Two pictures two words

Carpe Diem!

The wild hunt for the suspects in the Boston marathon bombings is over. Following the crazy chain of events from 3,070 miles away, my concern was more about America's continued loss of innocence. When you discover that schools and sporting events are not safe from deranged minds, you learn to adjust your definition of safe. Some wonder how to protect a sporting event that covers 26.2 miles and includes thousands of people. I don't think you can. You must assume, until proven otherwise, that marathons and distance running are still safe activities. Don't fear dying from a terrorist attack while running a marathon, do fear dying if you don't run or do some other exercise, my recent column argues.

Trayvon Martin

As I wrote here, the shooting death of an unarmed 17-year-old Florida boy mistakenly thought to be a criminal haunted me from the beginning. This is any mother's worse nightmare, but as a mother of an African American child, it is the possibility you desperately want to keep at bay, I said in this KING 5 television interview.

By the next day when I did this CNN interview, I was writing the The Talk: An Ugly Rite of Passage.

While other parents have the luxury of confining The Talk to the birds and the bees, African American families view it as a moment to talk with their children are race, racism and the way the world views young people of color, particularly black youths.

On the Ross & Burbank Show on KIRO 97.3 FM, I talked about finding the words to bridge the gap between my son's academic knowledge of racism and the reality of it as experienced by Trayvon Martin. All the while I must balance what I know with a mother's desire not to burden his tiny shoulders too much.

We are all Trayvon Martin

Happy Birthday Martin Luther King Jr.

Love this George Takei creation. The caption says:

"Not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

One day. One day.

Educating a nation

Running late for work this a.m., chasing down socks, shoes and assorted kids paraphernalia, I stopped in my tracks to watch a news story about the first school to have a motion picture studio. The charter school featured on the Today Show, allows film makers and other media companies to use the studio only if they use the school's students as extras and support staff . What a great concept! Lately, I've been thinking about the arts and its impact on academic achievement. Schools budgets have forced draconian cuts in art, music and other areas. When you're trimming down to the bone, the mindset is to save reading, writing and 'rithmetic. But its short-sighted. Arts has a tremendous emotional and intellectual boost on academics, a contention supported in studies and laid out well by a blogger here.

Happy New Year!

If 2011 builds on the foundation of its predecessor, this year will continue unprecedented federal spending on public schools and a horrifying lack of spending by budget-strapped states.

I'm upbeat thanks to a public far more educated and aware of education's fiscal and public policy dynamics than ever before. Think about it, people may be anxious about the condition of public schools but most education funding levies still pass by healthy margins. Education is one of the few services voters agree to raise their taxes to pay for.

This New York Times story recounts a pullback by parents burned out on volunteering in schools. Yet, those portrayed, and the hundreds who took to the comments section to air their grievances about heavy volunteering loads, acknowledge parental importance to the basic functioning of schools. Zero parent involvement would be akin to shutting off the lights or getting rid of the teachers, learning would cease immediately.

I bet you're wondering if that's not an overstatement, considering the armies of teachers and specialists deployed to each school. No, I don't think it is. Class sizes are up (after tens of millions spent to lower them to something more manageable) at the same time a growing body of brain research tells us children learn in varying ways and ought to be taught in a way that reaches them.

My New Year's resolution (I know, I know: old habits are hard to break) is to be more present in my own life, which means being less present in other people's lives and that includes school. But it doesn't mean disappearing. I'll remain the art docent for my son's class. I'll pass on the grueling PTA meetings held smack in the dinner hour and opt for the PowerPoint read at my leisure. Easy to keep up with national education trends via the PTA's news website. How about you?