Village Green/Town²

Yes, it's Monday. What better time to look ahead to the weekend and make some fun plans? I am inviting you to join me, my family, my friends and neighbors at the Oakland Mills Cultural Arts Festival on Saturday from 11 am to 4 pm. As such, I am just going to copy and paste all the information here to pique your interest. Cultural Arts Festival Saturday, October 5, 2013 - 11:00am - 4:00pm Free, Rain or Shine Bring your family, friends, and neighbors - rain or shine - to a festival where admission and fun is always free! Enjoy continuous family entertainment in the courtyard. Listen to the Oakland Mills High School Band open the festivities, experience some magic with “Turner, Dean of Magic,” enjoy the Irish rock sound of “Donegal XPress,” dance and move to the beats of “Mambo Combo,” and feel the rhythm of the “FunDrum Rhythm Circle” with Jonathan Murray. Purchase unique crafts from local artisans and enjoy delicious festival food; including gourmet hotdogs, grilled spe...

Last night was Future Scorpions Night at the Oakland Mills High School Football game. The bands from Oakland Mills Middle and Lake Elkhorn Middle joined the Oakland Mills High School band for the evening. Since Margo was there playing tuba, my husband and I attended our first OMHS football game. I don't hang around with high school kids much. Preschoolers are my specialty, so I am sometimes apprehensive when approaching events with this age group. What struck me about last night was how much it was like the small-town Indiana experience where my nephews went to school. Although their tiny town was almost exclusively white, and Oakland Mills is much more racially diverse, the experience was much the same: seeing friends on a Friday night, buying and eating snacks, calling out to passing aquaintances, even watching a bit of the game. So this is that Friday Night Lights experience people talk about. The big difference between the Indiana crowd and the Oakland Mills crowd cam...

There will be signs. I am really excited to see this. There really will be signs. In fact, there are some already . In case you haven't been following my ongoing desire for better signage , the Columbia Patch article is a quick read and includes a photograph, as well. This is a great example of ideas being submitted through Inspire Columbia and put into action, although I suspect this one has been in the works longer than that. It is heartening to see the two-way communication going on there. If you haven't made your ideas known there, you should. CA is truly listening. I still hope to see invitational signs where the pathways begin at the street/sidewalk points. "To the Totlots" or "CA Pathway Entrance" would be good. The more we invite, encourage, and support community participation, the stronger our community will be. Not everyone agrees. A comment on the Patch article states: What a waste of money and time. Most people have smartphones that m...

I have a confession to make. I was an underage drinker. In Connecticut, in the mid to late '70's, the drinking age was eighteen. As a high school student going to summer theater cast parties, I was offered liquor and I drank. That's what you do at cast parties, right? But I never ordered a drink in a restaurant, even when surrounded by friends who did, in places that reliably served underage drinkers. Why? Because it was illegal. Yes, in my muddle-headed teenaged brain, it was okay to drink in someone's home, but not to order liquor in a restaurant. I raise this issue this morning because of a post by Dr. Clarence Lam on Facebook this morning. "Great discussion tonight sponsored by HC DrugFree at Wilde Lake High School on how parents can take an active role in reducing teen alcohol and drug use here in Howard County! Of note to parents: parents can be fined up to $2500 for providing alcohol to teens." Do you want to pay to be the cool parent? ...

Saturday I attended the kick off event for Courtney Watson's campaign for the office of Howard County Executive. I was with the band. The Lexington Brass Quintet Truth be told, I would have been there even if my husband hadn't been playing tuba. I like Courtney. I've seen her reaching out to constituents through social media, most notably during storms and power outages. And I like the people I see working to support her. Someone must do the work. Even before well-wishers walked in the door Saturday morning, people were busy. It's not just about wearing a "We're With Watson" t-shirt. The event itself had to be planned, the venue chosen and booked, tasks assigned, logos for signs and t-shirts created, food ordered, supplies purchased, speakers chosen and invited. In that room Saturday morning were people who care enough to get up early, stay up late, make lists, brainstorm, reach out and follow up. You can tell a lot about a candidate by looking...

Yesterday, before my daughter asked for a pass to the Health Room so she could go home (sick with a nasty cold) she endured a lecture from the 7th grade GT Social Studies teacher about poor handwriting. Apparently the teacher is "too old to be trying to read chicken scratches",and she will be taking off points for poor handwriting. The lecture was addressed to the entire class, but Margo thinks she has already had some points taken off. There's just one problem here. With the exception of Kindergarten, where letter formation was taught, the students at Talbott Springs received no handwriting instruction. Nada, zilch, as they say. And don't get me started on not teaching cursive. That's another story altogether. And yet, in my travels as an itinerant music teacher in the County, I have seen some schools using the Handwriting Without Tears method. And so I am beginning to wonder. Are some elementary schools teaching handwriting? And, if so, are they the schoo...

So, the State of Maryand has decided to go ahead and administer the MSA's this year. But this year is a little bit different. The state has changed over to teaching the new Common Core Curriculum. Exams for the new curriculum are not available yet. So using the old tests means we will not be assessing students on the material they have learned. The recent (and misguided) trend to use standardized test scores to as a way to evaluate teachers is embedded in the the Common Core. So, what does it mean if the test administered doesn't match up with what the teachers are required to teach? Don't worry, says the State of Maryand. We'll give the tests, but they just won't count. They won't count on teacher evaluation, they won't count on school evaluation. (And they never count on student evaluation--report cards or promotion from year to year.) Well, I think we are going to need to send the State of Maryland, and any local Board of Education that complies, b...