Colors of the Season

Evergreen

This time of year celebrates light and birth and promise. We burn the fires and sing the songs to chase away darkness and welcome back light.  The old mysteries linger in blood-red berries, flames like the sun, and boughs that stay evergreen, even in the hard cold truth of a northern winter.

***

2011 was a pissant year in so many ways, but I am caught by the demands for freedom from people across the world.  Tunisia to Egypt to Libya to Syria. Wall Street and Oakland and Washington and Boston.  One generation passes, and we seek the next Vaclav Havel, the young Mandela, the leaders with heart and morals and the courage to do what is right for us all, not act just for the few, the rich, the lobbyists, the spoilers.

I'm disgusted by liars and false gods, guns and pepper spray, bullies and corrupted elections.  I want leaders -- real people -- who stand up and stop the violence that is done in the name of "national security", "public safety", "too-big-to-fail", and "family values".  

I want to hear truth.  Someone, say:
"There were no weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons were made here, at home, paid for by our taxes, and unleashed by our own sons and daughters.  Truth:  We cannot keep destroying peoples' jobs and then expect them to be the good consumers needed to fuel our economy.  Truth:  The emperor has no clothes, never has, never will, no matter how many tailors and handlers he/she employs."

From One Year to the Next

Thanksgiving Snow

After many years of traveling for Thanksgiving, we stay home now.  It feels just right to be here in celebration of the harvest, the woods, the land, and our New Hampshire lives.  The twist for 2011 was a snowstorm the day before Thanksgiving.  Six inches of heavy, wet snow weighed down trees and took the power out for ten hours or so. Our teacher friends were delighted.  Our cooking friends wondered when they could get back to the preparations.  We carried on doing house chores by kerosene lamp.

The next morning, Thanksgiving Day, I took this photograph out the south window.  Then I baked anadama bread and finished canning the rest of the applesauce (16 pints).  I thought about past holidays -- Gram Dorrington's apple pies, big and small family gatherings over 60-plus years, awkward times, unhappy times, old and new traditions, the many warm and loving memories.

I thought about change -- how our landscapes change year by year.  Snow.  Misty, brown woods.  Frost, rain, a pale November sun.

The people change, too.  So many are gone.  Some have left-- geographically and otherwise.  The elders have died and the next generation moves into the places left empty at the table, the kitchen, the heart.

My joy comes when I pack the warm loaves of bread and walk up the road with Barry.  We pass the small graveyard, the huge bull pines, horses, deer track, woods that stretch on either side of us.  The skies are darkening, but the lights shine from Ellen's windows.  We join old and new friends and neighbors at a long table by the open fireplace where we share a feast and fellowship in a brave new world.

Search for the Muse

The Writing Retreat

We are four intrepid writers on a weekend retreat at a local vacation spot near the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  This is our third retreat -- with more to come, we know.  We're encouraged by the freedom to write and the fearless stroke of pen on paper, fingers on keys.  There's a quiet, meditative quality in the room, broken by laughter, awe and appreciation when one of us reads what has appeared on the page.

Who knew the Muse sits among us, opening portals to heart and mind, singing us to write among our friends and colleagues!  No more solitary desk in the pristine setting -- we write amidst scraps of papers, books, words cut from magazines and pictures culled from everywhere.  We sit.  We write.  We share.  We have a respectful audience.   We have just what we need.

Bittersweet Realities of Being Retired

This morning I listened to National Public Radio, checked the local news and read BBC News on my computer.  In my initial days of retirement, I make time to savor a cup of coffee and consider the state of the world.

Here's what I learned today:

• A young man I knew as an elementary school student is now a felon
• The Wall Street protests are not covered by our big mainstream media -- even after an officer approached a group of young women cordoned off by other officers and sprayed his can of pepper spray over the unarmed, unprotected women.  No one came to their aid with water or cloth or any kind of protest.  
• In Mexico, decapitated heads were left outside a school
• Coffee may be helpful in "preventing depression".

My cup of coffee does not have that power.  Even if it did, I don't want to be numbed or complacent or "cured" in the face of such human misery and abuse.

Time for Reflection

I have passed the 185 pennies to another teacher friend to be used "when she is ready" to consider retiring from public education.  As I learned over this past school year, retiring is a process that starts long before the decision, the announcement and the farewell party.

We laughed when I told her "the pennies worked".  But they did work for me -- transferring one penny a day, each workday, kept me focused and honest about what I was doing.  I was leaving my life work, colleagues, kids, parents, and that oh-so-familiar environment of school.

Since that last official day in June, I've taught in the National Writing Project in New Hampshire Summer Institute.  That was a great way for me to transition from special education testing to working and writing with teachers.  The National Writing Project's model is "teachers-teaching-teachers", and this work inspires thought and deep reflection.

That's where I am today, reflecting on education, rather than thinking about the daily school details.  I have left a specific job description.  I have left a climate of testing-is-teaching and public rants on teachers and schools.  I've left restrictive rules that make no sense in the "real world" of the classroom.  I've left budget cuts, bad policies, and animosity among communities who could be working together to support their future, their children, our world.

But I'm not going away.  I'm exploring and traveling through my writing, politics, cultural change, voice, telling my stories and owning my truths.   I feel rich beyond belief -- rich with books, arts, friends, ideas, curiosity, freedoms.  And, unlike the new barbarians who make war upon our country's principles and peoples,  I'm not afraid.

The Field Office

When you call for me now, I'll be in the Field Office... in a room of my own... awash in memories of travels, dear friends, good books, and words, lots and lots of promising words.  I find myself studying pictures of older women, like the Inuit elders and a woman drinking coffee after finishing a solid morning's work.  No more collections of young hunter-women -- now, it's time for Recasting, Revisioning and Renewing the Vows to myself.

The stove is named Volcano -- really -- and it lives up to its name during the winter.

The window looks northwest to where the cold winds of winter blow.  I see sunsets, the garden, a pine and a cherry tree.  I hear birds, chipmunks, mice in the roof, and the contented beat of one human heart.

Gloria Steinem said: "The truth sets you free, but first it pisses you off." I agree...

Politics --The Personal, Cultural, Environmental, and Global

Fund the Arts, 

the National Writing Project, 

programs for social change and justice.

Single payer health system.

Choice for Women's Reproductive Health.

Planned Parenthood and global family planning.

Free, public education funded as if it mattered.

Money and respect for libraries, museums, and PBS.

The Liberal Arts as a way of building a tolerant world.

Diversity.  Ecology.  Wilderness.

Respect our place within the Web of Life.

Sustaining.  Conserving.  Preserving.  

Act responsibly for the sake of the future. 

 NO NORTHERN PASS

No Eminent Domain Extended to Private, for-Profit Companies -- None

No Corporations Allowed to Take Public Lands for Their Own Projects/Profits

No Corporations/ Anyone Allowed to Destroy or Interrupt Wildlife Habitat and Corridors

This is just a taste of what is at stake.  Get pissed off ----
and join us.

Moments in May

Early May in New England

It was a cold, rainy start to May.  The sky stayed that flat, steely gray and then it rained for days on end.  We savored every green sprout and bud.  My grandfather always said it was time to plant when the leaves were "as big as a mouse's ear".  That took some powerful waiting this year.

Now, at the end of the month, we're awash in green.  The temperatures these last few days have been summery -- in the 80's F.  The garden yields lettuce, chives, mustard greens, garlic tops, rhubarb, asparagus -- and the best parsnips we've ever grown.

Memorial Day 2011: There's My Dad!

Earth Day 2011

Smithsonian Museum.  Washington, D.C. 

The National Museum of the American Indian reads like a holocaust, a genocide, a sweep of colonial powers across a ravaged land.  Yet, there is the powerful message that the Earth endures even as its people fight and die and destroy what should be revered.  

Now, over two hundred years later, our ancestors still speak the truth. What we must do is listen.  Heed the words.  Act from those "better places" in our heart.

My Prayer for Earth Day

"I am alone in the woods.  

I find solace, safety and beauty there.  

I rest in the knowledge that our ancestors were born here.  

I am grateful to be Home."

Storm Clouds over Washington

April 1, 2011 -- The Theatre of the Absurd

I wish it were an April Fool's joke, but it's not.  The young, spiky-haired legislative aide with the parochial school background couldn't be bothered to listen or take notes or do his damn job while we presented our impressive data on eighth grade reading gains and fourth graders' writing and a first grade's campaign that kept a neighborhood library open + alive.

He told us his boss, the new Representative, only comes to Washington to vote.  I'm disgusted -- that's not why he was elected, to sit home in New Hampshire.  He was elected, after all, not appointed by God or the King. I can only hope he gets fogged in and misses the key votes.

I'm in Washington, D.C. for my third Spring Meeting of the National Writing Project.  However on March 2, NWP joined the ever-growing list of educational programs cut from the federal budget.  NWP is the only professional development program for teachers of writing on a national scale.  It has been a 30-year investment by the federal government.  There are over 200 sites across the country.  There are a million reasons why this program works, but we are not in the world of reason any longer.

In meeting after meeting, in auditoriums and small offices, we heard how crazy, how difficult, how impossible it is to do the right thing.  This budget is a war where you and I and all those kids lose everything we need for a future.  It's Partisan Politics and no one seems willing to stand up and stop this reckless destruction of our society.

We also spoke with three thoughtful and interested young people who are legislative aides.  I think of them, too, as I offer this challenge.

Study the photograph of these Kindergarten-Grade 1 students. Consider that in twenty years, the boy in red is your tax accountant. How well-educated would you like him to be?

The little girl in pink wants to be your heart surgeon. The girl on her knees will teach your first grandchild to read and love books.  Maybe one of them will be your hospice worker or an automobile mechanic in the age of solar-electric-robot-driven cars.

This is not a frivolous exercise.  These kids are the future -- your future and my future.  I want them to be well-educated, compassionate, creative, and smart.   I'm willing to pay so these children have a quality, public education.

What about you?  

Home from the Dominican Republic

A week ago, I was here on Playita, a small gem of a beach in the town of Las Galeras, in the northeast of the Dominican Republic.  The water was that warm, turquoise-blue of the Caribbean Ocean.  At one end of the beach, there were the European tourists, French and German. At the other end, a Dominican family celebrated 27 February, Independence Day.  And in the middle, under an almond tree, four American teachers marveled at their good fortune.  


We had walked a country road from the main street in Las Galeras.  We passed small farms and cows in the fields.  One family sold pan de coco and pina in a roadside stand.  We bought the warm bread and a pineapple, and the man gave us a tour of his farm.  We had admired his enormous pig the day before, and now we met the pig, the dog, the chickens.  He had a plot of land with bananas, pigeon peas, papaya, mango trees, and yucca.  Everywhere we looked, we saw small crops of fruits and vegetables for the family.  His daughter was doing homework on a table outside, and his wife cooked on an open air stove made of metal.  It was, after all, a Sunday afternoon.


We saw no Americans for the five days we stayed in Las Galeras.  We enjoyed the company of a Canadian family at the bed and breakfast, along with the Swiss proprietors and a French man and his wife.  We ate fried fish at the shack on the end of the beach and drank superbly cold Presidente beer with the local fisherman and taxi drivers.  Our traveling companion Jen speaks fluent Spanish and some Creole, so the language barrier was open for a rich and different kind of experience.


Las Galeras was pure vacation -- sunning, swimming, eating local foods, walking back roads, and generally enjoying the company of friends, old and new.  Karen and Jen found a frog in the shower and a big spider on the wall.  We were there long enough to recognize people as time passed.  We also saw the invisible division -- Dominicans on one end of the single main road, Europeans on the other.  The Dominicans always had more fun, and the music was distinctly better...


Now we are home and it's March in New Hampshire.  The skies have been gray for three days. Today, a Sunday, it's raining.  The snow is still several feet deep, but it rains and in the rain is the slight promise of Spring.  

On days such as these, I marvel at life.

The Countdown Continues

99 days and counting

Midwinter.  We just passed the 100th day of school, a time full of counting and sharing 100 "things".  We use pennies, blocks, cubes, paper clips, shoes, books, pencils and crayons.  We make patterns of 5's and 10's.  We count all together in those big outdoor voices.  We put a fat red 100 on the number line that snakes around the classroom wall.  We mark what we have learned and what we have learned to love. 

It's all in the joy of learning... and for me, the joy of leaving.  

Clink.   

Sparks Fly

New Year's Eve

There was just enough snow for a bonfire on New Year's Eve.  It was cold and clear and quiet until someone lit fireworks on the lower road. We stood in the garden and celebrated the end of a decade. We burned pine logs and branches. We threw on rotten rafters from the shed and hunks of plywood ceiling. The fire burned brightly and snapped in the cold.

This year's ritual holds more weight for me.  2011 is a change year, a big marker, a time to leave one stage of life and enter another.  In June, I'll retire from my profession as an education testing specialist, work that has engaged me fully for all my adult life.  Working in schools with kids, teachers, parents and administrators hasn't been a "job"; it's been Who I Am, a definition of me down to the bones.

So, I've been preparing for this big transition and in the process, I'm stirring up all kinds of thoughts, memories, regrets, disappointments, anger and proud moments -- all the stuff of life.

For the bonfire, I hauled three boxes of files out of locked storage and fed them one by one to the flames.  There was nothing easy or light-hearted about this.  We read the names aloud and watched bits of educational history curl and burn and fly skyward in flurries of sparks.

There were notes from parents who couldn't make meetings, old pink telephone messages, a few complaints, and one or two 'thank you' notes.   This hoard of yellowing paper -- WISC's and diagnostic reading tests, VMIs and first grade screenings -- has no meaning now.  Yet I saved old files and reports.  I told myself, I might use them. Research? 

Study?  A Reminder of the glory days?

Whatever the wish or deception, it fades.  The important work was done years ago, face-to-face, when we were young and in a very different world and time.

There's a homily that says, the student always leaves the teacher. Well, this teacher is leaving, too.  The sparks are flying -- and I have other things to do.

Happy New Year!

Today, January 1, 2011, I celebrate the special parts of my life.

TRAVEL

MY LIFE PARTNER AND INSPIRATION

MOOSE ON A MISTY AUGUST MORNING

ART AS POLITICAL ACTION

ANCIENT MYSTERIES:  STONES AT CALLINISH

ENCOUNTERS WITH WILDLIFE -- ON THEIR TERMS

BOOKS, ART, KNOWLEDGE, LEARNING

CATS!

HOME

FRIENDS and FAMILY WHO ENRICH OUR LIVES IN SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS

Come Winter

COME WINTER

The air is crisp,

the earth, a drum

taut against the cold.

From the east,

pale beacons shine

through birch and beech

oak and pine.

Darkened skies.

The seasons shift.

The sun stands still.

We slip towards Solstice

and the light,

and the Moon of Long,

Cold Nights.

Burma - Three Years Later

Aung San Suu Kyi

My blog entries of September + October 2007 spoke of this woman.  

She has been under house arrest for the past 15+ years.  She and her political party won the 1990 public election in Burma, but the military dictatorship refused to give over its power.  They crushed the democracy movement and put her under arrest while the rest of the world watched, mute as usual.

Today, she is freed from house arrest.  She tells her people, "Do not give up hope." 

Desmond Tutu, another Nobel Laureate well-acquainted with the ravages of political abuse, had a wonderful statement.  He said, she is beautiful, demur and the model of integrity-- and the generals are so frightened of this unarmed woman with a belief in the equality of people.  She believes governments need to listen to all the people.  Freedom of speech.  Freedom from fear and repression.  

What she needs from us, now, is our total attention and our voices -- to keep her alive and to learn from her.  

I am looking for the Aung San Suu Kyi of my country.  Who among us has this integrity, belief and quiet persistence?  I want to believe:   "Do not give up hope."

Democracy

Where I vote

This is where I vote, in a quintessential New England meeting house. It has a huge circular wood stove, along with a few modern additions.  The wooden floor creaks.  We vote in small cubicles with plywood doors painted that battleship gray I remember so well from my childhood.  It's been on the Registry of Historic Buildings since 1998.

Inside, it's one big open space with a stage.  The windows have 16 panes on top, 12 on the bottom.  Soon they will be shuttered against winter wind and storms.

When we first moved to this town, 33 years ago, we attended town meetings here.  It felt like a direct link to those early patriots who had overthrown a colonial power and its abuses.  


We did the town's business during these meetings.  Residents met to argue about money, the road agent, the fire chief, and the schools.  Over pie and coffee, we talked mud and maple sap runs, face-to-face with people we may not have liked or agreed with; but we all lived in this town and shared in the responsibility of paying its services.


And, if you weren't there to vote, then the hell with you.  You didn't get to complain later.


Over the years, I have come to this building to vote on town matters, state and federal elections.  I've cast so many ballots for people or issues on the losing side.  I've had my celebrations, too, but somehow they seem short-lived.  


After last week's mid-term elections, I am back to fighting mist.  But, fight I will -- because I was there to be counted on the side of health care for all, women's rights, abortion rights, gay and lesbian marriage rights, social security and Medicare rights, immigration rights, global responsibility, turning around climate change by taking responsibility for our actions, job rights and labor unions, educational reform that builds on collaboration and children's real needs.  


I went and voted against the sordid influence of corporate money in elections.  Four billion dollars.  Stuff that into the deficit.  Send the shame of it back to the Supreme Court and   change the law.

I was there, I voted, and now I have the right and the responsibility to complain.  I don't care about political parties.


 I care about heart, values, courage, and our ability to step back and make decisions that support all life, not just mine or your's or some narrow band of buddies.

350.org goes to the Sandwich Fair

On 10/10/10, we joined with old friends to make our statement and participate in the international Climate Solutions campaign 350.org. The day was glorious -- sunny and cool.  We marched in the 100th Sandwich Fair Grand Street Parade, surrounded by the colors of a New Hampshire autumn and the heritage of 100 years of an small agricultural fair in an early New England town.

We gave away seedling trees and lots of positive suggestions on how to stop the madness and become alive, responsible citizens of one world.

In planning, we wondered what kind of reception we might face. Too political for a Sunday parade? Dismissed in this pre-election climate of conservative rhetoric?

But the fair goers were of a more open mind and we, people of a certain age who have been peaceworkers for a long, long time, felt welcomed and supported and cheered.  I came away more hopeful than I have been for many years.

At the end of the parade, we hauled the earth back to our spot by the Mocha Rizing cafe. In this picture, I see us -- a small group straining uphill in the aftermath of the show, getting back to work and the next phase -- because this is work that is never done.

October 15, 1969: Moratorium March

October 15, 1969.  Millions marched to protest the Vietnam War.

Forty-one years ago today, I was working at a radio station, recently graduated from college and married for just a month.  Barry and Rob marched in parades held in Springfield and Amherst, Massachusetts.  I burned a candle at my desk.

What we didn't know then was the war would last 6 more years.  The following May, students would be killed at Kent State by Ohio National Guards.  We still had to look forward to Nixon, Watergate, a draft lottery, and more war.

My friend Michael was already dead by October 15, '69.  Johnny was not.  He was alive that day, but not for long.

The One Penny Opera

The One Penny Opera 

I've been working in special education since 1972.  I started as a learning disabilities tutor in Brattleboro, Vermont, when the field was very new and I was supervised by dynamic women professors who would later become important researchers and authorities in Learning Disabilities.

From the Brattleboro public schools, I moved to Greenfield, New Hampshire and was part of a new movement in residential treatment at the Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center.  We designed after-school activities for 200+ deaf, multiple-handicapped and LD students ages 5 to 18 years old.  With a team of recreational specialists and dorm counselors, we carried out a rich menu of activities to complement the academics.  

Later, Public Law 94-142 was passed and all students were guaranteed the right to a "free appropriate education in the least restrictive environment".  The LD kids left outside placements and went home to neighborhood schools and I went with them.

I learned the testing and diagnostic side of learning, and that's what I've been doing for the past 35 years.  I do individualized evaluations and observations to find what students are good at -- where are their strengths -- and how to design school/classroom programs that build on these strengths and minimize the weaknesses.  The work almost sounds simple when I write this, the bare bones of the job.  But simple, it's not.

Now I've decided this is my last year of testing and special education consulting.  I have so many other things I want to do -- like rabble rouse for better practices in education and travel and write and teach in the National Writing Project New Hampshire and read and drink coffee on the deck at 10 a.m.

As soon as I said, "Yes, this is the year", the inner drama began.  Reasons to stay, reasons to go.  Evidence of bureaucracy and stupid decisions.  The joy of kids and learning.  The years and years of my life I have given to this work.  Some days, it's very easy to leave, while other days make me wonder...

So, I'm creating my own plan for maximizing strengths and coping skills.  I'm honoring the past and remembering the anecdotes of different schools and students, the small joys and sorrows.  I'm writing -- my way of thinking.

Best of all, I'm marking the big transition in a hands-on way.  My good friend, also a master teacher still in the trenches, gave me these two little pots this September with 180 pennies, one for each working day in the school year.

Each day, I move another penny and the little pile grows.  

Day by day.  Monday through Friday.

One penny at a time.

The Power of Place

East Inlet

At 6 a.m. the East Inlet waters are still. Mist hovers and then disappears into the morning sun.  A family of loons fishes the length of the waterway, while I drift nearby and watch the adults teach their young to dive and how to strengthen their wings for the coming migration to the sea.

In early September, the water grasses and wild rice go to seed.  The geese fly in the characteristic V and hawks circle overhead, soaring on thermals and gathering for their own change of place.

It's the end of a long, hot, dry summer and the beginning of a transition time for me.  As a teaching/testing consultant, I begin a new school year.  As a partner, I celebrate a wedding anniversary.  As a writer, I dance the dance with time, responsibilities, and the stories that spill out of dreams, conversations, experiences, glimpsed moments and vistas, memories, and all those other places where the words + images abide.

But first, we make a pilgrimage to the East Inlet in far northern New Hampshire, just a few miles below the border with Canada, where The Nature Conservancy maintains the Connecticut Lakes Natural Reserve.

We've been coming here for 25 years, and yet it feels timeless -- the smells, the surrounding firs, the backdrop of mountains and sky, the rising and setting sun, the quiet.  It still feels remote, a place where we see moose, deer, fox, coyote, osprey, ducks, heron, hawks, otters, turtles and loons.

To my great relief I am a very different person, today.  My kayak lifts gently from the beach into the dark water.  I hear crows, a woodpecker, a loon's call.  A belted kingfisher hurls himself from a far branch and spears a minnow.  The sun breaks through the clouds in its promise of another warm day.

Over the week, I will gather strength for my own migration south.  I'll settle into the season and meet whatever it brings to my life and surroundings, knowing I can return to this source again and again. This is why we need protected places in our world, sanctuaries, reserves where nature can be nature 

in all its glory and grand indifference.

The End of the Summer Institute

Robert Frost, Poet

We've come to the end of the Plymouth Writing Project Five-Week Summer Institute.  It was a brilliant experience.  We arrive as individual teachers and leave as a collaborative force.  We've laughed and cried, listened hard and worked even harder.  We have written thousands of words, hundreds of stories.

We've shared our teaching, our research, our thoughts and our teacher hearts.  I wrote: 

 There is a myth of the isolated writer, locked into himself/herself, door closed where he/she fights dragons and demons, alone.

But the experiences I am having in the writing project have exploded the myth -- blown a hole smack through the wall that separates writer from writer, artists from artists, the writer-me from myself.

The Writing Marathon at Dartmouth College was so much fun and so deep and so, so collaborative.   I loved the writing task:  Find a sculpture.  Observe closely.  Ask yourself questions.  Write and share.  I love the rituals.  Introduce yourself and say, "I am a writer."

At the end of the reading, your companions say, "Thank you."  No comments.  No critique.  Just simple gratitude:  "Thank you for sharing your world with us".

Outside the Rounds Building where our classes are held, there is a bronze sculpture of the poet Robert Frost to honor his teaching time at Plymouth State University and his legacy of words, images and New England thinking.  I remember watching him read his poem for John F. Kennedy's Inauguration as President of the United States, January 1961.

It was very cold that day.  The sun was so bright, Frost found it hard to read from his paper.  I was fourteen years old, witnessing the giants of history on a black and white television screen. 

I remind Frost of this whenever I pass him at his bench.

Obama's High-Stakes Teacher Bashing - COLORLINES

Read the full article on:  http://colorlines.com/archives/2

Never, never did I expect to be facing this kind of attack on teachers from this President.  I do not support Race to the Top.  My lifework has been as a testing specialist, mainly with special needs students.  I started in 1975, so I feel I am a "credible witness" to the damage inherent in "standardized" testing.

There is a place for reflection, assessment, and evaluation, but it's not this punitive, controlled and utterly political agenda that started with No Child Left Behind.  I can tell you we are leaving a generation of children behind.  No question.

We need to humanize our schools, not turn them into narrow-minded and competitive entities. Our children's learning depends on all society.  Support your teachers, especially the good ones.  Keep the special programs -- art, music, sports, drama -- especially in public schools!  Those people who put their children into private schools will have all those opportunities -- increasing the gap between the rich and the poor and the rest of us in the middle.

Good teaching, good parenting, good governing depends on collaboration.  We need to share good ideas and practices, not hold back and compete against other schools, other colleagues.

The corporate world does not create good teachers or good education.  Their goals are not "for the good of the public".

Bottom line:  Who controls education, controls the culture.  Ever wonder how much money these corporate testing companies make?   A lot.

Earth Day 2010

In the tropical rainforests of Costa Rica, I sit surrounded by green.  Even the air I breathe is green.  The shadows reflected in Dante Creek shimmer like emeralds.  The mosses, ferns and smooth waxy leaves wrap me in colors that have more shades of green that I have words.

I am here in the tropical lowland rainforest on the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica to honor Earth Day.  For me, this is the Source, the Garden, a place rich and lush with life.  

Everywhere, we witness big and small miracles unfolding -- fronds of a new fern, macaws pairing for life, a hummingbird's tiny nest wrapped in lichen and spiderwebs.  

Over eleven years, I have returned to this place, and time and time again discovered something new, something fantastic, some part of the natural world I could never have imagined -- only experienced.  

This year, in late April, we walk the beach path at Corcovado National Park and listen to a din of low repetitive calls.  Not birds.  Not mammals.  Frogs.  Costa Rican Gliding tree frogs have parachuted into a small swamp to lay eggs in their short, frenzied mating.  We watch lime green-colored frogs with huge orangey webbed feet launch themselves from trees and glide, limbs outstretched, to land near the larger females.

For hours, they leap and mate.  Eggs, like luminescent pearls, line the leaves and tree bark.  Later, I read how the tadpoles hatch from these eggs and slither into the water just below.  They are, of course, a species threatened by habitat loss.

Gliding tree frogs

Corcovado National Park

Costa Rica

That's the other message of this 40th anniversary of Earth Day:  LOSS.  

Loss of habitat and diversity.  Species lost, forever.  Loss of respect and connection to the natural world.  Loss of awe and reverence for life.  No more trust in engineers, politicians, words and vows.  

Humans are the only species who destroy where they live and foul resources they must have to survive -- like clean water and unpolluted food supplies.

I write this blog 26 days since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.  That's 26 days of oil spewing, unchecked, into the ocean -- and there is no known way to stop it.  The "experts" flail, point fingers and whine.  "Well, it's not that bad..."

The oil companies, regulators, designers and builders have lied endlessly and profited from their deceit.  They have no way to stop this oil.  Now, they want to spread offshore drilling into the Arctic and off the eastern seaboard.  What mockery.  What utter contempt for anything living -- people, plankton, fish, coral.   The ocean?

There's a big price to pay for this explosion -- and it's not going to be satisfied by any currency or BP's gesture of throwing dollars at a few states.

The real price will be exacted by the same force that creates 100-foot trees, laden with bromeliads, mosses, entire ecosystems from root to crown.  This same force drives frogs to glide and salmon to hurl themselves back to original spawning streams.  

It's the force of volcanic ash from Iceland, Java, Hawaii.  This force can shift tectonic plates and change everything in nine seconds or less.   Even the oil gushing from that broken pipe driven deep into the ocean floor belongs to this life force -- not to us, not to the puny humans.  

The sooner we learn our place in the natural world, the better it will be for everything living or not.