Artist

Eli has had a real tough time recently suppressing his urge to draw, at school. He draws on everything including homework to turn in, assignments and examples that are distributed. The teachers were all complaining about it. "Eli needs to remember that I am not the art teacher," wrote one. I chose to ignore the complaints and have focused on getting him not to mess up school property and stuff that he'll have to turn in. Middling success in that regard too.

His support person at school, Mrs. Mitchell suggested a contract to establish limits. We agreed to it, albeit with reservations: we're pretty sure it won't last long. It didn't. Eli drew a picture on the back of the contract!



In Social Studies he is in a small group for some in-class project. One of the components is a drawing of whatever the project is (I don't know the scope or topic of the project). Eli's group tasked him with making the drawing. Nice call on the part of the group, and on the part of the teacher for letting things sort themselves out this way.

Eli had to answer a single science question for homework last night. It took a couple of sentences. I gave him a blank piece of paper and told him to write out his answer, rather than dictate it to me on the word processor. I watched him get started and then left him alone. Twenty minutes later the answer was done, and the rest of the page was filled with a huge drawing of the answer. It had to do with how the breeze generated by a fan causes a person who is sweating to feel cooler. So Eli had drawn a solar-powered fan, showing in minute detail the generation of electricity and distribution to the machine. Lots of wires, batteries and cells and packs, and such!

I had to laugh. It was right on target for the question he had answered. And the solar-power aspect will appeal (I think) to the teacher. So I let it go. Eli said, "I can get extra credit for the illustration." Right; we'll see!

But my thing is, if he's going to draw, why not figure out a way to let this be the way he gets his assignments done? The narrative stuff, sure; but accompanied by an artistic representation; why not?

Oink-of-the-Day Award

I read in the Asheville Citizen Times this morning that Asheville Christian Academy, here in the valley, voted last night to maintain its "men-only" rule for board membership. Okay.

The school was formed in 1972 as a merger between two schools, one with a uni-gendered governing board, the other with an inclusive board. The issue of changing the rule has come up before and been defeated. Conservative, literal-minded Christians prevail once again.

There are some fine folks at the school, and several kids we know through Scouts and other settings attend. So I don't disparage them. And I don't disparage the conservative mind-set. What I can't believe is that there is seemingly no way to reconcile valid if short-sighted Biblical interpretation with real-world expectations.

And then there's this. Quoting the CT, "proponents (of maintaining the single gendered board) also said that a nurturing temperament would keep women from making tough decisions and that men are more comfortable speaking to other men." One, these folks have obviously never met my wife, nor my mom, nor my boss. And two, well anytime you care to crawl out of the locker-room and join polite society, feel ever so free, fellas.

The vote was 148 for keeping things as they are and 103 in favor of a change. The school is governed by a board which meets monthly, and which is in turn controlled by a corporation of 250 members. It's not clear from the CT article who is on the corporation, but one assumes it includes parents, faculty and staff, along with some local religious leaders.

There is talk of some families removing themselves from the school. One wonders where they will land. Then I realized that most progressives simply work within the public school system or place their kids in non-religious private schools and take their lumps. I wonder what a progressive, expansive-minded, Christian, private school would look like. If I had some spare change I might be interested in an educational experiment.

Again, nothing against the good folks at the school. But come on; isn't there some way to move forward rather than remain mired in literalism? The valley is a study in conservatism: the Presbyterian Church in America (women may not teach men in the church school) is strong; the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (limits on women as pastors) caught a foothold with the realignment of the Montreat Presbyterian congregation. We've got Montreat College on one end of the spectrum and Warren-Wilson College (both historically Presbyterian-related schools) on the other .

Of course, I can hear loud and clear the howls of conservatives who believe that firmness, and single-ness of Biblical interpretation and living out of doctrine is the only way. All I can say is that rather than falling at the feet of doctrine and worshiping a book, I'll stick to adoring Jesus, and trying to emulate him.

A proper church library

The list of "recently read' in the right column has grown considerably in the past couple of months. Our former administrator at church kept a revolving library of books for other members of the church to borrow. We have a fairly hefty church library with all the religious books one might expect. It also includes a sizable collection of books written by members of our congregation, something rarely encountered in your usual church library. But this"ancillary library" that Jennifer R. had going was a real blessing to our many folks who love to read but are on fixed income. (easier even than a trip to the library!) While I wouldn't call the "holdings" trashy novels, they were more along the lines of beach reading than literature. I like the duel nature of our church library: the proper theological and devotional library and the special section of novels and mysteries for general consumption.

So late in summer it came time to clean the shelf as it were, and time to take everything to the used book-seller in town. I snagged a dozen or so books before that trip and have been reaping the benefits for several weeks. Harlan Coben was new to me, and a good find; John Sandford not as much to my taste. Patterson's co-authored title "Step on a crack" did nothing for me at all. Too many too-tidy puzzles answered with too much ease. Lee Child and his "Reacher" novels were a nice discovery for me. I've finished them all up, and will be taking them back so they can be traded. I've noticed that the "share shelf" has more books on it, so I may be able to keep reading others' treasures for a while.

State Quarters

We had been trying to gather all the state quarters in the series begun in 1999. My dad had helped us some, and even had given Eli a collecting book to help get him started. We were doing pretty well until we moved and then got behind. Every now and then we find a more recent quarter and are able to add it.

We actually have two collections going. The plan is to complete both and keep one, but trade the other (full of Philadelphia Mint coins) with someone who has a complete set of Denver Mint coins.

But then I happened across a US Virgin Islands quarter last week. No place for that in our folders! And today I had time to poke around and learned that this year (2009) there is a whole new mini-series of five "DC & US Territories Quarters." Yikes! In addition to the USVI coin I found there are already quarters for DC, Guam, American Samoa and the Marshall Islands.

Reckon we'd better get busy!

A-ha

A couple of weeks ago news of a salary and stress survey made its way through the Methodist Musicians news list. The reason: church musicians placed 5th in a list of stressful jobs that pay poorly. Top of the list (the most stressful job that pays poorly) was "social worker." Next came "special events coordinator," "parole officer" and "news reporter." Next was church musician. The survey was done by PayScale.com and reported by CNNMoney.

Named in the article as one aspect of the job that provokes stress was providing music for worship services at critical times in peoples' lives: weddings and funeral." The article didn't name what I think is the obvious, and most pervasive stress-inducer: the weekly challenge of selecting music for worship that appeals to the performers, suits the tastes of the congregation, is not too loud, is not too dissonant, is in a major key (see my post at BMPCNC Muz).

The survey was conducted by PayScale.com. Here's their explanation of the scope of the survey:

(Payscale.com) defined high stress and low pay jobs: Starting from a database of over 2000 jobs, Payscale used data from over 36,000 respondents who ranked their jobs for quality of life factors, and chose those requiring a bachelor's degree or higher where the national median pay is less than $65,000. The survey was conducted between Aug 10, 2009 and Oct. 1, 2009.

I took a look at the PayScale.com site and took their rating survey. My salary ranked in the 45 percentile for my field. I think that means 55% of my colleagues earn more than me; and that my salary is 5 percentage points off the average salary for my field. I also discovered that persons holding my academic degree (Master of Divinity) have an average salary nearly $12,000 more than my current salary. I wonder of that's what changing careers, even if it was 20 years ago seems to get you.

Smokey Mountain Brass Band

Eli and I went to hear the Smokey Mountain Brass Band this afternoon. I heard them on public radio on Thursday and thought Eli might enjoy it. He did. They are in the British brass band tradition: cornets and euphoniums, (two tubas) plus percussion. They gave a nice concert with proceeds from a free will offering going to polio eradication sponsored by Rotary International. I never played with a group that large, but it did take me back to Mt. Sylvan UMC days and our little brass ensemble and George, Charles, Rick and my dad and me.