Tonight we went to see our friend Cynthia Whalen in the play Just Cause at the Flea Theatre in Tribeca.  Proud parents of cast members seated behind told their friends “This is a very important theater.”

The energy and intensity of the young actors reminded me so much of Annex Theatre in Seattle where The Husband and I met and got together while working on Bliss Kolb and Brian Faker’s The Yellow Kid in which title role was played by Seanjohn Walsh, who was in The Compound with Cynthia.  I, a clown, and Seanjohn, a performance artist, played “normal people” in a production of  Beyond Therapy, the first show I did after moving to Seattle, in the same role originated Off-Broadway by Sigourney Weaver, the wife of the artistic director of The Flea where I saw Dick Monday, Tiffany Reilley and Hillary Chaplin in Clown Brain not long after we moved to New York.  So how does that score in the six-degrees-of-separation game?

After school on the subway train today, I overheard the mother advising her son, who looked about six years old, to keep his shirt tucked in.

“You want to keep your shirt tucked in or else you’ll get in trouble.”

“But, I got hot.”

“Well then, sprinkle a little water down your shirt to cool off.  But, not too much or you’ll get in trouble for playing with the water”

“I got told to get out of the bathroom.”

“You get in trouble for playing in the bathroom?”

“Uh huh.”

Yes but what did he learn in school today?

He learned that he will get in trouble no matter what he does.  He’s learned that he should not act on his own ideas.  He learned that school is not a place for thinking and problem solving.  If something bothers him, like a tucked in shirt that makes his tummy hot, and if a solution comes into his mind  it is very important that he not act on it.  Don’t trust yourself.  Don’t do anything.  Wait for someone with authority to tell you what to do.

The six-year-old wore khaki pants and a forest green polo shirt embroidered with ACHIEVEMENT FIRST, the name of a chain of charter schools that began with flagship Amistad Academy in New Haven, Connecticut  in 1999  ”to prove that urban students can achieve at the same high levels as their suburban counterparts.”

In 2005 New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein invited the organization to expand into Brooklyn with three schools and the franchise has been expanding ever since, opening an average of two new schools each year.

Achievement First schools in Brooklyn have recently been in the news for two reasons; the amount of classroom real estate removed from public schools and offered to Achievement First and similar charter school corporations and for the high percentage of students put in detention each day for infractions that include slouching, humming and failing to look teachers in the eye.

I attended high performing suburban-style schools and I can attest to the fact that our teachers and parents did care about slouching and tucked in shirts–But only on school picture day!  The rest of the time they encouraged us to think for ourselves because they knew that’s what would be expected of us when we got to college.

This morning my daughter woke up on time and ate breakfast sitting in a chair at the table (for the first time in weeks) before sharpening six pencils to take to school because this is the first morning of many days of standardized tests.  At this point there isn’t much an individual student or teacher or parent can do about the test score.  This is where luck comes in.  Hopefully the high pollen count will not aggravate allergies or asthma or headaches.  Hopefully clothing won’t be itchy or pokey.  Hopefully the room will not be too hot or too cold.  Hopefully there were no noises in the night or bad dreams to interfere with sleep.  Hopefully there were no rude strangers on the subway train during the morning commute.  Hopefully yesterdays BFFs are still BFFs today, and if they’re not it won’t become an issue until after the tests are over.

The New York City Board of Education rates teachers according to how much progress their students make on the state math and English language tests, how they were expected to score and actual results.  If the students scored better than expected then the teacher is rated as better than average.  But, if the students score highly to begin with there is little room for improvement.  If any of the students in the classroom happened to get a perfect scores on either of last years standardized tests then there is nowhere to go but down.

My daughter’s 5th teacher is going to get screwed.

She teaches at a school with involved parents who knew last year that their 4th graders had to get the highest score of 4, on both their math and English tests, if they were going to have a chance of gaining admittance to some of the more selective middle schools during the “school choice process”.  Some parents hire tutors for their children because “fine” and “at grade level” are unacceptable.

Why does my daughter’s teacher even bother if she’s going to be made to look bad?

Why did she set up that elaborate classroom economy with jobs and salaries and taxes if it’s not going to be on the test?  My kid fell for it and has been getting to school on time, turning in her homework, working well in groups and all kinds of behaviors tied to imaginary dollars that are saved and counted in order to be eligible to go on the class trip to Washington, D.C. –the culmination of a study of the Constitution of the United States which is also not going to be on this test.

Keeping the class pet alive is not part of the test.

Showing an x-ray of one’s broken arm, naming the bones and what the doctors have done help it heal is not part of the standardized curriculum for this grade level.

Discussions of Obama/Osama are a questionable use of valuable class time on the day before an important standardized test.

There is no time or space to transform a personal experience into literature on a shade-in-the-bubble score sheet.

There is also no room for experimentation which does nothing to encourage future research scientists.

Frankly, I don’t care if my daughter does well on standardized tests.  I find it demoralizing when she does.  I remember how we felt compelled to teach our seven-year-old that the information she had learned from the park ranger during her visit to the Statue of Liberty was irrelevant –even though it was true, and was one of the choices.  It was “wrong” because that information wasn’t contained within the paragraph about the Statue of Liberty, that she had been instructed read before selecting the “best” answers to the questions that followed on a standardized reading comprehension test.

No wonder the union doesn’t want teacher ratings based on students standardized test scores to be published.  The scores do not mean what the NYCDOE officials think that they mean.

This morning while we were still waking up in our bed, in the same room where we were when we woke up to the news that the sound we’d heard as thunder was actually a plane that had just flown into one of the World Trade Towers, we heard on NPR that Osama Bin Laden has been killed.  Wow.  That name is threaded through the background of ten years of living in New York City and almost the entire life of my child.

It’s stunning that Osama Bin Laden has been killed on President Barack Obama’s watch.  After all it was President George W. Bush who declared war and spoke so often, during his many years as president, of his efforts to get Osama Bin Laden.

So now I will go through my day, a little uneasy about riding the subway, a little concerned about the nearness of landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge and Empire State Building to the offices and classrooms of loved ones–a little too accustomed to life under high terrorist alert.

READ THE FOLLOWING TWO TEXTS THEN WRITE AN ESSAY:

BUTTERFLY HOUSE by Eve Bunting

When I was just a little girl I saw a small black creature like a tiny worm, and saved it from a greedy jay who wanted it for lunch.

I carried it inside, safe on it’s wide green leaf.  My grandpa said it was a larva and soon would be a butterfly.

We laid the larva carefully on thistle leaves inside an empty jar, put in a twig for it to climb–then made a lid of soft white paper all stuck around with glue.

My grandpa knew exactly what to do.  ”I raised a butterfly myself,”  he said, “when I was just your age.”

How strange to think my grandpa once was young like me.  ”We would have been best friends if I’d been there back then,” I said.

My grandpa smiled.  ”It worked out anyhow.  We’re best friends now.”

Up in his room we found a box.  I cut a window in its side, then covered it wit screen.  Soon I could look inside and see my larvae looking back at me.

What would she see?   A human face so big and scary, strange and starey?  What would she think?

“I want it pretty till she goes,” I said.

And so Grandpa and I drew flowers on colored paper.  Cone flowers, purple-blue, and marigolds, lantana, bright as flame, and thistles, too.

We wedged a garden twig inside the box for her to walk on, so her wings could dry once she became a butterfly.

My grandpa knows the flowers butterflies like best.

The ones they can rest and drink the sweet, clear nectar.

We glued the painted flowers inside the box so it was bright with color.  Made a sky above, the lid all blue with small white cotton clouds, and green with tops of trees that seemed to sway in soundless air.

I made a curve of rainbow like a hug to keep her safe while she was there.  We set the jar inside and closed the painted lid.  Through the screened window I could see the garden house.  A place of flowers and space and waiting stillness.

Each day I put out leaves for food and watched my larvae change.

My grandpa knew when it was time to gently pull away the paper top she hung from.  I taped it to the wall inside her house and let her be.  She would hang free inside the chrysalis that kept her hidden from the world.

Inside that magic place she grew, transformed herself, came out, drooped, limp and slack, with crumpled wings.  She was a butterfly, all spotted, orange, black, and brown as if someone had shaken paints and let the drops fall down.

“Our Painted Lady,”  Grandpa said.  ”It’s time.”

He meant that it was time for her to leave for her new life.  I swallowed tears.  From the beginning I had known today would come.  Now it was here.

My grandpa took my hand.  ”Cry if you like,” he said.  ”We understand.”

We carried out the box and raised the lid.  I watched her falter as she felt the first warm touch of sun, saw trees, felt breezes brush across her wings.  She rose, then rested on the fig tree branch.  I saw her fly.

“Good-bye.”

FROM TADPLE TO FROG  by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

In the spring, you may see frog eggs in the still water of a pond.  Each egg is a ball of clear jelly with a small, dark center.

Hundreds of eggs stick together in a clump called frog spawn.  Inside the eggs, tiny tadpoles are growing.  At first, they look like small, dark specks.  In a few days, little heads and tails take shape.  Soon, the tadpoles are big enough to wiggle out of their eggs.  After feeding on the jelly of their eggs for a while, the tadpoles wave their tails and swim away.  Gills on the outside of a tadpole’s body help it breathe underwater.

The tadpole’s main job is to eat and grow.  Many of the tadpoles will be eaten by hungry bugs, fish, or turtles.  But, a few escape.  They will grow to be frogs.

Tadpoles do not look much like the frogs they will become!  A tadpole has a strong tail for swimming.  The tadpole has a hard mouth.  It uses its mouth to scrape soft plants from the rocks and pebbles in the pond.

After a few weeks, the tadpole has grown two hind legs.  And the tadpole’s gills have moved inside its body.

Lungs are beginning to form inside the tadpole’s body, too.  Now and then, it swims up.  The tadpole puts its head out of the water.  It takes little breaths of air.  As the tadpole’s lungs grow stronger, its gills shrink away.

Two front legs begin to grow where its gills once were.  By the time it is about two months old, the tadpole’s mouth has become wider.  The tadpole starts to eat small bugs.

For a few more weeks, the tadpole’s tail shrinks and shrinks.  Now the tadpole’s strong legs and it’s webbed feet help it swim.  The tadpole has changed into a small frog!

Soon the little frog will leave the pond.  The frog spends much of its time out of the water.  But it likes to stay wet, so it does not go far.

The little frog catches bugs and worms.  It swallows them in its wide mouth.  The frog eats and grows.  It gets a little bigger every day.  After about two or three years, the frog is fully grown.

Every spring there will be new frog eggs in the pond.

WRITING FOR THE TEST  Kinds of Prompts

INFORMATIONAL:  Both passages talk about the early stages of frogs and butterflies.  Write and essay where you teach all about the development from a tadpole to a frog and a chrysalis to a butterfly.

1.  Intro-stake a claim

2. Body of paragraph one–give evidence from passage 1 or 2

3. Body of paragraph two–give evidence from other passage

4.Conclusion–re-state your claim and say more about it

THEMATIC:  Both passages teach us that the early stages of life can be delicate for frogs and butterflies.  Explain how survival depends on many things.

1. Intro-stake a claim

2. Body of paragraph one–give evidence from passage 1 or 2

3.  Body of paragraph two–give evidence from the other passage

4.  Conclusion–re-state your claim and say more about it

ARGUMENT:  Which creature would you rather care for  in it’s early stages, a frog or a butterfly?

1.  Intro–take a side

2.  Body paragraph one–prove and support your side with evidence from ONE passage

3.  Body paragraph two–say why and how the evidence from the other side isn’t as good, using details from the OTHER passage.

4.  Conclusion–re-state your side, show that it is proved and say more about it.

COMPARE/CONTRAST:  Tell how these creatures are different?

1.  Intro–re-state the prompt

2. Body paragraph one–describe similarities using details from BOTH passages.

3. Body paragraph two–describe details using details from BOTH passages.

4. Conclusion–say more or say if they are overall more alike or more different.

I don’t know about you but I have a headache already…

My Kid and all of her classmates and all the other kids in public school in New York have FOUR DAYS of ELA (English Language Assessment) standardized tests this week.

I guess this is good for them, if they’re planning to go to law school…

Bits of media filter through about the royal wedding.  So many reported the importance of the wedding dress.

The dress is the woman.  The woman is the dress.

One British reporter said that the wedding dress “is meant to say everything about who you are”.

On the day of my marriage, my own wedding dress expressed everything, both intimate and public, I had to say for myself.

My wedding dress was the creative center of our wedding day symbolizing ties from my ancestors and through the present moment to hope for my descendants

My heart and soul spoke through my wedding gown; “This is who I am”.

I remember when The Husband and I were planning our own wedding, we watched both versions of “Father of the Bride” the Spencer Tracey version and the Steve Martin Version and the Spencer Tracy/Elisabeth Taylor version was so much more sophisticated.  Compared to the Spencer Tracy version we could hardly stand the Steve Martin as SpongeBob SquarePants version.  It’s so poorly written.

So My Kid got out of school today.

She took the train to midtown during the morning commute with The Husband today.

She had a great time at the office.

It was a formal event.  Activities were prepared for the children by interns and junior employees.

Last time My Kid came to rehearsal in a studio with me she couldn’t run out of the building fast enough when The Husband came to pick her up.

Apparently she doesn’t want to be a clown.

It’s the beginning of the end for us 5th Grade Parents.  The wind down.  Everything that has been so important for the last so many years…

After 4 years of Lego Robotics it kind of broke my heart that is was all over.

I can’t believe My Kid stuck with this organization, FIRST Lego League, for FOUR YEARS.

My Kid was the senior member, the most experienced member, the member who had been on the team the longest, the Senior Veteran…

She joined the team in second grade when some of her other classmates didn’t make the cut because, “they threw the legos on the floor and cried when the other kids wouldn’t do what they told them to do”.  This either says a great deal or  absolutely nothing about my own child’s abilities.

Regardless,

We will miss the teachers who devoted so much of their own time to the Public School Lego Robotics Team of our rather small school which managed to make it to the City-Wide tournament two out of the four years My Kid was on the team.

Yeah! 8-Bots!  Yeah! Body-Builders!  Yeah!  Mission Masters!

YEAH! TEAM!

Most of the mothers standing in the schoolyard chatting about what they did on spring “break” were exhausted and thankful to have their children back in school today.  Some had just gotten home last night and had unpacking to put away.  Others hadn’t yet gotten to the grocery store and everyone had laundry.  Lots and lots of laundry.