Back to School

Well, it's that time of year again when the big yellow busses start touring our roads delivering the youth of America to and from our illustrious public (or private) school system. What a happy and yet sad day for all of us parents!

Never let it be said that I don't love or appreciate my children, but I have say that a large part of me is relieved when I see them take that first ride to school again... even with the kicking and screaming it took to get me out of bed to assist! Peace and quiet in the house during the day. Husband driving errands for a family friend... even the dogs are lazing about in the sun outside and there are no sounds of puppy squabbles in the yard.

*sigh*

And then I realize it's too quiet. I can hear something scratching. No... I swear I heard it... turned off the air conditioner to listen more closely....

THERE IT GOES AGAIN...

It sounds like it's in the kitchen, so I grab a broom and stealth to the sink...

Silence.

I stand there for a good two minutes, just waiting to hear the noise again, but there's nothing to be heard. Giving up, but not convinced that my house is not possessed, I leave the broom by the kitchen door and walk back to my laptop and recliner.

No sooner do I get seated and comfortable than I hear the scratching again over my tap tap tap of the keys on the keyboard. Once more I sneak into the kitchen, less successfully this time as I tripped over the portable steam cleaner sitting by the doorway.

The scratching was coming from my lower cabinet by the sink, so I brace myself, broom at ready (Harry Potter would have been proud!) and flung open the door....

to find the biggest, black rat I have EVER seen in my entire life!

I screamed!

It screamed!

And ran off under the refrigerator...

By the time my husband got home, I had pulled everything in the kitchen out from the walls in search of the black demon.

That was day before yesterday... and I've not slept soundly since then... I know he's out there... somewhere.... watching me... just waiting to jump out and scare me again...

But I have to admit that it's not as bad as it could have been if it had been a spider!

Shudders in the Mountains!

Dragon Lady

Driver's License Delima...

I have thre daughters. Two of which are teenagers and the third that might as well be even though she's passed those specific years by a few extra years. As the parent of a teenager in North Carolina, I have discovered a delima with the driver's license bureau, and I'm certain that many of you may have noticed this too with your own children.

In NC you must have a license to have insurance, and you must have insurance to have a license. The resolution of this is that when you pass your driver's education class you are then put on your parent's insurance for the term of your learner's permit. In our state, that's a year, or until the date of your sixteenth birthday, or in the case of my oldest girl, a later birthday because you didn't want to learn to drive on your sixteenth...

I guess when I was a kid it was easier to learn to drive. I took driver's ed the summer I was 15 and the day after my sixteenth birthday, I took my driving test and had my license. I don't recall having to take a 200 question test at the end of driver's ed. And I don't recall having to drive more than twice with the driver's ed teacher in the car. But now days, that's what our kids have to do.

One of my daughters has trouble taking tests. She stresses, she panics and she freezes up when she reads the questions... and yet they will NOT allow her the option of taking the test verbally. Other kids in her class have admitted to taking this long test and answering the questions by 'christmas tree' or ACDC. Which is to say that they simply make patterns out of the dots for the answers instead of actually answering the questions... AND THEY PASS!!

I don't know about you, but that scares me! Kids faking the answers to the tests and getting a passing score because the test is so long that the can't possibly pass it without at least some guesswork?? What happened to taking the good ole 20 question test like the REAL thing and then if you fail you know what to study and try again. As it stands, the kids aren't even told what it is that they messed up on... they have to simply study more and try again next time.

And if you mess up on the driving part of it you have to go all the way back and start over again. Not just the driving part, the whole damn thing! Another day or two out of regular classwork, another shot at a 200 question test and then hope like hell you don't screw up something on the driving part again. By the time the kid gets behind the wheel they are either so overloaded with information that they forget half of it or give up before they even get their license because it's just too much to ask!

People say that repitition is the way to learn something, but I think that there's a limit to that process. Wouldn't it be better to know the subject matter you're taking the test on instead of the pattern of the answers? Wouldn't it be better for the driver's education teacher to TEACH and explain how a vehicle works and what the laws of the road are instead of just handing out a book that reads like stereo instructions. And having the kids watch horrifying movies that scare you of what might happen if you screw up on the road? They watch fictional horror movies worse than any 'Death on the Highway' film out there! Do you really think that scares them?? It's all movies, and believe me, they've seen worse!

Yes, we are taking a risk to teach our kids to drive. We are putting them behind the wheel of a two ton chunk of metal and hoping like hell that they don't speed, don't break the law and don't kill themselves or someone else in the process of getting from point a to point b... but wouldn't that be better done if they were TAUGHT in class rather than just expected to read a book, watch a few films and answer a set of questions so long that their eyes glaze over before they reach the end?

Making sure they know the rules of the road is a must. Making sure they know how to be safe in the vehicle is a must. But there's a fine line between giving them the information they can use and giving them so much information that they forget a good majority of it when they get behind the wheel.

My suggestion... lower the number of questions on the test and make them worth more points. Stop trying to put the driver's education test on the same bell curve as the rest of the school's tests and start teaching our kids how to drive instead of expecting them to memorize a set of stereo instructions from a book that loses their attention half way through.

Parents take the time to talk with your kids and teach them how to drive. Hell, take them out in a cornfield and let them learn what the vehicle can do. A school parking lot in the middle of summer time (if the principal will allow) is a perfect place to learn, but it will take the help of parents doing their job to get the point across.

Schools, lower the number of questions on the test and focus on the things that really matter, like the rules of the road. Teach the kids what they need to know by hiring a teacher that is willing to TEACH them about the vehicle. Better still, give the students the opportunity to understand how the vehicle works. Hold an automechanics class for new drivers. Tire pressure, fueling, checking the oil, how and where to pull over safely. If nothing else, talk to the local police and have someone come in and explain the rulse of the road from their point of view. Take teaching back to basics and TEACH for a change instead of handing the kids a book and expecting them to read it an understand without any help at all.

And last but not least. Insurance companies... get off you greedy marketing strategies and give us parents a break. If you want responsible drivers on the road, stop making it so hard for us parents to give you that with your price gouging. There's no excuse for it, statistically speaking, you know that you're wrong.

And that's my rant for the day....

Dragon Lady

Proof of Identification: Not what it used to be!

Has anyone else noticed that the need for identification has gone rampant these days? Sure it's necessary to make sure the person you're dealing with is who they say they are, what with all these criminal minds out there stealing other people information, but still....

Just recently I had the misfortune of losing social security cards for myself and my daughters. I know they aren't out on the street somewhere, but still, they had to be replaced. The last time I had to replace mine, four years ago when I got married, I simply took in a copy of my driver's license, my old card and the marriage license and it was done. When I got the first card for my daughters, I simply showed the agent their birth certificates and MY ID, and it was done.

No such luck this time! With the growing advances in printing technology the Social Security Administration can't even trust a birth certificate when they see one!!? I've always thought that a birth certificate was certifiable proof that you were a resident of the country you were born in. Not so much anymore!

Instead, they require a piece of mail from a school that's delivered to your home address, a copy of an immunization record from the person's doctor or health department, or a SEALED transcript of grades from whatever school you happen to be going to.

While I understand the possibility that birth certificates can be faked, isn't it even more easy to fake the above necessary documents? Think about it!

If you live at an address for over six months, you can receive mail from school. That doesn't prove you were born in the US. But it does prove you live where you say you live. (not exactly what was in question in the first place!)

If you take your kids to the local health department to get shots, and you have a birth certificate to prove that the kid is yours, but where they were born is not a factor. (And on top of that, if the birth certificate was fake in the first place, who's to know?? It's like the SSA is saying, "Well, if the health department accepted it, that's good enough for us." What if they were wrong? Now the problem is even more compounded.)

If you are going to public school, you have a school transcript. It's a simple matter to call up the school administration office and tell them you need a copy mailed to your home. Once again, birth location is irrelevant! You have to show a birth certificate to get into school... but once more, what if it's fake?

Am I missing something here? To me this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. They want you to get proof of being a US citizen from locations that are far easier to buffalo with a fake certificate than the SSA!

I understand the necessity of insuring that only those people that are allowed to have the cards get them. The number of fake social security numbers used to defraud the IRS is unbelievable, so requiring proof of citizenship is necessary. But isn't it just asking for more trouble when you make it harder on the average LEGAL citizen of the US to get one?

Maybe I shouldn't gripe. This is all done for the safety and security of our nation as a whole. But the amount of loopholes in their theory of being more safe boggles my mind. And truthfully, it makes me wonder exactly how safe my identity and moreso the identity of my kids really is!

Scary if you stop and think about it!

Dragon Lady

High School Marching Band

I've always heard that blogs are good for the soul. They can bring to light issues that need to be in the open. This is one that weighs on my mind heavily as my daughter is in the wrap up stages of high school band camp.

Did you know that most of the high school music departments in the state of North Carolina get little to no funding from their local school board in order to continue student music education? But yet, the athletic associations can ask for almost anything they need and somewhere the money is made available.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not slamming our athletic programs in the least! I have kids that play sports too, but I simply use that department as an example because in our own local high school and many of the surrounding schools of the area, it's a prime example.

Last year, our music department got enough money from the school board to make copies of the music. They didn't provide for instruments or uniforms or even for new chairs or music stands. In fact, most of the chairs and music stands are from the same era as when I was in the same band years and years ago.

I'm not griping because they don't get the newest of equipment, or the finest seating that can be had. I simply think that the school board, in all its infinite wisdom, should give the same consideration to the music department as they do to the biology department, the math department, the english department, etc. Music, both band and chorus, are accredited classes, and yet their needs are nearly always shuffled to the end of the list.

This year, it's been a little different in the beginning. Our principal 'found' some extra money in the budget for the band, but he took the liberty of telling the band direction what it would be used for and what it would not. Well, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, the money was spent as directed. But it sure would have been nice to have been allowed to spend it where it was needed instead of where someone THOUGHT it was needed. And to top the cake, I saw on the budget last night (a public record if you contact your band boosters) where the band is going to have to pay back that 'found' money to the school. WHY??? No one can give me a strait answer on that... go figure.

I mentioned the band boosters a moment ago, sometime everyone should know about... Most music departments have a 'booster' program comprised of involved parents and friends to help organize fundraisers, just like the athletic programs do and many clubs and societies as well. But we find that there is a limited availability on where to hold fundraisers, and when push comes to shove, it's not the music department that gets the go ahead to hold the benefit they need.

I have overheard parents say, "Oh that's just for the band, they don't need our help." And they are wrong! People have the impression that if you have a kid in band, you have more money than you know what to do with. Yes, instruments are expensive, but so is football gear, and we parents have to buy the instrument that we hope like hell will make it through at least seven years of school! A saxophone isn't cheap by any means! And tubas aren't available for financing!

When you have a winning football team, everyone knows about it. But when the band from a hometown school take a NATIONAL championship, it never even makes the news. At best, you'll have a small write up in the local paper somewhere on page three or four, right next to the winners of the dairy contest at the fairgrounds. I ask you, is that fair? When our kids put their heart and soul into something important, no matter what it is, shouldn't they be recognized?

I was really pissed off last year when our school principal said that the band could not use the field to practice on because 'their shoes would tear it up'. Of all the idiotic statements that could have been said, I think that was the worst I've ever heard. As if CLEATS don't tear up the field? I mean for heavens sake, what kind of damage did he think that TENNIS SHOES would do??? But this is merely an example of what our hometown bands and band directors have to go through just to keep their ACCREDITED CLASS as part of public education.

So our band has to schedule the practice field around the varisity, junior varsity and any other football team that might need the field. TWO WEEKS in the summer, we are allowed full access to the field, and our band director takes full advantage of it by hosting band camp. A daily camp that begins at 8:30 in the morning and ends at 6:00 in the evening. Ten long hours, every day, two weeks before school starts. But the kids do it! We pay for band directors and student teachers of music eduation to come in and assist with instruction. Those additional faculty are housed and fed by the good graces of volunteer parents.

Why? Because the show must go on...

Because the band is expected to play at the home football games and march on a field that they aren't allowed to practice on, even when there are games held before the start of school.

Because the band is expected to play instruments that no one can afford to buy on their own, like tubas and susaphones, bass drums and xylophones, quad drums and kettles.

Because the band is expected to show team spirit in uniforms that they had to get a loan from a bank to buy, because the school board couldn't see it in the budget for music education.

Because the band is expected to play music without a thought of where it comes from or how much it costs to get enough copies.

The band is criticised for what it DOES NOT do, but when we go away for a competition of our own, they wonder why we aren't there to support the football team. When we take grand champion at a local competition against six or eight other bands, not a word of congradulations is voiced, only the contempt that we 'weren't at the game on Friday night'!

Who's supporting the band? Nobody but us parents, that's all. School board, it's time to step up and do something!

Dragon Lady

Good morning!

Well, at least it's a good morning here in the mountains. A dear friend of mine suggested that since I have a passion for writing that I try expressing myself on a blogger's site. Interesting idea, I must say, so I'm giving it a shot.

He said that I write 'from the heart'. Well, that's true. It's the only way that I know how to write. I write what I feel and sometimes that doesn't always sit well with others. Sometimes I'm hasty in what I say without actually thinking of the other person before I say it. It's my hope that by writing to a blog that will be seen by the general public, I will learn to stay by sharp tongue for when it would be best served rather than to slice and dice wantonly and injure innocents in the process. Wow.. that was a lot to say and almost a profound statement, if I do say so myself.

"Think before you speak." my mother used to tell me, and as I've grown older I find that it's often true. But is it fair to yourself when you fail to speak out of courtesy for someone else and end up compromising how you truly feel? Is it a compromise to NOT say what you're thinking?

I think sometimes it is. Sometimes the truth, as you yourself sees it, can be enlightening to others. Do we do ourselves justice to remain silent when what we REALLY want to say might hurt someone's feelings?

I'm not a mean person by nature. I would never say something to someone just for the sole purpose of hurting their feelings. But there come times when what I REALLY want to say would likely come across as mean, even though it would make the other person I say it to THINK about what they are doing, either to themselves or to someone else. Would I be wrong to be silent then?

A moral delima, yes. But one that through writing on this blog, I hope that I can eventually find an answer to, or at the very least a happy middle ground where I don't feel that my silence makes a mockery out of my moral values or steadfast beliefs. Whatever the case, thank you for listening, and thank you even more for taking the time to tell me what you think about it.

Sunny in the Mountains!

Lady Dragon