Leaving Every Child Behind

He is exceptionally smart. He’s funny, and popular, and he can rebuild an engine in a matter of hours. He plays golf, and won contests every year of high school for the furniture he built in his wood shop class.

It’s a shame he will never graduate from high school.

HE is one of the many victims of a bill designed, ostensibly, to improve education. Naming a law No Child Left Behind implies the very best of intentions. Of course we should not leave children behind. All children are created equal, and every child deserves the opportunity for a quality education. The problem is not in these noble concepts themselves; the problem is with their interpretation. The intent has been lost in the implementation.

Equality is a matter of value, not characteristic. As anyone who has read A Wrinkle in Time can tell you, LIKE and EQUAL are not the same. All children are created equally valuable, with equal rights and responsibilities. Therein lies the fundamental problem with NCLB – it assumes all children have to same interest’s the same abilities, and the same needs. Fortunately, not all children are alike, but by ignoring that basic fact the proponents of NCLB are doing an inexcusable disservice to the very children they intend to protect, along with thousands of teachers, administrators, and parents who have to somehow find a way to push children through an educational system that has suddenly become intractable, where children who fail to fit the mold are inexorably and tragically left behind.

All children are valuable, and all children deserve an education. By destroying the ability of educators to respond to the inherent differences in children, NCLB is slowly denying more and more children that right.

He could have told you that.

Gone

After the tears are dry
and the calm
the breath
return

After the storm
emotions held in check
smiles and promises
equal parts
hesitation
and anticipation

After the goodbye


This death
with love
unfailing
gives birth to beauty
unspeakable.

Happy.

It's odd. Tonight I had a house full of people. I can remember a time in my life when that idea would have filled me with an unholy terror, and the reality was unthinkable. I remember a time when I would have been crazed thinking about how they must be judging my house, and my things, and me. I remember a time when I would never have worn the tank top and cargo pants I wore tonight, and when I would have had a fit over the fact that I did not have time to do my hair, or that I did not have makeup on to my satisfaction. I remember a time when not getting the frosting made for my cake would have been sufficient to send me into a dark depression that would have lasted for days and ruined the party I had been so excited about, and then I would have spent weeks in self-flagellation over not throwing the perfect party AND being so upset about it. Flagellation for flagellating.

None of those things happened.

The party wasn't perfect. My hair wasn't done, and when the first guest showed up it wasn't even dry. Several major items on the "to do before the party" list didn't get done. There was no frosting on the cake.

But there was no stress. I had fun. I wasn't awkward or uncomfortable. There is no dark depression, and the self-flagellation seems to be on permanent hold.

I think I am happy.

Amazing.

No depth whatsoever.

I am turning 31 tomorrow - right now I should be writing a post reflecting on the past year, what i have learned, etc, etc, etc. I will, I promise. But not now.

tomorrow night everyone I know is coming over for a birthday party, and at the moment my house is a mess, the grass needs to be mowed, and I haven't made the cake yet. Yet here I sit, watching the finale of So You Think You Can Dance, and not stressing out about it. As long as the drinks get cold, everything else will fall into place, right?

Melpomene and Thalia, take me away.

The ancient Greeks imagined a group of goddesses, the muses, whose realm was art -- they inspired the artist, the composer, the poet, and the writer. Artists throughout history have spoken of the feeling that their art was speaking through them, as if an outside force used their body, or words, or voice to birth something beyond the realm of average humdrum existence.

Art can take us beyond ourselves, or make us think in ways we never imagined, or move us to change ourselves. It holds the power to make us angry, or unspeakably sad, or beyond joyful.

Art is a hard, demanding taskmaster. There is no mercy when one is in the grasp of the muses. When the urge to create arises, everything else falls away – dirty dishes are forgotten, the television is turned off, and the creative pours forth.

I understand the Greeks a little more today. I understand the possession, and the obsession, that comes inextricable with inspiration. I understand, just a little, Michelangelo beholding a piece of marble and seeing within the image of David or the Pieta. I understand, a tiny bit, the passion that created Starry Night and Handel’s Messiah.

My mother arrives in town tomorrow to see my new house and celebrate my birthday. My house is in shambles from the past few days’ unpacking efforts, the trash is full, and the sink is overflowing. And yet, I sit here and write, because I must. The muses have taken possession of my soul, and until they release me, I must obey.

I am beyond all men most blessed.

I'm a big blockhead

As in, writer's block.

I have been pondering it for a while, and desperation has finally driven me to it.

I am writing a one-act play.

I've been trying most of the summer to pick a play for this year's competition, and I have not yet found anything I like. So, as I was mulling my failure as a play-finder in the shower earlier this week, an idea came to me, fully formed, and (hopefully) reasonably appealing and profound. Now I just have to get it on paper...or computer, as the case may be.

I'm nuts.

I'm not the only nerd in the family.

That's my nephew. Dressed as Harry Potter for an event celebrating the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And the chick holding him---that's my sister, the one who drew the scar and tied the glasses on. Clearly the nerdiness is a familial trait. The kid has no chance. Good thing he's cute.

Can't stop the beat!

I'm a nerd. Such a nerd, in fact, that I have ordered a vanity license plate that says NERD GRL and I will drive it around with pride. I'm a science teacher who does theatre and records Star Trek: The Next Generation every day. I'm the nerd other nerds are ashamed of.

Nothing brings out the nerd in me quite like a good show tune.

Yesterday my friend Kelly and I went out to lunch and to see Hairspray. I've always been a fan of the original movie, so I was a little hesitant about the new one. There was no need for my hesitation -- the movie was incredible. I was enthralled the whole time, the music was amazing, and as soon as I came home I bought the soundtrack from iTunes. There are at least three songs I will begin learning immediately, on the off chance I have some opportunity to perform them someday. It makes me sad that I will never get to play Motormouth Maybelle, since she has one of the best songs in musical history. In my humble opinion, of course.

The best part of the day, though, wasn't the movie -- it was the company. Kelly and I hardly get to see each other, thanks to my insane schedule, so it was awesome to have several uninterrupted hours together. I may be a nerd, but I am very thankful for my friends who are infinitely cooler than me.

One is silver and the other gold.

When I met her, I had been 18 for about 24 hours. It surprises me that I don't remember the precise moment of our introduction, but in my defense, that day had been crazy; last minute packing, a two hour drive, hours waiting in a registration line, my parents fighting while I cried, and hauling boxes and suitcases into a tiny room, wondering where on earth I was going to fit the contents of those boxes.

She had curly hair halfway down her back, and luminous skin, crooked teeth, and parents who seemed so much nicer than mine. She taped pictures of a boy doing tricks on a bike on the wall, and she had a mickey mouse bedspread and posters. She already knew the other two girls sharing our room (yes, four girls in a room) and she had a brother who already had a year of college under his belt. I envied her confidence. She did not have a lot of stuff, and, as I would learn later, not a lot of money either, but that never seemed to be an impediment.

It was a hard year. I was not an easy person to love, and we were all so young, trying desperately to figure out who we were and where we fit. Somehow we all managed to survive, and we had lots of fun along the way, along with some moments that were not so much fun.

It is an odd practice, this matching of people at random to live together for so long.

There have been ten other roommates since that day. Nine of those ten have vanished into history. It is remarkable that of all the women who have shared my space, she has persisted in my life.

Last night I sat in my living room, amazed at how she has not changed. I watched her daughter climb in the playland at Chik-Fil-A, smiling and waving to us below, and I held her daughter's little hand in line for ice cream. I looked at photographs of her beautiful son who graced this world for only a few hours, his tiny body cradled in her arms, fighting for life. I sat in her van and listened to her talk about her grief, and how much she wants her son's short life, and her own pain, to mean something. We talked about old times, and the people we both knew, and the unresolved conflicts that had happened so long ago. We healed old hurts, and in the end, nothing mattered but the love that still holds strong between us, twelve years after that day we met.

There is a Girl Scout song whose lyrics tell us to Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold. The song is right. This woman, randomly chosen to share my room, who became so much a part of my life, is truly gold.

I'm not dead, I promise

Just haven't been feeling bloggy lately. I'll return sometime soon, I promise.

The real enemy

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about misogyny, and feminism, and beauty, and fashion, and fat. Not necessarily in that order. I have a lot of thoughts. This may be a series.

I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly. Kind of ironic, considering I watch very little recent TV (my DVR is full of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Saved by the Bell) and rarely go to movies, but for some reason I am fascinated by it and read every issue cover to cover.

I was reading the most recent issue yesterday when something caught my attention. There was story about a movie where women were running in heels and the actor being interviewed made a comment about how hard it was for the women to keep up with the men. My thought – why should they have to?

Look at any category of fashion, and you will very quickly realize that fashion is much, much harder on women than men, and that women are much more objectified than men by clothing. Consider formal wear. Men wear suits or tuxedos. They are covered head to toe, and their shoes are comfortable. Women wear skimpy dresses that by design impede movement, not to mention breathing, and shoes that are not only uncomfortable, they are difficult to walk in (let alone run) and can actually do damage to the wearer’s feet over time.

Or consider swimwear. Men’s swimsuits are usually baggy shorts that come to the knee. Women’s swimsuits, even modest ones, are ridiculously tight and show the wearer’s entire body, with nothing left to the imagination except perhaps nipple color. Women’s swimwear is clearly not designed for swimming, it is designed to show off bodies, once again objectifying women.

Even casual clothes betray the inequity – men’s shorts are very rarely shorter than an inch or two above the knee and are normally baggy, women’s shorts run the gamut from just below the butt to knee length, but even the knee length ones are clingy.

It would be easy to blame the fashion industry, but they aren’t the real culprits. It is an industry, and like all industries, it follows the money. Women’s clothes are what they are because women keep buying them, and criticizing anyone who doesn’t follow the rules. Which brings me to my central thesis.

The central problem facing women is not men anymore. At some points in our history, men were the issue. It was men who repressed women. But now women are repressing themselves. We burned our bras and replaced them with studded bustiers, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

The Hypocrite Within

For as long as I can remember, self-hatred has been a part of my life.

I can remember, as a child, wanting a white tank top. My mother used that white tank top as a bribe -- if I lost ten pounds, I could have the tank top. When I was a teenager, I wanted to go to a formal dance, and my mother bought me a dress -- two sizes too small. If I could lose enough to wear the dress, I could go. I didn't. The next year, she bought me a dress in my size, but it would only look good on me if I lost weight, so for the two months before the dance, she harassed me about every bite I put in my mouth. I went to the dance, and wore the dress, but spent a good portion of the evening wondering if I really was as ugly as my mother seemed to think I was. (You might wonder why I was not picking out my own dresses, but that its another dysfunction for another time.)

I could tell hundreds more stories in the “lose weight, lose weight, lose weight” genre; all the diets, the crazy exercise regimes, the supplements and drugs and roller-coaster addiction of the diet cycle; but I don’t need to – they are the same stories told by nearly every fat woman who lives in American culture. I could also tell stories about all the ways I have been convinced my life would be better if only I were thin. I was sure life would be easier, I would have lots of friends, men would love me, and, most of all, I could finally, FINALLY stop hating myself.

The truth is, even if I had been thin, I probably would have continued to hate myself. It is remarkable how we can always find something to hate about ourselves.

I don’t hate myself anymore. Thanks to lots of people and events, I have been able to put that behind me. But it is remarkable that in spite of learning to accept (dare I say, even like) my body, I still fight contrary thoughts and voices every day. I put on clothes and think how much better they would look if I could just lose 5/10/100 pounds. I have a lonely moment and think that I would have a boyfriend or husband if only I were thin. I am even tempted by the commercials for Alli, uncontrollable oily diarrhea notwithstanding. It is hard to shake the eternal “if only” thoughts that have been my constant companions for so long, particularly when the people around me are still in the grip of fat fear.

A few weeks ago I donated both of those dresses to the costume closet in my drama department, and had a good laugh at them with some of my kids. Hopefully someday I will be able to purge those thoughts as well.

The lunacy, it is funny, no?

I was reading over at Shakesville (which is back up despite the hatahs, yay!) and followed a link in a Kate Harding post to this Obesity Risk Calculator. After answering all the questions, it told me that based on my lifestyle, I have a 0-20% chance of being overweight. I wonder how they would calculate the probability of me weighing in at almost 300 pounds. Since, y'know, fat is is all based on lifestyle.

Once I stopped laughing...I started laughing again, this time at all the people who are so brainwashed into the whole calories-in calories-out nonsense. All the people who say things like "the best exercise is pushing yourself back from the table", and all the people who judge us as somehow inferior because they are so convinced that we have no willpower or self-control.

If calories-in-calories-out worked, I would look like one of the kids from 90210.

Better laugh than cry, right?

It's not funny.

A young couple decides they want to get married. When they tell her parents, they are overjoyed at the news, and when the bride asks her mother if she can wear her wedding dress, the mother is thrilled beyond words.

A few months pass, and the wedding day arrives. As the bride is walking down the aisle, her lovely petite figure a vision in the white dress, the sounds of her mother's sobs fill the room. When the bride reaches the end of the aisle, she approaches her mother, concerned at the extent of her distress. As she hugs her weeping mother, she says "mom, don't think of it as losing a daughter, you are gaining a son!"

The mother looks at her daughter, and with eyes full of tears, replies, "It's not that -- I just realized, I've gained a ton!"

Ba-dum ching.

Sounds like the kind of joke you would hear in a bar, told by a frat guy trying to impress his buddies. But it wasn't. It was the opening of a sermon I heard last weekend, while visiting a church out of town.

I have never been a fan of the joke-as-sermon-opener style anyway, but this one had me floored. I just heard a fat joke? In church? I know the pastor did not mean to be offensive. At least, I hope he didn't. But he was.

There are many people who think that the fat acceptance movement is unnecessary and overblown. There are some who think that we are too sensitive, too apt to find offense when there is none, and that we are only battling windmills. But at that moment, hearing that joke, my determination to continue fighting this fight was renewed.

That pastor serves as perfect example of why fat acceptance is important. The obvious problem is that in our culture, is is perfectly acceptable to make fun of fat people. But when you break the joke down, it reveals some deeper issues. The assumption behind it is that, of course, it is perfectly normal for a woman to be so upset over gaining weight, comparing her body to the thinner one of her daughter, that she would weep over it in the middle of her daughter's wedding. It assumes that the thinner body is somehow better or more attractive. And it assumes that her reaction is so normal that anyone who hears it will understand it enough to see the humor.

There's a bigger problem here as well -- the church should be a place of acceptance. No one should be made to feel that they are inferior based on the race, their job, their education, or their body. But that is often not the case. The church is sometimes the most critical place one can be. And that is the saddest thing of all.

I wish this joke were funny, not because people sympathise with the poor woman, but because of its absurdity. I wish we lived in a culture where it was so odd for people to hate their bodies that anyone who heard that joke would laugh at the inanity of the idea. But we don't live in that kind of culture, and I fear we never will.

Until we do, it's not funny.

Call it what you want...

...but I call it hate.

A woman in Austrailia has been denied the opportunity to adopt a child because she is too fat.

She and her husband are employed and stable. They have been married 13 years. They have been completely approved for the adoption process, except for one thing -- apparently the Austrailian govenrnment hates fat people.

Maybe hate is too harsh a word. I'm sure there's a fabulous reason why it is better for a child to rot in foster care than have a loving family, particularly when that denial of family is based on a BMI, a measure that has been shown to be flawed over, and over, and over, and over. Appearance is a perfectly legitimate reason for people to be denied the opportunity to have a child, I'm sure.

I know what let's do next. Since fat people clearly aren't fit to be parents, let's take away the kids of fat people. Even if the kids aren't fat, they might get the idea that fat people are decent, normal, loving people, and that would clearly undermine all that is good and holy in the world. And let's sterilize all the fat people. After all, even if they lose weight, chances are that they will gain the weight back, since 95% of people do within 5 years. We must protect the children.

Better yet, let's just take all the fat people out in a field and shoot them. They don't deserve to pollute the earth any more. They might offend someone with their secondhand fat.

Do I sound pissed off? Fucking right I'm pissed off. This woman could be me. She is a year younger than me, has the same disease I do, and weighs almost exactly the same thing I do. Oh, and she is free from heart disease or diabetes or any of the other illnesses that the media likes to associate with fat people, as am I. Thanks to PCOS, I will probably never be able to have children. And now, if this trend continues, I won't be allowed to adopt them.


Hate too strong a word? Nah, I think it is just right.

Shameful.

Last Wednesday I had some wonderful, beautiful friends over for a bit, and they wanted to watch a particular TV show, so I agreed and we spent most of the night watching their show. I tend to be a bit of a TV snob, I don't like reality TV, and during the school year I don't watch TV much at all. But about 10 minutes in, I was completely enthralled, and actually set the DVR to record future episodes.

So, is this some classy, well written drama? A comedy of Friends caliber? The new Buffy?

Nope.

Hi, my name is Erin, and I am addicted to So You Think You Can Dance.

I'll go crawl in a hole now.

Awareness and amazement

I am pretty new to the whole fat acceptance movement, and it has only been in the past few months that I have discovered that there are other people out there like me, people that don't think it is OK to hate other people, or themselves, based solely on one aspect of their bodies. It has been a radical, paradigm-shifting experience for me to realize that there are other people who see the sheer madness in the degree of self-hatred our culture is steeped in, and are willing to speak up in an attempt to change that little bit of our cultural fabric.

I guess I have always been a bit of a fat pioneer -- at ten years old I was in a women's size 16, I have never been any smaller, and even though I hated my body, I (mostly) did not let that stop me from doing the things I wanted to do -- I went swimming, even though I hated myself in a bathing suit, and I never really thought much about it until a few years ago when, at a weekend-at-the-lakehouse mini-vacation I friend commented to me that she admired my ability to walk around in a bathing suit without shame (the shame was there, I just hid it better than she did. Plus, the towels I tied around my waist would never stay, I was too big, and it was a pain in the ass to keep tying them.).

Since I have discovered that fat acceptance is a whole movement, not just some happy bunny fairy-land style wish in my brain, and I have stared reading what other people have to say about the subject, it has astounded me how pervasive fat hatred really is, and how far I still have to go before I am truly free from those hateful messages. It's very much like learning a new word --you never notice it, but once you have learned it, you suddenly see it everywhere. I hear the hatred, of self or others, in women's conversation, even from women who would argue that they are very accepting, and are in many ways. I suddenly understand that so much of the "beauty" that women are obsessed with, that we are told is about making us feel good, is really only about making us hate ourselves, or each other, to buy products, or, even more sinister, to keep us from competing with men. I find myself becoming a bit of a conspiracy theorist, thinking about how much more women could be doing, to fight for social justice, or education, or even equal treatment in the workforce, if only we could put the same amount of effort into those causes instead of our pursuit of the Perfect Body, and I wonder if there is some force out there whose agenda is just that -- distract the women so they never realize their full power. I wonder too, if some force is feeding us (no pun intended) all this fat hatred to keep us malnourished and stupid. No one has ever changed the world by starving themselves to fit into the perfect dress.

In the spirit of my growing awareness, I have decided to add a new category called Hate Watch. These will be entries about some of those subtle things I keep seeing -- the hate in sheep's clothing. If nothing else, it should be an interesting exercise.

My love-hate relationship

I love my new house.

I love my new yard.

I love my new mower.

The hill it is all situated on...


...that I hate with a fiery vengeance.

If this doesn't scare you spitless...

The AMA and CDC have apparently decided to do the impossible -- eliminate one end of a bell curve.

As any tenth grade biology student can tell you, in any population there is a natural distribution of traits. In traits that can be quantified, the traits generally follow normal distribution , more commonly known as a bell curve.

My first exposure to normal distribution happened as a result of standardized testing in elementary school (an entirely different evil deserving of its own series of rants), where scores were given in percentiles rather than actual scores. On those tests it didn't matter how many you actually get right or wrong, rather, how many you got correct compared to every one else who took the test. So, if everyone who took the test answered 1 right, and you answered 2 right, you got the highest score, regardless of whether the test was 10, 100, or 1000 questions.

In normal distribution, there are always extremes. There is always a top 10 percent and a bottom 10 percent. That can't change. The actual numbers may shift, but since normal distribution is based on comparison, not hard data, it is impossible to eliminate a portion of the curve.

Despite these realities of math, the AMA and CDC have decided, in their infinite "wisdom", to eliminate one end; specifically, the top 15% of children according to weight.

The war on fat kids has begun. The 50-billion dollar a year diet industry has won; by the way, they don't care about children's' health, as long as they get to keep making money.

Click the link. Read the article. It will chill your blood.

Never mind that overwhelming evidence indicates that weight is primarily genetically determined, that diets don't work, and that one's weight as a child does not correlate with one's weight as an adult. Never mind that the BMI is notoriously unreliable as a predictor of health. Evidence apparently matters not a bit to these esteemed agencies, who have decided they know better than parents about children's' health and nutrition, and that nothing matters more than eliminating the evil fat kids.

Big brother is here, and he hates fat people.

Beautiful.

Ask any woman is she thinks she is beautiful. I dare you. Not pretty, not attractive, not cute: beautiful.

If she is honest, chances are her answer will be no, or, at best, a "yes but". Maybe a "I was when I was 16/21/25". More than likely, if her answer is honest, it will include some reference to a "need" to lose weight.

According to the cliche, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but in truth, beauty is in the command of the cultural powers that be; the magazines, the designers, the films we watch and celebrities we are carefully encouraged to envy. Their brand of beauty is impossible, since most of us don't have personal chefs and trainers, we can't airbrush real life, and our genetics don't match those of the 2% of the population that can actually achieve that beauty.

I say those powers are wrong.

I say this woman is beautiful.


And this one.


And these two.

This one.

And these two.

This one.



Even these two.

If you are a woman and you are reading this, forget asking anyone else anything. Go look in the mirror. Ask yourself if you are beautiful. Say yes, you are, exactly as you are right this minute. Then believe it. I dare you.


Welcome to the revolution.