Getting Testy

Well, once again they’ve changed the way schools measure the success of their students.

The headline in yesterday’s paper lamented the drop in scores for the educational institutions in our state.

Once upon a time, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills was the only game in town. It was supposed to give you an idea of the areas in which you excelled. (Or didn’t.) The test didn’t really count for anything. It was just a guide of your standing in the pupil pool. Me being the worrywart that I am, I would fret if one area or another dipped on the graphic summary. Usually, it was science where I lagged behind.

Fortunately, no one other than perhaps the school board paid much heed to these tests, and the results were soon forgotten.

Today, there is a lot of controversy associated with standardized testing. Teachers must now prepare their students to pass a nebulous test, rather than preparing them for life. So, facts are memorized and young brains are stuffed with knowledge that is soon forgotten.

And the cashiers at the grocery store still can’t figure out how to add $30 to the total when I want cash back.

I look out my window and wonder what kind of world the next generation will shape. Will they rely on technology and social media to do their thinking for them? Or will the pendulum swing the other way, and our children’s children question authority and think for themselves?

And, more importantly, who will teach them how?

Modern Conveniences

My grandmother used to have an old wringer-washer machine in her basement. It was a large porcelain number with a series of roll bars at the top. You washed your clothes in the tub and then put them through the rollers to remove as much of the water as possible. Then you hung your clothes outside to dry (in the summer) or in the basement (in the winter).

This lovely appliance (whatever it is) lives in our basement.

The advent of the modern washing machine must have been nirvana.

I was hanging in my kitchen this morning, waiting for my breakfast to emerge from the microwave, and nodding in appreciation to my appliances. But not the dishwasher.

Our dishwater came with the house. We were warned by the prior owners not to use it, and we haven't. It's a built-in number, so removing it would leave a gap-toothed space between our cupboards. And, for whatever reason, we've never purchased a new one. Maybe because it's only been the three of us, and it takes a couple of days to accumulate enough to justify running the thing. Also, I'm not sure how much labor it saves. You still have to rinse the dishes and put them in, then take them out and put them away. Mr. Ginley, who is primary dishwasher, has wondered aloud now and then if a dishwasher might not be nice. But we've never gotten beyond that point.

Of course, we do have the other standard modern conveniences. Although, I do question how labor-saving some of them really are.

The washer and dryer, definitely. The refrigerator, undoubtedly. The stove, sure. But the jury is out on the microwave. Sure, it cooks things lickety split, but I still do most of my cooking in a conventional oven. It's nice to wave butter to melt it or nuke leftovers, and it saves time in clean-up by using one dish and no pot. Still, if someone said I could have just one appliance in my kitchen, the microwave would not be it.

It's also occurred to me that we haven't progressed all that far with time-saving technology. We have cell phones that are certainly convenient, but we spend a hell of a lot more time on them than our parents did on their phones. And a good chunk of that time is not spent actually talking. To real, live people.

And, yes, we have computers and modern office equipment. I will concede they've certainly been helpful in the workplace. I was never a fan of typewriters when it came to correction fluid, and carbon paper was nasty stuff. But the expectations have also changed. Back in the day, for example, advertising layouts were done by hand, and folks had to visualize how the completed project would look. Now, a host of critics can change colors and layouts and copy, over and over and over, right down to the wire.

So the question becomes, have we saved any labor or merely displaced it?

Gadgets can be a wonderful thing. And I enjoy my Kindle as much as anyone. But there are days when I ponder how we would get by if we couldn't be on the grid. It's easier to imagine this during power outages, but it's harder to fathom how we'd manage without cell phones and the internet.

I mean, how would I publish this blog? Now that would be tragic.  ;)

The Movement, Stalled

I've been reading Nora Ephron's book, Crazy Salad, a series of essays about women written in the early 1970s.

The experiences she's had resonate with me, although they are slightly ahead of my time. I was raised by a woman who held traditional beliefs about marriage, family and faith. My mom, like the majority of women in her generation, quit work at some point in her first pregnancy and stayed home to raise her children and keep the home fires burning. She was so good at this, I wanted desperately to follow in her footsteps. 

At the tender age of 20, I married a man I believed with all my heart was my life partner. There are some 20-year-olds who are lucky enough to be right about this. I was not one of them. In three years, my marriage was toast, and I realized that I was more like my dad than my mom. I was not cut out to be a housewife and raise a passel of children.

Instead, I threw myself into my job. I decided I wasn't going to have any children.

Fortunately, I made this decision at a time when it was becoming fashionable to do so. The women's movement had been gaining momentum, and suddenly it wasn't expected that women stay home. Day care centers popped up. The tide turned. It became more of the norm for women to work outside the home. 

Of course, tides being what they are, they turned again, and it is now considered a luxury to be able to afford to stay home with your children.

One wonders what progress, if any, the women's movement has made in the last 40+ years. It's a sort of "two steps forward, one step back" scenario.

One the one hand, we have a woman running for president. But she is called out for ridiculous things her male counterparts would never be.

Women are far more prevalent in the workplace, but often are still not making the same money as the men who hold the same positions.

And, probably worst of all, if you follow Facebook, which is a fairly realistic microcosm of our society, women are still sniping each other based on their choices. Which is what the women's movement is supposed to be about. The right of each individual woman to choose how she wants to live her life, whether she stays home with her kids, is a working mom or decides not to have any children...whether she marries a man or a woman or remains unattached.

That's the goal here. The ability to make choices without getting crap from women who chose something else.

As most of you reading this know, I went on to marry again. And I had a child. At one point in my pregnancy, Mr. Ginley and I sat down and had a discussion about who was going to take care of the baby. He stepped up and said he would stay home while I worked. He is a wonderful dad, and most folks would agree our now-college-age son has turned out pretty well. But my husband took a lot of flak about being "Mr. Mom." The thing that frosted me was many of the snide comments he got were from women who should have known better.

And so it goes. Maybe the women's movement is not just about choices for women. Maybe it's about men and women choosing their roles, deciding what works best for them.

If we all look at it from that perspective, how can anyone be against equal rights? Having asked the question, of course, I know how. Too many people believe their rights are more important than the rights of others, because the others are a different gender or race.

I have no idea how to wrap this up. There are no quick answers. And people have been the same since the beginning of time.

Maybe the only thing to do is sigh. Walk away from the keyboard. And have a little chocolate to console myself.


There are some Malley's chocolate hearts around here somewhere...

Overloading the Circuits

Here is a typical conversation at our home:

Mr. Ginley: "Have you seen the letter opener?"

Me: "I haven't touched your letter opener."

Mr. Ginley: "I know you don't use it, but have you seen it?"

Me: "No. Try looking for something else, and you'll find it."

This happens frequently, with one or the other of us in search of some minor household item that has gone astray.

Often, it only takes a moment. I start to head out the door, for example, and I set down my keys. After completing the task that distracted me, I pick up my purse and realize my keys are now gone. I retrace my steps and find that, against all logic, I left them in the freezer when I pulled out the package of hamburger for dinner.

One of the most common items to go missing is my phone. I can't give you a precise number of the times I've asked my husband or son to call me so I can follow the ringing to its hiding place. Of course, this is a fine trick for phones, which are able to tell you where they are, but for most things, there's usually some tearing out of hair that occurs before the object is located.

Young people will smirk and tell you that it's an age thing. But I've witnessed enough episodes with my 20-something son to know it's not.

I choose to believe it's because there's so much going on in my cranium, I've become absent-minded about the trivial stuff. The trouble is, sometimes the trivial becomes not so trivial. For example, if I've got something in the oven and I turn off the timer because it's almost but not quite done, then I walk away, and before I know it, it's too far beyond done.

Or when I go to get something out of the refrigerator that I'm absolutely positive I purchased at the grocery store, only to discover it in the trunk of my car, where it's been sitting for two days in 80 degree heat.

There's an old Disney movie called The Absent-Minded Professor. Fred MacMurray invents Flubber, but he forgets to show up for his own wedding. I feel like that some days. Except, of course, I'm not responsible for discovering anything that will rock the world.

I think I need a plan. Maybe I'll start wearing clothes that have big pockets so I can carry all of the essentials with me. Or pin notes to myself. And get clips for my gloves so I can attach them to my coat, the way my mom did when I was little. I could start to carry a timer with me so I don't lose track of time (although I'd probably forget why I set the timer in the first place).

Or maybe I just need to be more mindful. Hmm. That's probably the best idea of all. I think I'll write that down.

Now, where did I leave my pen...