you spend the rest of your life where you are, you'll never go hungry.

More thoughts on Education.

Someone on Facebook posted a link to yet another news article detailing the excruciating battle between Christian Values and Scientific Learning that is taking place in school science classrooms. Expressing frustration with the fact that yet another class of children is going to be put through Creationism as a theory while ignoring all the other possible creation myths out there. She claims that she's going to put her kids in private school and supplement their education at home to work around this. I said "Homeschool, duh!".

Someone else claims that public school will be just fine for their kid, with parental involvement tacked on the side after the public school day to make sure they actually learn something. That got me thinking, because that's what my father tried to do with us for years.

The problem with putting very bright, home-educated children into an environment like most public schools is that they are incredibly likely to suffer for it at the hands of both teachers (who are statistically the underachievers of their own past high school classes - what does it say that your kid's teacher probably has a lower SAT score than he will?) and kids (who are either jealous or distrustful of a child who knows so much more than they do and prefers learning over making fart jokes). In some ways, having a parent who is active in your academic life either in or out of the classroom is a dividing factor, especially in days when many children are raised by the TV. Even if they claim happiness with this method, there can be no doubt that many of them desire more attention from the two most important people in their life, and realize that in some way when they react poorly to students who show signs of a strong parental bond.

I know - I was one of those kids. By high school, the system had crushed my love of education pretty badly, and I consider myself one of the lucky ones. The educational system is not only failing our underachieving youth; it's failing the overachievers.

With the exception of a few star pupils who are reading so far above grade level that their parents enroll them in college successfully at 10 years old (and make the national news doing it), most "gifted" kids never find the recognition and challenges they desire in public school. I know I was reading at an 8th grade level (coincidentally, the level that most newspapers write at, and the level at which most kids stop learning) when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. I only know this because my parents bothered telling me. No one at the school, that I am aware of(although this could be due to a fuzzy memory - in those years I was reading so much that I lived half my day in a fantasy world of one sort or another), ever told me that I was smarter than the rest of the class. I wasn't placed in any advanced classes, given harder material, differentiated at all from the others. One of my clearest memories of fourth grade is reading Hatchet in reading circle and being so frustrated with the pace that others were reading at that I wanted to blurt out every word they stumbled on, which was most of them. The teacher told us to follow along, but I couldn't make myself read that slowly, so I half-listened to parts I had read 10 minutes ago being sounded out by the slow readers while I flipped ahead. Inevitably I'd be caught and chastised for reading ahead, as the teacher would skip around the circle instead of following an order, presumably to 'catch' poor students who would otherwise attempt to predict their reading passage and pre-read it several times instead of listening to the story. She never did seem to catch the poor readers (they were right in front of her, stumbling over words like 'assumption' and 'porcupine').

It got worse from there, but after my parents split and I stopped getting so many impromptu engineering lessons from dad, my head start faltered and I ended up in the top percentile of my class instead of high above it. I have no doubt that with the right combination of teacher support, parental challenges and financial aid I could have gone to college a few years early, but no one in the educational system wanted to realize that, and my bet is that they didn't like the thought of pulling their student funding until I had been thoroughly wrung dry by the system and they could graduate me "on time". Consider this: The school districts spent an average of $7000 per pupil to educate us in the '99-00 school year ^[1]. Considering that lovely sum, why would a school remove a student (and therefore, the student's $7k or more in funding) for early placement in a higher grade when they can continue sucking money out of taxpayers and government?

Teachers really don't help; students seem to despise peers who achieve better than they do. I had friends, but mostly I had competition. By fourth grade it was clear that some of use were "smarter" than the others, and our small group competed within itself for the honor of highest grades and most teacher praise. I remember being especially envious of one boy whose father had helped him with a civil war project. Mine was a clay figure of Abraham Lincoln holding a tiny, painstakingly copied Gettysburg Address in his little clay hands. Mom couldn't find modeling clay so it was the cheap Crayola clay, and it fell apart quickly. The boy (who I also had a crush on) had a plywood board painted as a battlefield, complete with plastic hills and two opposing armies of blue and grey toy soldiers. It was a masterpiece of elementary school projects and I hated him for it. But back to the point - the other kids hated all of us "smart" kids. So we tried our best to stay quiet and not achieve too much, lest we be tormented mercilessly (I bet those kids didn't even know how to SAY merciless at that point!) by the peers who were either jealous of our success or hurt by it.

In a school situation like that it's not hard to see why I'd prefer my children, if I have them, to be homeschooled. I know that even if I adopt, my kids are not going to fit in with the educational system by the time I'm done with them, and I don't want them to. The schools have failed us, and I want them to know this. I don't blame parents who want to send their kids to a better school because they don't think they can homeschool a child. Not everyone is a teacher, and not everyone has the time and energy to play teacher to a bright and curious child. However, I don't think we should be giving bad schools any more support than is legally necessary (keep payin' your taxes, folks), and in fact I think we should protest every board meeting that goes by without improving the situation in our schools... if more of our children were getting a proper education, and not just shoved into boxlike rooms and told to behave for 6 hours a day, I think a lot of our other "problems" would start to fix themselves... but that's another post

1. Gross, Martin L. Conspiracy of Ignorance, The. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. Back to post

Word Play (and procrastination)

I should be doing my homework but I've been doing a lot of reading lately (me? read?!) and I wanted to share a few of the thoughts it provoked. As a reader and writer I really enjoy language - puns, playing on the meanings of words, homophones and homonyms and everything else. I'm no English major but I know enough to get by in polite society, or so I like to think.

As a natural offshoot of reading, writing, and playing with words, sometimes I come up with questions - What is the connection (or separation) between condemn and condone? I know their definitions, but 'con' as a prefix didn't quite make sense to me in those words. So what do 'demn' and 'done' mean and how does that change 'con'? (demn is from damnare, Latin: to sentence; done is from donare, also Latin, to donate.) Stuff like this runs through my head in the shower and if I remember later I go look it up with Mirriam-Webster and friends at Dictionary.com.

That train of thought - how easy it is to pull out the electronic dictionary on a whim - sparked some additional insight on teaching. Teachers today many times run into kids who either claim that school is useless for them or that they 'already know it all'. In many cases neither of these claims is true, but it is getting much easier to "know it all", with a little help from our friend Google. I would consider myself an active learner; I seek to engage myself in learning experiences on a daily basis and when I don't get them from a classroom I try to make other connections. A few years ago I probably would have had to find someone nearby to answer any questions I had about etymology, etc unless I had the full (and very expensive) version of Webster's Unabridged sitting around the house. Most people don't even HAVE a dictionary these days, or so it seems - This article tells a touching but probably all too common tale of third graders who were completely unfamiliar with dictionaries and who did not own them at home. And yet I can open a new tab and type the right combination of key words (which might take a few tries) into Google and get you that very article without so much as needing to know it existed, let alone having to look up where it was published, dates, or know how to scan a newspaper database. Information is literally a few keystrokes away.

This kind of open learning environment is one I love, but I think for many people, the knowledge that the information is there is not akin to being curious or able to access it. Someone can now claim to be a know-it-all, and as long as they're sitting at a computer connected to the internet they can try to prove it with virtually no physical, social, or mental work required. They don't even have to read what they're telling you - "key words" do the work for them (although it's always a good idea to pre-read or skim what you plan to present as proof, as many researchers will tell you). The skills to utilize that kind of open information setting are what we should be (and in some cases are) teaching in schools, but for a student who has seen what Google and Wikipedia do for his/her older sister's history report and his best friend's knowledge of how to "get chicks" (even though at 12 he's never practiced) it's probably already too late to start teaching good research skills, how to find reliable sources, and all the other practical parts of learning that no amount of reading Howstuffworks.com will ever give you.

I think in some respects the seemingly endless fountain of information available on the internet is liberating. It gets me out of the classrooms that I associate with powerpoint lectures and well-meaning teachers and into a realm of connections (links, key word searches, images, and video) which I can make or leave for later as I choose. I say "make" because for me reading the article on combustion engines will teach me something, but when I choose to read the connecting articles - on different fuels, maybe, or on rotary engines, how engines are built, or common engine problems, I am not just clicking links in the web, I am making more connections. I am adding more to that file folder in my brain that's now labeled "mechanics" so that later when I read something about fuel efficiency I can connect further. School sometimes fails to to this, but the tactics I learned in school to deal with forming and arranging connections have been invaluable to me as a denizen of the internets.

I love learning like this and I think many others do as well... but I worry about how this kind of learning experience is leaving some people behind (those without 24/7 connectivity or computer experience are foremost, along with those who are already lacking in the background cultural knowledge necessary to 'get' the jokes, arguments, and other things that show up in academia) and separating the classroom and the teacher from their preconceived purposes. This is not to say that the intended purpose of an educator and an education is today what it should be or has been. It is however a growing concern that students rarely see the use or legitimate claims of classroom knowledge in a world where the teacher often seems out of touch with rapidly growing technology and the administration even more so.

What is the solution to our information issues? Handing students the basic tools to explore their world and then letting go has been a wonderful teaching method in the past but there is such thing as information overload - and the internet in all its glory is certainly capable of causing it. It is also capable of sparking interest in "boring" subject matter, making things easily accessible for students of any age... and misleading us.

What is the role of the teacher in learning, if the student does not see a need for guidance in their search for information? Where and how do we set boundaries on what is to be taught, if boundaries are to be set? We can't enforce boundaries on learning if the student is determined enough to learn outside the classroom (which is actually something I would love to see happening!). And how do we excite the students who have decided that even with the knowledge of the world at their fingertips, they would rather not explore? What will bring them into the circle of lifelong learners? It's a very complicated issue... and Google doesn't have the answer! :(