Epic Education Fail

Recent events involving our local Board of Education -- namely the firing of well-regarded Superintendent Dr. Bob Grimesey -- have stirred discontent with the potential to cause an uprising worthy of a Victor Hugo novel. 

Many parents are angry at his firing. Many community leaders are angry. Many teachers and administrators are angry (and scared). And many students are angry, while many more students probably do not fully understand the degree to which they should be angry. For many different reasons, I count myself among the angry population.

To be fair, I know very little about Dr. Bob Grimesey. His name began dropping last year after he was hired to serve as superintendent of Moore County Schools here in our heavenly slice of North Carolina. I’ve seen him, as one sees public officials, at a few school events here and there. Other than that, I’ve had no interaction with the man and, therefore, am in no position to make any arguments based on his character. I don’t know him well enough to personally vouch for him, so I won’t even go there.

My reasons for being angry at the five Board of Education members who fired the Superintendent are based on wasted resources (his contract buyout is north of $128,000), cowardice (last-minute, closed-door meetings held at times inconvenient to parents and school staff), alleged collusion (this coup has been in the planning process for weeks despite never being discussed in a proper board session), and hubris (the excessive self-confidence these board members exhibit in banding together to accomplish their pre-determined goal, regardless of the needs and wants of the children they serve and the taxpayers to whom they answer).

The harsh realities of the situation are that Dr. Grimesey is gone and likely will not be back. [NOTE: Since writing this post, and thanks to the intervention of NC State Representative Jamie Boles, we might just get our superintendent back.] It’s a nice dream to believe the decision can be reversed, but the chances of it happening are beyond slim, even if the election recall being discussed to remove certain Board of Education members succeeds. Time passes too slowly. People move on. Better things are down the road for Dr. Grimesey and I wish him well in his pursuit of them. He will thrive.

How do I know this? Because I’ve seen this kind of thing happen before.

Years ago, I worked for a company that encouraged and even congratulated back-stabbing manipulation. Fear and bullying were the order of the day. Decisions were made based on personal preference rather than sound business reasoning. Lies were told and systems meant to protect employees were abused. The short-term result of the company’s management style was good people who were treated like trash and corrupt leaders who protected, pampered and profited political allies. The long-term result was the near destruction of the company through years of turmoil until, finally, the cancers were cut out. Of those good people who were chewed up and spit out, the ones I see around town have achieved personal success and made good lives for themselves. The manipulators who made life hell for everyone have mostly fallen from power and are ostracized, in some cases even by their own family members.

The Board of Education’s vaguely justified and unpopular firing of the Superintendent has not damaged Dr. Bob Grimesey. If anything, he has been liberated to seek the employment of a school system that will embrace and appreciate him. He now has hundreds of glowing personal references available online for future employers to read and can go on his way with an extra $128,000-plus in his pocket. That’s not to say it won’t impact him emotionally. His tearful message to an audience of supporters this week clearly indicates a desire to remain in Moore County to serve the public.

The real, true and genuine effect of the Superintendent’s firing is the fact it has brought into the full light of day those five board members who hoped they could either bully Dr. Grimesey into quietly resigning on Monday, or fire him with little public attention in hastily scheduled back-to-back meetings. People who, seven days ago, weren’t paying the first lick of attention to Moore County Schools are now feverishly discussing recall elections, alleged collusion, nepotism, and potential violation of the North Carolina Open Meetings Law. Much like the leadership at that company I worked for years ago, the five members of the Board of Education and the administration they might wish to create now seem like so much detritus circling a bowl in desperate need of flushing.

Some people will overreact. Keep calm folks. 

Keep threatening language and hyperbole off the table. Accept the reality that you can’t hit the rewind button and undue what has been done. It’s time to move forward politically to remove the problem. Move forward intelligently to elect people who, to the best of your knowledge, will represent you to the best of their abilities. Move forward ethically to do whatever you are going to do in a way that will not disgrace you or your allies in this endeavor.

Most importantly, sleep well at night, secure in the knowledge you are trying to do the right thing. I’d like to think there are five people who can’t.

In the Spirit!

It’s Spirit Week at the middle school and our boys have been participating whole-heartedly, which is just one of the many differences between my children’s educational experiences and mine. I never learned to embrace school, or extracurricular activities, or sports, or band, or homework, or clubs, or girls.

Apart from a few good friends, my K-12 education consisted of navigating from one class to another, one year to another, while calling as little attention to myself as possible. Just a few steps shy of pathologically uptight, I avoided anything I saw as a potential threat or danger, which meant the last time I used a school bathroom was that day in fifth grade when a sixth grader popped open the door to my stall and stood there laughing. Why was it funny? I have no idea, but I never stepped foot in another school bathroom again. Perhaps the only thing of real lasting value I learned from school was how to hold it until I got home.

Needless to say, I didn’t go to many (okay, any) parties, I didn’t join any clubs, and I didn’t participate in Spirit Week, if we even had them back then. Dressing in school colors might be too conspicuous. What if the green I wore wasn’t the correct shade of green? And Pajama Day? Not likely. I was one of those kids who inhaled half a can of Aqua Net to make sure each and every hair conformed to the code of the mushroom helmet. I might not have had any style, but my lack of style – from my dad jeans, to my tucked-in shirt, to my old man sneakers – was immaculately represented every day. There was no way I was going to spoil it by wearing plaid pajamas to school.

The great thing about time passing is how effectively it can mellow you. Somewhere between 18 and 25, I began to allow many of my more diagnosable inhibitions to fall away. The result was wonderfully freeing. If one of my coworkers were to announce tomorrow is dress like a baby day, I’d be the first to run out and buy adult diapers and a giant baby rattle. Pajama Day? Please. These days you’d be lucky if I didn’t overdo it and wear women’s lingerie.

And in the interests of overdoing it, there are several new Spirit Week themes I would like to recommend that I believe would prove beneficial to the young people of today. After all, kids can wear school colors any old day, and pajamas would be a step up from most of the clothes kids choose to wear. My Spirit Week themes would forego such silliness in an effort to teach adolescents practical life lessons, such as the benefits of cleanliness and proper hygiene.

• Monday: Dress Like You Brushed Your Teeth Without Being Reminded Day
• Tuesday: Take Your Gritty Shoes Off Before Entering the House Day
• Wednesday: Wash Your Hair Properly (Like, With Shampoo) Day
• Thursday: Deodorant Is Your Friend Day
• Friday: Your Bedroom Really Shouldn’t Smell That Way Day

Or how about the hazards of chemical dependency?

• Monday: Dress Like Snoop Dog and/or Rush Limbaugh Day
• Tuesday: Bring Your Parents’ Secret Stash to School Day
• Wednesday: Dress Like Your Favorite Incarcerated Former Politician Day
• Thursday: Dress Like Your Favorite Overdosed Celebrity Day
• Friday: Dress Like the Kid Who Sells Weed In the School Bathroom But Hasn’t Been Busted Yet Day

Or even general responsibility?

• Monday: Dress Like You Own a Mirror Day
• Tuesday: Don’t Back Out of the Driveway at 50 MPH Day
• Wednesday: Dress Like You Own More Than Just Your Favorite Shirt Day
• Thursday: If Your Homework Says “Show Your Work” Then Show Your Work Day
• Friday: Dress Like You’re Not an Under-Aged Stripper Day

The possibilities are endless, and certainly more educational and entertaining than silly old Pajama Day.




Copyright 2015 Mark Feggeler

Progeny Perfected

You might think your children are special, but mine really are.

I know all parents believe their kids are beautiful, handsome, smart, talented, witty, mature and precocious. Problem is, only one pair of parents can believe that and actually be correct. My intent here isn't to tramp muddy footprints all over your dreams of being the perfect parent. You've tried exceptionally hard to raise perfect children and your kids genuinely appreciate your efforts. I'm here to point out the simple fact that our kids make yours look like they came from the reject bin at Big Lots. No offense.

Take the Italian, for example. The Italian has read more books this year than I have in my entire life, which really isn’t much of a comparison, because my reading skills loosely match those of an underdeveloped Gibbon monkey.

He's also a blossoming computer whiz. The Italian's idea of light entertainment is to prepare point-by-point comparisons of this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference to last year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. He’s thirteen. When I was thirteen, I was more concerned with which episode of Gilligan’s Island would be on after school than I was in getting the inside scoop on the latest advancements in world technology. When I was thirteen my brothers and I were content with playing Dig Dug off five-inch floppy discs on our Commodore 64. The Italian has been breaking out the laptop each morning to teach himself HTML coding over breakfast. And, well, why wouldn't he?

Then there’s the German. The German is sweet natured to a fault, he's an ace hockey goalie, and he plays saxophone as soulfully as a sixty-year-old in a smoke-filled night club. And he enjoys practicing. When I was his age, I recorded myself playing the trumpet for ten minutes and hit play twice to fill out the rest of the half hour I was supposed to be practicing.

The German also is our Lego master. I’m not talking about the 30-piece police car Lego set we got for Christmas forty years ago that I'm still trying to figure out how to put together. I’m talking about 2,000-piece movie prop replicas that are half assembled before the wrapping hits the floor. I’m talking about sitting at a laptop to program code for a WiFi Lego robot that recognizes different colors, utilizes touch sensors, and performs complex tasks.

Between the two of them, the twins have the necessary knowledge and access to technology to hack our online banking and transfer our assets to offshore accounts, all while holding us captive in our own basement with a robotic Lego army.

The ring leader of our perfected progeny is Our Daughter. If I even attempted to maintain half the busy schedule Our Daughter keeps on a daily basis, I would have been dead three-and-a-half years ago. I can count on one hand the number of clubs I joined during my K-12 years, yet this girl's resume reads like an alphabetical listing of every possible extra-curricular activity available.

She's also taken more AP classes than I have clean pairs of underwear. I'm lucky I know how spell AP. She wants to graduate with honors, get a bachelor's degree in biology, a master's degree in dentistry, and ultimately become an orthodontist. At her age, my only goal was to pass the next test and avoid anyone at school who might be interested in giving me a wedgie. Our Daughter has the next ten years of her life planned out whereas my long-term goals include gassing up the car and making sure I leave enough time after getting out of bed each morning to reach the toilet before I wet myself.

I'm certain many of you reading this are making all kinds of mental notes in preparation of a rebuttal of my assertion that my children are better than yours. You're wasting your time listing out your childrens' grade point averages, academic accomplishments, personal triumphs, and tallying the number of times they've been Snapchatted or re-Tweeted. Please, if it makes you feel better, go ahead and launch a well-prepared defense of your children. So long as you're prepared to eventually acknowledge the unquestionable superiority of my kids, we won't have any trouble.



© 2014 Mark Feggeler

16 Degrees Below Stupid

Four days.

That’s how long two inches of snow and a few consecutive nights below freezing will keep kids in central North Carolina out of school. Every night this week, promptly at seven o’clock, we’ve received the call that the next day of school is cancelled.

I hate to sound like one of those “knee-deep in three feet of snow, uphill, both ways” kinds of people, but to say I am flummoxed and flabbergasted is an understatement. When I was a kid, we needed six inches on the ground and the threat of more before our administrators would even consider cancelling school. And they would wait until the last possible second to let you know.

Matter of fact, they wouldn’t even let you know. There were no calling systems, text messages, tweets or Facebook posts back then. The only way you found out if you could ditch your books and break out your galoshes was to watch the scrolling bar along the bottom of one of the five available television networks (three national and two local) like a hawk. If you looked away for a second and missed your spot in the alphabetical string of school districts you were screwed and had to wait another fifteen minutes for the next rotation to begin.

It wouldn’t be so bad if our county’s single Tonka snowplow could get to every street. At least this time they managed to salt most of the roads before the snow fell, but snow isn’t our main problem. The entire 24 years I’ve lived in the Sandhills of North Carolina, snow has never really been the problem.

It’s the ice.

It’s the melting snow running across poorly pitched roads that refreezes during the night.

It’s the acres of black ice that cover rural roads lined by trees so high they never let in the sun.

It’s the jackass tailgating you for five miles until he can gun it past you who hits the patch of black ice you were anticipating you might eventually come across and loses control, fishtailing wildly until he kills himself, you and every fur-bearing mammal within a hundred yards of the scene of the crash.

And to top it all off, our school district does not have a single day built into the year that our kids can miss. No cushion at all for inclement weather in a territory prone to winter ice storms, tornadoes, and even the occasional hurricane, meaning each of the four days our kids have missed this week will need to be made up on a Saturday and during breaks.

I would hope, if nothing else, this latest protracted snow flurry teaches the students of our county the meaning of the word “contingency.”



© 2014 Mark Feggeler

My Brain Hurts

I finished school almost three decades ago, so the idea of sitting down to work on math and social studies and reading for any length of time on any given day offends me. Add to that the complexity of the work our children bring home, the amount of work our children bring home, and the general lack of understanding My Lovely Wife and I are able to offer our children once they get home, and the entire situation becomes unbearable.

And I'm not talking about college-level or even high school-level work, either. I'm talking about elementary school math. Just a quick glance at our sons' math homework is enough to convince me of one of two possibilities: (1) math has changed a whole lot in thirty years, or (2) I have the equivalent innate mathematical abilities as a domesticated turkey. Neither option is good.

When I was in elementary school, we worked on four basic mathematical concepts. They were addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. We learned to memorize the multiplication tables. We learned long division. We learned the basics and, if we paid attention, we learned them well.

These days, it isn't enough for kids to know 7 times 7 equals 49. They have to be able to prove it using any of seventeen different methods. Instead of being tested on whether they can achieve the end result, they're being tested on the different processes available to achieve the result. But it seems to me like the basic methods are being shoved aside.

I recall one night when Our Daughter was little and the teacher assigned division problems for homework but had not yet explained how division works. Our Daughter had been told if the problem asked "what is 8 divided by 2," then she should work the problem the other way around to figure out what number times 2 equals 8. This sounds easy enough, but what happens the moment you start working with two-digit and three-digit numbers? What kid would be able to figure out 3,111 divided by 183 equals 17 by trying to guess what number times 17 equals 3,111?

My favorite of the new methods for learning multiplication is the latticework process. Put simply, lattice multiplication takes simple equations and turns them into undecipherable hieroglyphics even Pythagoras and Archimedes would have trouble comprehending. Lattice multiplication stretches an equation that should take up one square inch of a piece of paper into a complex diagram that fills the entire page and consumes the lead of two pencils in the process. And, if the end result isn't correct, good luck figuring out exactly where the problem went wrong. When the teacher sends home the weekly e-newsletter instructing parents to ensure the homework is done correctly, she might as well tell us to make sure our kids understand the theory of Quantum Entanglement while we're at it.

My plea to educators around the world, if I may be so bold as to submit a plea, is to stop mucking about with the tried and true methods of teaching math. We don't need new approaches. We don't need seventeen different methods of figuring out 5 times 5 equals 25. Just teach the kids math. Sweet, simple, straightforward math that doesn't hurt my brain.

Maybe my expectations are low, but I'd be happy if the German stopped putting his shirt on backwards and the Italian stopped walking around the house tapping his athletic supporter like a percussion instrument. Complex mathematics can wait.

© 2012 Mark Feggeler

Growing Up a Muppet

Have you gone to see the new Muppet Movie yet? No? Well, what the heck is wrong with you?!

Okay, so the Muppets haven't always been a surefire guarantee of quality entertainment. The standards of excellence have fluctuated over the decades, even under the direct supervision of puppet master Jim Henson, but there's always been an endearing and undeniable sweetness to the Muppets that kept them in the hearts of kids like me who refused to mature.

It all began for us with Sesame Street's educational fortification from puppet parodies of hippie pop culture and a slew of characters who displayed by example how to (or not to) behave. The inhabitants of that fanciful city block -- even Oscar the Grouch and geeky Bert -- were our friends. They accepted us the way we were and we loved them for it.

When The Muppet Show first aired in 1976, those of us who were still wishing we could fly like Super Grover or binge with Cookie Monster were ready. Kermit, the only crossover from Sesame Street, guided the way to a more adolescent sensibility while retaining the harmless charm we trusted.

I can only assume being at that perfect age to experience the Muppets' development from children's programming to family entertainment is similar to the experience of those children who recently grew up with the three primary protagonists from the "Harry Potter" books and films. There's a kinship kindled from such extreme familiarity and the overwhelming sense of connection to the characters. Just as so many teenagers (and adults) today know every last detail about the magical world created by J.K. Rowling, so do many people my age fondly recall details of a world populated by Muppets.

Released last week over the Thanksgiving holiday, the latest Muppet film recalls the very best of Kermit-led entertainment, warts and all. Drippy sentimentality, a 50-50 ratio of success for all jokes and sight gags, a slew of cameo appearances, inspired new music and characters, unnecessary plot lines that slow the movie down, references to skits and songs so ingrained in our collective subconscious that even the most jaded people in the audience find themselves humming along -- it's all there!

You see, I don't ask for perfection from my Muppets, the same way I don't ask for perfection from my children and My Lovely Wife. Expecting perfection only sets one up for disappointment because nothing is ever perfect. The only thing I expect is a non-stop, machine gun approach from which I'm assured only the possibility of enjoying myself if I overlook what falls flat and choose to focus instead on the bits and pieces that touch my heart, or my funny bone, whichever is more receptive at the applicable moment.

In an effort to either inspire a new era of Muppet entertainment or offer the Muppets the opportunity to go out in style, the makers of the new movie have given us Muppets at the top of their game. And, similar to the first movie all those years ago, the focus this time is on the Muppets themselves.

Go see The Muppet Movie. You owe it to the kid in you.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Back To School

I can't figure out if there's something wrong with my children, or something wrong with me. As summer draws to a close, the Italian and Our Daughter are anxiously awaiting going back to school. The German? Maybe not so much, but he sure doesn't seem to be dreading it the way I used to.

Every school year starting with third grade was like some new classification of slow torture. Even the earlier years were marked by incidents that should have foreshadowed school was not for me.

In kindergarten I missed the class picture because, during the bus ride to school, my nose collided with the back of Tommy Harrison's head and bled for what seemed like hours. It hurt so badly, I honestly recall believing my nose had been knocked clean off.

In first grade I remember running across the school grounds, excited about bringing my so-called portable record player to class. I tripped and received a perfect groin shot from the 15-pound box. The next year, Toni Ann (you know who you are) threw Ajax in my eyes while we were put to manual labor scrubbing our scribblings off the desks.

By third grade, I had had enough. My unbelievably appropriately named third grade teacher, Mrs. Stern, drove any remaining desire to learn anything at all out of me. A long-lived desire to no longer be in the educational system blossomed that year and I divorced myself from the need to be educated.

There were glimmers of hope here and there. By the end of high school I had taken to writing funny little essays about silly topics to amuse my friends. In senior year I joined the humor magazine. Amazingly, I think I was even too dorky for the dorks who ran the humor magazine, and they used only a couple of the things I produced. It could be my writings weren't very well written or funny, but I'd rather keep the whole "I hated school/school hated me" theme going and instead believe they were jealous and chose to ostracize me and my work. It's easier that way.

Somehow, my children seem immune to the oppressive and soul-crushing torments of public education. They have each dealt with bullies, butt-loads of homework, and a few teachers with some really bad attitudes. I see them confronting the same dramas and problems I faced in my childhood but they aren't traumatized by them like I was.

The Italian WANTS to go back to school next week. He's excited about it! The German will admit to being ready to go back, too, if pressed to answer. Our Daughter also is eager to return to the halls of middle school, which for some reason can no longer be called junior high.

Junior high was the worst for me. I started seventh grade short and fat and finished it looking like a five-foot-ten skeleton. There were so many ways I didn't fit in that I ended up like an outcast from the Island of Misfit Toys in the cafeteria, in the classroom, and in the dreaded hallways. I wasn't a jock, a brain, a spoiled rich kid, or any of the other stereotypes John Hughes stocked detention with in "The Breakfast Club." My sole intent in junior high was to blend into the scenery and make it through alive.

So, to my way of thinking, my kids are sick. Wanting to go to school -- wanting summer to end because there's too much time on their hands and too little to keep them entertained -- makes them mentally defective. I have broken children.

At there ages, I used to dream up illnesses and hold the thermometer close to the bedside lamp so I could stay home from school. Do you think my kids are that rational? Oh, no.

Last year, both my sons received perfect attendance for the entire year. The only reason my daughter didn't get perfect attendance, as well, is because she was counted out for the day her dance troupe performed the Nutcracker for children on field trips from the local elementary schools. How can my children love school so much that during an entire academic year they never tried, not once, to play hooky?

I ask you, where have I failed them?



ⓒ 2010 Mark Feggeler