Miss Bonkers rose, “Don’t fret!” she said.
“You’ve learned the things you need
To pass that test and many more--
I’m certain you’ll succeed.
We’ve taught you that the earth is round,
That red and white make pink,
And something else that matters more--
We’ve taught you how to think.”
                                        from Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!
      by Seuss, Dr. (with some help from Jack Prelutsky & Lane Smith)
                                                           Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.
 
       My first grade teacher, Mrs. Zimmerman, was one of a kind. She taught us so much more than how to recognize letters and how to count. She taught us how to think.
       We learned about directions. The kind that get you from one place to another. We learned that if we faced the big window in our classroom, we faced east. I brought this lesson home as I stood in front our big living room window and announced I was facing east. Of course since our house faced south, Mom corrected me. It took a long time to figure out that east was different looking out different windows. Or really, east stays the same, just the windows point in different directions. What is my word of the year? Perspective? Oh..
       In first grade, we learned how to get along together. Mrs. Zimmerman made me her helper. Since my birthday is in November, I started school in January. When we moved, I’d already finished the first half of first grade. Mrs. Z.  had just the right balance of confidence in me and knowledge of my six-year-old self, that I felt good about helping her, but the rest of the class didn’t think I was too special. That was tricky, but not for Mrs. Zimmerman.
       We learned how to have fun. Mrs. Zimmerman taught us to play with language. She once told our class the story of Prinderella and the Cince, a spoonerism version of Cinderella. I loved that story so much! I asked her to write it down for me so I could learn it, too. She did. She helped me figure out the big words, too. I kept that ditto sheet until the purple ink blurred and the folds turned into little tears. But I had it down pat and performed for my parents. My dad laughed till he cried when the "at the stottem bep, she slopped her dripper" came, every single time. My brother and sister sat through untold numbers of performances, too. Years later, as a children’s librarian, I got to tell that story (and so many others!) again. Thanks, Mrs. Z!
       As my grandchildren head off for their first days of school, I send out a big thank you to all teachers. The ones who know how to help a crying Kindergartener stop crying, the ones who help new sixth graders learn how to work those twisty combination locks, the ones who guide high schoolers to good decisions.
       Most teachers love children and most teachers love what they do. The best teachers aren’t afraid to let that show.
       To all teachers out there: Have a great year!
       To all students out there: Have a great year!
                                                                   --stay curious!

I . . . remember wondering about the marching singers and the firemen and the policeman’s dog, and, last of all, I remember Jelly asking –
            “Daddy, what color does a person have to be to get a taste of colored water?”
                                          from: The Taste of Colored Water
                                    written and illustrated by Matt Faulkner
                       Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2008
 
       1968, I was finishing my sophomore year of high school. I had in my mind I might be an elementary school teacher after college. Head Start, a new Federal preschool, was looking for summer volunteers. I didn’t tell my parents I would be expected to go into a dangerous neighborhood three times every week for most of the summer. Although I suspect they knew that, I never will understand why my parents, both of them, said yes. But I’m glad they did.
       Head Start was in its infancy, created in 1964, as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's “War on Poverty.” A summer volunteering at a school seemed like a good idea to me. I would be around children. I loved that. I would have the mentorship of a certified and qualified teacher, dedicated to the education of the children in her care. I could learn from her.
       1968, a difficult year for Cleveland, and many other major U.S. cities. The Hough Riots were history, but just barely. My assigned school was in the middle of this calmed-down, but still-tense area. I arrived on my first day, ready for work, but far from ready to understand how my experience would change my life.
       My parents moved to a mostly Jewish neighborhood when I was entering first grade. They wanted me to be around people with similar backgrounds and values. Back then, I didn’t know I was a minority. I remember being surprised when I discovered I am.
       Back in my Head Start classroom, I was a minority. If my teacher was surprised to see a young, white teenager, she didn’t show it. All the children were black. If they were surprised to see someone who did not look like them, they didn’t show it either.
       We got on with the business of education. We played games to learn numbers, shapes, colors, and letters. We learned how to line up to go to the restroom, go outside to play, and to buddy-up to go on “nature” walks in the neighborhood. We listened to birds, paid attention to the shapes of the leaves on trees, and watched squirrels chase each other. 
       Especially on these neighborhood walks, I was very aware of looking different from everyone around me. I felt like an outsider, someone not familiar. Maybe even someone to fear.
       My classroom, though, was a haven of safety and acceptance. We practiced good manners and took turns. The children loved to get hugs and I loved to give them.
       One time a little girl, who I’d played with for several weeks, drummed up enough courage to ask me if she could touch my arm. She was very relieved to discover my skin felt just like hers. I’m not sure what she expected, but I told her only the color is different. Then we got on with the rest of our day.
       I’ve thought about our shared experience many times since then and what she taught me:
  How we really are all the same on the inside: organs, blood, bones.
  How we are alike is so much more important than how we are                                         different.
  How seeing color and learning about it is so much better than                              pretending to be "color-blind."
       I learned that from a 4-year-old, one summer, a long time ago. 
                                                                   --stay curious!

Totality will only last for a little over three minutes, and while that’s a pretty solid duration for an eclipse, it’s not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things.
                                                      from: Every Soul a Star
                                                                 by Wendy Mass
            Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers, 2008
 
       Next Monday, August 21, at about 1:30 in the afternoon, I’ll be outside with my eclipse glasses watching an unlikely phenomenon. The full moon will orbit between our Earth and sun in such a way that the moon’s shadow will pass directly in front of the sun and obliterate it. For a few minutes.
       That was going to be my topic this week, the eclipse. Probably something about needing special glasses and a little about the science. But our nation is crying and the whole eclipse thing turned into a metaphor for me.
       We have a president who instills fear and hatred. He permits free-flowing anger to be expressed in horrible and tragic ways. Maybe it’s not *all* his fault. After all, many people just haven’t gotten over the fact that the North won Civil War and all that implies. The Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, The Emancipation Proclamation, Brown vs. the Board of Education (1954), The Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (at least what’s left of it), Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and the Supreme Court’s ruling that gay marriage is legal in all states (2015) demonstrate that we, as a society, are becoming more inclusive, accepting, and maybe even more understanding of each other.
       Not everyone agrees.
       Robert E. Lee was a good, maybe even great general. He was a tragic leader, though, who fought for the perpetuation of an evil institution. Does he really deserve a statue in a major U. S. city? Or any city? Can anyone really justify murder, especially when it is done in the name of hate?
       We cannot allow White Supremacy, Klan members, Neo-Nazis and other hate groups to thrive and spread their fear of others. Anger, violence, and murder are not the opposite of love, kindness, and beauty.
       The opposite of hate is indifference.
       Cat Stevens’s song “Moon Shadow” expresses his sense of optimism. Even in the darkest time, he accepts that tragedy is part of life and adjusts his course to be able to move past it, changed for the better. You can read the lyrics and even listen to the song here: http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/12778/#comments
       Just as the moon’s shadow will block out our view of the sun, it will expose the corona, that breathtakingly beautiful, glimmering circle of flares only visible during totality. Just as free-flowing anger, fear, and hatred expose violence, even murder, they can only blot out goodness, love, and the kindness of strangers for a brief moment, in the whole scheme of things.  
       If our nation’s tragedy in this very dark and scary time moves us to individual and collective action, if violence moves us toward compassion, then the sun really will come out tomorrow.
 
                                                    --stay curious (and active!)

     The war ended. Only the father returned. He was thin, with sad eyes, as he padded through the annex like a living ghost.
     The woman helper gave him the girl’s writing. They cried.
                                            from: The Tree in the courtyard:                                       Looking Through Anne Frank’s Window
                                                            by Jeff Gottesfeld
                                                 illustrated by Peter McCarty
                                                                      Knopf, 2016
 
       Our legacy is not what people remember about us after we’ve left this earth. It’s the difference we make while we’re here, whether or not anyone remembers or even knows about it.
       Judith Jones is the common denominator between Anne Frank, Julia Child, and Anne Tyler (among many others). Judith Jones was an extraordinary editor and according to Anne Tyler, a remarkable human being. Ms. Jones passed away last week after spending her life in the publishing world. If you know of her at all, it is probably because of the movie Julie and Julia, starring Merle Streep. Erin Dilly played a version of Judith Jones as Julia’s editor.
       According to an NPR story, Judith was in the middle of writing rejection letters when she stumbled upon Anne Frank’s diary in the discard pile. She convinced her boss to acquire it for Doubleday.
       By 1957, she convinced her bosses at Knopf to acquire another reject, The Art of French Cooking by an unknown writer and chef, Julia Child.
       Judith Jones’s legacy is a remarkable one of editing authors’ work and bringing it into the world. Who doesn’t think of Julia Child when we hear bon appetit! Who can forget the innocence in the famous words of Anne Frank’s wonderful, tragic diary, “In spite of everything I still believe that people are good at heart.” Whatever else we remember about her, Anne’s most important legacy is her optimism.
       Judith Jones was an excellent cook and a gourmet. But she changed the world by making it more accessible to all of us. She brought us a world not our own and let us explore through the words of her authors. In Anne Tyler’s words, “I read so I can live more than one life in more than one place.” Judith Jones’s insight has made the world better.
       I can’t control what people will or will not remember about me after I’m gone. But I can learn from Anne Frank’s optimism, Julia Child’s passion, Anne Tyler’s wisdom, and Judith Jones’s ability to sense what is true and make it come alive.  
 
                                                                   --stay curious!

One friend agrees to help.
Then two.
Then five!
The women cut bags into strips and roll them
into spools of plastic thread. Before long, they teach
themselves how to crochet with this thread.
                                                         from: One Plastic Bag:
                  Isatow Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia
                                                       written by Miranda Paul
                                                 illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon
                                                          2015, Millbrook Press
 
       My newspaper has a factoid block on the inside of page 1A. Last Monday the heading read 9B+ tons. It went on to say
              The amount of plastic the global plastic industry has made since 1950. (That’s my lifetime!)
 
       Our society, indeed the whole world, I think, is dependent on plastic. From its uses in medical procedures and instruments, to bags of frozen fruits and vegetables and, when we don’t eat it fast enough, the bags we wrap our garbage in. And now, 3-D printing. We can’t seem to find a bad use for the stuff.
       I use the bag my newspaper comes in to hold the scooped contents of my litterboxes. Even the boxes (all three of them) are plastic. Oh! I’ve even been known to line my plastic trash can with a plastic bag, for convenience.
       Al Gore’s new movie, An Inconvenient Sequel, was released this past Friday. It doesn’t appear to be coming to my home town. If I want to see it, I’ll need use gas (my little Prius sips, not guzzles, but still) and travel to a nearby big city.
       At the risk of sounding like a highfalutin’ alarmist, I’m sharing some current, inconvenient facts about plastic recycling I found here: https://www.thebalance.com/plastic-recycling-facts-and-figures-2877886
General Facts

• In 2009, plastic overtook paper and paperboard to become the number one material in the U. S. waste stream.
• In 2010, Guinness listed plastic as the world’s “most ubiquitous consumer item.”
• It takes up to 500 years to decompose plastic items in landfills.
• Slightly over ¼ of plastic bottles are recycled. The other ¾ end up in landfills, Or more likely, wherever the person drinking finished drinking whatever was being drunk, the side of the road, your front lawn, or the parking lot outside the grocery store becomes the receptacle for the new trash.

Ocean Facts

• One out of every ten items picked up in an International Coastal Cleanup in 2009 was a plastic bag. 
• The plastic waste that is thrown away into seas every year can kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures.
• Researchers believe the amount of ocean plastic will be 10 times greater than the amount of fish by 2020. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050.

The Good News

• During the Ocean Conservancy’s 2013 Coastal Cleanup event in September and October, more than 1 million plastic bags were picked up from coasts and waterways around the world.
• Over 1,600 business organizations in the U.S. are involved in recycling post-consumer plastic items.
• According to American Chemistry Council, currently, more than 80 percent Americans have access to different plastic recycling programs.

        Here's an interesting Here's an interesting article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/08/paper-or-plastic-a-look-a_n_111547.html It really explains the controversy between paper and plastic. The winner: neither. So join the reusable bag brigade and bring your own. It’s really pretty easy. I keep one bag as a holder in my trunk. I open it up all the way and stack my folded stash inside. After a few forgetful tries, I learned to remember them.
        So for better or worse, we have lots of plastic. Useful, convenient, cheap, no doubt. But, maybe enough is enough. Re-purposing, recycling, replacing with re-usables will make a difference.
       Plastic is the most produced and least recycled man-made material on our Earth. It is crucial to pay attention to that, take action, and find substitutes for plastic whenever we can.
​       You might even want one of those Gambian plastic bag purses. Go here: http://gambiahelp.org/get-involved/shop/    
       If you got all the way to the bottom of this post—thanks!
                                                                   --stay curious!