Legislative Repeats

One of the History 101 lessons learned is the undeniable fact that the study of history leads civilization to not repeat the mistakes of the past…if said civilization only would listen. One of the advantages of looking back into that past is determining what worked, what didn’t.
Case in point – the 2013 North Carolina General Assembly, along with Governor Pat McCrory, has drastically (if there’s a word on the continuum more drastic than drastically, feel free to insert here) cut funding to the public school systems across the state.
Nothing new.

An editorial by Glen Alpine educator Zeb Dickson submitted to the Morganton News-Herald January 29, 1957 explains it all:

In 1957 North Carolina Legislature will have to do something about raising the salaries of North Carolina teachers. The present critical situation…is a direct result of a short sighted policy on the part of the North Carolina legislature over the past 20 years.

It all started back in 1934 when our Legislature thought they could sacrifice the welfare of the children of the state of North Carolinas and pay us out of a depression by cutting teacher salaries to the bone. Our educational system has never fully recovered from that blow.

Check out the history. Please.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen



To Master or Not to Master

I’ve been on the sidelines lately, watching the status of teacher-hood in North Carolina change dramatically from the day I last set foot in the classroom a decade ago. Most of the changes were “accomplished” this year, the unlucky thirteenth of this exciting new century, the year of major funding cutbacks.

There is to be no more pay differentiation for teachers with master’s degrees, for starters. Seems that test results show no significant increase when children are taught by teachers with higher degrees. The logic goes along the “so why bother?” lines. For the record, I have a master’s degree in education that I worked, labored, toiled, scrimped, gave up time and part of my income just to earn. So I’m a little miffed at the very suggestion that what I did was in vain.

I must admit, however, legislators could find some backing for their argument in Pilot Mountain School where many teachers were not college graduates, must less holders of master’s degrees. They worked hard, labored, toiled the same number of hours as their peers, and at much lower salary, facing the same overloaded classrooms with little equipment beyond chalk and slate. Their children went on to achieve, or to fail to achieve, in equal proportions to those from college educated teachers. Look at all the money the system saved!

That worked for the 1940’s, sort of. We’ll never really know because the dropout rate was so significant, there weren’t that many students in the upper grades to reap long term test results from.

That also worked much earlier in 1905 where, in the county superintendent’s yearly report, only five out of fifty-three teachers reportedly had college degrees or “normal school training,” as the form was worded. The forty-nine uncertified teachers prepared the students for the twentieth century just as well as their five educated peers.

In theory, maybe, stretching it here, maybe that would make sense. But no. There is something intrinsic about being taught by a well trained, well educated person, something test results won’t expose. It’s one of those inherent rights, the pursuit of education, of sitting at the feet of a master, so to speak.

How’s that old adage go, the one that warns, “You get what you pay for”?

Buyer Beware.

Fast forward to the twenty-second century. What will the bloggers say about superintendent’s 2014 end of year report?

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Rainy Events

One lesson I've learned the past few weeks, rain rules.

No matter the preparation, the anticipation, the equipment, it's the rain that's in control. Even with postitive thinking and sunny day attitudes and casual jokes and rain-rain-go-away sing songs, rain reigns.

Outdoor book events do not do well in rain. The dampness seeps into even the most tightly snapped plastic bin. The pages absorb, swell, push back their covers. Not a pretty sight. Neither is the mud splashing on posters. Or the tent sagging under the weight of trapped water. Or even the additional shower down the neck when that trapped water is jabbed from beneath with the crook of an umbrella.

But.

Sitting in a confined space under a tent with a group of writers. Priceless.

Tossing out ideas. Laughing. Commiserating. Are we having fun yet? Priceless.

Spending extra time with people who stop in for shelter and end up sharing their life stories. Priceless.

That's how I celebrated the Fourth of July week, 2013. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but I sure had fun.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Adverbial Days

I've been at the Red, White and Bluegrass festival all week, practically drowning in music and rain. More about that in a later post.

But today I'm guest blogger at another site, Southern Writers. Click on over and visit!

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Red, White and Bluegrass

What better name for a bluegrass festival during the Fourth of July week than Red, White and Bluegrass!

What better way to celebrate freedom than sitting under open skies, listening to music that comes from the heart of American life. 

What better place to be with my Lessons Learned book than in the heart of Burke County where the story is set and with the people who are real live characters in the book.

What better group to share five days under a tent with than fellow writers.

What better attraction to entice the festival crowd to our tent than the wonderful Sweet Things Bakery and Ice Cream Parlor! YES! They will have tempting cookies and cake slices and oh, my, chocolate chip cookie sandwiches.

Join us every day, beginning today at eleven, all the way through the fireworks on the fourth. Enjoy the bluegrass music (the lineup of musicians sounds fantastic). And drop by our tent.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Called to the Mountains

I can't seem to get away from them.

Mountains.

I was born in a town in the Alleghenies. I went to school at Appalachian State University, can't get much more mountain than that. I live in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. My daughter lives in the shadow of Taos Mountain in New Mexico and soon I'll be sitting on her back deck sipping a cup of steamy hot tea as I watch the morning balloon launches in the Rio Grande Gorge, flat top mesas in the background. Aah!

I wrote about a school in the South Mountains in Lessons Learned: The Story of Pilot Mountain School. I wrote about a boy moving to the tree farms on the mountain slopes of North Carolina in the yet to be released but coming soon, When Christmas Seems Like Home.

Now...

Ta-Da...

Presenting my newest book! Set in the mountains, go figure.

Called to the Mountains: The Story of Jean L. Frese.

Only this time those mountains are the Smokies, the Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina. And there on the cover is the subject of the book, Jean Frese, also known as Lorraine. What a story she had. What a witness to faith and determination.

This is her memoir, her voice. I changed very little of the recorded interview during the transcribing to writing process. She's my mother's cousin, raised by my grandmother, so I look on her as my aunt, Aunt Lorraine, despite the subtitle of the book. Her name change from Lorraine to Jean was only a small part of this faith story. It's a story of her life at the Salvation Army Mountain Mission in Shelton Laurel, North Carolina. It's a story of answering God's call, her call to the mountains.

Available now on Amazon.  Kindle version will be available later this week.

The call to the mountains runs deep in our family.

Catch of the Day,

Gretchen

Author Visit to Salem Ruritan Club

A day in the life of a writer...Sit in front of the computer for hours and hours, writing a book proposal, researching books in print, more writing, more researching, you get the idea.

Then a break, a joyous break. I was speaker at the monthly meeting of the Salem Ruritan Club. Ruritan National is a civic service organization designed for small rural communities. Their motto "Fellowship, Goodwill, and Community Service" came through at last night's meeting at their clubhouse near Salem School in Burke County.

I felt right at home during the fellowship time and even more so when I realized the menu for supper included as the main course, livermush. I thought perhaps they had selected that as a courtesy to me and my Lessons Learned mention of livermush. But no, this was the "poor man's country fried steak," as the cook for the night explained to me, and one of their favorite meals.

Since this club is a part of the community where Pilot Mountain School was located, every person there was familiar with my book. I had not interviewed any of these particular men because none of them had attended there, but they recognized every name I mentioned in my speech. Their children's pictures were in the book. Their wives. Their former teachers.

I was preaching to the choir only this choir knew more about the school than I ever will.

The greatest discovery about the night? Not the new friends I made. Not the books I sold. It was the stove in the kitchen where the livermush was fried.

One member of the club who was present last night was also a member of the club the day the school closed. He was with the other members when they bought the stove from the school system and installed it in the clubhouse where the meeting was held last night, the very stove in the very cafeteria I had written about, lived with in my brain for three years.

Strange experience, eating livermush cooked on that exact stove. I felt, no, it's more like I tasted and smelled a connection to the children of that school like I had not felt during those years of fact finding research.

A powerful night. I was humbled.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen