Reading in review

           More notes on recent reads:  Much of my reading has been children's books - keeping up with the kids.  As I mentioned, the fifth grader had to read a Hardy Boys book, which was entertaining, and Sing Down the Moon for assigned summer reading. I loved Sing Down the Moon when I read it as a child and again now- it is the touching tale by Scott O'Dell, of Island of the Blue Dolphins fame, of the removal of the Native Americans from their home in Canyon de Chelly to a reservation in Arizona before the turn of the 20th century when the western expansion movement was at its height.  In reading it, the tragedy of this movement in our nation's history is painfully apparent, but the book doesn't seem overly political.  Indian removal was motivated by greed and fear, inexcusable, but fed over time by a variety of occurrences.

Interestingly, Native Americans here in San Diego county, the Kumeyaay tribe, have been protesting a local building project by the government.  A finger bone was found in the process of land removal, and the government called in archaeologists, publicized the finding and released information. Then they redesigned the project with a setback, but now there is a protest, after building has resumed.  There is no evidence that the area is actually a burial ground, but the issue is very sensitive and receiving a lot of press. Misunderstandings abound, but after people met face to face around a table some of the issues have been resolved. A member of the tribe is being hired as a consultant and some other concessions have been made, and right now the building is moving forward.
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In light of recent movie releases, I also just read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. This was another entertaining read - albeit darkly so, rightly described as gothic - that I put off for some time, skeptical of the best seller reputation, but since a movie version is arriving soon, the kids wanted to read it, and I thought I needed to check it out. The kids and I flew through it. It is the story of people with special - peculiar - gifts or abilities - to make fire in their hands, to be invisible, to see the future, etc, - who live in a "loop" or a time warp zone where a day repeats itself endlessly in order to keep these "Peculiars" safe. The main character's grandfather was a Peculiar who refused to live in the loop - and eventually trouble catches up with him and he is murdered. His grandson, clueless about this secret identity, but also a Peculiar, proceeds to investigate the clues his grandfather left behind and discovers the loop and the conflict between the Peculiars and their monstrous enemies, the Wights and the Hollowgast.

The book is fast paced and notable for the positive portrayal of the grandfather/grandson relationship - but a weak father/son relationship and a some crass language that sounds teenagerly. We are eagerly awaiting the return of the second book to the library so we can continue the series and see if the promise holds.  It does have an intensity and darkness to the plot that disqualify it as a family read.  For some reason it reminded me a little bit of the Spiderwick books, maybe because of the threshold crossing theme? And perhaps in another mood, I might not like it, as I didn't like the darkness in The Night Gardener.

P.S. I jumped ahead and read the third book, The Library of Souls, great title, instead of waiting for book 2. It was again a page turner, but I'd say it is bit dark for young readers.  All's well that ends well, of course, and I can't remember anything more objectionable than violence. But little relief from the the dark tone and subject matter are offered. I imagine the film all in a shadowy black and white like the vintage photographs that accompany the text.

This book caused me to look closer at some of the vintage photographs around my house of various family members. I couldn't find anything really peculiar about them...

Here is a favorite: the photo of my grandfather looking handsome in a long wool coat holding a cigarette as he gazes toward the camera.

That grandfather used to call me Buckles after my maternal great grandmother, Mrs. Buckles, because he thought I smiled like her. Here are few photos of her as a young woman at her family farm.

My other grandfather and his wife, daughter of Mrs. Buckles, the stylish grandmother.

My other grandmother as a little girl and her best friend:

My parents as pre-schoolers:

Where did September go? Photo dump

October already! The Santa Ana winds have been blowing, so the temperatures have been warm the past two weeks. The kids had a heat day (half day at school) when the thermometer spiked about 90. I even have jumped in the pool a few times with the baby. But this week we may have to pull out some jackets for the evenings, as more temperate winds blow off the ocean.

Reading on the beach courtesy the Little Free Library

A tattered Tiger

Checking out the planes at Speedfest

And the race cars

Dad wins the MRE cookoff challenge!

Looks good, doesn't it?

The winning dish in the second round.

Tunnel jumping at the Children's Museum

A giant magnolia browning

Who wants a cheap fire truck? $27000

A little silo at the garden store

Poinsettia the cow and tutu wearer at the garden store

Tortoise at the garden store

We had a hard time leaving

Who wouldn't want to shop here?

Kids are firmly into the routine of school, practices, and homework now. We had quite a bit of company in September - several friends passing through town for work dropped by for weeknight dinners and a couple families came down from nearby for weekend visits. The upshot has been the house has been staying fairly tidy!

Despite all of the extra-curriculars, the weekly schedule hasn't been too crazy because the kids' events are either local and don't require driving or on different evenings and don't require much shuffling. Cross country, volleyball and water polo are on the schedule. And every Saturday afternoon that ND games are shown on regular tv (we are still using rabbit ears) my husband has to catch up with Notre Dame football, even though they aren't having a very good season. We haven't seen our older boys on the tv screen, although we are always looking for them.  They check in once a week or so by phone or facetime - and we try to send a few text updates. This is one situation in which I highly approve of technological advances.

Good night sun. View from the front door. Come on in!

The New Math

Despite the disruption of schooling from moving around that my kids have experienced, we've been fortunate to avoid a disruption of teaching methodology and ideology until now. Most of the schools the kids have attended have been fairly traditional schools. Of course, technology use has been creeping up, slowly but surely. My fifth grader at the Catholic school now has an ipad assigned to her. At home she uses it for spelling practice and reviewing history questions. The first use is fine - although I still make her write her words. The history program online is more frustrating. She did not do well on the tests, which suggests she isn't comprehending everything she reads - reading problem or online problem? A combination, probably. I'm not up to speed on exactly what they are doing in class, but I wonder if she has trouble reading online. She is not a fluent reader and needs to use a finger or bookmark to track her reading. I'm still undecided if this is a developmental problem, a vision problem, or an attention problem, but she doesn't struggle enough with her grades to merit special accommodations. There may be some sort of program on the e-reader to highlight words or make the text bigger, but I haven't played with it to find out.

Meanwhile, at the local public school, the kids have been doing a large portion of their homework online and turning it in on their learning platform. Their science and math texts are online, although a printed math book can be checked out. My biggest complaint lately is that my three kids at the public school have been subjected to a new math program that integrates math topics in a spiral concept, which reminds me of Saxon math, but requires group work and uses the strange vocabulary of common core math that is supposed to draw on real world situations but puts the kids through a series of contrived steps to teach process by withholding information -- even if they have mastered the process. My junior in pre-calculus honors complains daily, and I feel guilty I discouraged him from AP Calculus because he was taking so many other AP classes (language, chemistry, physics, and US history). He's not taking these classes to garner the highest GPA or to test out of a year of college, but to have access to the best teachers, the highest quality material and the collegiality of other high achieving students.  Unfortunately, the school threw out its previous program and revamped the entire math department in order to implement a program that promises "mastery over time," "learning by discovery," and fewer homework problems, but problems that are supposed to challenge students so they retain more.

The school held a "math night" for parents to get information, but had a representative from the text company give a presentation and did not allow time for parent questions, although in the promotion of the event, the school suggested that this evening was supposed to "answer all the questions." After the event a mob, myself included, confronted the school district's curriculum development lady who was also on hand. She refused to answer anything and suggested we email the teachers with further questions. I spent a couple weeks stewing about this change and wrote several angry, but futile, emails.  My biggest frustration is that the school district has eliminated opportunities for high achieving students to work at a faster pace or more advanced level.  They are eliminating honors classes and the opportunity for eighth graders to take Algebra 1 - because algebra 1 is now Integrated Math 1, which is algebra plus geometry. All high school students will take integrated math 1 and 2 freshman and sophomore years. Junior year they can advance to pre-calculus, which is still this CPM common core program, or AP Calculus.

It's very limiting. And my junior complains daily about the frustrations of group work. I hated group work.  Someone's always copying and someone's always doing most of the work for the group. Is this really going to improve math fluency and appreciation? Kids may like math class more because they get to talk, but...

Maybe I'm being overly critical, but the reports that the company guy linked to don't seem very convincing to me.  The one report from an outside agency simply rates the program on how well it aligns with common core curriculum standards.  The only one that addresses my question about test scores is from 1996. Granted test scores are not the best indicator for how well a student is learning math but it does provide a way to tell whether students are doing better.  And that's what I want to know - how many of these students are learning to love math and are going on to do great things in STEM professions?  What is the goal of these programs?  How do help kids capable of doing more?

 Now I'm questioning even more our decision to not go broke sending all of the kids to Catholic schools - not that there aren't problems there, but I got the feeling at our previous schools that parent opinion was considered - the last school decided not to go with a one to one device program at the high school level.  Anyone have any extra tens of thousands lying around? Can we move now?

Here are copies of my correspondence:

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Hi Mr. Superintendent, Mr. Math teacher, Ms. Principal, Ms. Curriculum development officer, and Mr. counselor, and Mr. Nugent [the representative from the College Preparatory Math program],

I'm not sure to whom I should address this email, so I'm sending it to you all in hopes of receiving some clear, convincing answers that weren't provided at math night last night.  Based on the description from open house and the new parents night, I thought math night was going to be an explanation of the new teaching methodology being used by the math department and an opportunity for parents to ask questions. Instead it felt like a sales pitch from CPM. The sales rep from the company did not provide convincing or reassuring numbers to support his claims, nor did the questions I have about the new program get answered.

My concern is not that CUSD is moving to an integrated math program or that it is inaugurating a math program that is expanding the focus to conceptual and practical applications for math in addition to teaching procedural methods for solving math problems. I appreciate the concept of learning by discovery.  My problem is with the classroom application of these ideas. Moving from a lecture/individual work model to an entirely group work based format has been disruptive and unsettling to all three of my kids in CUSD schools, most especially to my oldest.

My oldest is a junior taking a weighted honors pre-calculus class. He had signed up for AP calculus but was advised to take this honors pre-calculus course because he had a heavy load of other AP courses. We were not informed that this radical shift was taking place that has caused him more stress than the calculus would have. An upper level honors text that uses fifth grade vocabulary to describe function machines and happy Harold doesn't seem to promise adequate preparation for college board exams and success in college level mathematics, especially if a lot of time is spent learning the system, instead of advancing in knowledge. Mr. Nugent several times mentioned that this is a system that promises "mastery over time." Juniors don't have that time.

So my questions are these:
1. Why was this new approach not announced before the school year started so that proper course selection could take place? Why is it being applied to upper level courses instead of beginning with the lower grades and letting it move up to the higher levels as the kids who are introduced to the method age up?

2. Why is the classroom time devoted almost entirely to group work instead of using an integrated approach to learning to accommodate students with different learning styles and personalities? For instance, would it be possible to have one day of lecture, one day of individual work or independent study, one day of group work and one day of assessment or additional group work? Ms. Gallant asked parents to think about their math instruction; my attitude toward math changed because of the infectious enthusiasm and deep knowledge of a great teacher. The group work model deprives kids of that inspiration - and deprives teachers of the opportunity to share their love for their subject.

3. All three of my kids report at least one of the students in their groups copies answers and doesn't contribute. How does that student not fall through the cracks? What about the introvert who finds group work painful or the extrovert who distracts the group or the advanced student who is capable of working ahead but is stuck waiting? I understand in theory that the group is supposed to work as a unit and be self-policing as well as teacher moderated, but the teacher has a lot of groups to monitor. As a student and as a teacher I have found that group work never lives up to the ideal.  Why not be truly progressive and integrate different methods of instruction to meet students with different learning styles and abilities and to present information in a variety of contexts and modes?

4. As a military family I am concerned that when we move my students will be at a disadvantage. I also might hesitate to encourage new military families to move to this school system now because it may be difficult for students to transition in. Since CUSD has such a high percentage of military students coming in and going out of the system, I would hope that the approach to teaching would be more global and less focused on group work.

5. Finally, how and when are you assessing whether this approach is working?

I'm sorry that this email is so long and aggravated in tone. I was disappointed in the lack of real information provided at math night, and I am disappointed that this new approach was not explained more fully before school started. Additionally, I wonder why older students were not "grandfathered" out of the radical shift? It feels as if our kids have been thrown into an experiment as guinea pigs without our consent. And to be clear, my frustration is not so much with the content as with the classroom structure that doesn't take into account different learning styles and abilities, and I am primarily upset about the application to the weighted honors class just when these students are supposed to be building confidence and moving toward independent mastery of upper level mathematical concepts.  I mistrust an organization that claims to offer "high quality instruction" but trains the teachers not to teach and instead expects parents to study an ebook to try to help their students who are falling behind. Although Mr. Nugent mentioned that teachers could present the material, my students are reporting that they are discouraged from asking questions during class. As my children's advocate, I want to help them when they are struggling, and I want to be able to have confidence in their education, but I fear the group work approach is not sufficient, nor is it building enthusiasm in their hearts for the wonders of math.

Thanks for reading,
Emily Cook

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From: [the principal]
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2016 1:17 PM
To:
Cc:
Subject: RE: Math night

Dear Cooks,

Thank you for your candid response and questions.  I am going to respond from the perspective of principal, expecting that additional information and perspectives may be provided by others on this email, particularly your children's math teachers.

First, I want to let you know that I attended last night with the mission in part to assess needs for a follow-up CHS Math Night, in which some of the exercises or information you hoped would be shared/experienced, can be. I will be working with our math department to explore the possibility of an additional opportunity to learn about our Integrated Math/CPM curriculum.

To your first question, I must take responsibility for any sense that the integrated approach to math/new curriculum wasn't properly announced or explained. While I hear from you that the curricular approach might have influenced James' choice of course, I think our math and counseling departments and administrative team would agree that placement guidance in math courses was (and is best) focused on which course level was most appropriate for each individual student in the context of other course selections and overall college/career goals.

Choosing and adopting CPM and the integrated approach came after years of continuing our traditional approach while teachers researched, created, and implemented common core strategies without a coordinating curriculum. During this time, we watched as neighboring districts converted to the integrated approach and adopted textbooks and curriculum with an intent to learn from their journey ahead of ours.  Our district and secondary teachers researched CPM, observed it in action in classrooms in the county, and the adoption was approved in the spring.  I know that our teachers, going into summer, felt it was possible to "roll out" curriculum, as you suggest, from the lower levels up over time.  But after weeks of training over the summer (which several of our teachers characterized as the most compelling and effective professional development they've experienced), they were convinced that they needed to fully implement the curriculum in all courses, and that, in fact, the curriculum and students' success would be compromised if it wasn't implemented with fidelity in all its courses.  Fundamental to all of this was a deep and abiding belief among our math teachers that this curriculum is good for students, and they should be exposed to it as soon as possible.

Your children's teachers can most accurately characterize the math instruction in their classrooms, but I think it's fair to say that in every discipline at CHS, and at the heart of common core, is student-centered learning.  I could talk A LOT about this, philosophically, as someone who became a teacher because of the influence of her teachers, but student-centered and teacher-centered approaches don't have to be polar opposites, and we believe our math teachers have the opportunity to guide and motivate and inspire while their students have more opportunities to interact with the content and problem-solving work of math.

Again, our teachers can explain and describe group work more accurately, but I believe we are learning from and about our individual students in their groups, and then learning from them again when their groups shift.  Historically, we have always had passive learners who copied homework and then performed poorly on assessments, and our aim is always to identify and then address those learners' needs.  This challenge continues...but there is no doubt more students are doing more talking about math in our classrooms this year than in the past.

We appreciate dialogue with our families and students, and invite you to continue to ask questions.

Thank you!
, Principal

www.chs.coronadousd.net

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Dear [principal],

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I really do appreciate your openness to communicating with parents, and I commend you as a principal taking the time to address parent concerns patiently and thoroughly. For the most part, CUSD does a good job of sharing information, (although I am not a fan of logging in to multiple platforms to get that information). And to be honest, I did know that changes in the math program were coming, but the message conveyed was that the changes would not effect the upper level math classes, which I assumed included this pre-calculus honors class. In addition, the description of the changes focused on content rather than classroom methodology, which is where my frustration, based on my kids' frustration, lies.

Since I enjoy engaging on these topics, even though I recognize it's an exercise in futility, I'll offer that I am not opposed to variations in pedagogy and am a big fan of project based learning, Socratic seminar classes, and apprentice-type classes, etc.  However, I'd posit that a diversity of approaches is the best approach. I have a hard time not sympathizing with James' complaints about doing group work every day because as an introvert capable of working faster than other students, I found forced, artificial group work painfully punitive; as an adult, I don't think my antipathy toward contrived group work has hindered my ability to collaborate with others in real world and work situations. I worry when James tells me he has no homework this weekend, despite taking 5 classes that are weighted, because his group finished their 4 assigned problems in 10 minutes and spent the rest of math class talking and doing other homework.  And two weeks ago, his class watched an animated movie because they were done early.  I am afraid he is not going to be prepared for future studies. John, my 7th grader, doesn't mind group work, but he is a talker.  Annie is ambivalent, although she is getting pinged with messages all evening because her group doesn't understand, and they want her to explain or just tell the answers. I fully support that teaching others is a great way of learning, but only to the extent that it doesn't interrupt her own study time for other subjects and our family time.

Despite my personal opinion, I can see that some group work could be effective, especially for those students who are more verbally oriented.  Nonetheless, why can't the program take a truly integrative approach and use multiple modalities for helping students achieve mastery? Why rely completely on group work?  Couldn't student centered learning include and benefit from some days of independent study and problem solving? Couldn't the teachers sometimes serve as guides modelling the more complex topics that should be addressed by upper level math programs instead of being monitors who make sure the group is working?  Why not give one day a week over to the teachers to share a few good insights and expand on the topics in order to inspire kids to want to know more and to open their eyes to possibilities for what they can do with what they are learning?  The popularity of teachers like Mr. Lemai and Mrs. Hill seems to demonstrate to me the power of a good teacher - someone who creates relationships with the students, encourages them and makes them feel known, unique, and valuable, while conveying a deep understanding about the value, use, and beauty of the subjects they teach, instead of passively observing and refusing to answer questions.

Finally, I am also admittedly concerned for James because the junior year is usually a stressful and difficult year, one that results in a lot of life altering decisions, and while I no way believe that standardized tests accurately reflect a student's abilities and gifts, and I think the College Board has an unfair stranglehold on college admissions, the truth is that a lot of doors to college and to financial aid depend partially on those admissions tests. I know the SAT has changed so that it no longer includes calculus problems, but I am worried after seeing the vocabulary of James' book that this class is not going to give him and his fellow students the proficiency they will need to take a timed math test on upper level math concepts.  Another suggestion I thought of was that perhaps on these days when the groups finish their work early, they can be treated to some more traditional math problems in preparation for the types of problems they may encounter in later coursework and tests.

Thanks for reading,
Emily Cook

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From: Jim Nugent <jimnugent@cpm.org>
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2016 6:45 PM
To: Leslie Dietiker
Cc: Emily Cook; Jim Nugent
Subject: A parent request for any information you can share regarding our CPM research base

Hi Leslie,

We have a new CPM adoption ongoing in Coronado USD, here in San Diego. I met with parents for an informational meeting earlier this week. Following the meeting, Don and Emily Cook introduced themselves to me. One of their questions concerned the measurable effectiveness of the CPM curriculum. The Cook family has asked me if we could provide more specifics regarding our research base, what we can share regarding outcomes compared to traditional programs and particularly how CPM supports the needs of highly performing students.

Would you be able to provide any information here?

Thanks,

Jim Nugent

CPM Regional Coordinator for San Diego County

www.cpm.org

On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 12:16 AM, E Cook wrote:

Hi Ms. Dietiker -
Below is my initial email with specific questions, along with my follow up email to the principal of my students' school.  I am particularly interested in how students perform on standardized tests like the SAT and ACT and the AP exams.

I feel a disservice was done to my junior student by changing a pre-calculus honors weighted class that is taken mostly by juniors before taking AP Calculus. These students don't have time for "mastery over time," but they do have a lot of wasted time in the classroom, even just a month in, that they fill with talk and animated movies.  

Thanks for any facts and figures you can send my way for reassurance, or suggestions for alternative ways of engaging these bright students who have a lot of wasted time on their hands.

Thanks, Emily Cook

Mr. and Mrs. Cook,

I received a reply from the research office with links to CPM research base. I will pass those on to you and add one other link that you would not see within the CPM research base.

There are a number of internal CPM studies examining the performance of CPM schools on standardized tests. Currently they are all located at the bottom of the page at the following link:

http://cpm.org/research-base

The studies are listed chronologically and are varied based on the data that were available at the time as well as what the research needs were when they were conducted. Broadly, though, the results generally indicate that CPM schools perform equivalently - and sometimes a little better - than average. The most recent CA study is at the following link:

http://pdfs.cpm.org/research/CA%20CST%208th-11th%20Grade%20Results%202011-13.pdf

Regarding highly performing students, there have been fewer analyses done. I can provide one analysis (note from JN: this analysis is dated but measures the same CPM calculus text currently in use) demonstrating pretty dramatic increases in calculus enrollment following CPM adoption in honors courses in California schools: 

http://pdfs.cpm.org/research/1995_High_Ability-Calc_Pred.pdf

The last link I can provide is to an outside agency, EdReports, who undertakes analysis of texts from all major publishers. Their research is both impartial and highly regarded. The link I am providing will take you to the analysis page for many current high school texts in publication:

http://www.edreports.org/math/reports/compare.html?level=hs

The EdReport page linked above describes the CPM traditional course series of Algebra, Geometry and Algebra II. Though Coronado has adopted the CPM Integrated series, the courses are based almost entirely on a reordering of the same curricular materials. EdReports is however currently undertaking a similar analysis of the CPM Integrated series. That report will be available in the near future. 

Thanks,

Jim Nugent

Recent reads

Not long ago, I finished Francois Mauriac's Viper's Tangle.  Sometimes I ask myself why I took French in high school, especially now that we are so close to Mexico. Why didn't I take Spanish?  I had this romantic idea about French literature and travel to France. I don't think I had actually read any French literature in high school. It often seems fairly dark and cynical. I just skimmed Candide again in order to make an argument with my son's AP language teacher to pick another title, and felt justified in my remembered disapproval of its misanthropy and bitterness.  Francois Mauriac's Viper's Tangle is narrated by a character who is also filled with hate and skepticism, one of Voltaire's heirs.  But Mauriac writes a dark book with a redemptive ending.

In Mauriac's book the narrator, Louis, of a bourgeois if not peasant class background, becomes bitter, although he may naturally be depressive, when he discovers his aristocratic wife married him because her first lover left her.  Her family disapproves of him, although they hope he will make money for the family. And make money he does. He never leaves his wife, but he withholds love from her and the children after the one daughter whom he did love dies.  As his bitterness towards his wife grows, so does his pocketbook and his debasement and the hatred in his heart.  He cheats on his wife but is too cheap to become a hedonist.  

Instead he tortures his family with the threat of settling his wealth on someone else. At first his chosen heir is his sister-in-law's illegitimate son, whom he actually loves because he is everything Louis is not. When that boy dies in the War, he decides to give all his money to his own illegitimate son. But that young man is not very bright and is worried about getting in trouble with the law, so instead he takes a payoff from Louis's son and son-in-law who are spying on him to save the family millions.

The book is written as a confession from Louis to Isabella, his wife, to explain why he wanted to disinherit his family. He has always felt hated and thus hates himself. But a few events open his heart to grace. First, he is capable of love, as is seen by his early love for his wife and his devotion to his daughter Marie and his nephew Luc. Another moment is when the priest who tutors his children calls him a "good man" for forgiving him (He went on an outing to the theater in disobedience to his Superior).

The critical moment of spiritual awakening, or opening of his heart to grace, occurs when Louis learns that Isabella has died before him while he is gone and before he could return home to visit her. He at last has an emotional break down. He realizes he had really wanted reconciliation with her.  He finds charred pieces of her journals in the fireplace and realizes she desired reconciliation too - one line in particular "Forgive, not knowing what you have to forgive" opens his eyes to what he has been blind to.

 In his grief he realizes he did care.  He suddenly gives up his plan to give away his money (he was foiled anyway), and begins to experience peace.  He has a moment of honesty with his children and settles down to live at their estate on a vineyard, a place he begins to value for its beauty rather than as a commodity.  His granddaughter leaves the sanitorium where she was recovering from the breakup of her marriage and comes to live with him. After he dies and his journal is found, she is the one who testifies to his conversion, to the mysticism he experiences at the end of his life when he is able to love at last.  He can see the tangle of vipers in his heart that have nearly poisoned completely his ability to love, but the triumph of the story is that he does see that love, in particular self-sacrificing Christian love, is the only means to peace.  And he begins to forgive himself.

He realizes he needed the aid of some "person, of someone in whom we might all have been reunited, of someone who would, in the eyes of my family, have guaranteed the victory that I had won over myself, of someone who would stand my witness. . . Even the genuinely good cannot, unaided, learn to love. To penetrate beyond the absurdities, the vices, and above all, the stupidities of human creatures, one must possess the secret of a love that the world has now forgotten." 

Louis's conversion is evident when he finally falls on his feet to prayer in desire to express his weakness.  He sees he had been honest about his poisoned heart, but now he realizes that even he can be redeemed.

But this part is the shortest in the book. Most of it is the tale of Louis's hatred and bitterness.  His conversion is not explicit, other than the quote above.  Are French novelists just naturally skeptical of any goodness in human nature?   Imagine Louis lived on after his conversion. Would a novel that describes Louis's life as an attempt at reparation, at clearing his heart of the vipers, or perhaps as an education in love be a hard story to write? A boring story to read?

***********************************

The short novella of Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, also tells the story of lives of lost souls.  This was a reread for me, after a space of maybe 20 years, and a reminder of why I used to love early 20th century American literature.  It's descriptive without being flowery, direct without being dark, psychological without being sentimental, and sociological without being overtly ideological.  In 1928, it won the Pulitzer Prize for literature, one of three Wilder was awarded.

The story is based on a fictional event, although I think I believed it was based on a true event, until I consulted the all knowing Wikipedia.  There is really an Incan rope bridge over a river in Peru that was still standing in 1864, after nearly 500 years. In the story, the bridge has collapsed with 5 people on it who all died.  Wilder, and one of his characters, an 18th century monk, Brother Juniper, ask the question, "Why these five?" The first chapter is called "Perhaps An Accident." Brother Juniper, who was about to cross the bridge and saw it fall, attempts to piece together biographies of the five who have died to prove God's Providence in letting these five die, while preserving others, like himself.  Is God just in punishing them? Were their lives meant to serve as a lesson? Had they fulfilled what they were called into being to do?

The next three chapters detail the lives of the Marquesa de Montemayor, a rich woman who writes daily letters about local gossip to her estranged daughter in Spain, and her serving girl Pepita who was picked by the Abbess to follow in her footsteps; Esteban, an orphaned twin whose brother had died shortly before from a leg infection and who was left crazed with grief; and Uncle Pio, an old illegitimate Spaniard who loved theater and who helped train Camila the Perichole to become a famous actress. Camila later spurns Uncle Pio and leaves the theater in order to recreate her identity as a wealthy lady, after she becomes the lover of the Viceroy.  She has three children, then suffers smallpox and loses everything.  One of her sons dies with Uncle Pio on the bridge, because Camila was letting him go to get an education.

The last chapter is called "Perhaps an Intention."  Brother Juniper writes his book and tries to come up with a mathematical measurement of a person's goodness and usefulness. He makes a chart of people who died in a plague and comes up empty of pattern. At one point he tears up his calculations and throws them into the sea where "he gazed for an hour upon the great clouds of pearl that hang forever upon the horizon of that sea and extracted from their beauty a resignation that he did not permit his reason to examine."    Although his intentions are good, he is burned for heresy, and calls on St. Francis as hi dies.  His book supposedly survives in a university as an anthropological oddity.

Each of the five who died left behind mourners and people whose lives were transformed by their deaths, in small but notable ways. The Marquesa's last letter detailed a conversion experience upon encountering Pepita's devoted, selfless, and brave love for her Abbess (had she not died would she have remained inspired?) and her letters become famous. Her daughter eventually comes with her baby to visit Pepita's abbess. Camila was in despair at losing her fame and status and beauty by her disfiguring disease, but after she loses her son and the one man who loved her for who she was (Uncle Pio), she also goes to visit the Abbess to talk about her loss and ends up staying to do works of charity.  Esteban had tried to hang himself after the death of his twin, but was saved by a ship's captain, who is one of his few mourners.

The book leaves the question of life's meaning apparently open, as Wilder is quoted as saying on the novel's entry on Wikipedia: "However, the central idea of the work, the justification for a number of human lives that comes up as a result of the sudden collapse of a bridge, stems from friendly arguments with my father, a strict Calvinist. Strict Puritans imagine God all too easily as a petty schoolmaster who minutely weights guilt against merit, and they overlook God's 'Caritas' which is more all-encompassing and powerful. God's love has to transcend his just retribution. But in my novel I have left this question unanswered. As I said earlier, we can only pose the question correctly and clearly, and have faith one will ask the question in the right way."^[3]

The answer discovered by Louis in Viper's Tangle and the Abbess's words that end Wilder's tale seem pretty clear:  "But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."

Opening the road for other runners

Lately, I have been feeling my age, especially when running.  I have not been running very much or well lately.  My feet hurt from plantar fascitis that I think is compounded by wearing flipflops too much. I've had a sore shoulder for months - it may be a rotator cuff injury or tendinitis in my shoulder, as far as I can tell from an internet diagnosis.  I feel tired most of the time.  At age 43, I am well past the age for making PRs, but I thought I had more miles to run with grace; instead I feel like a creaky grandma in running shoes.

A running friend from Guam recently visited, and we rehashed some races, and  he recounted his own successes (he's at least 10 years older) and those of other running club members we knew. It made me miss competing in races and triathlons. Another Guam friend recently participated in a local half Ironman triathlon and did well. I received an invitation to join a team for a Ragnar relay. But I haven't felt good running for weeks, maybe months.

Running used to make me feel younger, freer, stronger.  But I haven't run painfree for a long time. Cramped, achey, and tired are better adjectives for the way I feeling during and after my long runs.

This slump will probably end with the right healing.  I've been making some changes and trying to do some strengthening and stretching exercises and to cross-train a little more. More weights, yoga, and swimming should help recalibrate my physical well-being after the busy schedule of the spring and summer took a mental and physical toll. And spiritual as well. Slumps usually apply across the board.

The good thing is with the return of our fall routine, we've had a return of a sense of well-being throughout the house. I'm only teaching one class, the kids' schedule is full but not hectic, and although or because we've had a lot of company lately, a sense of order has been maintained - at least I've stayed on top of the dishes and laundry.

Like the nagging aches of my physical injuries, I still have a fair share of things to fret about - the new math program at the kids' school (group work every day!), trying to balance the kids' social lives and family time without causing an insurrection, trying to prevent the toddler from becoming a tyrant. (Her latest tool of manipulation: to announce "But I LOVE it!" when something or someone is about to go away) But other conditions have brought peace and have lessened my summer anxieties - the college kids are busy and happy, the middle kids are happy, the youngest are mostly happy. Teaching CRE is keeping me mindful lately at Mass. Our cups are full.

So I'm hopeful that my physical aches will fade before too long without excessive reliance on ibuprofen. I'm hopeful that I can maintain, maybe not peak fitness, but a high level of endurance and speed, not because I want to compete for something, but because I like feeling fast and I like running far.

All of this background information is predicated on pointing out an article I just read about a women and running. A couple days ago I picked up an April issue of Runner's World someone left at the Little Free Library at the beach.  It was dedicated to the Boston Marathon. One of the feature articles was a profile of Roberta Gibb, the first woman to run in the Boston Marathon - albeit illegally.  At the time, 1966, the longest race for women was a mile and a half. I couldn't believe it when I read that. I do sometimes have to acknowledge a debt to the feminist movement.  But Gibb didn't run the marathon to make some righteous statement about women's liberation, but because she liked running far. She wanted to see if she could do it.

As she says about being turned down as an entrant to the marathon because of the limitation of women's races:  “At first I just laughed, it was just so ridiculous,” Gibb says. “I was running two or three hours a day, and it made me feel so wonderful. I thought, If only everyone else could feel as good as I feel when I’m running, it would probably solve most of the world’s problems."

Gibb was going on two and three hour runs in her nursing shoes.  She didn't even have running shoes, although she bought a pair for the marathon. She wore her brother's Bermuda shorts and a black bathing suit under a hoodie and ran without energy gels or performance drinks or compression gear. She didn't do it to prove a point or to make a statement but because when she watched runners, she wanted to run, too.

"...she stood on the sidewalk, mid-marathon, and watched the runners file past. Gibb didn’t know where they had started, or where they were going. But she was mesmerized. “I felt that I had witnessed an ancient yet civilized tribe that was in touch with the most primitive human traits,” she says. “They looked so natural. That afternoon, something inside me decided that I was going to run the Boston Marathon. It was an edict from my soul.” She began her training the next day."

Her training was nothing like the sophisticated regimen many runners follow today. But she still clocked in at 3:21. That's just about 7:40 minute miles for 26 miles. She was running faster than than until late in the race - which gets hilly - when she developed blisters.

Gibb held steady through the Newton Hills, encouraged by Alton Chamberlin, an upstate New York runner. He told her they were on seven-minute pace. And Stalzer continued to tail Gibb as close as he could. “I was surprised at how strongly she took the hills,” he says. “I had to work very hard to stay close. She was a wonderful-looking runner.”

Instead of being shamed and harrassed, she was admired by most of the other runners.  The college students from Wellesley College broke into a roar when she ran into view and formed a tunnel for her to run through. She also had another moving encounter during the event:

"Beyond Wellesley, Gibb noticed a woman holding a child. As she passed, the woman chanted, “Ave Maria. Ave Maria.” The scene struck a chord, and Gibb felt her eyes dampen. “It was as if she knew I wanted children,” she says. “And that I consider motherhood among a woman’s highest callings.”

Gibb was met by photographers and journalists and the Massachusetts governor at the end of the race and featured making fudge and looking housewifely in a magazine article.  She ran the race the next two years without a race bib. The Boston Marathon wasn't opened to women until 1972, and it wasn't until 1996 that her achievements were recognized.

"In 1996, on the event’s centennial, Gibb was finally recognized for her three consecutive Boston wins. The BAA awarded both her and Sara Mae Berman—also a three-time winner, in 1969, ‘70, and ‘71—their long-overdue winner’s medals. “Next to the day my son was born, it was the happiest day of my life,” Gibb says. “I didn’t feel any anger or resentment at all [toward the BAA], just pure joy.”"

Gibb continued to run and race for years and ran her PR at age 39 in the NYC marathon. She practiced law for many years before retiring to become an artist. One year she was asked to carve statues for race trophies for the Olympic Marathon Trials in 1983. She continues to create sculptures and paintings and to practice the art of appreciation.

 “My father would take me to the beach and challenge me to figure out where the ripples in the sand came from. I felt transported by the beauty of everything I saw, and I’m still trying to piece together the miraculous patterns of life.”

"...Our stroll around Rockport meanders through a wooded preserve. I stoop to remove a turtle from the road; when I turn back to Gibb, she’s staring at a leaf in her hand. It’s mostly dead and brown, but with two spectacular veins of neon red and green. “I wonder what made this leaf produce these colors?” she asks. “Isn’t it amazing, the miracles around us, if only we take time to notice them?”"

She thought about running the marathon this year for the fiftieth anniversary of her race, but was parade marshal instead. She has nothing to prove. She's over 70 and still puts in hours on the road or trails.

"Gibb never sought recognition for what she did. Instead, she has embodied a lifestyle that will sound familiar to runners. She runs for the joy, challenge, personal exploration, and quiet fulfillment of it. She runs to commune with nature and connect with her own animalism. She runs because something stirs her, and that is enough."

 I have to admit I teared up a little bit as I read this article.

http://www.runnersworld.com/boston-marathon/first-lady-of-boston

Reading about identity

A couple nights ago I had my book club over for our discussion of Glennon Doyle Melton's Carry On, Warrior.  I was a little anxious about the meeting because Melton takes some unorthodox views towards some controversial issues, most notably abortion. She is very frank about having had an abortion in her youth.  She later gets pregnant out of wedlock again, but gets married and has the baby and gets clean after being addicted to alcohol and drugs and having an eating disorder, among other psychological and emotional dysfunctions. Some of the women in my book club loved this book because of her descriptive and funny presentation of the messiness of life, and some did not love it because of Melton's controversial views, not just of abortion, but of many of the hot button social issues.   I was a little worried about strong opinions being expressed and feelings being hurt.

Happily, the discussion was very democratic and light hearted.  People mentioned some favorite parts and some parts that were troubling and shared favorite quotes.  A few people were honest about not liking it and why, but in a way that wasn't confrontational.  Melton might be a hard person to have as a friend, but she has a great talent for storytelling and a gift for bringing out a truth from a moment of reflection.   I like her take on the "golden coin" she would like to give her kids - one side confidence from knowing they are a child of God and the other side humility from knowing that everyone else is also.  Her comment on "letting love win" in an argument, instead of defending our ego was good. Another good marriage tip was the anecdote about how her husband leaves out a glass of wine for her each night and she makes his coffee in the morning, which is definitely a Mother Teresa do small things with great love act.

Other notable parts: her anti "carpe diem" post that went viral is about how parenting is like mountain climbing and writing and other difficult things - they are hard work, but moments of joy (Kairos moments she calls them) outweigh the suffering.  She also has a Catholic perspective on the "God shaped hole" that we all try to fill with something instead of God - a St. Augustine reference.  Another Catholic moment is when she references the rule of St. Benedict - "when thorns of contention arise, daily forgive, and be ready to accept forgiveness" and "listen with the ear of the heart."    Another "Catholic" moment is when she talks about focusing on the crucifixion - when suffering happens, remember the resurrection follows.

Finally, she is good at recognizing what lessons to impart to our kids: to learn that to be human is "to love and forgive." To be compassionate toward the lonely kids. And Robert Fulghum's message that "Peace is not the absences of conflict but the ability to cope."  And the idea that we all have gifts that are sometimes hard to identify but are our bridge to others' hearts if we use them well.

I liked the book because of these moments of insight, but I struggle with how I feel about writers like Melton, Anne Lamott, Kathleen Norris, etc. These are writers who are openly and devotedly Christian, but have unorthodox views on social issues and call God "she," among other theological quirks. On the one hand, these women are really good writers - engaging tones, vivid descriptions, heart tugging stories of recovery and redemption, and honest accountings of faults.  They draw people in and present a face to Christianity that is attractive to people who are otherwise repelled by the apparent hypocrisies of many Christians.

What is a turn off to me is when Melton uses cute phrases like "life is brutiful." She use strong language, which can be a put off to me also - for instance, the three prayers she tries to remember to pray are 'please, thank you, and wtf?" Why the last? It's memorable - but too cute. And I don't really think of myself as a warrior. Maybe I'm not fighting big enough battles. My addictions are all pretty minor compared to Melton's.  But some people find these metaphors memorable and real or authentic, which is a part of the attraction of these writers.

But this claim to "authenticity" is another part of what I struggle with. These are writers, I want to say. They specialize in storytelling - making stuff up.  Granted, writers fabricate and exaggerate and manipulate reality sometimes - a lot of the time - to get at something essential and true - but also some times that epiphany often isn't recognized until later, maybe even in the writing.  I can't help but feel a little skeptical of Melton's claim to be a truth teller.  She tells a good story, and most good stories have a big truth buried under a lot of fabrication and editing.  Melton shares some great insights, but how much does she filter what she shares based on keeping and expanding her audience?

Yesterday, I spent a good part of the day reading her second book, Love Warrior, which reveals a lot more than her first book or her blog. I actually liked this book better, mostly because it was a narrative and not a collection of edited blog posts, and it seemed more honest.  It focuses on her fall into bulimia, drug and alcohol abuse, followed by her sudden marriage, her recovery from bulimia and drug and alcohol abuse, (in which Mary plays a role), and then the failing of her marriage because of pornography, adultery, and an inability to communicate.  The book reveals what a wonderful sister and parents Melton has, along with describing some of the lessons she learned as she healed - the welcoming arms of Mary leading to Christ, the reassurance that she is loved by God as she is, the method of just focusing on doing the next right thing, the need to face pain and suffering instead of hiding from it, the ability to balance tension (developed in a yoga class), the desire to feel known, the difference between wanting to be full of beauty and beautiful and between wanting to be desired and being loved, the love and protectiveness she feels for her children, the pain and vulnerability that loving another person requires, the need to reconcile soul, mind, and body.

At the end of the book it looks like the marriage is on the road to recovery because Melton and her husband learn to be more honest with each other, but just before the book released Melton revealed that she and her husband are separating.  The reason isn't revealed online, but Melton's book does illustrate how deeply wounded she was by her husband's infidelity. I would think that kind of injury to a marriage is difficult to heal, and the marriage began on rocky ground.

It's always sad when a marriage fails, for the family, for the couple, for the greater community that needs strong marriages to flourish.   Who knows what really is at the heart of their separation, but the reason given on the website was that though they had experienced healing, she had healed into a different person. I hope that is the reason, and not that the success she now has has made her want different things.  Something about claiming to be a new person doesn't sound authentic to me.  We all are changing all the time, becoming new people every day.  There is a part in Love Warrior about her search for her true self while she is sitting on the beach that leads me to wonder who is my true self? I don't think I would find her on the beach. The faces I present to my kids, to my husband, to my family, to my friends, to strangers are all a little different, but they are all me.  My mind changes daily. 

So the books left me uncomfortable.  Maybe I do need to be more self-aware.  More likely I need to be less. I sometimes think I should write a manifesto of what I believe - or a family mission statement, or some kind of identity statement - something that would remind me what we stand for when faced with difficult choices, but my mind changes too often for that.  

New routines

The days have been a lot quieter around here with two kids off to college and only five at home.  How did we come to this stage so quickly?  The sense that I am missing something or someone is constantly gnawing at me. Five seems like a small number, but I still can't quite keep track of everything. I was late to pick up the baby at the sitters after an appointment because I thought I had time to run a quick errand.  And I completely forgot to pick up the fifth grader on Tuesday. She got left in aftercare for an hour. An hour. I didn't remember I had to go pick her up until her brother asked where she was when he came home from practice. Bad mom moment. Granted she had only had one full day of school because last week she had a week of half days, but I was in la-la land organizing photographs on the computer and trying to figure out some of our new technology (a new printer and an old laptop left behind by one of the college kids who upgraded his device).

Despite those lapses, for the most part we are resuming order around here.  When we returned from summer vacation and dropping the college kids off at school, the youngers quickly rearranged the bedrooms to establish a new layout in which three of them now have their own rooms. Yes, we have five bedrooms, a luxury. When the college kids come home, they will get their spaces back, but despite the clouds of dust the moving around kicked up, I'm happy about the arrangement myself. Everyone filled at least one bag of give away clothes and toys. Piles of dust and hairballs from under the bed spaces were swept out for the first time in a long time. No one can blame someone else for the mess on the floor. I cleaned out some of my clothes that have been hanging around for fifteen years, and gave away some of the baby's things that she didn't really wear at all because she grew a lot all of a sudden, and now we are feeling all tidied up and ready for the fresh start that fall brings.

New school and activity schedules are posted on the calendar. New folders and binders are organized for assignments. My desk is cleaned out and a large stack of papers has been either filed (i.e. stashed in a box in the basement) or recycled. I even posted a couple of a change of address forms for some financial documents that I hadn't yet sent in even though we have been in this house for a year.

I have this feeling that I need to tidy up a lot more than desks and closets.  The busy busy summer resulted in short tempers, gray hairs, five extra pounds, and a constant gnawing sense of loss.  Time, time, I need more time! The baby talks in complete sentences. The second child is off to college. The fourth child is in high school. What happened to the long days of summer spent lolling around the neighborhood pool or some playground while pudgy kids splashed and climbed, and it seemed that all we had was time?

I am still feeling thankful for vacation, for the opportunity to reset and refocus. We at least had a few days of nothing to do. Trying to work, albeit from home online, and keep up with the kids left me wrung out and anxious from all that I was failing to do.

Now that the house is quiet for a moment (the baby - I should say toddler - is napping and the kids are at school), and my class load has shrunk from four to one course, I can hear thoughts rattling around again. I made it to morning Mass one day last week. The toddler looked at picture books, and I listened, instead of listing. I missed having our big kids at Sunday Mass, but I was full of gratitude and happiness for them to be in their world.  I was grateful to see the other kids happy to be heading back to school.  Things are good.  I can think of a million little ways to improve upon their school, their faith formation, our routines at home, etc, but things are good.  For the moment: relief.  Praise and thanksgiving are again in the routine.