.
Clippings:
Keep Bay Bridge as it is, says community group Bay Currents, June 2, 2005
Driving, Bay Currents, May 2005
(facsimile; better copy at: saltmag.net)
the 'pause that does not refresh, Bitch, Spring 2004
Body Parts, LostBrain.com, February 2004
Halloween, Miami Herald, November 5, 2001
Almost Back to Normal,Same as immediately below, only less altered, Miami Herald, October 3, 2001
Taking Back New York,
Chicago Tribune, September 28, 2001
Online Pals, Newsday, August 23, 2000
PopUp Ads, Newsday, October 4, 2000
Webcam, The New York Times, January 27, 2000 (reprinted in the International Herald Tribune)
Report Cards, New York Newsday
School Board,The Brooklyn Papers
(facsimile)
January 27, 2000
ESSAY
People Who Live in Glass Houses Must Stay on Their Toes
By LEAH D. CASNER
Last fall I set up a Webcam in my living room. A Webcam is a video camera (in our case, a very modest one) connected to a computer and through it to the Internet; it doesn't record videos but sends signals across the World Wide Web. So when I sign on to the Internet and turn on the Webcam, I transmit a continuous jerky rendition of a small portion of my family's daily life to anyone who wishes to view it online. So far, that has been about 10,000 people, for about a minute each, all in an apparent desire to see a dumpy middle-age mother of three take her clothes off.At least that's what the e-mail messages I get keep requesting. The bulk of these messages seem to come from France, which certainly seems to belie the image of the French as great lovers.How the Webcam came to our house has to do with a peculiarity of our computer, indeed of every computer we have had. Shortly after each one arrives at our home, it sends subliminal messages to me that it requires accessories. Many people are able to buy a computer, put it in a corner, use it when they wish and happily leave it at that. But my computers pulse messages into my brain, like, "If you attached a microphone, you could add your voice to your Web site," and, "Wouldn't a CD-ROM burner be just what the doctor ordered?"So when people ask, and they always do, what in the world would compel perfectly ordinary people to broadcast themselves all over the World Wide Web, I can honestly say the computer made me do it. I did notice, however, that one person who felt compelled to tell us how bizarre we were spent 11 minutes on our site.There are useful and interesting Webcams, like the PandaCam at the San Diego Zoo (www.sandiegozoo.org/special/pandas/pandacam/), which my daughter insists on watching before school each day. Our Webcam is not one of those. Ours points at either the person working on the computer or at people sprawled on the floor or the couch, watching television or doing homework. If we were as cute and rare as the pandas, maybe it would make sense to watch.There is no reason to look at our Webcam unless you are interested in looking into other people's living rooms, but surprisingly, a lot of people are. Camarades, the company that provides the software to run the Webcam and the space on the Web to broadcast it, also includes our cam in its own digital community of people with Webcams. I, too, find myself wasting a lot of time clicking on the thumbnail pictures of complete strangers to watch their lives for a few minutes. (They seem to spend a lot of time on their computers.)Others Webcams at Camarades present alluring, if not downright obscene, images, but turn out to be rather dull commercial operations, not personal Webcams at all, whose blatant dishonesty in appealing to the public should be reason enough not to do business with them.Webcams have always been self-mocking.One of the more famous early ones was of a coffee machine at Oxford University. That one had a real purpose in its original incarnation: to let students know whether the trek down three flights to the coffee machine would be futile. But now it has expanded its reach, so even in Brooklyn I can know whether coffee is ready.
A Webcam seems to coax out latent voyeurs, most of them from France.
The whole Webcam thing is sort of tongue in cheek. My oldest son, who despises the Webcam with the self-righteousness of a teenager, suggested that we put a mirror up to the Webcam to create a cam cam.
We have reached an even emptier level of fame, beyond even the "being famous for being famous" level. We are feeling famous for just being in view of anyone who wants to look. At least I haven't mistaken my new celebrity as an indication that I should run for president.
I have been caught, however, mistaking the picture on the Webcam for real life. Once I was on the computer, sort of watching the kids through the Webcam, and I started scolding them for wrestling -- but it turned out that they were sitting quietly, doing their homework, and I was seeing the delayed pictures you get when your Webcam is on a slow phone line.
Just as authors become caught up in watching their rankings on Amazon.com, those of us at the business end of Webcams can be mesmerized by visitor numbers. (Twenty-four people have looked at our Webcam in the last half-hour. Fourteen may be watching now. Four minutes later, up to 18 viewers. Twenty minutes later, down to seven, four of which just signed on. May as well take a nap. Out of sight of the camera, that is.)
One day, I accidentally turned the camera around to face a cow candle my oldest son gave me a few years back. Twelve people have visited to view the cow candle.
But no e-mail has arrived asking the cow if it would mind slipping out of its cellophane wrapper. Not even from France.
New York Newsday:
NEW YORK FORUM
ABOUT EDUCATION
Nurturing The Inner Child In Kindergarten
By Leah D. Casner. Leah D. Casner is a writer living in Brooklyn.
MY HUSBAND AND I recently received my son's kindergarten progress
report. I was pleased to see he got an "E" (excellent) for "showing
persistence in trying to become involved with new concepts." I felt for
those parents whose children had actually succeeded in becoming involved
with new concepts and therefore must have received a "needs
improvement" in showing persistence.
I know about those new concepts, too. They're right up there with
"higher concepts." At our first parent-teacher conference, I told my
son's teacher that he liked to practice math with his brother's
second-grade math workbook, that he could already add and subtract, and
had figured out multiplication by himself. She explained that in this
class they were more concerned with higher concepts, such as lesser and
greater. Well, that shut me up. I had thought that one would have to
know these things to be able to add and subtract.
The progress report also said my son "enjoys participating in art
activities," and this includes "using materials creatively." I thought
all children did that. I would prefer a little less creative use,
actually. I guess his teacher would have approved when my son and his
big brother poured their baby sister's rice cereal on the bed and said,
"Look, Mommy, snow!" I suppose it was also very artistic when they put
the potatoes, which they had been creatively using as bowling balls,
behind the toilet when I told them to put them away. It was darn near
performance art when they threw all the toys out the first-floor window.
I just got mad - and now I find out I should have applied for an NEA
grant.
Another of my son's academic strengths is "experiencing curiosity."
I've wondered how one "experiences" curiosity. How does it compare with
having, or feeling, curiosity? Can you have curiosity and not experience
it? Can you experience it and not have it? Can you experience someone
else's curiosity? And, I'm told, he also "takes risks with new things."
He sure does. So far, he's taking major risks with the words he brings
home, the songs he repeats and the obnoxious behavior he displays. His
teacher may think this is excellent, but it's making me regret ever
sending him to school.
"Uses non-standard forms of measurement" is another of his
scholastic accomplishments. Nothing, however, about using standard forms
of measurement. He did tell me the other day that the foot is as long as
a person's foot. Any person's foot. Very non-standard. It's a shame my
kids don't do the grocery shopping, because they'd understand better
than I why all the packages in the supermarkets are the same size but
have different weights and prices. Clearly our society is advancing to
higher concepts in measurement.
I didn't realize how soon (and at how young an age) I would turn
into an old fogey. Send the kids off to school and - boom! - you're
a mother from another century. I wanted the kids to learn arithmetic,
but what they're having is a "mathematics experience." Getting in touch
with their times tables. Finding exact answers is considered a
stultifying and anxiety-producing activity, so they're encouraged to
estimate. Once, advanced skills in mathematics like my son has shown
might have gotten him recruited for college by age 8. Now perfection is
a drawback. It's not precision that counts, it's the process. Would Dr.
Salk have said, "That vaccine seems about right! Let's stick a few kids
with some needles."
I really shouldn't be complaining, though. My son had a great year
with a lovely teacher who exposed them to wonderful things. The class
listened to Beethoven and Mozart and Bach, watched chicks hatch,
published their own books. And the teacher was not responsible for the
ridiculous standard-issue report card (oops, progress report) that she
had to fill out. But someday these children will need to earn a living.
When they are the CEOs of major corporations and use non-standard forms
of measurement in issuing paychecks, will this be considered a form of
risk-taking? Or of using materials creatively?
Back to contentsThe Brooklyn Papers
When my oldest son began kindergarten, I noticed just how ethnically varied the gifted classes in District 15 in Brooklyn were.
The students ranged from middle class to upper middle class, and their parents came from so many diverse places that, while one of them had played in some college musicals with my ex-brother-in-law, it had been a completely different region of the country (Michigan.)
After some time it became apparent to people, people with sincere beliefs in
multiculturalism, people with real social consciences, people truly concerned about the inequalities in our society, people whose kids didn't get into the gifted
program, that the program did not accurately reflect the population of the neighborhood.
This problem created a lot of arguments at school board meetings, with names
like "elitist," "racist" and "right wing stealth candidates" tossed about, and a lot
of trouble at the district office with a constant onslaught of telephone calls to see if their child had moved any higher on the waiting list.
But even this sincere effort to rectify inequalities was not enough to stifle the critics. The school board was forced to move drastically. They set up a task force, the eternal bureaucratic way to annihilate critics by weighing them down with so much paper they are forced to spend all their time practicing intensive recycling. This freed up the school board to attain the important educational goal of taking a retreat.
Nonetheless, many undeterred people insisted on participating in the task force, even though guest speakers unashamedly used phrases such as "models that are flexible," " Renzuli model" and "nurturing multiple intelligences." In case you are only familiar with multiple intelligences from the 70s classic "Sybill," they are defined as : linguistic, logical, musical, spatial, bodily and intra- and inter- personal. The latter was explained as the ability innate in politicians, which perhaps is a talent which ought to be stomped out rather than nurtured.
The leaders of the task force were particularly concerned about "achieving consensus." There was a lot of discussion about consensus, from the planning committee to the various subcommittees. Achieving consensus is the simultaneous orgasm of progressivism, much hoped for but seldom achieved.
One principal explained that without consensus, which the district had years of training in, those who are not satisfied with any particular plan would try to sabotage the results. Which gave those of us not so intimately involved in school politics a wonderful opinion of those who were.
After nearly a year and a half of wrangling, the task force had not quite achieved consensus. Oh, some people had come close, exclaiming in meetings "I'm becoming very excited here!" but the general feeling was one of letdown. "No, that's ok, I'm fine! Maybe I didn't reach consensus but it was still very nice! Really!"
In this anticlimactic state, the task force presented its findings on testing, on the form that gifted education should take, and on the role of middle schools in gifted education, to the school board.
Actually what was presented for discussion was a distillation, or some might say, dissolution of the task forces' work. Topics on which consensus had not been reached were left out of the report. What was reported suggested that there should be some form of gifted education in the district, but did not define what gifted was or what form the program should take, except to say the current program should be maintained at a minimum. Any other school was welcome to call any program it would develop or already had a gifted program. Skipping children ahead could be a gifted program. Not skipping children ahead could also be a gifted program. Not seeking to identify children as gifted could also be called a gifted program. The lame duck school board voted on the resolutions at their final meeting in June. All but one of the recommendations were approved. I can't say I'm satisfied. I think I'll have a cigarette.Back to contents