Comparisons

About a month ago I read an article about how much it costs to educate a child in the American public school system. Just south of $10,000 per child per year is the national average, and in--was it Kansas City??--it's about $15,000.

At our church school it costs approximately $2000 to educate a child for a year.

Now I will grant that in many ways we're talking apples and oranges here. We're small, we can be as selective as we choose, we have kids from reasonably literate, stable homes.

And we have our weaknesses. No science lab, few electives. . . and no swimming pool, unlike the Kansas City schools.

But still. For 1/5 the cost we churn out graduates who function well at whatever work they do and who go to college and do well, the gaps in their education compensated for by their skills at setting goals and meeting them.

Which makes me wonder if the public education system is one big sieve into which liquid money is poured, as it were.

I overheard a very interesting conversation in the Washington-Dulles airport the other week, during my long layover on the way to Virginia. Two principals and two or three teachers were on their way back to the Midwest after some sort of conference in the Washington area. I was so intrigued with their conversation that I took notes, but I don't think they caught on.

There were no stories about challenging kids, no asking each other for advice on teaching, no comments about curriculum, absolutely nothing indicating that their work was the slightest bit of a calling or had anything to do with service and sacrifice. The entire time, all they talked about was wages, contracts, investments, days off, fairness, and retirement. Especially about retirement.

"Last year out of my 20 days I gave 8 days back! We're supposed to have 20 vacation days but they schedule all this stinkin' stuff when the kids are gone. . . It's always bugged me that custodians can take a fishing trip to Ontario in October, when school is in session!"

"It's not fair that principals and teachers get the same retirement. Teachers are required to be there 9 months but principals have to be there all year."

"The only negotiation I had was when I was offered the position. I was offered a two-year contract."
"That's the best time to negotiate--when you're first hired. After that you're stuck."
"It's gonna be the same way for teachers with the economy the way it is."

"If it gets to be too much I can drop my keys on my desk and tell the state that's it, I'm retiring. I'll do that under one of two conditions--if my health requires it or they change the retirement plan."
"So you're saying you're a principal with principles?"
"Yes! I'm a principal with principles!"

Ok, fine, so this is their job and they need to think about making a living and preparing for the future. But listening to this made me oh so thankful for Mr. Smucker and Miss Amy over at Brownsville Mennonite, whose hearts are in their work, and who talk about kids and tests and grades and classes, and who never mention contracts or compare wages or count the years until they can retire.

And maybe this helps explain why we can educate kids for $8000 a year less.

Quote of the Day:
"If Dad ever runs for President, it'll be to ease the pressure that's on his life."
--Ben

My Amazing Sons

Yesterday I drove to the Brownsville Rec Center to watch Brownsville Mennonite play basketball against Toledo Christian, only TC somehow didn't get the memo to be there at 3:30 and we couldn't get hold of anyone--coach, school, church office, nothing.

Toledo is out toward the coast so we figured their bus broke down in the mountains outside of cell service range.

So the school guys played against the church youth guys while we waited, and got worn out, and then Rita and Jeannette served the supper they brought along, and then the other team showed up. They thought the game was at 6.

So our tired guys played their fresh ones and creamed them to such a degree that I was hoping they'd let them make a few more points just out of mercy.

I am not much of a basketball game watcher and saw my first-ever "real" high school game only last year. But this game yesterday was fun to watch because. . . . MY BOYS WERE AMAZING.

Ben is not a flamboyant player; he is just there, at the right place at the right time. And he kept making shots. Never mind that the tension about gave me heart failure every time the ball was in the air, but time after time they went through.

Steven is fun to watch because he moves like he was born to move. You know how most guys his age look like a conglomeration of elbows and knees trying to get to the same place at the same time? Not him. He is smooooth. And when he jumps for a ball you gasp because surely you didn't see that much space under him, it's impossible.

Next week I get to watch my boys in action again, at the ACE regional convention in Newberg. It won't just be basketball, though. Both are singing and doing track events and I think Pace Bowl and Bible Bowl. Ben is reciting a famous speech and entering two project displays, one on the health care bill and one on the best conditions for sprouting grass seed. Steven has entered a photo and a fiction story. And I think I'm forgetting a few events.

So we have been listening endlessly to Ben at the piano dinging the same notes over and over and trying to get the bass part right. "What should I gain from his re-ward. . . (clonk). . .ward. . .(clonk). . .ward. . ." And we've been trying to get Steven to actually work out rather than try to skate through the athletic events on charm and luck, which is how he generally gets through life, I might add.

If I have ulcers by the end of next week it will be because few things tie me up in knots like watching my children compete. Up there in front of everybody, their fate hanging in the air--I can't describe that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

But when they do well--oh my--I feel like every inch of me, down to fingertips and toes, is literally bursting with pride. And I want to yell, "HEY, THOSE BOYS ARE MINE!!"

Quote of the Day:
"I think it's a concussion. If a kid's eyes look funny and he doesn't know what day it is, it's probably a concussion."
--the dad of the kid that Steven knocked over on his way up on one of his famous jumps. Rita and I thought the dad was overreacting slightly, because the kid seemed coherent, but in pain. And when I apologized on behalf of Steven the boy said bravely, "It's ok, these things happen." Meanwhile, a note to all of you: if I ever have a head injury, don't ask me what day it is. I never know what day it is at the best of times.

Joke for Today

What's the name of the little Irishman who stays in your garage all winter and then comes out on the porch in the spring?




Answer: Paddy O'Furniture

What I Did This Past Week

Flew to Virginia
Took Emz to an allergy specialist and found out she isn't allergic to anything. Har har.
Bought a car for Emily.
Talked with my sister Rebecca.
Went to the most amazing quilt/fabric store not far from my sister's. It would not be safe for me to live so close to such a store.
Drove with Emz to Guys Mills, PA, on the hilliest road I can remember, over at least six summits over 3000 feet, and then on miles of Interstate 79.
Taught Emz the Oregon girl how to pump her own gas.
Stayed at Faith Builders Educational Programs, which is kind of like a junior college.
Got a tour of FBEP, which is like getting lost, as it's an old renovated high school with about 4 sprawling levels and a bit too much like finding your way from one concourse to another at Washington-Dulles.
(Which I did, twice, via a shuttle bus, escalators up, escalators down, a shuttle train, more escalators, many turned corners, and more escalators.)
Spoke to 187 women on these subjects: Designed To Be a Woman, Finding God In The Ordinary, and Calm Down, It'll Be Ok--Mothering Through the Stages.
Sweated bullets through my first two talks because Emily was back in our apartment at FB, sick as a dog and I thought if she gets this close to doing her talk to the girls, and then can't, I will just expire of disappointment.
Hugged Marie Mullet, who Understood, when she told me she had just called Emz and she can do her talk after all.
Kicked back after the retreat and then spoke to the FB student girls about Coverings, Capes, and Calculus, and enjoyed hearing their stories and perspectives.
Enjoyed having Barb the SIL spend the night with us when she couldn't go home after the retreat because her town was flooded out coming and going.
Went to chapel briefly and then drove a few hours to Barb's house, after the waters subsided.
Drove from Barb's to my sister's in Virginia.
Tried to talk about The Future to Emily, who hates talking about The Future.
Had a late-night chat in the dark with Jason the interesting nephew.
Talked with the sister some more.
Flew to Portland.
Waited for a ride with Michael and Verna the neighbors who just had a baby and needed to take the six visiting sisters to the airport.
Watched people and wondered why a well-paid pilot would buy his pre-trip food at Wendy's. He got a small chili and a cheap hamburger. And then he blew his nose hard in his napkin and put his stuff in the trash and left.
Which I hope to do soon, minus the nose-blowing part.

Hi

Survived my three talks today and Em survived her one despite great difficulties. Good times with the daughter, the sister-in-law (Barb) who showed up, the organizers, the relatives who surprised me by showing up, and lots more people.
One more talk coming up, to the girls students at Faith Builders Educational Programs, a Mennonite kind-of junior college. My talk is titled Coverings, Capes, and Calculus, on combining these divergent things of course.
We were going to stop at Barb's house tomorrow but you can't get in or out of her town because of floods. So she's spending the night here with us.

Hi, this is Jenny posting for mom. Mom is feeling very stressed (or so it seems) because she's going somewhere tomorrow and she just realized how much she still had to get done. She has my sympathy. The reason I'm writing this post is mom's hand hurts and she's also busy. Oh, and
mom's going to Virginia to visit Aunt Rebecca then to Guys Mills, Pennsylvania to speak at a ladies retreat. My mother has a very busy life as you can probably see.Anyway I hope mom can type her own post next time because I'm awful at typing.



Quote of the day:
"Wilton? He doesn't live here any more. He's dead."
--Ben talking to some guy on the phone who asked for Wilton.--

Today's column. . .

. . . is about our trip to Savannah, of course, and its lessons on permanence and ambition.

Here it is.

Update on "Sam"

I posted a couple of weeks ago about the CSD decision regarding the little guy that our friends Dennis and Arlene have had as part of their family since he was two days old. The committee decided he should go to an uncle who is raising little "Sam"'s half-brother.

The uncle and his live-in lady came for a visit, and were very surprised to see how bonded Sam was with his foster family. It looked very hopeful that they might change their minds and leave him with Dennis and Arlene.

And then an ill wind blew in in the form of the uncle's adoption worker, who really put pressure on him that he needs to go through with this, that if he doesn't, Sam will always wonder why his brother was adopted by the uncle and he wasn't, and other such logic that Arlene knows is hogwash because she herself was adopted.

So they veered in that direction, and this week Sam was flown to his new home. To complicate things, Dennis and Arlene had been told they could accompany him, so they bought plane tickets, and then the caseworker changed her mind, and they couldn't go after all, and were left holding the bag with expensive non-refundable tickets.

We are all just sick inside about all of this.

Back in the day, we would pray for the persecuted Christians in Russia who had their children taken away by the state, and somehow we had this delusion that this could never happen here.

The final papers won't be signed for months, probably, so we can all still pray for a miracle and for the hot needles of conscience to induce the uncle to change his mind and stand up to the caseworker.

But little Sam has already been traumatized, and before this he was one of those few kids in the foster care system who hadn't endured any trauma.

"But maybe Sam is supposed to be like Joseph, who was taken from his home and God had a plan to work it all out," someone told me.

Well, maybe so, but I'm holding out for a miracle.

We live in a broken world, that's for sure.

Transposed Memory Syndrome?

So last night at the supper table we were reminiscing about one era of Paul's teaching career, and I recalled the time "Jim" and "Amanda" were caught being too cozy in a windowless back room at school, and all the things that happened after that.

Paul said, "It was NOT Amanda! It was Jane."

I'm sure he was right, and that was kind of frightening, to think I had transposed these girls in my head, and the innocent Amanda was saddled with something she had never committed.

Which makes me wonder, how many of us are stuck in other people's heads in "memories" of things we never did.

And how many other memories of mine have had the original characters replaced with someone else?

Told Ya

See, I had good reason to rave about Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding House.

The President decided to eat there today.

Details here and here.

Thanks to Frieda for the info.