Ooh, very stressful but oh, so fulfilling.
Over the past month and a half I took 4 core classes in 8th grade science from approximately 2/3’s failing to more than 80% passing across something almost resembling bell-shaped curves we used to come to know and love. They were a little heavy on the B’s and C’s but much better than all those F’s so I feel pretty good about the whole thing.
I bridged the gap between when a teacher quit and a new certified teacher could come in.
So what helped me accomplish this? Everything from Sahana Srinivasan’s brand new “Brainchild” videos to Little Steven Van Zandt’s teachrock org curriculum such as the “sound breaking” episodes.
https://cptv.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/fuzz-tone-soundbreaking/fuzz-tone-soundbreaking
I found clever ways to show them that music cuts across all of the Gardner multiple intelligences and relates directly to the concepts they had to focus on like Kinetic and Potential energy.
Now I don’t want you to think it was all fun and games and Romper Room. There were some grueling issues of classroom management to overcome such as repeating the same “Do Now” requirements every day and moving on from the fact that more than half the students at any given time refuse to do anything they’re told to.
I doubt any one of those 4 core classes will resemble a “perfect” Harry Wong classroom but I have to be honest with you, those “goals” only worked perfectly in the 1990’s. These days even award winning K thru 12 classes have constant issues throughout the day that leave teachers wondering just who “Teach Like a Champion” and “First Days of School” were written for. Certainly not the 2019 classroom anywhere in THIS nation.
Good pointers, great guidelines. Be all to end all? Not even close.
But I digress. Long story short, I saw some totally disengaged students become enthralled with science experiments and final project essays and posters, and learning in general. I have to hope some of them now see themselves as scholars or life long learners. At the very least, I think most of them now realize that the scientific method is a great way to be wrong and then figure out what’s right instead of some scary monster to procrastinate away from or fight.
Yes there’s Redundant Song, Hate A Song, Arms Song, Verseless Song, and Song Song.
Of all of them, most are talking about my “Song Song,” lately. So I guess I should paste up lyrics.
I’d always hoped the bots and search engines would do it for me!
hehehehe.
Cheers, marco frucht songwriter, guitarist, poet and van driver.
I got a song I wrote today Thought up the music the other day Came with the words and the chorus line
I got a song it goes like this Sounds kinda country with a little bit o’ soul a little too mellow for rock and roll
I got a song I wrote in school Right in the middle of English class Added the music the following day
Here is my chorus line Not too bright but it’s catchy Listen to my chorus line Daddy Addy Oop Op Ay…
I got a song about politics Buerocrats and all them pricks All about how they get their kicks!
I got a song about sour grapes Kinda people who make you hate Just when you feel like callin’ it quits
[ CH ]
I got a song about hating guts Kinda people who drive ya nuts Just when you feel like beatin’ ’em up!
I got a song I’ll sing for you Only if you got a minute or two If you don’t then be on your way
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kOEmdkGOD24
Please don’t blame presidents for local summer gas prices. Governor Malloy and State legislators in both parties are to blame here, and I trust that the other 49 states have similar issues.
Back in 2014 I caught Governor Malloy in a lie right in a coffee shop, right in front of the New London Day newspaper, and he responded by dropping Groton’s gas prices for 5 or 6 months. It was nice while it lasted.
Asking Governor’s Promise He’ll Represent People Who Pay At The Pump
During his visit at Muddy Waters, Marc Frucht of Groton slipped Malloy a card with a list of gas prices, hoping he could inspire an investigation into price gouging. “Right now we have the highest gas prices in the state,” Frucht said.
“Maybe it’s worth investigating. He said he was going to look at it.”
https://www.theday.com/article/20140818/NWS12/140819700
Well now that gas prices are soaring again we all seem to be busy trying to blame either Donald Trump or Barak Obama. I guess that’s a natural first reaction. But if we think it through maybe cooler heads will prevail.
I’ll leave all that behind this round, and ask the following rhetorical question.
How come New London CT’s gas prices are so much higher than Grotons, and how come Groton’s are higher than the rest of Connecticut?
Again!
10am 12may 2018 Cumberland Farms regular fuel.
Groton 2.89 /gal New London 3.06 Weathersfield 2.97 Fairfield 3.11
Holy cow! It looks to me this time that Hartford is even gouging Fairfield and passing on the savings to itself and Groton. 😛
Seriously though. Gas was 230 something in Groton a few months ago people. Will it go past 4 dollars this time? We managed to keep it from doing that the last time. I’m not even cautiously optimistic this time. I’ll have to research this more deeply when I can, this just scratches the surface really.
Cheers, marco
SIR ISAAC NEWT: A Fig For Ishmael’s Hate. by MF. Dedicated to Presidents Of The United States Of America
I O new Hank eighth, I pity thee Ye who serveth wives three. One in Heaven, dead too young, Another Lovely Lady One. Third a Pope who you helped stuff, By robbing goat and billary gruff.
II So count your cash all you so skimmed Three pouches full, you black sheep you; Chucking scepter into lake of fire- son, so swim.
Swim, swim mariner — lest passing piranhas rip your flesh Look starboard. See Orion’s belt; hides nothing Yet vexing, churning: you’re ripe for gulfs to wash.
Hank Hate, O you moved heaven and earth Have your way you miscreant — for you — A murky mire, lake of fire, craggy barren hearth.
III So stuff your pockets lawless one Matthias, Jason’s lizard son.
Still whore and rob and symonize Whilst our welfare slips past your eyes;
All the turtlewax in the world, Can never mask the freedom you have furled.
marco frucht
Pine Island, 1997
I stand here One leg on the bottom step On the stairs above me Thinking deliberately About just the right next moment To lift my other leg Just the right way So my next step Won’t trip me up And leave me in a wheelchair The rest of my life.
Every time
And I create this poem As I think it.
hey vet take a look at yourself and smile at what you’re made of
we are the 99% we gave 100% 110% really
ain’t a zero sum game ennit?
we get any real respect or just buy one get one free off the kiddy menu at dennys and apple bees?
you say you support the troops? where’s my frickin’ healthcare. why am I missing teeth when root canals would’ve cost you pennies on the dollar why do bush and clinton and obama keep moving me in and out of Priority group 7! when did the gi bill become in reality an insurance program not a benefit why does my college degree get me no new jobs no raises no additional health benefits and no burial coverage unless I wanna just go in one of those statewide rows?
why does my eczema only respond to agent orange meds and I’m afraid to even find out if gulfwarsyndrome meds would actually get rid of it!
oh you fund raise off of me you make yourself look good you get yourself elected you line your pockets you say you support the troops you wear your shed, right and true colors one day you think a meanstreak and you talk a mean line and say you can’t thank me enough then pardon my french where’s my fucking healthcare.
and why are one out of four homeless panhandlers and will-work4food signs my brothers and sisters?
I’m a veteran I’m the neo urban american warrior society I bury my dead, I take care of children and elders whether they’re mine or not I think large thoughts on behalf of you and me and everyone else And lastly me, really. I’m the warrior society, the 99%, the bled, the light and the glue. I served all of yall
I got your Veterans Day hangin right here.
roo ha!
[Hear this here…]=[http://youtube.com/watch?v=PFv6DtDLHPw]
So when I learned the exact time Wednesday that my old friend Katherine died I thought back about “what was I doing at that very moment?”
I had an afternoon assignment teaching one of the farther schools I sub at so I drove to a natural spring near there to fill up some 1-gallon containers. It’s the closest place anywhere near me that has relatively unpolluted springwater. Everything about my morning was discombobulated and strange.
Raspberry Slump On Frybread Maybe.Head Chef: Sherry Pocknett
I lingered there because I met an elderly couple filling up dozens of bottles on their way to Foxwoods for some gambling. They do this a couple times a year and they’re from Western Massachusetts but they know just about ever southern New England native american person I know as well as dozens of cool “anglos” that I’m friends with from years back. What started out as “oh, you’re from such and such, do you know so and so?” became, “oh, nice to meet you, I have to get right to my gig, I think I have just enough time to get there,” which then became, “oops, this road doesn’t get there as fast, let me try that one…”
When I got to my assignment I replaced a sub who was filling in til I got there since I’d taken several wrong turns on my way. I know these roads well, why on earth would I make three different wrong turns in one drive? Something else was on my mind besides driving down the road, that’s for sure.
I got in the classroom and the teacher told me the kids had been unruly and obnoxious all day, and left wishing me luck. When I sub on days like that the main part of the “Classroom Management” skillset I tend to use besides what the teacher has already established is called “with-it-ness.” Know your students just as well as they know themselves. If they know something they think is “hip and with it” that they don’t expect any of the teachers to have any clue about, you try to know all about it already. Google is your friend. This applies to everything from “Charlie Charlie,” to “Andy’s Coming,” to Key and Peels “The Substitute” segment. Bachata and Reggaeton music styles are good to know as well as all the usual Heavy Metal, Hip Hop and R&B. It helps to know all the silly jargons and slang terms that the middle schoolers are teaching themselves too.
I was teaching Language Arts for an amazing 7th/8th grade teacher and his classes usually aren’t this unruly. Even withitness wasn’t very effective. In times like these you just keep an eye on everyone’s safety, and remain the taskmaster reminding people to keep working and at least get back to their seats and do some work. (until the next time, of course, that you remind them they’re supposed to be at least near to their seat!)
My planning period got absorbed into covering one class for the Spanish teacher so I went in there knowing he’s usually really good at giving clearcut lesson plans and suggestions for enrichement and other differentiations. Nope. Not today. On the whiteboard were some goals for the students to meet. Nothing else. Mentor, taskmaster and babysitter for the day. When everyone had completed everything even while fooling around a lot I tried my hardest to find tasks besides “read to self” or “free draw” which almost never works well with middle schoolers. By the time I came up with anything new I figured out the best way to handle everything that had escalated was to say nothing and instead write on the board, “ALL TOYS WILL BE TIDIED UP AND PUT AWAY BY 2:20 PM.” This gave them up to 5 minutes to continue playing around somewhat inappropriately but convert themselves back to the eager scholars they usually are. Absolute chaos went to silence in a matter of seconds save for whispering voices I heard, “what’s he writing?” “uh oh, he’s mad at us,” and “All toys will be…” and laughter.
They straightened out the whole room in three minutes in relative silence. “OK, I said, thank you so much. Two minutes of complete silence and then I’ll allow talking very quietly while you continue doing actual work.” They complied just fine. It’s easy enough to extrapolate from my note to the teacher that the student’s conversion from unruly to habits of scholarship happened here in Konetiuk at the same time my old friend in Arizona had died since that was 11:18am.
So earliest reflections? Why was I scatterbrained on my way to my afternoon assignment? I learned growing up that I always have a few fairly profoundly discombobulated moments when a friend or relative is dying. It’s almost as if my own mind and body is learning of this even before he or she is. I can’t explain it very well other than that.
These moments are usually followed by many many more moments of clarity. Strange clarity. A “Sacred interconnected” kind of clarity as Brian Willson calls it. Well ok, that was Wednesday. Well this lucidness lasted well past last night while I was looking at artwork by by the late Allen Houser, his son Bob, and Courtney Leonard from around here as well as many artists from New Mexico, Washington and Canada.
Have you ever had strawberry shortcake on a little piece of frybread?
Sure you have. Think Blueberry Slump. Or Lakota Wojape right?
Last night having some of that and some Quahog fritters and stuffed mushrooms made by the team of Mashpee Wampanoag head chef Sherry Pocknett helped make all this at least just a little bit OK.
RIP Katherine Smith (1919ish-2017)
relative is dying. It’s almost as if my own mind and body is learning of this even before he or she is. I can’t explain it very well other than that.
We clash you and me. First I thought because you are so different, you see. But then after all the dust cleared And the shrapnel was swept up into neat little tins And all our respective allies’ bodies were policed up by loved ones— Dogs and crows and old men with metal detectors and headphones Closing the circle in little by little hoping to find a scrap or two, And the grandmothers all weep over tea, saying
I Told You So: See? Nothing Was Accomplished Again; Who’s Gonna Feed The Kids.
For the 432nd time, It was then I realized: The reason you and me, We used up every bullet we had Not because we’re so different, you see.
Because we’re mirror images, aren’t we? Like Isaac and Ishmael maybe, But who needs analogies when we’ve each got th’other? We do kinda look alike, huh? Besides all the acting, and talking And walking like each other.
But enemy, my friend. Can I ask you one question? What kind of Creator lets us miss each other that many times?
Originally published in volume 4 number 5 of Autumn Leaves magazine.
Have You Hugged Your Havenot Today? The haves drive BMWs – Haves wear Reebox Have nots drive push brooms Have nots look like retreads with their torn up muddy disgusting Pro Keds The haves have central heating and hot and cold running water in every room Have Nots have no heat. And the only running water now Dribbles across the plywood Shanties that have been flattened Out by the borgouisey bulldozers Haves have someone Park their car while They ascend the sidewalk to their state Windowside meeting room Havenots stretch gladbag leantos against Park benches next to sidewalks. Half their tent is a window Haves drive off to the inner city To look at blacker people and Guatemalan refugees. They smile and offer their Beamer saying, “Let’s go see how the other half “lives.” Have nots don’t have to go anywhere. They just poke their heads out the leanto And watch the Honorable Harry Have, Walking up the sidewalk to his whispering Windowside committee room. Harry Have happens to have So much compassion, he’s Head of a commissioned meeting Discussing what to do With all these hopeless homeless Have Nots. Hungry Henry Havenot Was about to use the donation Whoopie Goldberg gave him from Comic Relief. Enforcement agents sort of Misplaced the money when they Violently locked up Hungry Henry Havenot For Loitering. Harry Have comes from a long history of Haves. Aristocrats from Waaaaaayyyyyyyyyy back. Hungry Henry Havenot’s mom had him when she was 12. She left him somewhere near the beach, And couldn’t find him. Her mom was a child abuser And her mom was too. And so was her mom. Wow. Sounds like a terrible problem those Russians are having, huh? Hmmm… I’m pretty sure I was talking about here.
by Marco Frucht
I must say, of all the lead guitar solos I’ve ever recorded for myself or anyone else, there isn’t one I’m truly satisfied with. I listen back and cringe a little bit usually. None are flawless. Don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t have to be flawless for me to keep from cringing, but it definitely needs to be close. It also needs to truly say something. Directly AND metaphorically, I think things through under a “lens” of “does this tell you something? Take you somewhere? Mean something…”
Shredding, and noodling mean little or nothing to me. A solo isn’t just a bunch of notes in the key of the song. It has to go somewhere. Listen to some of the artfulness and storytelling of some Link Wray or Stevie Salas solos, you’ll see what I mean.
Now that said, there is one 4track recording I did a very long time ago for a friend of mine, Mr. Luis Argarin.
https://www.reverbnation.com/…/26131282-tgif-words-and-musi…
There’s one non-confident spot where I’m noodling and trying to find my way back to the story. Everything else about that solo (1:32 mins to about 2:13 mins) does just fine.
That one I’m nearly satisfied with. 🙂
I’d like to thank whoever taught me troubleshooting so long ago. I think I’ve used that skill set five times in the past two months! And this time I just really want to tell the whole world about.
OK, so my fob to my car was starting to work less and less, 2nd and 3rd try each time to get my car locked or unlocked. No problem, I have a second one tucked away somewhere from when I purchased this vehicle right? I fish that out and pretty quickly that one’s working its way toward taking a 3rd and 4th try. I switch back and not even in days that one passed the 4th try and was taking sometimes half a dozen tries each time. Great, does it just need a battery or is there something massively wrong with the electrical system?? Something I certainly can’t afford right now if it’s not warrantied or covered in a recall or anything, yikes.
I go to AutoZone to use their cardboard testing display thing right? The light comes on just fine every time. First try and all. I’m not sure but the light coming on looks feint maybe. Nothing to compare it to.
So before going in and asking at the dealership I figured I’d trouble shoot two more times with brand new batteries because that will cost me far less than asking them to clean, repair or replace the brains of the car!
I buy one battery and swap it in. Right away the car starts locking and unlocking on the first try. So now I’m just thinking I need to buy a second CR1616 battery in the not too distant future, whenever I can better afford to just buy extra things again.
So thank you to whoever taught me troubleshooting. Some was my dad when I was a little kid but the bulk of it really was in Fort Gordon, GA., when I was in A School for the Signal Corps. Lineman tool and my trusty Swiss Army knife and I’d learned how to troubleshoot just about anything. Yay! Oh man, what was that Signal Drill Sergeant’s name?? I’ll have to try and look it up in old journals because I really do want to think the old guy if he’s still around. He’s the one who didn’t like us swearing around him, saying he’d compromise on most of the cuss words, but absolutely no fbombs and no G- D-, etc.
Didn’t find out until graduation when one of the kids in my squad wanted to marry his high school sweetheart right on the same day he graduated. Drill Sergeant goes, “Does he have blood test squared away?” Yes. “Marriage license?” Yupper, “well then I can.” What? Drill Sergeant. You mean to tell me that Drill Sergeants can perform wedding ceremonies? “Ordained black southern Baptist preachers can,” he told me, wow. I didn’t know. Anyhow, the coping skills that guy had, wow, and the ones he imparted on me? Almost as much wow.
Thank you, thank you thank you.