Village Green/Town²

A wise person once told me that the people who are the closest to the actual work of education have the least power/say/input of anyone in a school system. That would be teachers, and from my experience that’s true. Mindbogglingly stupid, but true. Today I’m writing because it seems that it may also be true in libraries, and it concerns me. I’ve been sitting on this for a while because I’m a huge fan of our library system and I didn’t want to see my words twisted by bad actors for their own purposes.  The recent firing and then rehiring of library shelvers was the last straw for me.  So, let’s look back a bit. These are the questions I was asking in November of 2025. This is very basic. Am I correct in assuming that workers would not go to the effort to organize/establish a union if their relationship with management was satisfactory? In other words, that unions come about because of an unresolved problem or problems? I reached out to a friend whose area of expertise is preci...

  March 1, 2025 It’s feeling like a no-blog day, folks. I know there are local things to write about but national news is just flattening me. March 1, 2026 Same, dear readers. Same. Let’s back up a day and see what I was thinking about on 2/28/2025. February 28, 2025  F ³: Big Stretch Do you recognize this: (Not my photo. Read on to learn more.) They’re called resistance bands. Or, to preschoolers in my music and movement classes, they were called “the red stretchy things.” A resistance band is used in physical therapy and in some exercise programs to build muscle strength. Here’s the complete photograph from an online article entitled  “Types of Resistance Bands: How to Choose and Use.” [Resistance bands]  help you to build muscle strength by putting your muscles under tension as they work. The further you stretch the band, the harder your muscles work. By creating tension during movements, resistance bands engage muscles effectively, promoting muscle growth and enh...

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...

My daughter, an attractive professional woman in her thirties, bought a car yesterday. A used car, but a very nice one. We almost didn’t get to hear her tell about it because it seems that the financing guy was determined to hold her hostage.  She would not budge.  Recalling her experience, she remarked that the sales associate was wonderful and that she was completely satisfied with that part of the deal. As to the money part? “I don’t think it was personal,” she said. “ I think he did to me what he does to every attractive woman who walks in there.” The pride I felt - - not just for my daughter but for every woman who has been jerked around in a car dealership - - was immense. It was exhilarating. They tried to saddle her with an enormous monthly car payment which was nothing like the figure that had been floated over the phone.  She got out the piece of paper where she had written it. She also got out her calculator and went through all the numbers, step by step. She s...

  Some things just go better together. Good food and drink, for instance - - like a latte and a scone from Trifecto Bar, or a fancy dog and an ice cold milkshake from the Nomadic Glizzy. (Okay, maybe not for breakfast.) Something just go better together. Like Clarksville Commons, the retail and community space that’s been bringing folks together since 2017, and the Common Kitchen, the culinary incubator for up-and-coming food entrepreneurs since 2018. Better together.  Like brothers Elias and William Castillo who work side by side at the Common Kitchen. Elias, owner of Trifecto Bar, has been there from the beginning. William fulfilled his long time dream by opening the Nomadic Glizzy in January of 2025. Some pictures from their official Grand Opening: Leigha Steele, Common Kitchen manager, County Executive Calvin Ball* Elias Castillo, Trifecto Bar Ribbon cutting for the Nomadic Glizzy, William Castilllo  (Calvin Ball looks on) Just this month everything changed. William w...

  My time is not my own right now but I cannot miss the opportunity today to honor Rob White, whose passing I learned of last evening. Rob was a musician, a teacher, and retired from the Howard County Schools as what was then called Music Supervisor/Instructional Facilitator for Music. There’s a lot I could tell you about him. And I probably will on another day. But the Rob White I remember most is the musician with the heart of a teacher who was brave at a time when it was very hard to be brave.  Howard County Music Changing? , Village Green/Town² February 19, 2014 This post, which garnered well over 5,000 views, was the result of Mr. White’s honesty. He shared what was happening to music instruction as a result of the Model Schools Initiative instituted under a former superintendent of schools. The information I learned in a meeting of Howard County Parents for School Music was exactly what you would imagine that a parent music advocacy group would be interested in. But beca...