Super Puppy Sunday School

I. Lazing on a Sunday

Happy Sunday morning, all! or whatever day/time it is where you are...
This city has been getting so much rain--but not too much--that everything is blooming lush and green, and while days are inching up toward hot, mornings are deeply cool... Just wonderful!
Puts me in a pleasant mood.

Also, bink is coming home today--she's been gone for a week at a limestone carving workshop! near Bloomington, Indiana.
This is her work in progress---a sculpture of her wire-fox terrier, Astro:


It's extra wonderful that she could work intensively all week because --rotten luck--the concussion she suffered more than two years ago still affects her vision--close-up work can make her nauseous.
But she's back on track--yay!

I hope to hear from Marz today too---she's due back at canoe base camp after a week-long training trip with the other counselors.
They're in the wilderness, the real raw deal, with bears and thunderstorms and campfires, not to mention mosquitoes, where you pack in your food and if there's an emergency, you have to get airlifted out... 

Marz was nervous, naturally enough.
After this, they're supposed to lead girls on 8-day wilderness canoe trips. I expect she'll either feel confident after the training or she'll hate it and come home.
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II. Sitting on the floor sorting toys keeps you young (maybe)

It was a little empty-feeling with both my main people out of town--(and Marz entirely out of range)--but I've been busy.
Yesterday I worked my third Saturday in a row at the thrift store and saw how much I'm needed there.
I'm glad. I want to volunteer a lot this summer--possibly every day if I feel lost and lonely--but I didn't want to feel superfluous.

(Why did I worry about that for even one second? I know the store can ALWAYS use way more help.)

Also I worried about intruding on Amina, the young woman who'd replaced me. But yesterday I saw clearly that while she's a terrific, smart person, she's not the most organized and after three months is still rather overwhelmed--(especially with toys)--and she obviously welcomes my help--and says so.
(I sure was grateful the couple times I had helpful help!)
_______________________

Amina's got a generous spirit. I felt free to ask her about something that happened with a Somali coworker at school. (Amina's parents are from Somalia.)

What happened was, on Friday a really nice man on the security staff who waits for the school buses with me told me good-bye: he was done for the year--leaving early to go somewhere.
My impulse was to give him a hug, but I restrained myself and put out my hand to shake instead. He looked uncomfortable and held out his elbow.

I figured this was about men and women not touching, and Amina said yes, exactly--Muslim men and women of marriageable age don't touch.

"But I'm not marriageable," I said. "I'm old!"

She looked confused. "You aren't old."
I was sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by Fisher-Price Little People toys I was sorting as we talked, so that may have given her a false reading...
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III. Super Puppy School

I was talking recently about the via negativa--the way some of us get where we're going by circuitous or even backward routes;
find who we are by doing everything "wrong".
Not this.
Not this.

That can work.
(If I think spaciously enough--say, in terms of infinity, I can see it all works. Or doesn't work. I mean, there's no set "higher purpose", no Principal in the Sky to grant a final grade--where you go is where you get, and that's that.)

I've always been a Question Authority kind of person.
Could that be partly because what was on offer did not fit me? did not serve my higher purpose (which I just wrote doesn’t exist, okay, but, you can tell when you’re off course)

--and then I had to figure it out, educate/author myself, which is asking a lot... but not a bad thing.

Michael of Orange Crate Art recommended for teen summer reading the Education of  Robert Nifkin (1998) by Daniel Pinkwater, unknown to me. It looks good--
Cory Doctorow's review calls it a "zany and inspiring tale of taking charge of your own education".

ABOVE: "Pinkwater (seen here as a student at Bard College in the 1960s), pursued printmaking for a time and sold a few pieces, mostly to an older couple that collected his work and tried to set him up on a date."
---"forward.com/culture/206667/how-daniel-pinkwater-became-my-own-personal-guru"

I think I'm going to like this guy.
Here:

"Writing was one among many sidelines. He and his wife had published a book about dog training, and ran the Super Puppy Training School and Dog Kindergarten on the ground floor of an old newspaper building they owned.

"Pinkwater had also been studying to be an art therapist, though he dropped that after discovering that he hated the work.
'I couldn’t say, "It’s your goddamn family, just move out and see them once a year!"
You can’t say that,' Pinkwater said. 'You have to wait until they think of it themselves.'"

Omg, yes! The pain of watching people repeatedly submit themselves to family or other organizational harm...

IV. Another break in the wall

Looking for more on Pinkwater led me to the Wikipedia page Criticism of Schooling.
Ta-da! There I am!
I'd felt sorta alone in my horror at public schooling--we're all so used to it, when I criticize it many people seem baffled or even actively disagree.
Some feel attacked because they work in or are invested in education. Many excellent people work in education, but that doesn't make education excellent.

Of course I am far from alone.

I'll look more into this, now I work in the field of education.
It's not where I particularly wanted to go.
You know, I've said and it's true that I took the job for the pay. And we're getting a raise--in 6 months I'll be making $11/hour more than the thrift store.
Now I can afford DENTAL WORK!!!

Really. I've saved $3,000 in three months (instead of draining my bank account!)--I will spend it on dentistry this summer. Have stuff I've put off since before Covid.

Anyway, here I am, working in education.
Didn't I just say, there's no wrong place to be? But there are more or less pleasant places to be. This isn't bad.
My question is, how can I help students inside the system? How to be a break in the wall?

Here's an unexpected side-benefit of this job:
I am newly and fully proud of my young self.
My young self was right.

I've always secretly wondered if I was partly wrong about school or partly to blame.
Nope.
It purely sucks to be thought-controlled.
Many people throughout time say this. Also, Pink Floyd.

The Pinkwater novel is in at the downtown library, which is open on Sundays--I'll go get it.
And while I'm there, I can check out Gran Turismo on DVD--it's the favorite movie of the student who writes bears' names.
It's "the true story of a teenage player of [video game] Gran Turismo who became a professional racing car driver."
A reviewer said, "It's like a Fast and Furious movie made without cynicism."
We shall see.

I say I educate myself, but of course self-education is about reaching outside yourself, and many teachers help me learn.
I've learned a lot from this student, who is into NASCAR and weather and transit. He shows me video clips of race car crashes and tornado touchdowns. Wow!
I had no idea, and now I do.
Thank you.