Random Memorial for Monday 10/1/12

Gone but not forgotten:  lockers in high school.

School's not like it used to be, as apparently the latest trend is to take lockers out of them.  Kids nowadays with their ipads and their ebooks and their online learning don't need to figure out how many books you might need in between trips to the locker in the minutes you have between class.  Maybe it's a good thing.  I remember in my school (the three ring circus of Lebanon High School), my lockers were yellow (which meant they were in the Library building, right? ... so these in the pic would have been in the Auditorium building -- and if I had found green ones -- then they would have been in the Gym!) and not always convenient to get to, so I had to carry books for five classes at once some days (oh the struggles with which we deal in the first world).  Of course, it's not just about analyzing convenience any more, as getting rid of lockers also means that kids can't hide weapons, etc. as easily -- and that kind of violence was never in the mix in my high school days (thankfully).

Classic set-pieces of any high school based entertainment, you will be missed.

LOCKERS BYE BYE!:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-11-14/schools-lockers-safety/51205848/1

FOR SAFETY REASONS (?!):
http://www.keystosaferschools.com/Safer%20Schools%20Without%20Lockers.htm

FOUND THIS WHEN I GOOGLED LHS LOCKERS ... GO CEDARS!:
http://www.mylocker.net/pennsylvania/lebanon/lebanon-high-school/p/mens-shorts-and-pants.html
  

Random Memorial for Monday 9/24/12

Gone but not forgotten:  school lunches like they used to be.

Fruits and vegetables and all kinds of attention being paid to what's fed to school kids for lunch?  That's not the way it was when I went to school.  The only controversy we had back then was whether ketchup could be counted as a vegetable.  Now there are federal mandates to serve fruits and vegetables and Chicago schools banning bringing lunch from home to make sure that what is eaten (or at least offered to be eaten and then throw away) is "nutritional".

Peanut butter ball after peanut butter ball after peanut butter ball (or at least that's what I remember eating over and over again in school cafeterias of my youth), you will be missed!

I'M NOT SAYING IT'S WRONG ... JUST THAT IT'S DIFFERENT FROM WHAT I HAD:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/25/health/usda-school-lunches/index.html

IN CHITOWN, YOUR HOME LUNCH MAY BE BANNED!:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-04-11/news/ct-met-school-lunch-restrictions-041120110410_1_lunch-food-provider-public-school

BRING BACK THE PEANUT BUTTER BALLS!:
http://www.southernplate.com/2008/07/how-to-make-peanut-butter-balls.html

Random Memorial for Monday 9/17/12

Gone but not forgotten:  old fashioned ways of cheating in school.

School is not what it used to be.  No more writing things on your wrist or hiding things in the bathroom to check up on during an exam*, now it's all digitally scanning your own soft drink labels to replace nutritional information with formulas and blue tooth-ing your cell phone to create your own phone-a-friend opportunities.

[*Quick tangent -- it's not like I did these things.  I may not be all Marilu Henner, but I do have a memory that won't quit, so I did pretty well when it comes to testing in school.  Except maybe in senior year physics, on which I had basically given up after the first marking period.  Instead, we all passed notes back and forth all class long and questioned whether the teacher was a spy who was hiding out a la witness protection teaching the poor kids of Lebanon about momentum and kinetics and such.  I don't think we ever group cheated -- but if it happened, that would have been the setting.]

Except for maybe by the teachers, old school "testing aids", you are missed.

I CAN'T LIE ... I HAD TO LOOK UP BASIC PHYSICS QUESTIONS:
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/

IS IT STEVE JOBS' FAULT FOR MAKING IT OH SO EASY?:
http://www.educationnews.org/technology/e-cheating-students-harness-high-tech-tools/

WHY DID THEY HAVE TO USE MY FAVORITE -- COKE?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRgM9-n7K5E

Random Memorial for Monday 9/10/12

Gone but not forgotten:  guaranteed spots for arts in the school.

[Note -- any reference to back-to-school does not include the Chicago area, which today celebrated its first "take your kids to work 'cause we ain't educating them here day" in 25 years as the CPS strike launched.]

I have an artistic streak -- or an eccentric streak that I pretend is artistic -- and although I'm not much of a draw-er, I distinctly remember the giant still life display that Mr. Walker had in our junior high art class for a marking period's worth of work.  Come to think of it, the art project that I most fondly recall is the one we used to do when the other teacher drew a random squiggly line on a sheet of paper and told us to go "art" around it, creating something out of the randomness.  I have to tell you that that exercise in creativity that was all about making something out of nothing honed a skill that I took with me throughout my life.

And, coincidentally, we're in the midst of the 3rd annual National Arts in Education Week!  So take a moment to stand up for keeping the arts in our schools!

Opportunities for others to be influenced by giant still lifes and little squiggly lines, you should not be missed by upcoming generations!

FROM WHENCE THE ABOVE IMAGE CAME:
http://www.contemporaryarted.com/2010/04/httpwwwaddthiscombookmarkphpv250.html

'TWAS LIKE THIS IMAGE (SPONSORED BY BP, SO IT MUST BE AN OIL PAINTING?):
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/focus-dead-standing-things-still-life-1660-1740

IT's NATIONAL ARTS IN EDUCATION WEEK, FOUNDED IN 2010:
http://artsusa.org/networks/arts_education/001.asp

Random Memorial for Monday 9/3/12

Gone but not forgotten:  recess on the gravestones in my elementary school playground.

It's Back to School time (... and there will be special posts all "week" ... and more -- including a month of Mondays where I memorialize school like it used to be when I was young, and walked uphill to it, both ways, in the snow, barefoot and pregnant ... well, just barefoot ...)

When I was home earlier this summer, I snapped this photo in the playground behind Jonestown Elementary School (where I attended through 4th grade).  I was looking for the giant mausoleum style graveyard slab which used to be our base when we played tag, and our ship when we played pirates, and anything else that it used to represent in our imagination while we were oblivious to the fact that there were bodies buried underneath it.

Apparently, it got too macabre to have kids play in a graveyard, and many of the tombstones (and, presumably, the bodies, were removed) -- although you can zoom in and catch one that is still on site under the second tree from the front.  And, yes, I did warn the people in the background why it was that, as a middle aged man, I was taking pictures of kids at play on a school playground -- turned out I went to school with the guy on the bench who took his kids to the park that day.

One of the many reasons I might be a little twisted (i.e.  my schoolyard playground was littered with tombstones), you, as an experience that fueled my imagination, are missed!

DEAD BODIES ARE A PART OF SCHOOL IN KNOXVILLE TN AS WELL:
http://tnjn.com/2007/mar/26/knoxvilles-past-uncovered-in-s/

MY AFOREMENTIONED ELEMENTARY ALMA MATER:
http://www.norleb.k12.pa.us/Domain/132

OTHER ODD PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT:
http://www.chicagonow.com/cheaper-than-therapy/2010/11/strange-play-26-odd-pieces-of-playground-equipment/#