Fear and Trembling of Standardized Tests

In a recent letter to the editor (2/23/2011) a candidate for WMRSD (White Mountain Regional Schood District) school board said that the recent NECAP (New England Common Assessment Program) scores show that all of the students in the district are "pretty much on par academically." "On par" according to whom?

Unfortunately NECAP tests have little to do with anything academic. The NECAP tests are not only unreliable and invalid, and time-wasting, but they are also very discouraging to those teachers who want to teach students...not prep them for some meaningless test.

The way to evaluate student performance is to read students' written work, look at their portfolios of work, observe how students interact with each other, and listen to the questions that students ask. And who is best equipped to do that evaluation? The teachers who work with the people on a daily basis.

We don't evaluate basketball players by giving them a standardized test; we look at their performance. We don't evaluate our car repair person by giving him a standardized test; we look at his performance on our vehicle.
Years ago when I was teaching in a high school in Maine, our English department was tasked with coming up with a standardized test. We hired two test consultants to assist us. When we asked them how really important the standardized tests were, they said that if you spend more that 15 minutes analyzing the test scores...you are wasting your time.

Schools should be much more than test centers for NECAP. Schools should be places of creativity, imagination, and personal challenge.

Students, teachers, parents, and school administrators should resist standardized testing with every fiber of their being. Students are not widgets on an assembly line; they are real live people and should treated with respect.

The Wars Without End

According to an article by Thom Shanker which appeared in the New York Times on February 25, 2011, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates bluntly told an audience of West Point cadets that it would be unwise for the United States to ever fight another war like Iraq or Afghanistan, and that the chances of carrying out a change of government in that fashion again were slim.

Secretary Gates said, "In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined', as General MacArthur so delicately put it."

So......This is what Veterans for Peace, The War Resisters League, Military Families Speak Out, etc., have been saying for YEARS.......If the pinheads in the Department of Defense and the White House had listened to us and the millions of people who took the streets before the invasion of Iraq the nearly 6,000 US military men and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the 100,000 or more who have been have wounded might still be with their families and friends.

And the billions of dollars that the US spends yearly on guns, tanks, and weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan might have been spent on something worthwhile like healthcare, education, housing, roads, bridges, etc. Last year the US spent $160 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan. The total deficit for the 50 states last year is $130 billion. Do the arithmetic.

But in the United States of Amnesia ...outside of a small circle of friends ..the dead and wounded will be soon forgotten; but surely, the families of the tens of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan men, women, and children who have been killed and wounded....the citizens of those countries that have been destroyed.....they will never forget.

April 19, 2005, Congressional Office Visit

Thanks for being here today. The good news is that Mike Michaud has signed on to the Woolsey Amendment regarding leaving Iraq.
We should remember that our congresspeople need us. Years ago a delegation visited President Roosevelt on some issue. As they left he said,” I agree with everything that you said...now it is your job to go out and put pressure on me so that I can do the right thing.”
Mark Twain said,”It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.” So these folks need us to get them to do the right thing.

Greetings from the Bangor Area Chapter of Veterans for Peace. We are Chapter 003. 003....License to Make Peace. 20 years ago veterans Jerry Genesio, Judy Genesio, Rev. Willard Bicket, Ken Perkins and Doug Rawlings who were disturbed by the militancy of the United States and its violent intervention into the affairs of other nations....sat down and talked about how they could abolish war. Now Veterans for Peace has 120 chapters and missions all around the world.

Some people may think that Veterans for Peace is a bunch of overweight veterans who get together and tell war stories or show up at these events just to bang our gums. That is not so...First of all, you don’t have to be a veteran to join Veterans for Peace. You just have to agree with our goal of working to abolish war. You are all invited to join.

Secondly, Veterans for Peace are working all over the world as I speak on numerous projects...buying and shipping ambulances to Palestine, working with coffee growers in Laos, building prosthetics for the citizens of Vietnam...For many Vietnamese the war never ended. One of our members Roger Marshall is on his way to Vietnam again to refit prosthetics. Veterans for Peace also has a seat as an NGO member of the United Nations.

Now we are hearing reports of the use of napalm, white phosporus, nerve gas, mustard gas and other burning chemicals on the citizens of Fallujah...an ex-city of 350,000 people. Half of whom are children under the age of 15. And American officials have admitted raining more than 250,000 pounds of toxin-tipped DU ammunition on Iraqis since the war began.

For those of you who might not know....napalm is jellied gasoline...once on you...it melts your flesh. White phosphorous is used to illuminate and as an anti personnel weapon. White phosporous burns right through your body. If you got some on your hand don’t bother pouring water it or putting you hand in a bucket of water. To get it out of you you would have to take a sharp knife and dig it out...(I demonstrate using a bayonet.)

Your tax dollars at work. More maiming through chemistry.

The resistance to this war is growing daily. As soldiers return from the field.....and as wounded veterans return...their stories are being told all across this country. And their stories give the rest of us the hope to keep on keeping on. And Veterans for Peace welcome them into our ranks.

Veterans for Peace are also helping soldiers with their conscientious objector claims. Currently we are helping five soldiers with their CO applications.

Last week we got an email from Clifton, a PFC in Iraq. ““I just notified my command today that I am a conscientious objector. My platoon sergeant screamed at me for a half hour straight calling me a coward and an idiot. The two E5's in the orderly room refused to type up the 4187 personal action form until I explained that they had to since it had already been cleared by the chaplain. Then they spent all day going all over the squadron trying to find out HOW to do it, and it never got done. I'm in one of those moron infested Cav units too, so I'm in for the long haul............I don't know how you can help me but I assure I need it."

Just yesterday we got an email from Clifton that the corporals in the orderly room couldn’t find a form 4187...and that if they could find it they didn’t know how to fill it out...So we emailed him a 4187 with sample information.

We also got an email from a young woman named Shannon who had joined the national guard shortly before 911. Shannon wants to be a school teacher. Now she is in Afghanistan. She writes,””I learned so much I had never known about. I realized I had a right to certain things. Now that I know what I know, I want to claim CO status. A lot of people tell me I don't have a chance, because I've already qualified with the M-16 during training at Ft. Hood . I don't believe in war and I don't want to use force. Everyone make's me feel like it's too late, because I am already here in Kabul, Afghanistan. I will not use my weapon! Do you think it's too late? PLEASE let me know what you think!" We are helping these young people with information and and moral support and legal help.

Brave young people are seeing war for what it is. There are no winners. There is only death and destruction and illness and broken families and broken hopes.

Recently Representatives Tom Allen and Mike Michaud joined 160 other Democrats and all but 3 Republicans in voting for another 82 billion dollars to fund the war in Iraq.

What is it that Clifton and Shannon understand that Tom and Mike don’t seem to understand? Maybe Tom and Mike need to be sent over there so they can understand.
It is time to let the Iraqis control their own country come what may. It is time for American soldiers to come home. We support our troops best by bringing them home.

In 1941 Winston Churchill visited Harrow School, and he said to the students there....”Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never give in."

And so the struggle goes on. The struggle for peace, and justice, and freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine.

The struggles of the working people in Colombia and El Salvador. The struggle of the Cuban Five who were imprisoned for infiltrating a terrorist group that were planning to kill their brothers and sisters in Cuba. The struggle for the freedom of Jose Padilla who has spent almost three years in jail without any charges being brought against him. The struggle continues for the Passamaquody Indians in Maine. 2012 prisoners are currently in Maine jails. That is less that one half of one percent. 6% of Passamaquodies have served a year or more in jail and 10% of the Passamaquodies in Washington County have spent more that 30 days in jail where racism and sexual harrassment is prevalent.

Dennis Dechaine has spent more that 16 years in the Maine state prison for the crime of murder...A crime that he did not commit.

This is April 19. In 1775 on this day there was the shot heard around the world. I had an ancestor who fought in the Revolution. In those days a man who might have called himself Sir John the Duke of Ashcroft would have accused my ancestor of being a “domestic terrorist.” I think he was a patriot. Sir John would called him an “insurgent”; I think he was a patriot.

So instead of a shot heard around the world. Let us give a shout to be heard around the world. “Peace and Justice Everywhere. No more war..No more war.”

Human Rights in Maine...Bill LD1196

In the coming weeks the Maine Legislature will be debating the merits of LD 1196. This bill would prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, credit, public accommodations, and educational opportunities based on sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. The bill defines sexual orientation as “actual or perceived heterosexuality, bisexuality, or homosexuality, or gender identity and expression.”

To me this bill is a no brainer. In the great State of Maine either everyone was created equal or only some were. Either everyone has equal protection under the law of only some do. Under LD 1196 discrimination against anyone hetero-sexual, homo-sexual, bisexual, etc., would be illegal in the State of Maine.

What is so hard to understand about that? I know that someone will bring up Leviticus 18:22 which says "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." Ok. I can accept that.

But what about Leviticus 11:10 where it states that only fish that have fins shall be eaten. Eating lobster is "an abomination." It seems to me that fishing for and selling lobsters would classified as an abomination as well.

Should we pass a law outlawing lobsters in the State of Maine? Or are there degrees of abomination? What about gay lobstermen or women. They would get a double whammy.

And the Lord in Leviticus said to Moses that women are not allowed to wear clothing made of two different kinds of thread, and that farmers are not allowed to grow two different crops in the same field, and that myopic people or far sighted people are not allowed to approach the altar, and that touching a dead pig skin makes one unclean (no football?), and that a person who curses should be stoned to death by the town.

When will it all end? And what about a gay lobsterman who pulls traps on the Sabbath and who curses and plants tomatoes and corn in the same field and wears glasses and likes to play football and has a short haircut? What about him?

Interestingly, according to the New Testament the Lord Jesus had nothing to say about people's sexual orientations. He did however proclaim this. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." John 15:12.

Is that so hard to understand? It certainly is good enough for me.

If You Don't Hear From Me!

As you know Ashcroft and Bush both have called me a terrorist..and a traitor as well...In Senate hearings on December 6, 2001, Ashcroft said,”To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this, your tactics only aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies and pause to America’s friends.” Then Resident Bush said,” You are with us or you are with the enemy."

Since the passage of USAPATRIOT ACT and its additions like the Intelligence Act that was passed a year ago, the cops can arrest any of us without charging us with a crime...the cops can go into your house day or night without out a warrant and take ANYTHING that they want to... you have no right to contact a lawyer or family or friends..........AND the cops don't even have to have "probable cause" or a suspicion to invade your privacy and your life..

The cops can do all of this stuff on a whim...For example, if you walk into the post office in the federal building to mail a letter and an FBI agent upstairs happens to be looking out the window and he might think to himself..." Hmmmm...I wonder who the heck that is?....Well, I guess I had better find out."

That is all that is takes for you to be deprived of your rights as an American citizen...and this is what our families and friends have fought and died for since 1776?

And now it is legal for the CIA to pick you up and send you to a foreign country for imprisonment.....I doubt if they will dump you on the beaches of Jamaica or Barbados.....mostly likely as the US and the Canadians have done, they'll send you to Syria or Turkey or G-Bay Cuba where they love to torture folks.

I don't believe that I am much threat to the security of Dubya Bush or G.F.Y. Cheney or the rest of the radical ruling class, but Jose Padilla...no threat to anyone... has been in prison for 2 1/2 years with no charges made against him...and we have seen fascism before in the 1950's....What threat were Will Geer (the grandfather on the Waltons), or Pete Seeger, or John Garfield, or Dalton Trumbo, or Ring Lardner, Jr?

So just remember me as a sweet kid who liked to read and go trout fishing and pick blue-berries, raspberries, and blackberries.

Bois Mountain Lines...Nine Verses...Jefferson, New Hampshire

BOIS MOUNTAIN LINES
Nine Verses

Found the book about The Buddha.
Chucked it into the black garbage bag,
Into the white egg shells and brown coffee grounds.
The book about The Buddha.

-1-
The shaggy moose wallows naked,
The shy red deer halts in the buff,
The black flies circle in the nude,
I leap bare-assed into the pond.

-2-
Uncle Norman said the flies
Are wicked this year; kids can't play outdoors.
Mmm! How come they
Don't bother me?

-3-
Sitting under a wrinkled blue tarp held up by two gray branches
On the tail-gate of a black Mazda,
Waiting and watching, while
The brown tea simmers on the red sterno.

-4-
Squinting so hard...
Every tree branch an antler,
Every trunk a bear,
Every splash a trout

-5-
A spindly-legged mosquito straddles
A tiny valley on my fingertip.
I feel so big.
I look up at the thunder...

-6-
The Jack-in-the-Pulpit eloquently preaches
The Gospel of the forest.
The Holy Spirit of the woods;
Be still and know...

-7-
Thunder rolls, crackling and booming,
Across the yellow meadows to the blue mountain.
The silver forest is cool.
The white and black wood-pecker ra-tats.

-8-
Coy-dog pup yip-yaps across the valley.
Driving warm rain smacks the green lushness.
Shrill droning voices in the mossy forest,
Weird mocking chants in the mist.

-9-
Near the bent and twisted green-leaved apple trees
Hundreds of small white butterflies
Circle and dip, dive and rise,
Pale brown patchy antlered moose straggles lin...
Petals fluttering all around

Oleson's Adventure or It's Not The End of The World

Oleson's Adventure or It's Not The End Of The World

So I am back from the colonoscopy...I was a good boy. I drank only liquids yesterday, and I took my first dose of Fleet Phospho Soda last night. When I had the procedure done three years ago I drank the ginger/lemon flavored Phospho Soda......The Soda has the consistency of jello that has been left on the kitchen table over night, and it's salt content rivals that of the Great Salt Lake. I still shudder thinking of it..

On Monday at Miller Drug I bought two bottle of unflavored Phospho Soda. Last evening I mixed one bottle with ginger ale and holding my nose , I drank it right down. It wasn¹t too bad. Horrible, but not too bad. I then retired to the smallest room with a couple of Bill Bryson books and let nature take its course.

Around 10 I went to bed and had a series of dreams that included my swimming through a murky swamp in Florida, a large balloon expanding and expanding in my stomach, and President Bush screaming at me "You are next, asshole, you are next." I arose at 6 and poured myself another tonic of the demons, and finished Bryson¹s book A Walk In The Woods....which is what I wish I were doing. 8:15 came along and with it a butterflies-in-the-stomach sense of nausea.. so I worshipped the marble throne for 15 minutes.....

If it isn¹t one end, it¹s the other. Just as I was recovering from Dry Heave City, Arizona, and mopping my sweaty brow and wiping the tears from my cheeks....my good friend Sandra showed up to take me to the hospital.
At 9:40 I got all johnnied up....jumped up on the traveling table....and off to endoscopy land. Whenever I get into a hospital johnny I think of Richard Nixon when he was in Bethesada Naval Hospital for a checkup. He would put on the johnnie with the open part in the front, and he would walk the halls shaking hands with folks.

A cheerful young Indian named Dr. Singh came in and introduced him. We shook hands and I said, "Namaste."

He said, "Thank you."

I think he appreciated that. I thought he might be gentler with me if I said "Namaste."

Dr. Singh said, "If you have polyps you should come back in 5 years. If you don¹t have polyps you should come back every 10 years after that. How's that for a plan? Now......for the good stuff!"
"Good stuff!" Indeed. Those are the last words I heard until I came out of my Fentanyl induced sleep 45 minutes later.

(A word about Fentanyl...I LOVED IT!. Fentany is 80 times more potent than morphine and 100's of times more potent than heroin. If a guy in torn jeans, a long black coat, and baseball turned backwards approaches you in the park and asks if you want a lollipop or a Perc-O-Pop you know that you have hit the real deal....a raspberry flavored lollipop on a stick. An analogue of Fentanyl called Carfentanil is 10,000 times more potent that morphine and is used to put elephants into a stupor.) Well, that's probably more than you need to know about that I think.)

I awoke and wondered when they were going to go where no man as gone before..I had not realized that the procedure was over. I looked around and I was the only one in the room. I checked the clock on the wall...I had been unconscious for almost an hour. A nurse came in and said I could get dressed and and that I could leave as soon as my ride arrived......I de-johnnied...put on my undershorts with the martini glass design...got into my socks, shoes, jeans and shirt and scouted around the recovery room.

On a clipboard were two yellow notes...one was a full page Discharge Instruction Form and the other a three by five inch note....The short note was from Dr. Singh...It read "You did well. You had hemorrhoids. Next exam 5 years."

Sandra came into the recovery room and asked how it had gone. I said, "Well, there is good news and bad news. They didn"t discover oil so that means that Bush probably won't invade. They didn¹'t find Amelia Earhart either, and they didn't find my head in there."

One more paper to sign and I was on my way. As I passed the dozen or so people sitting in the waiting room awaiting their rite of passage....I exclaimed, "Free at last....Free at last....Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last." Three people smiled; the rest just looked very soberly at me. The escorting nurse said,"You are scaring the patients."

On the way home I realized that the doctor had not offered to send me any full color photos of my inner being like they did the last time I had a colonoscopy. I still have those photos saved if anyone really would like to see them. Seriously....

Letter on Testing to Superintendent of Schools in Bangor, Maine

TO TEST OR NOT TO TEST; TO BORE OR TO INSPIRE

It was with considerable interest that I read in the "Communique" of your visit to Washington, DC, for the NCLB conference. I hope you keep in mind the political ramifications of the NCLB. As any retiring White House staffer will tell you, every decision made in the White House is a political decision. No one asks,"Is this good for the children?" or "Will this improve learning in the schools?" The question asked is "How will this keep us in power and provide profits for our supporters?"

The political agenda , of course, is to privatize the schools in the same way the White House hopes to privatize Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. Just as they are working on privatizing more prisons and the military. And their political agenda is very transparent. As Grover Norquist, one of Bush’s top advisers, says.""My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." And as schools are a wing of the government that means education as we know it.

Rod Paige said that testing will solve the problem of students’ not learning...How preposterous. In the United States students from rich families and neighborhoods do well in school; students from poor families and neighborhoods don’t do so well. When we were constructing a testing program for students in Freeport, Maine, in the 1980's we sought advice from two professional test makers. They told us that if we spent more than 15 minutes analyzing test results that we were wasting our time.

And those were the day when Eve Bither was the head of the Department of Education in Augusta. She often said that the standarized tests that the state was touting would "never be used to compare one school with another." Guess what? You betcha...

In 1968 Dan Fader, the author of "Hooked On Books" a book that revolutionized the teaching of reading and writing in Maine, spoke at the teachers’ convention in Westbrook. He said when lawyers and doctors present papers at their conventions all hell breaks out if someone presents a wacky idea. At teachers’ conventions all papers and ideas no matter how absurd are accepted as being valid. He said the applause you hear at teachers’ conventions is the banging of sheeps’ tails against the back of the chairs. That was back in the days when teachers were called teachers; not "suspected pedophiles" or that most high fallutin of all appellations "educators."

As for the Republicans’ concern about education...here is a partial list of programs that Bush announced today that he wants cut or eliminated.
Education Department
Comprehensive School Reform
Educational Technology State Grants
Even Start
(High School Program Terminations:)
Vocational Education State Grants
Vocational Education National Activities
Tech Prep State Grants
Upward Bound
Talent Search
GEAR UP
Smaller Learning Communities
Perkins Loans: Capital Contributions and Loan Cancellations
Regional Education Laboratories
Safe and Drug Free Schools State Grants
(Small Elementary and Secondary Education Programs:)
Javits Gifted and Talented Education
National Writing Project
School Leadership
Dropout Prevention Program
Close Up Fellowships
Ready to Teach
Parental Information and Resource Centers
Alcohol Abuse Reduction
Foundations for Learning
Mental Health Integration in Schools
Community Technology Centers
Exchanges with Historic Whaling and Trading Partners
Foreign Language Assistance
Excellence in Economic Education
Arts in Education
Women's Educational Equity
Elementary and Secondary School Counseling
Civic Education
Star Schools
(Smaller Higher Education Programs:)
Higher Education Demos for Students w/Disabilities
Underground Railroad Program
Interest Subsidy Grants
(Small Job Training and Adult Education Programs:)
Occupational and Employment Information
Tech-prep Demonstration
Literacy Programs for Prisoners
State Grants for Incarcerated Youth
(Small Postsecondary Student Financial Assistance Programs:)
LEAP
Byrd Scholarships
B.J. Stupak Olympic Scholarships

The tone of the article about your conference implies that you and the other administrators are going to keep a critical eye on the pronouncements from Washington, and you are to be congratulated for that.

Below is an article that was published in the Bangor Daily News a few years ago. It still is true today. The article also appears on PBS’ "Frontline" website.
******************
Having taught school in Maine and New Hampshire for 28 years, I have seen "educational" fads come and go; Transformational Grammar, The New Math, Back to Basics, Behavioral Objectives, Values Education, Career Education, Character Education(touted by William Bennett; so much for that) , and now the Learning Results and the High-Stakes-Testing movements. Like the proverbial bad penny these fads come and go. Some come back around every 4 years; some reappear every 8 years; some die a nice quiet death. That’s what I hope will happen with the latest testing craze. After all, testing merely tells us what we already know; the poor are not learning. Across the country, the percentage of students who don’t do well in school is the same percentage of students who are eligible for free lunches.

The current vision is a business model: specific objectives are set; performance is measured; teachers and students will be held accountable. "Names will be taken; butts will be kicked." How can teachers be held accountable for those things that they have no control over? Teachers have no control over students’ genetics, nutrition, nurturing, television watching, school attendance, or emotional and physical well-being. Yet teachers are going to be held accountable for the success of students on some politically motivated, huge profits driven, time consuming, unreliable test?

And that’s just one reason we should oppose the current testing mania. Tests don’t solve any of education’s problems. Issues such as school funding, creative curriculum development, and student participation in their own learning are taking a back seat to testing. Creativity, conceptual thinking, and curiosity can’t be measure by standardized tests. Tests can measure isolated skills, specific facts, and trivia. As Albert Einstein said, "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."If testing were the answer to solving our schools’ problems, these problems would have been solved years ago.

Tests stop real learning. Test companies are inaccurate and lax in their security. Tests are a waste of money and valuable time. In the year 2001 the states collectively spent more than $400 million to test students. At 17 hours long, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment test is longer than the Massachusetts bar exam. Tests place too much emphasis on a single examination. Tests turn schools into stock markets where students are only numbers, teacher are merely technicians, and schools are factories. Tests prepare students for the dull lock-step jobs offered in a global economy.

The more-testing-is-better movement meets the needs of the corporations not the hope and dreams of our young people. Success in the global economy requires a docile populace, obedient unskilled workers who are afraid to organize and who will settle for less than what their parents had.

If students are convinced that they are failures because they didn’t pass the "test", they will blame themselves for not doing better. They will work for minimum wage as hamburger flippers and big box store clerks.

Since the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) tests went into effect, dropout rates in some schools have soared to over 75%; the average for the state of Texas is 40%. In Texas, 25% of minority high school freshmen are retained, and 98% of those retained drop out before their senior year. But Texas needs thousands of fast food servers and stock yard workers, so it’s OK. Texas is, also, one of a number of states where education is driven by companies like McGraw-Hill, a major producer of text-books, test prep materials, and tests.

Reading and writing should be natural, joyful, rewarding activities. Constant testing turns these activities into school subjects. Testing writing in the third grade by looking for misspelled words or grammatical errors is the antithesis of what school should be about. Testing spelling is not testing writing. If kids learned to play baseball the way standardized testing demands they be taught, no one would play ball. We would have them measure the length of the bat, count off the feet to first base, and practice filling out score cards . We can help our young people to take the road of creativity, real literacy, conceptual thinking, and individuality, or we can take them down the path of mindless drill and repetition and memorization of isolated facts .

Parents, students, school principals, and teachers in a number of states including Massachusetts, Florida, California, Texas, Washington, Illinois, and have formed organization demanding an end to the standardized testing. . MaineRefusal is a group advocating the boycott and abolition of standardized testing. Teachers in Texas are keeping their own children home on TAAS day. In New York 2/3 of an eighth grade class in one school boycotted the tests. A second grader at Martin Elementary School in South San Francisco got so nervous about taking the Stanford-9 test that he threw up on his exam. A fitting response to a test that requests the regurgitation of trivia.

Teachers in Maine are the finest in the country. They are dancing as fast as they can preparing their lessons, wiping noses, mediating student conflicts, attending endless committee meetings, watching the kids on the playground, paying for supplies out of their own pockets, grading papers, motivating, encouraging, and educating our young people. Let’s support them in that effort. I encourage everyone to log on to FairTest, Rethinking Schools, MassRefusal, PencilDown, NoMoreTests, and other web sites relating to this issue. Let’s make sure that we are doing the best we can for our young people.

Gerald Oleson is a retired school teacher, poet, educational consultant, and independent peace and justice activist.
He is the year 2004 winner of the Roger Baldwin Award presented by the Maine Civil Liberties Union for his efforts in advancing civil liberties in the State of Maine.

The Amazing Day of Reckoning at the Penobscot County Court House in Bangor, Maine

The Amazing Day of Reckoning for Nancy and Richard

Twas a lovely, mild, sunny, warm day in Bangor, Maine, on October 31, 2003. It was great just lifting my face to the sun and feeling the warmth. A light breeze helped those yellow and orange leaves that were ready to lift off to do their thing. It was the day of reckoning, sentencing, and justice for our friends Nancy Galland and Richard Stander. They had been arrested on March 20, 2003, for sitting on the floor in the lobby of the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building while they waited for a message from their US Senator.

It was a day of anticipation, concern, introspection, and inspiration; a day of smiles, laughter, peace, hope, joy and love. Actually it was an amazing day. And actually the breeze wasn't so light at times. One of the great scenes of the day took place outside the courthouse... Nancy, Richard, Phil, and I were having lunch at Momma B's Kitchen...Richard was eating this great looking Portobello Mushroom sandwich. I always sit with my back to the wall; I like to know who is behind me, and I like to see who's coming into the restaurant. Looking out the large plate glass windows toward the court, I could see a dozen or so young folks standing on the sidewalk smoking cigarettes just in front of the "No Smoking On County Property" sign. Behind them just up three steps was the Assistant District Attorney Greg Campbell holding a two foot high pile of manila folders chocker-block full of probably very important papers, e.g., indictments, legal arguments, and briefs of one sort or another.

All of a sudden...WHOOOOOOSH...a heavy breeze blew all of the folders out of the young prosecutor's hands, up into the air, up, down, and across Hammond Street. The young folks all did their civic duty and scrambled up, down, and across Hammond Street to save the day for the young prosecutor....Portend of things to come for him? Hmmmm. A deal sprang to my not legally trained mind; maybe Nancy and Richard wouldn't press charges against the ADA for littering (misdemeanor), if he would just forget their criminal trespass charge (misdemeanor). Seemed like a good idea to me at the time as I was finishing off some really excellent fish (haddock) and chips.

Sentencing was scheduled for 1PM, but Justice Allen Hunter from Aroostook County had a busier day than he had expected. Before Nancy's and Richard's face to face with him and justice of the State of Maine, the judge had to deal with a couple of very sad cases in which no one won and everyone lost ; cases involving tears, agony, embarrassment, and loss of innocence.

Then..... A motion to acquit was made by Phil Worden. He said that the arrest of Nancy and Richard on March 20, 2003, in the lobby of the federal building in Bangor, Maine, was an illegal restriction and a decision that had been made arbitrarily. And he hoped that the judge would acquit, thereby, vindicating the First Amendment rights of Nancy and Richard. Greg Campbell, the young prosecutor who you met before, countered that there was "sufficient evidence to deny the motion" to acquit.

He referred to the State vs Armand?...I'll have to look that up...Evidently a case involving "interfering with the normal conduct of business." The judge denied the motion to acquit...Sooooooooooooooo. What would be an appropriate sentence? The prosecutor suggested that a substantial fine, but not jail time would satisfy the State. He complimented the many police officers and deputy sheriffs who he said handled the situation with such professionalism; there were so many cops involved that he was concerned that if there had been a major crime or crisis or some really horrible, terrible, Oh, my, gosh, just some really awful situation in Bangor....Yes, my friends, right here in River City... that there might have not been the human resources to deal with it.

I looked around at the friends of Nancy and Richard....and though I am not a mind-reader, they all seemed to be thinking....."Well, why were so many human resources (cops) sent to deal with this situation...nonviolent as it was....peaceful as it was...non-provocative as it was?" And the ADA was concerned that the defendants had not accepted responsibility for their crime...no gnashing of teeth, no pleading for forgiveness, no shame, and no acts of contrition. Well, duh, if I am not guilty of anything, I ain't a-goin' to fess up. No way, Jose. Phil Worden then talked about Title 1151; I'll have to look that up as well.

He then went on to review for the judge the kinds of sentences that other protestors in Portland and Belfast and Bangor had faced in recent months. The defendants' request to address the court was granted. Nancy said, in part, "I want you to know, Your Honor, that we never would have gone this far, chosen to go to trial, we never would have used the State's resources in this way, if we were not thoroughly convinced of our innocence. I hope you understand that if nothing else, we are people of personal integrity, and that integrity would not allow us to plead guilty when we felt strongly that we were within our First Amendment Rights......We are willing to accept (your sentencing)...To quote Leo Tolstoy, the author of the timeless novel, War and Peace, "Do what you must, come what may." We have done what we must, come what may."

Then Richard spoke, saying, in part, "When we were refused entry as a group to Senator Collins' office, I sat on the floor in the lobby and disobeyed an order by the police to leave. I did that knowingly and of my own volition and there is no power on eath that can snatch from my heart that I had a right and a duty to be there....What do we do when our protest is relegated to "free speech zones" away from the cameras, away from the public eye? What are we to do when our peaceful attempts to meet with our elected representatives are foiled by a bureaucrat in Virginia? I am fearful, Your Honor, what will happen when peaceful dissent is made to disappear. Will dissenters be disappeared, too?"

Then came the time for the sentencing....Dum De Dum Dum (the Dragnet theme). The judge in his infinite wisdom and intelligence and mercy and knowledge of American history rejected the State's desire for a "substantial fine". In his sentencing remarks he mentioned the Boston Tea Party, Martin Luther King, Jr, Rosa Parks, the civil "civil disobedience" of Nancy and Richard, the idea that sometimes the "status quo" has to be shook up and challenged; and he said that this was not a "frivolous case"; that this was "an important case"'; and that, therefore,.......he sentenced Nancy and Richard to 20 hours of community service.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! The suggestion was sort of made that maybe Nancy and Richard could do their community service at the Peace and Justice Center.....Naaaaaaaaah.....Not a good idea thought the judge. So....20 hours of community service at the food-bank at the Union Street Brick Church.....So there you have it: justice in the State of Maine in the United States of America on Halloween 2003.

In the hall outside the court room, our hero and friend, Nancy, literally leapt into the air. (My heart leaps up when I behold, etc.) Richard, our inspiration, fairly glowed. Lots of hugs and smiles...did I detect a tear or two?. I'm not sure because it was difficult seeing through my own. Nancy suggested that we celebrate by having coffee at Momma B's Kitchen.....yup, right across the street. So a party of 9 or so put tables together, pulled up chairs, and shared feelings and smiles.

One suggestion made was that maybe Nancy and Richard could do their community service washing dishes at Momma B's.........Naaaaah. I guess not. I went back to the court-house and requested a copy of the judge's sentencing statement. And as soon as I receive that, I shall forward it to everyone. Back at Momma B's, Gerry Baldacci, our friend and neighbor, the chef and artist, picked up the check for the coffee and sodas. Hey, it's good being the Godfather.

* Much respect goes to those champions of freedom Phil Worden and Lynne Williams. G
**Gerry Baldacci is a brother of the Governor of the State of Maine John Baldacci.

Why I Hate War!

On a brisk, snowy evening in the winter of 1945, my mother and grandfather Oleson and my 1 ½ year old brother Eric and I...I was three...rode in Papa’s car the 1/4 mile to the train station on the East Side of Berlin, New Hampshire. We waited for just a little while and then the steam engine chugged into the station.

Mom pointed out my father carrying his sea bag as he made his way down the aisle in the train.. "There’s Daddy!" she said.

Dad had spent 2 ½ years in the South Pacific; Hawaii, the Phillipines, Okinawa as a Carpenter’s Mate in the 125th Construction Battalion (the SeaBees).

Home at 480 Champlain Street were waiting my great-grandmother Ingerson, my grandmother Oleson, and a couple of aunts and uncles. I don’t remember which ones. I remember the blue couch and chairs in the apartment. Dad sat on the couch with someone...I can’t remember who.
My father had gifts for Eric and me that he said he had gotten in Hawaii; a stuffed teddy bear for Eric and a bag of molasses candy kisses for me.

After some coffee and sandwiches and cake, the relatives left.

During the night my brother Eric go out of his crib and went into my parents' bedroom and crawled into bed. My father...using his fists..almost beat my brother to death.

My father’s youngest sister, Topey, once told me that Otto went to war her best friend and came home a stranger.
I hate war.

Courage, Truth, and Justice in Bangor, Maine

Courage, Truth, and Justice at Penobscot County Courthouse
October 15, 2003

After two of the most glorious autumn days ever... mild sunny days with the bluest of blue skies and leaves bringing forth a palette of bright and pale scarlets, oranges, and yellows, October reminded us for a few hours of what is to come. October 15 started with a cold sheet of rain and brisk winds that inverted people’s umbrellas while other folks ran from car to building or building to car with jackets over their heads. A veritable river of brown water and leaves ran down Hammond Street. The wind blew down many of the campaign signs of various candidates for Bangor city council, and for a while extinguished the traffic lights downtown.

At 8:15 on this blustery morning, Nancy Galland and Richard Stander climbed the slippery granite steps of the Penobscot County Courthouse for their day with the State of Maine justice system.

Nancy and Richard have been charged with "criminal trespass" for their actions at the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building in Bangor on March 20, 2003, the day American soldiers invaded Iraq.

Nancy and Richard were among a group of 12 people that included a teacher, a painter, a potter, a social worker, two retired farmers, a federal park ranger, and others, who had gone to the federal building on March 20 to present a petition to U.S. Susan Collins regarding their objections to the invasion of Iraq, and they hoped to be able to talk about the invasion to the senator or her staff.

The efforts of the group were thwarted, however, when they found out that though they had arranged an appointment to go to the senator’s office they were told that they could proceed only in groups of three. The group was shocked and puzzled at hearing this news because on previous occasions they had been granted access to congressional offices in groups of 10-15 people.

The group’s petition was delivered to Senator Collins’ office. While waiting for a response a security officer told Nancy, Richard, and the others that they had to leave. The group felt that they had a right to stay so they sat on the floor of the lobby of the building. The Bangor police were called; names were taken; arrests were made. Some members of the group left under their own power, others were dragged from the building, and some were carried.

On the stand the testimony of Nancy and Richard evoked figurative images of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and the Nuremberg Trials. When asked about members of the group linking arms or holding hands, Nancy said that she hadn’t been doing either of those two things because during her time in the building she had been holding up one of Jim Harney’s photos of a young Iraqi mother and her child. (See attached photo) And she held up the literal image of the mother and child to show the jury...and she continued to hold it up for the jury to see.

Usually in civil disobedience cases the judge will set fairly narrow boundaries on what can be said about the motivation of defendants. Judges don’t like speeches from the witness stand. It really was quite amazing to me. I have attended over two dozen trials at the Penobscot Superior Court since 1991; I even was a jury member on a murder trial a year and a half ago. I have read trial transcripts; I have read numerous accounts of civil disobedience cases, but I have never heard of defendants having as much of a chance to tell their side of the story as Nancy and Richard did.

We heard of the bombing of innocent Iraqi men, women, and children; we heard that the war was illegal and that millions of people in this country and around the world opposed it; we heard about congress’ giving up its power to declare war and giving that power to the president, and in effect, giving George Bush the power of a dictator. We heard about the importance of being "active citizens."

We heard about the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the United States of America.
At the end of the court session I walked up Court Street to my apartment. The driving rain had stopped; the wind had let up. The sun broke through the clouds and the leaves on the maple trees were bright orange and red.

Years ago I was at a teachers’ workshop in Portland, Maine. Our speaker was the American Bar Association’s Education Director; he said that if we wanted our students to learn about truth and justice that we shouldn’t bother taking them to a court room.

Well, in Bangor, Maine, today, we heard a great deal of truth from Nancy Galland and Richard Stander. Tomorrow we shall hear closing arguments and the judge’s instructions to the jury. The jury will deliberate for a time.......Then we shall learn about justice in the State of Maine.

Bright-Eyed and Bushy or a Winter's Tail

Bright-Eyed and Bushy or a Winter’s Tail

As I was sitting here reading the last bit of Bill Bryson’s very funny book A Walk In The Woods, I heard my landlord, David, scraping away at the ice on the back steps with his green plastic snow shovel. I got up and turned on the porch light, but the light didn’t go on so I grabbed a copy of "Oleson’s Adventure or It Isn’t The End of The World" and walked downstairs and fiddled with the loose light bulb.

The light went on. I looked across the way at David who was standing on the top step of his porch.

He said,"Hi, Gerry."

I said,"Hi. I had a colonoscopy today and want you to have a copy of my adventure." David works as a healthcare professional and is interested in these kinds of adventures.

David murmured,"Thanks....Did you see the squirrel in the bird feeder?"
"What?’ I said.

"Yeah....there’s a squirrel headfirst in the birdfeeder. He got stuck and must have died in there."

I said, "Wow." And walked across the yard to the clear plastic cylindrical 24 inch long birdfeeder hanging on a nail on a cedar tree.

There it was...a full grown adult gray squirrel...motionless...head first down in the very confining feeder.

I said,"Well, that shows you what greed can do."

David just sighed, "Yup." David is a Republican so I am sure he understands.

I said,"I’ll be right back. I want to get my camera." I scurried across the slippery driveway, up the steps, into my apartment, grabbed my digital camera and hustled back down into the yard.
David was still standing by the tree. Sigh. Sigh ." Poor thing,"he said.

I said,"David....I’ll take care of it if you want me to."
David said,"Ok."

I walked back across the yard to my apartment to get a plastic bag.
David said,"You don’t have to take care of it tonight."

I said, "Yup."

But I didn’t want to leave the carcass hanging there all night so I got a black plastic bag from off the steps to my apartment. I took a couple of photos of the squirrel in the birdfeeder. The light wasn’t very good so I took the birdfeeder off the nail on which it was hanging and put it on the porch where the light was better. And snapped a few more photos.

I then placed the birdfeeder lengthwise on the frozen ground...thinking that I could pull the squirrel out by the tail , place it in the plastic burial bag, and give it a respectful funeral. I put my hand into the plastic bag making sort of a glove and grabbed the squirrel’s tail.
"WHAT THE HELL?" The squirrel’s head moved just the slightest bit. Now down on my hands knees I could see the slightest twitch of the squirrel’s eyes.

I leapt to my feet and ran to David’s front door and rang the doorbell and knocked on the door. The doorbell never works, but out of habit and respect I push the button anyways. I knocked on the door again, opened the door, and got jumped by David’s three golden retrievers, Angus, Emily and Gracie.....

"It’s alive! It’s alive!", I exclaimed.

David’s wife Jan the dog caller called from the kitchen, "It’s alive?"

David came on to the porch. He said,"It’s alive?"

I said,"Come and see."

We both hunched over the encapsulated gray squirrel and could see his nose twitching.
David asked,"How are we going to get him out of there?"

I said,"Let me go up and get some gloves."

When I returned, David had a hammer with him.

I reached into the birdfeeder and tugged on the squirrel’s tail.

He was solidly ensconced in the feeder. David tapped on the end of the feeder and dislodged the plastic neck around the top of the feeder.

"I don’t want to scare him," said David.

I picked up the birdfeeder and gently shook it and the squirrel slide backwards into freedom. He jumped on the ground....ran very fast up the driveway...(I thought now he is going to get run over.) He stopped. Looked around and bounded down the driveway toward the trees and the river.

I said to David,"It’s a good thing I decided to take care of him tonight."

David walked up the steps into his house.

So we did a good deed...freed a "sciurus carolinensis" from confinement in a plastic prison. Are they lessons to be learned here? I don’t know.....but as I said to David,"It’s stuff like this that makes me want to see how it all turns out."

Poem for Rosemary Baldacci

Il Constante E Amore
Cold, cold February’s last day
Snow swirling .
Flakes in a glass snow globe.
A world turned upside down.

The constant in the flying
Snow is love.
Giving more than taking.
Giving more than asking.

Standing apart,
Watching the huddled grievers Passing in cars.
I see my friend waving from within.
The cold, cold day is warmer.

The constant in the sorrow
Is Love.
Giving more than taking.
Giving more than asking.

The grace in loving
Up to the moon,
Filling up to the stars,
To the end of the end beyond.

Il constante e amore
Nel mondo girato inverso...
The constant is Love
In a world turned upside down.

Gerald Oleson 03/11/2002

Fear and Trembling with the Congressmen

BANGOR, MAINE...February 22, 2005
A nice mid snowy day in Bangor, Maine...The last outpost of civilization in the Northeast... I walked by the courthouse; there was a tall distinguished looking man in an orange jumpsuit with INMATE sewn on the back shoveling snow. I wonder what his crime had been. Surely not mass murder...maybe a bit of embezzlement. I wondered what Dubya Bush will look like in his jumpsuit with WAR CRIMINAL sewn on the back.

The Senior Center right downtown was hosting a forum on the future of Social Security. Congressmen Tom Allen and Mike Michaud were slated to be there so I schlepped on over. A few years ago I applied for membership in the Senior Center and was very pleased that April at the desk asked for I.D.

I walked upstairs to the meeting room and as always sat up front in an aisle seat.

Something you should remember ...(you probably already know)..about learning theory is that people tend to remember the first part of the lesson and the last part of the lesson more than what is in the middle.

So after the panel did their presentations....I jumped up as the first questioner.... Please remember that I have never met a microphone that I didn't like....

I said, "I remember when I was a kid that my father told me that his grandmother had to ask her children for money so that she could buy Christmas presents for them...That was in the days before Social Security....How humiliating and degrading that must have been for my great grandmother.

We are lucky to these congressmen who understand the issues so thoroughly. I am from New Hampshire and I noted that Republican Representative Bradley is on your side in this battle so that is good news.

We should all remember that there are people who have fought Social Security since it was passed on August 14, 1935....Look up on your computer and see who voted against it....The same kinds of people who are against it now. Who would benefit from privatization of Social Security.?.. As in Watergate days....Remember to follow the money. Wall Street could get 60 billion dollars plus in fees and commissions from privatization.

In 1974 George W. Bush said that Social Security would be bankrupt in the year 1984. Well, 1984 was twenty years ago in time....even though we live in a 1984 George Orwell world.

And remember what the Bushies' plan is...to privatize Social Security, privatize the schools, privatize all the prisons, privatize veterans' benefits. There are now 8 categories of veterans' benefits and half of all veterans get no benefits at all.

If you want to know the truth,keep your eye on Grover Norquist.....Grover never lies....Grover was a student in the high school class of a friend of mine John Barclay in Weston, Massachusetts. Grover's father used to take him to the Howard Johnson's on Wallaston Beach and buy him an ice cream cone. Then Grover's father would take the ice cream cone and take a bite out of it..."Sales tax"...then another bite..."Income tax"....then another bite..."Property tax"....when Mr. Norquist was done the little kid had just the sugar cone left with no ice cream.

Grover Norquist speaking for the Bushies has said,"Our goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Other very knowledgable folks then asked specific questions and made comments about the future of Social Security.

One feisty octogenarian woman approached the microphone and asked," I want to know what you intend to do about these Republicans who want to steal my Social Securtiy?"
The congressmen said that they would fight as hard as they could.

The program was to run from from 1 to 3 PM. When the clock struck 3pm....Congressman Michaud thanked the staff of the Senior Center....thanked the panelists...thanked the people for being there.........

And remembering learning theory I went over to the microphone which was still on...(Thank goodness).....and said....." Scott mentioned that we should not be in the defensive on this issue....We should attack the Republicans for their greed...Hank mentioned alternatives...Bob mentioned "budget busters"....Let's remember the war in Iraq...the biggest budget buster of them all.

We have heard Democratic Senator Biden publically tell Condi Rice that he loved her ; we have seen Democratic Senator Lieberman and President Bush kiss each other in public; and now that the Democrats including Senators Clinton, Lieberman , Kerry and others in the senate and the house have jumped on the War Party's bandwagon indicating that the US will be in Iraq indefinitely, what do we tell the relatives of soldiers who have died and will continue to die in Iraq?

What do we tell our children and grandchildren about the rule of law, personal honor, and human decency in the face of an illegal and immoral occupation of a foreign country? In the UK they have what is called an "opposition party"...Do you see any hope of such a party catching on here in the US...? That is what I want....an "opposition party." "

Afterwards Scott Ruffner who is putting 50 hours a week into organizing a progressive caucus in the Maine Democratic Party walked up the hill near his office...We stopped into Mrs. Thistle's little cafe and nice cups of hot minestrone soup. Scott flies out of Boston tomorrow on his way to Germany. He is to be the Gottvater to two little kids.

Off to the library to check out all of their Hunter Thompson books.....G