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Matt stands in front of the church building. He sighs as he begins his way inside.
"Matt, good to see you again."
Matt's attention is drawn to the source of the voice. The priest.
"Just went to send a letter to my friend. He's over in India. Lovely work he's doing over there."
"Father, can we talk?"
"You want to go inside?"
"No. We don't need to."
"Alright, what do you want to talk about?"
Matt tries to open his mouth to utter the words he wants to, but can't seem to do so.
"Are you sure you don't want to go inside?"
"I'm sure. It's just... I've lost to many people in my life... My dad, a friend, a... a good friend..."
"You can't blame yourself for them."
"But it's all my fault. My dad died because he neede... wanted to support me. My friend, Melvin died because I drew to much unwanted attention to him. Elektra died because... because we loved each other... She stayed in Hell's Kitchen because I wanted her to. She wasn't supposed to and she died."
"Y'know, I knew your Father. He was a wild man, but he loved you. He thought so many times of putting you into a foster home. Just so you could have a good life. After your accident, he broke down. He knocked on my door and just burst into tears. He said 'I gotta fight! I gotta fight for my son!' The next week was when he died. Y'see, he was so focused on caring for you, he didn't think of himself. That's love, Matt. He did it because he loved you."
"But I still lost Melvin and Elektra because of my selfish wants."
The priest shakes his head and scratches the back of his head.
"Matt, you remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Well they were willing to die for what they believed in. They were willing. They weren't forced. I believe if you love something, you'll do whatever you need to do for that thing or person. Even if it means dying. Melvin, Elektra, and you're Father loved you. They died because they loved you, not because you made them die."
Matt begins to cry. He wipes away the tears and hugs and the priest. The priest shocked by what I'd happening slowly wraps his arms around Matt.
"So, the question is. Are you willing to die for what you believe in? Are you willing to die for the cause of making this city a better place?"
"Yes... yes I am. For them."
The priest let's go of Matt and smiles to him.
"Then wipe your tears away and go out there and fight. Never give up until you accomplish just that..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(clears throat)(Waves fingers in front of your face) You didn't see anything...
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All rights reserved. All images on this website are the property of Ricardo Gomez Angel. Images may not be reproduced, copied or used in any way without written permission.
© Fotografía de Ricardo Gomez Angel
Todos los derechos reservados. Todas las imágenes contenidas en este sitio web son propiedad de Ricardo Gomez Angel. Las imágenes no se pueden reproducir, copiar o utilizar de ninguna manera sin el permiso escrito
Comment une bibliothèque, un théâtre et d'autres partenaires culturels peuvent-ils cohabiter avec succès sous un même toit ? D'abord en abattant les cloisons...et deuxièmement, en combinant l’architecture de l’espace public avec le design de la programmabilité. Le résultat s’appelle Hub Kerkrade : non seulement un centre de ressources, mais aussi un vivier de connaissances, d’informations, d’éducation et de divertissement.
Kerkrade est une ville située dans la province la plus méridionale des Pays-Bas, à proximité de l'Allemagne. Le Hub Kerkrade, situé dans un ancien centre commercial, dispose d'une surface de pas moins de 5 000 m2, qui abrite le théâtre, la bibliothèque, divers partenaires culturels et l'école de musique de Kerkrade située à proximité. Cet emplacement fait partie du centre-ville revitalisé. Le design du Hub est une nouvelle co-création du guide créatif international et architecte Aat Vos (concept de design, stratégie, direction créative) en collaboration avec Mars Interior Designers (design, ingénierie).
A l'origine, la bibliothèque occupait la moitié de la surface du bâtiment et était séparée du théâtre par un mur. La suppression des cloisons a permis de créer plus d'espace, de lumière et une nouvelle idée pour le foyer. Cet espace pratiquement toujours vide s'est transformé en un espace de vie partagé multifonctionnel où l'on peut travailler, étudier ou se rencontrer. Le point de mire de cet espace se trouve dans le foyer : l'escalier du théâtre est équipé d'une belle rampe et d'un tapis rose rougeâtre, recouvert des deux côtés d'acier bleu. Le bar du foyer a été réalisé en cuivre et est désormais posé sur un fond de briques brutes, associé à un écran LED et à un caisson lumineux. Le « break drinks cabinet » vole la vedette, tant par sa taille que par l'éclairage changeant de couleur.
How can a library, a theatre and other cultural partners successfully coexist under one roof? Firstly by breaking down the walls...and secondly, by combining the architecture of public space with the design of programmability. The result is called Hub Kerkrade: not only a resource centre, but also a hotbed of knowledge, information, education and entertainment.
Kerkrade is a city in the southernmost province of the Netherlands, close to Germany. Hub Kerkrade, located in a former shopping centre, has a surface area of no less than 5,000 m2, which houses the theatre, the library, various cultural partners and the nearby Kerkrade Music School. This location is part of the revitalised city centre. The design of the Hub is a new co-creation of international creative guide and architect Aat Vos (design concept, strategy, creative direction) in collaboration with Mars Interior Designers (design, engineering).
Originally, the library occupied half of the building's surface and was separated from the theatre by a wall. The removal of the partitions created more space, light and a new idea for the foyer. This almost always empty space has been transformed into a multifunctional shared living space where people can work, study or meet. The focal point of this space is in the foyer: the theatre staircase is equipped with a beautiful banister and a reddish-pink carpet, covered on both sides with blue steel. The foyer bar was made of copper and is now set against a background of raw bricks, combined with an LED screen and a light box. The "break drinks cabinet" steals the show, both in terms of its size and the colour-changing lighting.
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Even an ugly ship wreck belched up from the belly of the sea can look beautiful under the right set of circumstances. All of the conditions and elements for making this image memorable were present at this moment (sun, fog, wet sand, surf, scenic background and reflections of both the wrecked sail boat and the shimmering sun in the wet sand). I'm delighted with the way this image and several others in the set turned out.
Nikon D60 Tamron 18-250 mm lens. Focal length 35 mm Exposed at 1/200 of a second at f7.1 ISO 100. As shot in the camera. No HDR or Photoshop and only some very minor post processing with Picnik to control the contrast level.
This image is copyrighted and owned by me. It cannot be used, modified, or reproduced for any purpose without my express permission. Prints may be available for purchase.
Thank you all for the many comments, awards and faves. I'm overwhelmed (pleasantly so) by the response this image is receiving.
ﻣع ﻧﻓﺳك ي ﺛﻗﯾل ﻋﺑﺎرﮪ ﺣﻃﮪﺎ ف ﺑﺎﻟك
ﺎﻟﻧﺎر ﺑﺎﻟﻣﺎء ﺗﻧطﻓي ۈﺎﻟﻏﻟﺎ ﺑﺎﻟﺎﮪﻣﺎل ﯾﻧﺗﮪي
Model ; Me
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On 17 January 2021, I had commented on a fellow photographer's old Snowy Owl photo taken late last year. I said that there didn't seem to be as many of these magnificent birds this winter. Immediately, Ron sent me a Flickr mail, telling me in which area he had seen several of them. My reply was that that was a long drive and further than I would normally drive. And that was that. However, I kept looking at the map, knowing that a good part of the distance was new to me. Then I began to think that maybe I could do it after all. No desperation, no need to get out there immediately. In fact, 13 days went by before this trip. Thank you so much, Ron, for passing on this information to me and later, to at least one other person. Though we both had successful days, we can only take part of the credit for our finds. I would never have even thought of travelling to this area. Of course, there was still no guarantee that any owls would be seen, but it was fun to explore a new place. Thoroughly enjoyed myself finding and photographing various old barns and sheds, too.
I had planned out my main route - and then the weather forecast changed at the last minute. Now the forecast said it was going to be a cloudy day with sunny breaks. Did I really want to go? When I checked the forecast for the coming week, snow was forecast for four days and I knew I would never drive rough roads after a snowfall. So, yesterday it was. I wasn't sure if any photos would turn out with such low light, but they seemed usable. One thing that I was definitely not impressed to see, shortly before reaching my destination, was the sudden appearance of my car's maintenance light come on!
I saw three Snowy Owls; two females and 1 male. The first female decided to fly when I was ridiculously far down the road. Maybe she had spotted some prey. The second owl was the female seen in all three photos posted today. She was perched on a far away silo. She had her back to me and stayed that way. When she turned her head to preen her back feathers, at least I could see her face. She knew I was there, as she had glanced my way two or three times, but was comfortable enough to sit and preen for a little while. The third owl was a beautiful white male. I hadn't seen it, perched on top of a power pole, but when I pulled over to stop and check my map, suddenly there was a flap of huge white wings seen out of the corner of my eye. No photos of either the first or third bird.
A few other birds that I saw included a flock of maybe 10 or so Gray Partridge that flew across the road in front of my car, and a fairly large flock of Snow Buntings, behaving the way they always do.
On the way home, I decided to quickly check on a few things east of the city. Nothing new, but nice to see a few familiar old barns and sheds.
So glad I made myself do this new drive.
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A loud speaker booms through the corridors.
“Attention all Justice League Of America members, please report to the central control room immediately.”
One by one, the JLA files into the central control room.
“Ok, ok I’m here. What I miss?”
“Don’t worry Oliver, we wouldn’t start without you.” A voice said as Oliver ran into the room
Oliver looked up to see a tall man, completely shaven, standing in front of the team.
“I know you. You’re Lex Luthor, the CEO.”
“Glad we can skip the introductions, Mr. Queen-“
“I also know about all that shady business Lexcorp gets up to. Destroy 3rd world villages mining for rare meteorites. Tired pretty hard to cover that up.”
“I see my reputation proceeds me.”
“You can say that again.”
“Well, unless our own conscientious objector has anything to say-“
“Oh I got plenty to say to you, Luthor-“
“Save it. We have a mission to complete here” Captain Atom interjected
“Thank you Captain. Now, just to make everything clear, I’ll be providing off the books funding for this little escapade, and I’ll also be one of it’s main heads of this operation”
“Called it” Oliver said through a fake cough. Dina chuckled under her breath as Lex scowled.
“Anything you would like to add Mr. Queen?”
“Yeah, I got a question, what happened to your hair? Cause I remember seeing you on TV and you had some nice ginger locks not to long ago.”
Lex sighed.
“I have found that in life there can be a lot of… distractions. Lots of little things that build up over time that can get in the way of your goals. So sometimes, you just need to get rid of all those distractions that get in your way to get what you want. Do you follow?”
“Yeah I think so.”
“Good. Now, here are your mission’s. You’ll be splitting up into pair’s of two’s and you’ll be hunting down known criminals and fugitives from the law. We’re not waiting for them to make a move.”
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Hey, so i'm currently at a film program, thus my lack of updating, but i took a couple photos before i left so expect some stuff for the month of july, just not much
ادلع يا كايدهم خليهم يشوفونك
علمهم اصول الحسن عطهم درس بعيونك
علمهم بنظراتك وشلون الجمال يكون
اضحك يالله وريهم احلى ضحكه واحلى عيـون
ادلع يا كايدهم
غير حسنك المجنون اطلع كل لحظه بشي
حرام انت تفاجئهم عذبهم شوي شوي
ادلع يا كايدهم
Comments and Critic are highly appreciated.
Description: It has been quite a while since my last visit to the As-salam Mosque in Puchong. Arriving at location just after blue hour, I am grateful that I was greeted with a warm but soft light from the sun. As someone who is very new to timelapse, I can't help myself from taking a timelapse. This image is part of the 880 images taken for the timelapse that morning.
Filter: Singh Ray RGND (0.9)
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Comentarios y favs son siempre bienvenidos
© Fotografía de Ricardo Gomez Angel
Todos los derechos reservados. Todas las imágenes contenidas en este sitio web son propiedad de Ricardo Gomez Angel. Las imágenes no se pueden reproducir, copiar o utilizar de ninguna manera sin el permiso escrito.
© Photography by Ricardo Gomez Angel
All rights reserved. All images contained on this website remain the property of Ricardo Gomez Angel. Images may not be reproduced, copied, or used in any way without written permission.
PLEASE, no multi invitations, glitters or self promotion in your comments. My photos are FREE for anyone to use, just give me credit and it would be nice if you let me know, thanks - NONE OF MY PICTURES ARE HDR.
This attractive lighthouse, which originally was built on a pier, now sits on a crib at the east side of the entrance to Shelburne Harbour. At low tide the tapered wooden tower is accessible across a sand bar. There is a sandy beach, swimming, birding, and a community hall where snacks may be available. Many festivals and activities take place here in summer, especially lobster dinners.
Light Type: Cassion Light
Location: East side of entrance to Shelburne Harbour, originally on a pier
Standing: This light is still standing.
Operating: This light is operational
Automated: All operating lights in Nova Scotia are automated.
Date Automated: Automated by 1980
Decommissioned:T his light has been decommissioned.
Began: 1873
Year Lit: 1873
Structure Type: Tapered square wood tower, white, concrete base
Light Characteristic: Fixed Red (1990)
Tower Height: 044ft feet high.
Light Height: 047ft feet above water level.
The Sandy Point Community Recreation Group saved the Sandy Point Lighthouse for future generations.
Many thanks for the visits, faves and comments. Cheers
Eastern bearded dragon
Scientific Name: Pogona barbata
The eastern bearded dragon is an agamid lizard found in wooded parts of Australia. It is one of a group of species known commonly as bearded dragons. Other common names for this species include Jew lizard and frilly lizard, the latter being a confusion between this and another dragon, the frill-necked lizard (Chlamydosaurus kingii). This species was originally described in 1829 by Georges Cuvier, who named it Amphibolurus barbatus.
Description: P. barbata is one of the eight recognized species within the Pogona genus. Adult males can grow to about 60 cm (24 in) from the snout to the tip of the tail, while females may reach 50 cm (20 in) in overall length. The head is large and triangular in shape. The throat is covered with spiny, dark grey scales which can be raised to form an impressive "beard". Several groups of even longer spiny scales are located at the back of the head, the corners of the mouth, the external ear openings, and running posteriorly along both sides of the abdomen. The thorax and abdomen are relatively slender and flattened dorsoventrally. It is usually grey-black in skin colour and is sometimes reddish-brown, yellowish-brown, or dark brown. Juveniles are paler in colour than the adults and have patterns that fade as they mature. As the animal matures, it develops a subtle pale yellow, blue, or green tinge on the forepart of its head. If excited and at higher temperatures head, flanks and legs have a yellowish to orange colour. Usually however they are rather dark, from yellowish to grey and black. The inside of the mouth is generally a bright yellow colour. P. barbata resembles its close relative, the central bearded dragon, but may be distinguished from the latter by its less robust body and the row of spines along the lateral edge of the body, which continues over the forearm.
Distribution and habitat: It is most common in eastern Australia south of Cape York Peninsula, but specimens have been collected from Cape York, through central Australia, and even from the west coast of Australia.
Ecology and behaviour: Eastern bearded dragons are diurnal. They are semiarboreal and perch on exposed places such as tree branches or logs, retreating to lower and cooler places when too hot. They are more aggressive than the central bearded dragon. The males are territorial and permit only females and juveniles in their territory. Dominant males are usually the biggest dragons and get the highest perches. Females tunnel into dry earth to lay a clutch of eggs. When threatened, it inflates its throat and displays its beard. If further provoked, it opens its mouth to display the bright yellow colour of the lining of its mouth. In its close relative, the central bearded dragon; the lining of the mouth is of a reddish-pink hue. However the eastern bearded dragon will perform this beard display more often than its cousin.
Diet: The eastern bearded dragon feeds on a variety of small animals, including mice, smaller reptiles, and insects. In captivity, it also eats leaf vegetables such as clover and small flowers, fruits, and berries.
(Source: Wikipedia)
© Chris Burns 2016
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This image may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying and recording without my written consent.
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Comentarios y favs son siempre bienvenidos
© Photography of Ricardo Gomez Angel
All rights reserved. All images on this website are the property of Ricardo Gomez Angel. Images may not be reproduced, copied or used in any way without written permission.
© Fotografía de Ricardo Gomez Angel
Todos los derechos reservados. Todas las imágenes contenidas en este sitio web son propiedad de Ricardo Gomez Angel. Las imágenes no se pueden reproducir, copiar o utilizar de ninguna manera sin el permiso escrito
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All best wish happy and take care 2022
Aber Lin
July/11/2022
😍😍😷😷💉💉💉😷😷😍😍
#34: As of 11/15/19, of my 2000+ pics, this is listed as #34 in most # of comments.
#352: As of 11/5/19, of my 2000+ pics, this is listed as #352 in most # of faves.
#468: As of 11/5/19, under Flickr's popularity rankings of my 1900+ pics, this is listed as #468 in "interestingness."
VIDEO AT: youtu.be/FUWi3fLImo0
Since 2017, I've been engaging in a number of short, private crossdressing opportunities at home, after acquiring and trying out some new clothes, shoes, and accessories. This is another pic posted from this renewed CD activity, and was taken inside my house.
As usual, I really enjoy color-coordinating attractive/sexy/cute outfits, and this one features:
* a Sepia Collection "Broadway" long layered curly frosted golden blonde wig with bangs, from Wig Factory in SF;
* Jennifer Lopez yellow patent "Alana" leather pumps with cork platforms & 5.3"-stiletto-heels, from Kohl's;
* a light yellow/cream striped mock-button-front ribbed-knit miniskirt, from Forever 21;
* a light yellow geo-design open-knit scoopneck sweater, from Forever 21;
* neon yellow wide-net fishnet tights, from WeLoveColors.com;
* a yellow 3"-wide waist belt, from BeltIsCool.com;
* an INC yellow polyester sheer scarf with printed botanicals/florals & tassels, from Macy's;
* yellow/gold bracelets and necklace;
* gold rings & hoop earrings; and
* gold/clear "ear cuffs" (long dangling jewelry cuffed to the sides of the ears), from Forever 21.
The full video (2019-07-10 video1) is now posted on my YouTube channel at youtu.be/FUWi3fLImo0. Please check it out and comment/fave here and/or there if you like what you see.
More about this and other 2017-19 pics has been written up in my profile or "About" page here on Flickr. It details some choices made for these 2017-19 pics.
Let me know your thoughts... :-)
Comments and Critic are highly appreciated.
Description: One of the single exposure shot taken during my timelapse shot on a lovely afternoon while overlooking the traffic jam on the AKLEH.
Filter: Singh Ray RGND (0.9)
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Special NOTE: On Feb. 8, 2012 I attached a comment, readable & easily discoverable on Page 2 of the comments below, that details the vast corporatist scheme, fronted by Jeb Bush, financed in part with hundreds of millions from Rupert Murdoch (FOX nooze), to privatize American public education & reduce it to 'virtual' schools - not to improve anything (as national & international educational research studies clearly show), but rather to become the final recipients of the taxes people pay so that they can skim huge profits off of the top while providing grotesquely inferior services & lots of lying propaganda to keep the public bamboozled. I beg everyone to read the report.
The McGuffey's Ecclectic Spelling Book was published in 1879.
Raymond Cyrus Hoiles (1878-1970) founded Freedom Communications, a newspaper publishing & broadcasting company that has never hesitated to shape the news to fit right wing ideology. When Hoiles was alive & roaring I lived in Orange County, California, home of the equally right wing Walt Disney & Walter Knott, & was frequently compelled to suffer people who agreed with Hoiles' constantly editorialized insistence that public education was a form of theft & communism that must at once be got rid of. Hoiles was motivated by his fundamentalist Christian persuasions, & quite serious. We should restrain our laughter at the abysmal stupidity of his example, because in many ways he & people like him won & are still winning control of public education. - To introduce the article below, I'll say a little about the Christian strategy.
For many years Orange County's teachers worked under a Draconian ruling that forbade the teaching of values. There is no way around the fact, however, that the statement, "Values may not be taught," is itself a value statement belonging to a class of propositions known as Epimenidean Paradoxes. A comparably illustrative sentence would be, "This is not a sentence." Or, a favorite of the best hypnotists, used when addressing a resistant subject, "Do not obey any instruction which I give you."
What, then, was intended by those who created the paradoxical Orange County law? Well, if any teacher dared to say or imply something that would be disagreeable to any person whose beliefs began & ended with church, flag & free-for-all capitalism, then that teacher could be charged with teaching values & be suspended. One family friend, a young man teaching at an elementary school in Anaheim, was charged, hounded, publicly disgraced, threatened with death & discharged from his post, immediately after which he died from a heart attack. The case was depicted in Life Magazine. His only crime was that he was Jewish. His wife, also a teacher, remained bereft & embittered the rest of her long life.
These people became increasingly invisible over time, largely by devising ever more clever ways for gaining control of both education policy & the public dialogue about education.
Ralph Reed, working for Pat Robertson & the Christian Coalition, devised the "stealth agenda" to place fundamentalists in every local school board in America. The plan helped select & fund candidates, who in accord with Reed's instructions never mentioned their religion or religious connections when campaigning for office. In 1983 Reed rigged an election at his university - he got started early, in other words. Recently we learned that Mr. Reed & Jack Abramoff were associate crooks. The revelation forced Reed to abandon his run to become the lieutenant governor of Georgia. Mr. Reed will not disappear, however. He remains a darling of the far Christian right, & owns Century Strategies, a dirty-tricks political consulting & lobbying organization. In 1999 Karl Rove got reed a nice contract with Enron, which was paying Reed $30,000 per month. And guess who recently went to Georgia to try to save poor Reed? Rudy Giuliani, who has the hots to be the next U.S. president & is pandering to the Christians so he can be their new burning Bush.
Stealthiness did not go away when the Christian Coalition folded & Reed went off on his own to rig elections for big bucks. Rather, the stealth moved into policy matters. For instance, all the phony propaganda claiming religious & private education is more successful, creating the excuse to promote vouchers (for which the motives are both religious & racist). Or, most recently, Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, which was sought by the Christians not because they believed all the testing of students would lead to improved education, but rather because they wanted teachers to be made too busy preparing students for endless tests about facts to find time to do the great evil thing, which is the teaching of concepts. Teaching concepts leads to teaching logic, scientific & other academic methodologies which by their nature instill respect for critical - read, skeptical - thinking. Dogmatists, advertisers & con men have equal cause to fear skepticism.
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From: Truthdig.com
Taking Back Our Schools--and Fixing Them
Full text with links: www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060425_taking_back_our_sch...
Posted on Apr. 25, 2006
By Wellford Wilms
The recent news reported in The New York Times that schools are throwing out science, social studies and art to make time for drilling students in remedial math and reading is a sign of things gone terribly wrong. Former New York State Commissioner of Education Thomas Sobol told the Times that narrowing education to just math and reading would be akin to restricting violin students to playing scales day after day. “They’d lose their zest for music.” But most schools that serve poor populations, like those in Cuero, Texas, are squeezed to meet federal math and reading standards. Cuero Superintendent Henry Lind told the paper, “When you have so many hours per day and you’re behind in some area that’s being hammered on, you have to work on that.”
But by the looks of things, hammering students for higher test scores isn’t making much of a difference. Most students have already lost their zest for learning. How do we know? In Los Angeles, upwards of 50% of Latino and African American students never finish high school. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
I’ve been a professor of education at UCLA for more than 25 years and am convinced that despite the fads that come and go, nothing has put a dent in the public schools’ failure to educate inner-city children. In fact, things are getting worse. But I am also convinced that we’ve been looking in the wrong places for solutions. My own research across a wide array of organizations—corporations, trade unions, public schools, colleges, teacher unions and police agencies—suggests another way of looking at the problem and that solutions will come from a new direction.
This essay is a proposition—one that I hope will spark a lively debate among Truthdig readers and inform policy leaders. Future essays will examine Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s campaign to take over the public schools, analyze whether teacher unions can be a force for productive change, and expose promising ways to rebuild public investment in the schools.
Let’s start with Jonathan Kozol’s new book, “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America.” It is a scathing indictment of American social policy that banned racial segregation in public schools in 1955 and then turned a blind eye to its implementation. Today, Kozol says, schools are more segregated than ever. But he fails to explain why resegregation has occurred. Because Kozol overlooks the root causes of the problem, his solutions—spending more money on dysfunctional schools and wishing for a social mandate to desegregate the schools—miss the point.
To be sure the problems are undeniable. Kozol examines the appalling condition of big-city schools. In school after school we see children who are brimming with potential but who are walled off from the larger society and abandoned by the schools. Most middle-class white Americans simply cannot comprehend the horrid schools that Kozol describes. Ceilings fall in, toilets are filthy, libraries, music and arts have been stripped away. Teachers in these schools, who are paid 40% less than teachers in the suburbs, are forced to teach “scripted” lessons that are written for children who are deemed incapable of learning.
It is all part of the latest reform pushed by the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind initiative, a reform aimed at the singular pursuit of increasing test scores. Learning has been stripped of its intrinsic meaning and reduced to simplistic steps—“Authentic Writing,” “Active Listening,” “Accountable Talk”—that hamper teachers in teaching anything but how to take a test. Behind it all is an attempt to impose control, much as mass production techniques were used a century ago, to standardize instruction to fit new immigrants to the system.
Meanwhile, millions of children are failing. In nearly half of the high schools in America’s 100 largest districts, fewer than 50% of students graduate in four years. Most of these students are from poor Latino and African-American families. And from 1993 to 2000 the number of failing schools has mushroomed by 75%. Mayor Villaraigosa calls Los Angeles’ high dropout rates “numbers that should put a chill down your spine.”
The reasons, Kozol argues, are lack of money and racial discrimination that produce inferior and segregated schools. No doubt this is partly true. We have tried to desegregate the schools for a half-century and failed. Middle-class white parents have voted for individual freedom with their feet, enrolling their children in private schools, leaving the public schools more segregated than ever. The same is true for middle-class black families. Gail Foster, an educator who has studied black independent schools, was quoted in 2004 in The New York Times as saying: “Many of the most empowered parents and families are removing their children. What’s left, in even working-class communities, are schools filled with the least empowered families. Families with the least parent involvement to offer, families with the least help with homework to offer. There’s been a continual outflow for at least 10 years, and it isn’t stopping now.”
More money is not the answer either. Kozol points to wide disparities in educational expenditures ranging from $11,700 per student in New York City to $22,000 in suburban Manhasset. Disturbing as that is, study after study shows that equalizing money does not necessarily equalize learning.
In 1966, sociologist James Coleman conducted the most extensive study ever made of desegregating education and found that what mattered most in students’ learning was the economic status of their peers rather than the racial makeup of the school. He also found that school funding was not closely related to students’ achievement—their families’ economic status was far more predictive. Coleman’s findings were controversial and led to a bitter debate, but they have been replicated many times. Daniel Patrick Moynihan summed it up best when he commented shortly after Coleman’s groundbreaking study, “We should begin to see that the underlying reality is not race but social class.”
Since social class matters because money follows privilege, and since desegregation will take generations to eradicate, what can be done now? Are poor children doomed to attend grossly inadequate schools? Surely not. We must find ways to remove the influences that have crippled the schools. Money must be diverted from bloated bureaucracies that snuff out innovation. Instead it must go directly to schools where principals and teachers can influence what is taught and what children learn, and help bring parents back into the fold. Otherwise, it is going down a rat hole.
Parents have a significant role to play in their children’s education, but their voices have been largely silenced. Over the last 40 years, we have witnessed the decline of civic involvement and the growing dominance of self-interest over the greater good, a social deterioration that sociologist Robert Putnam calls “hollowing out” in his 2000 book “Bowling Alone.” One result, as the old saying goes, is that “the rich get richer” and the poor fall ever further behind in crumbling schools.
Over the last 25 years, education in general has been taken from ordinary citizens and teachers by politicians, administrators, union leaders, publishers, test makers, consultants, university professors, hardware and software developers and the media, each playing its part in keeping alive the illusion of reform. All in all, this $1-trillion industry has replaced the common interest, and no one, it seems, can muster the will to rein it in.
Local control is only a dim memory. Decisions now come from the top—from the federal and state governments, school boards and high-level administrators who have little knowledge of what goes on in the classroom. Teachers are left out of these decisions, carrying on the best they can, safe in the assumption that the newest fad, like those before it, will blow over. Parents are all but forgotten.
While command-and-control management may seem to produce results in the short run, it strips schools of the capacity to develop the stable leadership that is necessary to sustain success. Principals are besieged with demands from district offices and from the educational fads that emanate from publishers and university researchers. Many principals know that they put their careers in peril unless they do what their bosses want. One elementary school principal told me, “District directives undermine our own abilities to think for ourselves, to believe in what we see and know.” When schools discover something that works, it is rarely sustained because they lack authority or stable leadership.
In 1969 when I worked for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, I monitored the schools in impoverished Ocean Hill-Brownsville in New York City. The local school board hired a charismatic superintendent, who fired incompetent teachers and hired young and idealistic ones. The firings set the local board at odds with the huge teachers’ union, which demanded due process for the fired teachers. The superintendent, Rhody McCoy, was convinced that good teachers had to respect the children they taught. He put it in plain words: “If you’re convinced that this kid is doomed by nature or by something else to lead a shrunken and curtailed life, then you’re basically incompetent to teach that child.” The experiment worked. Observing classrooms left no doubt in my mind that students were learning. Eager first-graders sat attentively on the floor in semicircles shouting out answers to fraction problems and reading aloud. The schools buzzed with excitement as parent helpers streamed in and out of classrooms. But in a bitter power struggle the board seized authority and the experiment ended.
Years later, in 1985, Deborah Meier, a passionate educator who founded Harlem’s Central Park East Secondary School, achieved stunning successes that led the school to be celebrated as a model alternative school in Time magazine. But it could not be sustained beyond Meier’s unique leadership. Today, 10 years after Meier left, a respected children’s advocacy group, Insideschools and Advocates for Children, reports that the Harlem school “…has fallen on hard times in recent years with rapid staff turnover, low staff morale and uneven discipline.”
In risk-averse environments like public schools, few principals will stick out their necks, because they don’t want to buck the bosses downtown. Courageous and visionary principals like Rhody McCoy and Deborah Meier keep coming. But charismatic leadership is no match for heavy-handed district management, which always wins out.
Take Foshay Learning Center in Los Angeles, for example. In 1989, Howard Lappin took over a failing middle school. With the help of teachers and an infusion of money, Lappin wrested control from the district and transformed Foshay. The school expanded into a K-12 “learning center” and became largely autonomous of the district’s bureaucratic requirements. Teachers and administrators decided who would be hired and what would be taught. Foshay succeeded, and in 2000 its high school was selected by Newsweek as one of the 100 best in America. But in 2001 Lappin retired, and his unique leadership was lost. Today Foshay is being threatened with sanctions by the district and the county because gains in students’ test scores have stalled. As the school has fallen under the district’s “one-size-fits all” bureaucratic requirements, the impact has been to undermine the once vibrant teacher leadership that made the school so enviable.
The problem with public education is not with the teachers, or with the children, but the way we organize the schools. Probably the greatest casualties are teachers themselves, who are forced to accept decisions by authorities about teaching that they know to be nonsense. One professor interviewed by Kozol said that forcing an absurdity on teachers teaches something: acquiescence. For example, in study after study, teachers report that relying on test scores as sole marks of student achievement and teaching scripted lessons destroy students’ natural love of learning. And such practices also erode teachers’ professional authority, which is fundamental to student learning.
Why is it so hard to foster the only kind of reform that really works, which is right in the schoolhouse? Because politicians, school board members and administrators are under intense pressure to produce immediate results, i.e., higher and higher test scores—a goal that is pursued through directives from districts with little input of principals, teachers and parents. Superintendents serve at the pleasure of school boards, and most board members are elected or appointed and have limited terms of office. As test scores have become the measure of educational quality, everyone is under immense pressure to show fast results or be turned out.
No wonder that school boards hire superintendents who promise to deliver quick results. But few do. Superintendents last on average only three or four years. Many are thwarted by outmoded bureaucracies that were designed a century ago using top-down control practiced in American industry to mass-produce learning. Within these organizations, power has quietly accumulated, making them all but impervious to outside influence. Sid Thompson, former superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, told me: “Trying to change the district is like trying to change the direction of a fast-moving freight train. You might knock it off course for a moment, but before you know it it’s rattling right down the tracks again.”
Frustration and suspicion about who might emerge from the shadows to sabotage their plans often lead superintendents to jealously guard their power. In 2002, Day Higuchi, then president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the Los Angeles teacher union, had high hopes for working with the school district’s new “can-do” superintendent, Roy Romer. Higuchi hoped that Romer would endorse a new union initiative called Lesson Study, a plan to help teachers work collectively to improve classroom lessons. At a breakfast meeting that I attended, Higuchi presented Romer with an invitation to work with the union to develop and spread Lesson Study across the district. When Higuchi finished, Romer flipped over his paper placemat and with a red felt pen drew a box with an S in it. “That’s me,” he said. Beneath he drew 11 boxes with smaller s’s in them, representing the 11 local superintendents, and below that, a number of small boxes with roofs, representing schools and teachers. Then, pulling his face near to Higuchi’s, he drew bold red arrows pointing downward from the top. Romer jabbed his pen in the air to accentuate each word: “You cannot usurp my authority to manage this district!” It was a dumbfounding moment, one that revealed the true underside of the use of power. Here was a chance for a new superintendent to forge a small but significant step with the union, but Romer, who recently announced his resignation, explained that he was “in a hurry.” He clearly had little time for ideas that were at odds with his own. In the end his refusal to work with the union undermined the possibility of creating a broader base of power that could transcend self-interest.
Nor are the unions exempt from self-interest. A few years ago I helped establish a national group of union presidents called TURN (Teacher Union Reform Network) who were dedicated to remaking their unions as forces to improve education. One way was to cooperate with administrators and encourage teachers to use their classroom know-how to redesign teaching at the schoolhouse. But hostility and mistrust run deep. The union leaders became nervous, fearing that fellow unionists would attack them for “collaborating” with the enemy and that if the effort to collaborate failed they would share the blame. Don Watley, president of the New Mexico Federation of Educational Employees, commented: “It’s like the Normandy landing. We’ve got the best troops in the world. We’ve got the best officers in the world. And we’ve got the best equipment in the world. But at 0800 when we hit the beach half of us are going to get killed!” Sadly, in the years to come, the ingrained mistrust, and the unpredictable dance of union politics, prevented these unionists from becoming a positive force in educational reform. Instead, they have been reduced to stockpiling power, much as the Soviets and Americans stockpiled nuclear weapons during the Cold War, to oppose any hostile moves the other side might make.
So what can be done to break the standoff between teacher unions and districts? How can teachers’ professional authority be restored? How can parents be awakened and brought back into the fold? Experience shows that it can be done. Schools such as Harlem’s Central Park East Secondary, Los Angeles’ Foshay Learning Center, those in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, and many others attest to the fact that schools can be made into safe places where children learn. Sustaining them is the hard part.
There is little doubt that trying to build good schools with command-and-control management doesn’t work. School boards, superintendents and union officials need to clear the obstacles—unnecessary bureaucratic requirements and outmoded work rules—to make innovation at the schoolhouse possible. These top-level educational leaders also must make resources available to support new ways of teaching. Jonathan Kozol has it right. Teaching is the only reform that counts and it can be done only at the schoolhouse by teachers, principals, parents and students working together.
Turning school districts upside down will also mean turning a century of top-down management on its head. But where is such bold leadership to be found? One promising place is among big-city mayors. But they must resist trying to take over the schools, as they did in New York, Chicago and Boston with mixed results at best. Instead, popular mayors could use their influence and visibility to tell the truth about the condition of education and to build a popular consensus about how change must occur.
In the next essay I am going to examine what mayors can do. Waiting for the schools to be saved by someone else is nonsense. Only concerted local action offers a chance. Doubters should recall Margaret Mead’s observation: “Never doubt that a small group of concerned people can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2006 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
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For Leeds Fisrt Friday Gemma and I helped out two first-timers as we love to do. What a brilliant night! Rose and Becky had such a good time - and Becky even came out with us the next night to a non-lgbt club! Amazing, and wonderful to see someone new really taking to being out and about.
Also, I did my second ever karaoke performance at The Bridge, which I absolutely loved! And it turns out there's a little diva buried inside me somewhere - at the end of the song, I got a couple of cheers from the back of the pub, and in response I blew a kiss, LOL! Diva!
Another of Gemma's awesome slow motion corridor walking videos. I forgot to upload this one the other day when I uploaded the others.
A4 Pacific 4464"Bittern", sister engine to 4468 "Mallard", the holder of the world record for steam traction, and herself the an engine that has run on the mainline at 90mph. With a face on.
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Latin name: Accipiter gentilis - Northern Goshawk
Back in August we met up with family at Herrings Green Activity Farm & Bird Of Prey Centre in Bedfordshire, which is a super place to visit.
The Northern Goshawk is a medium-large raptor in the family Accipitridae, which also includes other extant diurnal raptors, such as eagles, buzzards and harriers. As a species in the Accipiter genus, the goshawk is often considered a "true hawk". The scientific name is Latin; Accipiter is "hawk", from accipere, "to grasp", and gentilis is "noble" or "gentle" because in the Middle Ages only the nobility were permitted to fly goshawks for falconry.
It is a large hawk, almost reaching buzzard size. When seen close to it has a fierce expression with bright red eyes and a distinctive white eyebrow. Its broad wings enable it to hunt at high speed, weaving in and out of trees, and its long legs and talons can catch its prey in flight. The female is substantially larger than the male. In late winter and spring it has a 'sky-dance' display. Goshawks are still persecuted and their nests are frequently robbed.
Goshawks are highly territorial, breeding pairs' nests are always over 1km apart.
Best looked for near large areas of woodland and forests with glades and paths for it to hunt along. Can also be seen hunting over more open countryside.
They can be seen all year round, but best looked for on fine days in late winter and spring when display flights take place high over the trees.
Their diet is small to medium-sized mammals including squirrels (mainly tree squirrels but also ground squirrels especially in North America) and rabbits and hares, and medium to large-sized birds such as corvids, pigeons, grouse, pheasants, thrushes and woodpeckers. They are particularly agile hunters of the woodlands.
Taken with my Canon Telephoto Zoom 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM EF Lens and framed in Photoshop.
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