Tag Archives: children

Monday Morning Ramblings

April 9, 2012 D.A. Adams 3 Comments

I had a pretty cool experience last night while talking to Collin. On average, I talk to the boys 4-5 nights a week for about an hour each night. Usually, Collin wants to play games that we make up, and most of those games are based on whatever video game he’s into. Sometimes, he wants to talk to me “like adults,” meaning he wants to tell me all about his job, wife, and kids. Currently, he’s an illustrator, an explorer, an inventor, and a construction worker; he’s also been married for twenty years and has two or three kids, depending on the day. Finn sometimes wants to talk, but mostly, he just enjoys having me sing to him.

Recently, Collin has begun reading to me from a book he got about the most dangerous animals in the world. He gets very serious and has already developed a reading voice that sounds like a museum tour guide. He needs a little help on a few words, but for the most part, he’s becoming a pretty good reader. I probably don’t need to mention how proud that makes me. For the last four years, I’ve worried about him watching too much TV and playing too many video games, but now that he’s discovered reading for fun, he seems to be taking to it much like I did at that age.

Last night, Finn had already fallen asleep, so Collin and I started out playing a couple of games. Then, he asked if he could read to me from a new book he had just gotten, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. If you know anything about me, you probably know that’s the book that got me into fantasy and writing, so it’s pretty special to me to begin with. He had gotten to page 47 on his own and read aloud to me up to page 63. For nearly a full hour, I just sat and listened to him, helping him with a few words but mostly just listening to my oldest son read to me one of my favorite books. It was one of those ineffable moments parents get to share with their children that make all the difficulties worth it. All I can say is that I’ll hold onto that memory for as long as I can.

Humor

Education Ramblings

March 29, 2012 D.A. Adams 10 Comments

BREAKING NEWS: Local teacher lauded as hero for taking sick day.

After waking up feeling incapable of facing another day lecturing slack-jawed, apathetic students with no thirst for knowledge, Jeffrey Burntout made a heroic decision that has all of education abuzz with praise. He called in sick and sat on his sofa all day, wearing only his bathrobe and watching “Law and Order” reruns. Burntout, a high school history teacher, explains his decision candidly:

“Well, if I’d gone to work that day and saw one more student playing on their smart phone instead of listening to my lecture on the Civil War, I might have strangled them right on the spot, so I felt it was best for everyone involved if I just stayed home. These kids are dumb, really dumb, and they’ve sucked all the joy out of sharing the history of our great nation, a subject I once felt so passionate about. Now, I contemplate complex murder-suicide plots almost daily. I just needed a day to myself without grading answers that claim Snoop Dogg convinced Obama to sign the Emancipation Proclamation.”

Burntout has received praise from virtually everyone associated with his school district from the principal to the State Comptroller for Educational Financing.

“It’s really remarkable, what he said,” claims Beanie Counter, the State Comptroller. “A complex murder-suicide inside the classroom could’ve cost the state millions in litigation, so really, his action of calling in sick is truly admirable. I personally have nominated him for Teacher of the Year.”

“This is a great day for education,” adds Dr. Jen Touchyfeely, Professor of Emotional Studies in California. “Who could calculate the emotional toll a complex murder-suicide would have had on the students, teachers, and administrators who survived the attack? Burntout is an inspiration to all of us.”

Dr. Lottastatz of the Center for Researching Research also hails Mr. Burntout’s actions as heroic:

“The numbers are quite clear. 99.9% of all teachers today contemplate murder, suicide, or murder-suicide on a daily basis. The remaining .1% have been on the job for less than a week, so his actions provide hope to all that a day of lounging on the couch can be a healthy outlet for teachers who have to deal with the dumbest generation in American history. I’m not just speaking in anecdotal terms here, either. The research shows that without their smart phones and laptops, these kids would get lost in their own bedrooms.”

Even Mr. Burntout’s students condone his actions, as illustrated by Natalie Erehead, class valedictorian and student in Burntout’s AP American History during fourth block.

“Like, really, it was so much easier to text with the sub in the room. Mr. Burntout knows all our little tricks, so it was a great stress relief for all of us not to have to come up with new ways to hide our phones instead of listening to stories that have nothing to do with Lady GaGa or ‘Jersey Shore.’ I hope…”

At that, her phone buzzed and Erehead’s eyes glazed over as she frantically typed her response to a message about the socks a sophomore had worn that day.

“Can you believe someone wore matching socks on Mismatch Monday? Stupid sophomores.”

The Bureau of Educational Bureaucracy even supports Mr. Burntout’s sick day. In a recent press conference, the BEB hails him as the best and brightest of all teachers today, putting the needs of the system above his own desires to strangle a student. In its statement, the BEB describes how murdered students do not count at the end of the year, so by taking a day off, Mr. Burntout kept the passing ratio above Federal guidelines, thus ensuring funding for his school.

“I don’t feel like a hero,” Burnout says. “I’m just one of many dedicated teachers trapped in a broken system, but I really enjoyed the ‘Law and Order’ marathon. They showed some old episodes when Michael Moriarty was still the Assistant DA. Those are my favorites. The show was much grittier back then. If you’ll excuse me, I have a stack of tests to grade, and the BEB gets awfully upset if I don’t accept answers that Snooki led the march for women’s rights.”

With that, I left Mr. Burntout to his work, grateful to know that our nation’s future is in the hands of so many dedicated professionals.

Editor’s Note: the BEB has read and approved this message as a positive portrayal of the All Children Left Behind and Race to a Stop Acts.

For Collin and Finn

Friday Morning Ramblings

March 23, 2012 D.A. Adams 1 Comment

Dear sons, I want you to know what an amazing, beautiful place this world can be. Of course, there are difficulties and adversities to overcome, but there are also triumphs and splendors to relish. I want both of you to search for and see the beauty on this earth because life truly is what you make of it. If you wallow in the negative and allow the bad people to engulf you, your life will be miserable, but if you accept the bad as opportunities to learn and grow, then you can appreciate the good. Simply put, your life on this earth can be either heaven or hell, and the only thing that determines which is your attitude.

That’s not to say the hard times and bad people can’t be challenging. There will come moments in your life when you feel hopeless. There are obstacles that will seem insurmountable. There are pains that feel overwhelming. But even the worst storms of my life have eventually passed, and once they have gone, I’ve come out the other side a better man, not because there is anything special about me but because I’ve allowed myself to learn and mature. Sitting here at 39 and looking at my life, I can honestly say that today I understand the importance of how my attitude and perspective shape the way I respond to both the good and bad.

For you boys, I hope you learn this early and follow it throughout your lives. You will be much happier and healthier if you live with a positive attitude. Life has a way of giving back to you what you send out, and the people who are the most miserable, in my experience, are the people who wallow in self-pity and look for someone or something to blame and never learn to accept their own part in their failures. On the other hand, the happiest are those who take responsibility for their own lives, learn from their mistakes, and forgive the people who have wronged them. That’s the kind of person I want you both to grow into.

The best advice I can give you for achieving this end is to find pleasure in and appreciate the mundane. Notice and relish as many sunrises and sunsets as you can, for each is unique and spectacular. Notice the beauty and sophistication of nature, for even the simplest blade of grass is a miracle of complexity. Respect and appreciate the fragility of life, all life, for death is the one bond we all share, from the simplest bacteria to the most complex person. If you’ll wake each day aware of these simple things and appreciate each day as a new opportunity to have a positive impact on the world, you will be much happier, and my wish for both of you is to find your happiness and live your lives growing into the best of who you are.