On the Bus: Commuting to Yonkers, NY

In the days when women wore skirts, and that was not so long ago, (or was it?) Marash Girl commuted to work daily by bus from the Bronx to Yonkers, New York. On one such morning, she felt a hand under her skirt. Reaching down, Marash Girl grabbed the hand, a large, rough hand, clearly attached to the man standing next to her, held the hand up high, and shouted, "What is your hand doing under my skirt?" The man attached to the hand shouted out, "That's not my hand!!!" And that, as they say, was that!!!

AP Chemistry and Anti-Semitism in Newton High School in the !950's

Teacher JCH (addressing the brightest kid in the room) asked Abe to stand up in Marash Girl's high school AP Chemistry class, and for no apparent reason,laced into him. "You and your people . . . " he began. And continued in a diatribe, the details of which Marash Girl prefers not to remember. Marash Girl, unable to tolerate the anti-Semitism, stood up and addressed the teacher. "You can't talk to him like that!" she exclaimed. The bell rang. The members of the class, with no comment, headed out to the hall so as not to be late for their next class. Two weeks later, report cards were issued. Marash Girl had averaged straight A's in that chemistry class, but that's not the letter of the alphabet that appeared on her report card. Can't imagine why!!!

Can I Have The Recipe?

Years ago, Marash Girl worked with a woman who loved Marash Girl's baked goods; said woman always asked for the recipes of the tasty treats that Marash Girl prepared and often shared with the teaching staff at their place of work.  Marash Girl was as pleased to share those recipes as she was to share the treats.  But one day, said woman brought in a delicious cake reputedly of her own making.  When Marash Girl asked the woman for the recipe, the woman replied, "Oh, no!  I never share my recipes!"

God Answers Prayer

With all the talk about drought in California and flooding in Texas, Marash Girl is reminded of an old joke, a joke that was alive and well while she and her young family were living alongside the Connecticut River, a joke that has become the centerpiece of her philosophy of life.  Here goes.

Flood warnings. The river was rising but the man refused to leave his home.

A police car came by; the policeman offered to drive the man to higher ground. "The river will flood; you must leave now," said the policeman.

"I will stay," said the man.  "God will save me!"

The waters continued to rise and  the man climbed to the second floor of his house, as the waters covered the first floor.

A man in a rowboat came by and shouted to the man:  "Come with us. The river continues to rise."

"I will stay," said the man.  "God will save me!"

But the waters continued to rise, and the man had to climb onto the roof of his house.

A helicopter hovered over, dropped a rope ladder, and shouted, "Climb the ladder; you must leave!  You're house will be covered with water soon, and you will drown!"

"I will stay," said the man.  "God will save me!"

The waters continued to rise, covered the house completely, and the man drowned and, yes, he went to heaven.

He arrived at the pearly gates, and when St. Peter answered, the man demanded to see God.

"What's the problem?" asked St. Peter.

"I need to talk to God.  He didn't keep his promise to me!"

"Okay," said St Peter.  "Come with me."

The man followed St. Peter, and as soon as the man saw God, the man cried out,

"You promised to save me, and look!  You didn't keep your promise!  I drowned in the floods!"

God answered.  "I sent a police car, a rowboat, and a helicopter.  What more did you want?"

N.B. Special thanks to Paul Siemering, Marash Girl's helicopter during her first years teaching at English High School!

The Funnies (Funny Papers), Comic Strips, and Learning to Read

Known as today as the comics, Marash Girl's dad knew them as the funnies.  He would come home from work, exhausted, and after supper (he called it supper, even though it was a weekday), still at the table, before reading the tough stuff, he would turn to the page of  black and white funnies (usually 4 frames per episode) in Boston's daily, the Boston Traveler, Evening Edition. Terry and the Pirates (remember the Dragon Lady and the chicken that always ate the buttons that popped off of whose shirt was it?), Blondie (and Dagwood -- the Mashed Potato Sandwiches and the one day Dagwood, sick of Mashed Potato Sandwiches, threw away what turned out to be a Roast Beef Sandwich), Little Orphan Annie (and Daddy Warbucks and her dog Sandy - "Arf!") . . . those were Marash Girl's favorites, and, possibly her dad's.  That was way before Peanuts came to the fore.  

As a little girl, Marash Girl always wanted her dad to read the funnies to her, but looking at the strip of images he would say, "This man says Hello, and that one says Goodbye, Hello Goodbye!"  Well, Marash Girl knew from the images that more than Hello Goodbye was going on, and would beg her dad to unlock the secrets that the pictures and print suggested, but her dad held firm, and said, "Well, you'll have to learn to read, to read them!"  Although he expressed the opposite of today's methods of how to encourage a child to read, his method worked (thanks be to God!), and though not the funnies, Marash Girl is still reading (and writing) to this day.

Power Point Critics Miss the Powerful Point

There is furor over the PowerPoint -- from the Wall Street Journal to NPR to Switzerland (where a political party wants to ban the Power Point there, claiming that Switzerland is losing billions of dollars in otherwise productive hours because its workers who are wasting their time watch power point presentations).  A book entitled the PowerPoint Fallacy by Matthias Poehm (which, although written in English, is as yet unavailable in the United States) discusses the issue, though I can only assume the position that the author takes from the book's title as well as from the fact that proponents of the Anti-PowerPoint-project get the book for 37% discount!

Despite the controversy, many teachers here in the United States feel that a PowerPoint presentation works in the classroom.  The audience in primary and high school classrooms, by definition, is still 35 or less, and PowerPoint allows the presenter to make points and still interact with individual students in an effort to get them to focus on the important points of the topic being presented. (PowerPoint certainly aids the student  presenter; whether or not it helps the student audience is still open to discussion.)

A math teacher (who will remain unnamed) believes in old fashioned teaching. "The students don't know a thing before the PowerPoint presentation, and after the PowerPoint they still don't know a thing!"

Passive listening to a lecture is bad enough; zoning out on a screen while the lecturer drones on is even worse.  While PowerPoint allows the presenter to present to a huge audience and (further) provides an assist to the presenter as he drones on,  White Boards and Flip Charts, by definition, can only be used in groups small enough and close enough to see the presenter, the White Board, and the Flip Chart, and therefore, these old-fashioned supports encourage interaction between the presenter and the audience.

The powerful point here is the interaction between the presenter and the audience, not the ability to drone on (with or without the PowerPoint), the presenter proving to the audience that s/he knows whatever needs to be known about the subject at hand.

In reality, PowerPoint is a further development of slide shows, film strips, and the Newton Plan, a plan created by Mr. Hayes in the 1950's to teach English grammar to all students in a particular high school grade at the same time and in the same place, in a large auditorium using slides as visuals and using only one teacher to teach.  The room was darkened in order to watch the slides (and allow some students to catch up on their sleep), and  I can tell you that I (along with many NHS students) never learned English grammar in high school; I only learned grammar through listening, reading, and finally teaching ESL (and not with PowerPoint, nor with slides in an auditorium).

Cliff Atkinson's Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire, attempts to mitigate against the furor.

After all, it's not what you've got, but how you use it!