A Portrait of a Reader With a Bowl of Cereal

My Day in Facebook Status Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:38:00 +0000

Emily is awake.

Emily is massaging.

Emily has turned into a salesman, in order to drive more business into her spa.

Emily came home to cat puke on the floor.

Emily spent a lot of time searching fro 'Lea Michele' on youtube.

Emily made chicken caesar salad.

Emily just discovered her cat had jumped onto the stove, taken a piece of chicken, and was hungrily trying to devour it before she caught him.

Emily laughed at SNL's weekend Update Thursday, the only thing SNL has going for it at the moment.

Emily laughed at The Office.

Emily laughed at Community on NBC.

Emily did not so much laugh at Parks and Recreation. Come on Amy Poehler.

Emily convinced her sister-in-law to go see a midnight showing of 'Whip it".

Emily and her sister-in-law went to the wrong theatre, and then went to the one those people directed her to.

Emily and her sister-in-law found out that in fact, nobody was really showing a midnight showing of "Whip it" because they had canceled it earlier in the day, but forgot to take it off of the internet.

Emily never got to eat her gummi bears she had bought specifically for the movie, and now they are chillin' in the fridge.

Emily is now up late with not much to do.

Two things:

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:26:00 +0000

Seriously - How cute is Kristin Chenoweth? And how good is Pushing Daisies? I was so excited she won!

and #2 - Vanessa Williams, when you shake your head and mouth the word 'no' I don't respect you because you were too cool to do a stunt with glasses, I actually like you a lot less because you think you are too cool.

Hair Apparent

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:37:00 +0000

I have received more comments on my hair in the past two weeks than I have in the past ten years. My hair has always been a little wild, but I'm okay with that. I like having red messy short hair. It's like a really good accessory - even if my outfit looks a little strange or I have a huge zit on my chin, my hair can make me look just a bit cooler. And I am grateful for that. And I really don't mind when people notice it, or say something about it, because, hey, if i didn't want people to notice me, I shouldn't have my crazy hair. I get it.

But sometimes, people go a little overboard.

A couple days ago, one of Ben's students compliments him on the fact that he married someone with 'cool hair'. I'm in with the high school crowd I guess. And somehow my choice of hairstyles reflects on my husband's superb taste. And not one, but a couple of students have let him know that.

Last week I went to the little coffee stand in the grocery store to get a drink and the lady who sells me my Izze says 'I see you all the time, and I love your hair.' I said ' Where do you see me all the time?' (because I felt bad because I thought this was someone I should know who i don't) and she said 'Like, around the store all the time. When you're here.' Apparently she has been watching me when I come in? Ok. A little strange.

Last week I also went into the gas station to buy a drink and the guy behind the counter compliments me on my 'lion hair' and then goes 'Rawr' with his little lion hand motion. He really honestly did this motion with his hands like he was pawing at me. I literally took a half step back because I thought he might reach out and touch my hair. I smiled, thanked him, and then walked back to my car.

Lion Hair?

KC authorities' efforts to rescue children from prostitution gain national attention - Kansas City Star

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:42:00 +0000

KC authorities' efforts to rescue children from prostitution gain national attention - Kansas City Star

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It's a kick in the shorts, to say the least

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:15:00 +0000

Today at Target, I bought some office supplies for a presentation I am giving tomorrow for work. It's kind of a big deal, and I was already stressed out and not in so great a mood.

So imagine my surprise when the lady checking me out says 'Oh, I see you are here buying some school supplies for yourself?'

What I said - 'No, it's actually for a big presentation at my job tomorrow.'

What I wanted to say 'For the love of Pete, lady, how old do you think I am?'

See? I told you that being a grown up was hard! I don't need these kind of setbacks!

floating in the pool gets all philosophical

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 04:05:00 +0000

The past week I have been privileged to be invited to go float in a pool. Said pool in the backyard that belongs to a family that a friend of mine is house-sitting. We have been taking full advantage of the pool and the weather and floating, swimming, and reading poolside this past week when we weren't otherwise engaged. I mean, come on people, I would've been there every day if I could've, but I had to get some stuff done.

Some of the 'stuff' I had to get done was searching for jobs. My summer tryst with a certain job is coming to a close, and I am about to be part of the very active group of people looking for jobs once again. Most of the jobs I have been looking for have been massage related, seeing as how I have completed school and all, but this whole job quest has got me thinking about being a grown-up.

Thus the following thoughts were going through my head while floating sublimely underneath a blue sky today:

What exactly are 'grown-up pants' and where does one purchase a pair? I feel like even though I graduated from college several years ago, graduated from another college recently, have been married for over six years, own my own home, etc., I have still yet to become a grown up. So when does that happen? 30? 40? 75? or is it attached to some non-linear event like marriage, kids, career, etc? (That's two 'etc.' in one paragraph, by the way.)

There are all these things that when I really think about it should automatically make me a grown up. I pay all my own bills. I have to file my own taxes every year. I have to clean the bathroom every week because nobody else will. I take care of two cats. I have to water the flowers outside and worry about whether the hydrangeas will get too much sun this summer. We are rebuilding an entire room this summer in our house(and by 'we' I mean my husband) and I don't have a curfew. So technically, I should be a grown up, right??

There are things coming up in my life that I have to be a grown up for. I have to be assertive and authoritative and I'm not sure how to be those when deep down inside I still think I'm in high school sometimes.

So how do I make myself grow up?

Or do I, as a dear friend puts it, 'Fake it until i make it?'

The Uncontrolled Downfalls of Movie-Going : Part One

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:41:00 +0000

Movie theatres just smell funny. They smell like a mixture of all sorts of really good things and all sorts of really bad things together. Last night my husband and I went to see the 12:10 am showing of 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' and while the movie was all-in-all pretty good, I was reminded once again that I can't breathe for the first few minutes when I walk in a movie complex.

There's the aroma of popcorn, of course, but then you also have to add some sugary candy smells. And then some nervous sweat which leads to BO. Compound that with about 50-60 different colognes and perfumes, nachos and hot dogs, mix in some wet dog and some peppermint, and that my friends, is what a movie theatre smells like. It's stifling. It's awful. It's actually kind of gross.

Can't we open the emergency exits and air that place out every once in a while? Hundreds and hundreds of people come in and sit and take up room and air, and leave all their smells behind over and over, day after day, and nothing fresh ever gets back there. There is oxygen in some movie theatres that has been cycling for days, years, decades. That poor oxygen, it needs to see the light of day! Some other little molecules need to come in and take their place for a while.

Just for ten minutes everyday, let's open all those doors folks. If not for my sake, then do it for the carpet and the upholstery. Won't somebody think of the fabric?

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:15:00 +0000

Ahhhh. . . The lake. Where you can buy fudge and get a tatoo all at the same store.

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 05:01:00 +0000

Ahhhh. . . The lake. Where you lay in bed at the end of the day and still feel like you are going up and down on the waves.

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:28:00 +0000

Ahhhh. . . The lake. Where you can get six big bites in under a second.

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:41:00 +0000

Ahhhh. . . The lake. Where skeetball still costs one dime and air hockey a quarter.

Note to self -

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:18:00 +0000

Leave Blogger template alone!! I lost all of my blog list . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 05:22:00 +0000

Fourth of July: swimming in a lake with friends and family. Marveling at the way Nathan's hair doesn't get wet. Watching Kelley canoe around. Grilling and eating got dogs and brats. Shooting off lots of fireworks. Almost two and a half hours of shooting of fireworks over a lake. Only getting showered by sparks once. Witnessing the loudness that is a sparkler bomb. Watching a pair of teenage boys blow up a glass bottle. Eating homemade ice cream. All in all best fourth of July yet.

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:41:00 +0000

Mobile blogging . . . Trying it out to see what it does.

Well, that's what that was.

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:45:00 +0000

My little buddy in the lavender bush died overnight. Poor guy. We tried.

Fledgling or Nestling?

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 05:28:00 +0000

Today Becca informed me that there was a baby bird in the grass in our backyard. It seemed to have fallen from a nest that was very high up, but it didn't appear to be hurt. It was just a little guy with feathers growing in and also some down. As soon as any of us walked near him (or her) it opened it's little beak expectantly for food.

I guess deep down, I do have some maternal instincts, because I did immediately want to help this little speckled thing.

So I did what any person needing knowledge does, I came inside, and I googled.

Turns out you can touch baby birds, and their mother will still associate them. I always thought it was some sort of taboo - but apparently birds don't even have that great of a sense of smell, and wouldn't be able to tell if you touched their kid or not. Interesting.

The other thing I learned was that I should try to get the bird back in the nest. Which was very high up. So that option was shot. Even with the ladder my husband was -ahem- borrowing at the moment for other renovations, it was a no-go.

So we decided to move him. But by that time it was dark. So my husband says 'Hey do you really need me for this?' and I responded 'Yes, I need you for moral support!' (And, to hold the flashlight)

'Operation:move baby robin' was successful as we transplanted him/her/it to a lavender plant that was the closest thing we have to a bush in our yard.

I am pretty concerned that one of the neighborhood cats will get him, but maybe, just maybe, the lavender will hid his smell. (I didn't even think about that until right now, I am a genius!)

We also dug for worms for this him/her/it, because we haven't been able to observe if the mom is still coming down and feeding it. She should be, but who knows. I'm not really sure that robins are that smart. Especially the one that's been following my husband around this week as he has power tools in his hand and is demolishing walls. We fed the bird three littler sized worms, and he gobbled them right up. I have to admit, it was pretty cute.

The worst thing that happened was when we transported the bird, a neighborhood cat came by with something crying/squeaking/squawking in it's mouth. So maybe he'll eat whatever that was (another baby bird? a mouse? baby Sasquatch?) and be too full for other things all night. Bill is a particular vicious outdoors cat, even though he does have an emasculating name like Billy. And a collar with hearts and a bell. But don't let that fool you, he'll gnaw a finger off.

So, all things going well, I'll hear back form the wildlife expert I emailed tomorrow telling me what to do, and when I walk outside tomorrow, the bird will still be under the lavender, all extremities still attached.

And hey, if it's under the lavender all night, it'll be relaxed, right?

Amazing things you see as a Massage Therapist:

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:20:00 +0000

1. People with extra toes.
2. People with toes coming out of the top of their foot.
3. Triple nipples.
4. Back-ne.
5. A lot of hair where it shouldn't be.
6. Interesting tatoos that you can't ask about.
7. Big surgery scars.

And that's just some of the interesting things I saw during my clinical rotation, which I finished in May. So now I just have to take Nationals and call it good. And plan some sort of graduation party . . . .

I promise - I'll be back

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:39:00 +0000

I don't know if there are many people who check this blog, lurkers or whatnot, but I will be back to write more at some point. I run across things every day where I think 'this will be a really fun blog entry' but with working and going on clinical rotation now, I am hard pressed to find two minutes to actually hop on the computer and write it out.

I will be back once everything calms down, or sooner, if I can find some time, or take a day off work. I blog to keep my creative writing skills flexed and ready to go, so I'm not quitting anytime soon.

Plus, I have soem pretty amazing stories from clinic already, and it's only been two weeks!

In the past four months I have had:

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:50:00 +0000

Bronchitis
Pneumonia
2 colds
Pinkeye in both eyes.

My immune system hates me!!

Winning a battle, just starting the war

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:10:00 +0000

FBI, police rescue child prostitutes around U.S.
Feds rescue dozens of teens, arrest more than 50 alleged pimps

WASHINGTON - The FBI has rescued more than 45 suspected teenage prostitutes, some as young as 13, in a nationwide sweep to remove kids from the illegal sex trade and punish their accused pimps.

Over a three-night initiative called Operation Cross Country, federal agents working with local law enforcement also arrested more than 50 alleged pimps, according to preliminary bureau data.

The teenage prostitutes found in the investigation ranged in age from 13 to 17.

Historically, federal authorities rarely play a role in anti-prostitution crackdowns, but the FBI is becoming more involved as it tries to rescue children caught up in the business.

"The goal is to recover kids. We consider them the child victims of prostitution," said FBI Deputy Assistant Director Daniel Roberts.

"Unfortunately, the vast majority of these kids are what they term 'throwaway kids,' with no family support, no friends. They're kids that nobody wants, they're loners. Many are runaways," Roberts said.

Kids in custody
Most of the children are put into the custody of local child protection agencies.

Agents in cities from Miami to Chicago to Anchorage, Alaska took part in the operation.

The federal effort is also designed to hit pimps with much tougher prison sentences than they would likely get in state criminal courts.

Government prosecutors look to bring racketeering charges or conspiracy charges that can result in decades of jail time.

"Some of these networks of pimps and their organizations are very sophisticated, they're interstate," said Roberts, requiring wiretaps and undercover sting operations to bring charges.

The weekend's roundup marked the third such Operation Cross Country, and is part of a broader federal program launched in 2003 to crack down on the sexual exploitation of children.

Stupid Day Spa

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:28:00 +0000

About a year ago, I did an amazing thing. I quit what was quite possibly the worse job I have ever had. I didn’t have a new job lined up, and I knew that maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing in the world, but I did it anyway.

The next week I took stock of where I was, where I wanted to be, and I went back to school.

And now, a year, one job, and 9 classes later, I am still dang happy that I made that decision.

Happy Anniversary, Self!

awesome things from this weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 04:50:00 +0000

1. Opal threw up on my feet on Friday, awakening me minutes before my alarm clock.
2. I slept until noon on Saturday. Seriously.
3. I participated in cosmic bowling.
4. I had jello shots at previously mentioned cosmic bowling.
5. I ate hashbrowns with nuts in them, and they were delicious.
6. The Super Bowl commercials were worse than anticipated, while Bruce Springsteen was surprisingly better.
7. I got to watch last week's episode of Lost, and it's still the best show ever.

Doing it all wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 04:17:00 +0000

Every once in a while, I feel the need to post something thought provoking, even perhaps a bit deep. Not because I think that my opinion is so very important, nor because I feel the need to be smart and philosophical. In fact, I'd much rather write something that was witty and full of humor than something that drones on and on about my own forays into the world of classical thought.

But alas, I'm afraid I have been thinking.

Thinking about how despite our 'American Dream' work ethic, and our continuing slide toward workaholism, our country seems to be in a bit of a pickle.

Even though our corporate motto is harder, better, stronger, faster, more, we are really none of these things. We aren't better for it, are we? Our continual chasing after whatever it is we're chasing didn't solve our problems. It might have even created some of them.

Today, a day being called Black Monday by some because of the more than 70,000 jobs announced to be cut in our country alone, the stock market falling and falling, and people losing their homes, I can't help but think that perhaps we're doing something wrong.

Of course, this is all my opinion, but what if today instead of pushing ourselves to the limits, stressing ourselves out, and going above and beyond perhaps what our mind can handle, what if we decided to take care of ourselves? To take a break and not feel guilty? To take our full hour of lunch, and leave by five, no matter what we've got in our inbox.

How about we examine what we're doing in our lives, and decide if that's really an truly what we want to do? What if we thought about what made us fulfilled and happy instead of what somebody else is telling us should make us fulfilled and happy?

I'm not talking about a nation full of slackers. I'm talking about people really knowing how to balance things. People who find who they are not in their job, but in their joy. People who decided they want to live life to the full, and pursuing what that really means. People not afraid to take a few days, months, years, decades, to figure out what they want to do.

I understand that this is not just something I've thought up. It's not even revolutionary, because there are people who live by this. And they seem, well, joyful. The thing is, I don't work with a lot of them.

Having entered a truly money-based business is corporate America a month ago, I have to say that I am saddened by the way my colleagues and I live our our days. Never ending projects, reports, staying late, stressing out, feeling jaded. It's not some phenomenon, it's some sort of misguided work ethic, turned into a monster that promises MORE! MORE money! MORE status! MORE awards! MORE power!

So I am saying 'no' right now. I know it may seem young, and idealistic, and some people will continue to say that it's foolish to live any other way, but I just can't. For the sake of me, my health, my family, my faith, everything, I just can't do this much longer than I absolutely have to.

And I think it would benefit us all if we would just slow down, and truly look at what this crazy pace has gotten us. Nothing real great, I don't think. So I encourage you to think about what made you happy when you were a kid, and try to get back to that place every once in a while. Think about what hobbies you used to really enjoy that maybe you've stopped, and how to start them again. Do something truly ridiculous everyday, take a nap, take a whole day off and don't feel guilty. Instead of looking for how to cram more things into less time, enjoy spreading your day out. Instead of doing four things really awfully, do one thing with great care and with great quality.

But most of all, what I encourage you to do is to spend time with the wonderful and amazing God that created you. Because I think He might have some pretty good ideas at what he created you for, and who you truly are, with no lies, no walls, no facades to get in the way. And if you need a place to start, just remember that no matter what, you are a child of God. And go from there.

Because maybe, just maybe that's the right way to do things.

Movie Montages

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 19:37:00 +0000

Many members of my family have been trying to think of all the movies that certain scenes in which someone runs into a glass door. It would be a dang good movie montage to put all of these clips together.

The only thing is we know that we've seen it in tons of movies, but when trying to list them, we can only think of a few.

So my challenge to you: Help us think of more! Leave a comment to remind us of a great face-into-glass moment from a movie.

A must-read for all of us who love teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Em B) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:49:00 +0000

What's Wrong With Teachers?
By Tamim Ansary

The Chinese philosopher Confucius was known by many titles but his proudest honorific was "great teacher." In fact, over the centuries, teachers have been revered figures in many cultures and countries.

I thought about this the other day when I ran across an online rant about teachers seeking more money in some school district somewhere. "FACT," this ranter wrote. "LAZY TEACHERS JUST WANT A THREE DAY WEEKEND! Just say NO to them, they are already OVERPAID and UNDERWORKED, and the public needs to remind them who they work for ..."

Unfortunately, this fellow is not alone. A few years ago, when I wrote a column suggesting that teachers were underpaid, I got a flood of responses from readers. Some agreed with me, but they were mostly teachers. Others -- perhaps half -- not only disagreed but expressed quite a surprising hostility toward teachers. In essence, they said teachers had some nerve expecting to be paid like engineers when their work was more like filing and babysitting.

Growing disrespect
I was aware, of course, that teachers have long been under attack. In 1979, Pink Floyd recorded an immensely popular song that featured a boot-stomping chorus of children chanting, "We don't need no education! We don't need no thought control!" interrupted by the singer shouting, "Teacher! Leave them kids alone!"

When I first heard this song, my mother was an elementary school teacher in the last years of her career, and I was acutely aware of how she struggled every day to stay upright under the blows and buffeting she received from tyrannical bureaucrats, clamorous parents and unruly children. What made her struggle all the more grinding was the growing disrespect she could sense for her profession in the society at large.

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One such current took a seminal turn in 1978, when California passed a ballot measure known as Proposition 13. With that initiative, the state slashed its property taxes by one-third. Within five years, 37 other states had enacted similar legislation, and within a decade the prairie fire of tax revolt had spread to every corner of the nation.

But property taxes had been the primary source of school funding; that has been an American tradition. When those revenues shrank, something had to give. No one wanted to cut necessary programs, so budget slashers looked for unnecessary ones. The pressure they were working under, however, predisposed them to see more and more programs as unnecessary, as "frills." They had to. Summer school classes vanished, arts programs dropped away, school libraries were closed and many extracurricular activities, such as music clubs and even sports, which had once softened the core programs of basic skills training, were eliminated.

This sparser education gave students less to look forward to at school and less fodder, therefore, for fond memories later. When they became adults, these students were apt to remember school as bitter medicine: Good for you at best, but nothing to look back on with nostalgia, any more than one looks back nostalgically to root canal work, though one might appreciate still having teeth. This feeling surely infects, at least subliminally, public sentiment toward teachers.

The tax revolt, however, was just one current. Coincidentally, in the years leading up to Proposition 13, school reformers were developing a set of ideas that ended up fitting in neatly with the coming funding crisis. They proposed to improve schools with measures that not only would cost no money but actually depended on spending less. In brief, they proposed to replace funding-driven solutions with punishment-based ones. The old view, in place since the 1930s, had held that the key to good education at the K-12 level was to research how kids learn and then fund activities that promoted learning, no matter what the cost. The new reformers by contrast recommended that we as a society decide what kids should learn and then punish those who failed to learn it, ultimately by withholding funds from schools and teachers.

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Someone to blame
The new approach failed to deliver the desired results, and this has had consequences. It's true that today some observers see progress, but others see none. Both opinions probably reflect political agendas, and neither rests on indisputable evidence, which leaves the public free to believe, as it does believe, that America's educational system is in crisis. And if there is a crisis, someone must be to blame.

But who is to blame? Potential targets abound, of course: bureaucrats, educrats, the left, the right, the spineless middle, "kids today," funding cuts, throwing-money-at-the-problem, society at large -- each of these is someone's favorite scapegoat. Teachers, however, hold pride of place as potential blamees: They're the hardest targets to miss.

Public school teachers are all the more vulnerable to blame because of another current in that perfect storm of social forces I mentioned above. Throughout the 19th century, when few people went to school beyond eighth grade, teachers were almost universally women; society regarded them as hobbyists working for "pin money" to supplement their husband's incomes, or they were marking time while waiting to get married. Since they supposedly weren't supporting families or even themselves, they didn't have to earn much and they weren't paid much. Things changed, deepened and diversified in the 20th century, but it wasn't until the late 1960s that the teaching profession became unionized. After that, teachers' salaries and benefits improved at a pace exceeding the national average for a period. Teachers never reached parity with high-end professions such as medicine and law; even so, by the 1980s, compared to most workers, they enjoyed enviable benefits including job security, health plans, pensions and summer vacations.

The trouble was, they were flowing against the tide. Teachers were developing dynamic, politically influential unions just as union strength in general was fading: The bulk of the old industrial unions lost ground as manufacturing moved overseas. Many workers, unionized or not, were losing benefits just when teachers were gaining theirs. In the 1980s, private companies began scaling back health plans. Employers cut down on pension contributions. Economic changes eroded job security. Technological changes forced many workers to contemplate not just changing jobs but careers. These trends, which continue to this day, cannot help but feed resentment toward teachers. (It's those summer vacations people seem to find most galling.)

But there's more
When industrial unions struggled for higher wages, they were going up against the owners of specific private businesses. People outside those companies had no stake in the struggle and no personal reason to care which side won or who got how much of the company's profits.

Teachers, by contrast, get their money from taxpayers. When they seek a raise, they seek it from "us," not "them." Teachers and parents may have a natural confluence of interests, but teachers and taxpayers have an inherently adversarial relationship. For a taxpayer, the question is never simply, "Do teachers deserve more money," but "Do teachers deserve more money from me?" Anyone who feels a reluctance to say yes is predisposed to assign a lower value to teachers' work and consider it easy. And indeed, when people reacted to my column about teachers being under- or over-paid, their opinion correlated pretty precisely with whether they saw teaching as difficult and sophisticated or as a rote, near-clerical job that anyone could do.

Want More Tamim?
Read other columns by Tamim Ansary.And now, to complete the perfect storm: School reform based on standards, testing and accountability, the movement born in the 1970s and still going strong, tends to reduce teachers' decision-making powers and their creative role in the educational process. It's the accidental but inevitable by-product of a reform project that seeks to systematize education by establishing exact, detailed curriculum objectives, mandating how these are to be taught, testing to see if they have been learned and dispensing funds according to test scores. This approach tends to reduce teachers to mere conduits between curriculum development specialists and kids, between kids and testing experts, between tests and funding agencies. Their job can be codified into a function. This prevents the worst teachers from wreaking damage but prevents the best teachers from soaring. The metamorphosis in the teacher's role helps to validate limiting their earnings but also reinforces whatever disregard the public may already feel toward teachers.

Best and brightest
Lee Iacocca once said, "In a truly rational society, the best of us would be teachers, and the rest would have to settle for something less." Although this is clearly not how it works now -- people whose grades and SAT scores give them broad options tend to favor more lucrative professions -- some extremely gifted people do still go into teaching, simply because they feel a calling. It's the same reason some people become artists. But if the concept of "Great Teacher" doesn't exist in the public imagination, what will draw the best and brightest into this career?

In a 1969 survey, 75 percent of parents said they would be proud to see their children grow up to be public school teachers. By 1982, that number had dropped to 46 percent. I haven't seen more recent surveys, but I would bet money it's dropped further still. If the best steer away from teaching, teaching will justifiably strike the public as a lower-grade profession: It's a vicious cycle built on a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Many people feel that bad teachers should suffer appropriate consequences. They're frustrated that our current system makes it hard to demote or fire a teacher. I agree. Why should teachers enjoy immunity from the consequences of doing terrible work?

By the same token, however, teachers ought to be able to look forward to reaping appropriate consequences for doing great work, and I’m not talking about money. I'm talking about respect. I'm saying, as a society, let's find our way back to making "teacher" an honorific, so that our greatest teachers will enjoy a prestige equal to that of our greatest artists, generals, orators, inventors and sports heroes. If we do that, I predict we’ll wake up one day and say, "Hey, what ever happened to that 'crisis in the schools' people used to fuss about?"