Village Green/Town²

Yes, I took the Baltimore Sun/Howard County Times to task for missing the opportunity to mark our historic election on their front page. Actually, a lot of folks did. Although It’s hard to know if there’s any connection whatsoever, HoCo Times published a whole bunch of pieces about race and diversity over the weekend,  This was one of those times when being a subscriber helped. Otherwise I would have exceeded my monthly limit. Love is colorblind: Since Columbia's early days, interracial families have found acceptance in Howard County , John-John Williams IV Diversity by the numbers: As Howard County has grown, so has its racial and cultural mix,  Christine Zhang Q&A: How has Howard County's diversity shaped your perspective? , John-John Williams IV As Ellicott City's Korean community grows, residents learn the language to connect with their neighbors , Mike Klingaman Columbia artist brings hip hop culture to Slayton House exhibit, Allana Hanes There’...

Let’s talk about control. Who has it.? Who should have it? I’m talking about our schools. Some things in our schools are covered under federal law, some by state law, and some are determined by local jurisdiction. You may remember that I took a dim view of State Comptroller Peter Franchot’s “Let Summer Be Summer” campaign, in which he spearheaded state legislation to require schools to start after Labor Day. You know, the legislation that also required all schools to finish by June 15th. Well, despite Mr, Franchot’s overwhelming confidence that everyone is on his side but a few nefarious bad actors, it turns out that I am not alone in objecting to this. (Or perhaps I am one of the few nefarious bad actors? I doubt it.) A move is afoot in Annapolis to overturn Franchot’s school calendar legislation. You can read his take here   My take? I think that setting school calendars should be determined by local school systems. Things like the civil rights of students are righ...

If you can, if you get the chance, make sure you marry into a family of storytellers. No amount of wealth or social position can touch the value of even one magical tale. Imagine a lifetime of them.  As for me, I chose well: bound in marriage to master storytellers of word, image, and song. Their stories have flowed like the wine at Cana - -   on the stage, at dinner, around the fireplace - - one can hardly imagine that their sweetness could have come from ordinary human creatures. Surely there are other callings some may find more important. But for me a life filled with drama and music and poems and paintings is the closest thing I will ever experience that touches the pure love and joy of whoever created the Universe and made us who we are. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and by his breath the stars came forth. Stories can live forever if you listen hard and are brave enough to make them your own and share them in your own way. Peopl...

I’m in the thick of writing student reports right now. The students I teach will be moving on to Kindergarten next year. As I do my best to capture student progress for parents I’ve also been keeping an eye on articles about Kindergarten readiness in Maryland. Kindergarten Readiness Assessment previews preparedness of preschools  WBAL TV, Tim Tooten Less than half of Maryland students are ready for Kindergarten  HoCoTimes, Liz Bowie My first response to this is that I’d like to see the assessment they are using. I have read elsewhere that this is a computer-based test. Is that the case?  If so, it would automatically be discriminatory towards children who don’t have computers in the home or those whose parents have deliberately chosen not to introduce computer use to their young children. The assessment we use at my school includes a basic gross motor screening. Does the State look at the readiness of student’s bodies or just their cognitive ability? Overall r...

The ten local misconceptions that bug me the most. I’m just going to admit that I am in a cranky frame of mind and go with it. Here is a random list of local misconceptions that somehow never seem to get completely straightened out in the public consciousness. None of these   are true but they keep turning up nonetheless. 1. We pay taxes to CA. (The Columbia Association) 2. There is construction/development going on in Symphony Woods. 3. You buy your children’s school along with your house purchase. 4. Columbia’s beginnings were its halcyon days and they are over. 5. Renters are less valuable to a community than home owners. 6. Newspaper paywalls are some kind of trick to prevent citizens from having access to the news which they deserve by right. 7. Public transportation is for poor people. 8, All developers are evil. 9. All citizen activists are crackpots. 10. Density is always bad. Some of these are outright false. Some are clearly matters of opin...

It used to be that a Friday night date at the House of India meant that our daughter was having a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa’s. Last night it so happened that she, too, was out on a date. Times change. She’s moving forward through her senior year of high school, trying to hold all the moving pieces together: school work, leadership roles in student organizations, extracurriculars like a capella singing and musical theatre. Applying for college, Applying for a summer job. Her dad and I are just trying to keep up. Last night was the first time in a very long time that the two of us sat in a restaurant across from each other and had a moment to catch our breath. The House of India has been a date night destination for us for so long that I can’t remember when it started. Chefs have changed, management has changed, even ownership has changed over the years but we keep going back. We have made many memories there. Not big, “post your status on Facebook” memories, but sma...

From a local leader in Howard County: ....equity includes the rights of the majority of white families and children to not ever support integrated bathroom, locker room, overnight accommodation and sports team access. When would you imagine this was said? Perhaps in 1954, when the Brown v Board of Education ruling came down and a certain independent, nonsectarian school opened in Western Howard County? That would seem about right. It harkens back to a time when African Americans couldn’t drink from the same water fountains, use the same bathrooms, or eat in the same restaurants as white people. They couldn’t even try on clothes or shoes before buying them, lest their very touch would render those items unsellable to whites. The thought of their children being in school with those of another skin color made many white people so uncomfortable that they asserted that their rights as the majority race should forever come first.  And when the Supreme Court ruled against...

One of my older sister’s first jobs after college was as a teacher of religion at a Catholic high school. She was only a few years out of Yale with a degree in Religious Studies, and a convert to Catholicism. She had no background in education but she felt her knowledge of the subject matter and her deep conviction in her faith would be enough. She learned a lot. I think there was quite a bit of culture shock for her as she confronted kids who had never known anything but Roman Catholicism. Their homes, their church communities, their schools, their social circles. She came face to face with what it meant to be culturally Catholic. It wasn’t necessarily the same spiritual core which had drawn her into the faith. It was more like a closed system where no other points of view were considered. Conversely, one might also say it was a supportive environment where it was safe to be Catholic. I make these comments as a second hand observer, not as a judge and jury. Something that ...

As the November election approached, I commented to a friend that I was so exhausted by online acrimony that I was thinking of spending a lot of time in the blog exploring local human interest stories. Howard County must have tons of them. Here is one I wish I had known more about sooner: Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, 77, dies, Historian Recognized Black Suffragists I remember seeing her at events in Oakland Mills. I wish I had known her. A shoutout to my friend and Oakland Mills neighbor Mary Kate Murray for bringing this to my attention. “ She committed the first decades of her career to the deep research that was required to pull back the curtain, dispel the myths and otherwise challenge the story about the history of women and the vote that had been, to an important degree, crafted by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton,”  Martha S. Jones,  a history professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said in a telephone interview.  Ms Terborg-Penn is quo...

Yesterday I had lunch at the White Oak Tavern with some amazing women I haven’t  seen for a long while. The uniting force was our community involvement in Oakland Mills. We’ve all had varying leadership roles in OMCA. Now we’re busy with other ventures. When a friend reached out to suggest a “reunion” of sorts, everyone said yes. A shout out to the White Oak Tavern is in order. I don’t think I had ever had an actual sit down meal here, just attended cocktail events a while back. The food I ordered (French toast and bacon) was amazingly good. So was my pre-meal cocktail and my coffee at the end. The service was attentive but not suffocating: smooth and well-timed. We talked some about Oakland Mills, but mostly about our lives. Children, grandchildren, trips, current job challenges/career shifts, things we’d read recently. For me this was rather like traveling in a foreign land. I don’t do social events much. So I felt more like an observer in some ways than a participant. ...

‘It's not a pretty world, Papa.' 'I've noticed,' my father said softly. Chaim Potok, My Name is Asher Lev I’m having a hard time processing the overwhelming racism, white privilege, and bullying that was on view Friday at the intersection of the March for Life and the Indigenous People’s March in Washington. I wish I had something meaningful to say here. I think I have said it all before. Many others have said it better.  Certainly this is yet another example of the toxic masculinity of white boys at work here. We can see that quite clearly in the video clip. What we don’t see is the school that molded them, the parents that raised them, the Church that enabled them, the culture that gave them a sense of superiority. They’re not on camera but they are very much present and all must bear responsibility. But will they?  Over and over in our society, the powerful separate themselves off into enclaves where they are the center of the universe a...

Finally someone on Twitter gave voice to something I’ve been thinking for ages: Scaggsville Maryland is the traffic circle capital of America. Don’t  @ me! My response: What is up with that? Somebody went crazy out there with roundabouts . Other responses: Yes lawd. 216 And, For no damn reason. Well, everything has a reason. I certainly don’t know the reason for this, though. I know I have some readers are are well versed in the local history of such things. I’m hoping they will turn up in the comments to educate me. Was someone running a special for traffic circles, three for a dollar? Was road construction funded by a grant to introduce more traffic circles?  I can think of a few things that would make getting around Scaggsville/Fulton/Maple Lawn more people-friendly. Am I underestimating the value that these traffic circles have in these locations? Would everything be a mess without them? I guess it is safe to say I don’t truly underst...

Wegman’s Columbia opened in June of 2012 with much fanfare and a large quantity of seating both upstairs and downstairs for patrons of their prepared foods section. It was, briefly, a place to see and be seen for local notables. It then settled in to a comfortable existence as a place to grab a casual meal or to take a break before shopping. Over time the Wegman’s public spaces evolved into a great place for meet-ups of local groups: Book clubs, PTA committees, and so on. CA even hosted a World Language Café there for a while. It has become what is known as a “third space” for some: In community building, the third place is the social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home ("first place") and the workplace ("second place"). Examples of third places would be environments such as churches, cafes, clubs, public libraries, or parks. I was first introduced to the concept of a third space by blogger/social media guru J...

I’m laughing at myself over here this morning. I had a blog post all planned out but as of yet haven’t gotten permission to use a photo that’s essential to the meaning of the post. Having made a big fuss already this week about getting permission for local photos...well...I’m temporarily at an impasse. So you see where being virtuous gets you. Luckily the post isn’t time-sensitive. In the meantime, devoted hcpss watchers will enjoy the delicious irony of this announcement in regards to student health and safety. We’ve come a long way since “condom-gate”, haven’t we? Speaking of change, there’s a new proposed hcpss dress code policy and it’s a vast improvement over the old one. A shoutout to the committee that worked on bringing this all together. I’ll be writing more about this very soon. At Wilde Lake High School last night County Executive Ball heard from a variety of residents including students as they shared concerns at his latest listening session. I get the impressi...

Just when you thought it was a good idea to encourage the youngsters to go out and play in the snow... Principal Nick Novak of Howard High School was in the lamentable position of having to notify parents that parties as yet unknown had used school property to draw a swastika and a penis in the snow. Yes, really. I have to be honest, my first thought was: this is a white boy thing. Now, I don’t know this. I could be wrong. It’s just a gut feeling I have based on past experience. Second thought: drawing an enormous snow penis may be a big joke to some, but swatikas are not a joke. They appear to be having quite the run amongst local “pranksters” and I’d like to see someone truly lay down the law on this. And not the “go to jail only on the weekends” sort of law, either. Anyone who thinks that using a swastika is all in good fun needs a boatload of education. Anyone who knows its meaning and uses it anyway needs to come to grips with substantial consequences for their action...

Welcome to the land of pet peeves this morning. It’s a local story, and it’s an Everywhere You Look story: giving credit. Lots of people don’t. Sharing an inspirational quote? Who said it? Sharing a song lyric? Who wrote it? (Not the singer, the composer.) The same holds for a line from a movie. Credit the writers, not the actor. Yeah, I know, nobody does that. But trust me. The actor would never have said it without the writer. In local stories, always, always give credit. Don’t use someone else’s photo without a photo credit. I try to get permission from local individuals first. If another person’s article or blog post pointed you in the right direction to address an issue, give them a shout out. If you learned valuable information from somewhere, give a link to your source. There seems to be a sense that once a piece of writing is up on the Internet, it’s fair game for copying and pasting. While it is there for other people to see, that doesn’t mean it’s okay to take credi...

I am currently taking an online course for professional development entitled “Children’s Challenging Behaviors.” I must say I have been pleasantly surprised by how good it is. I have endured plenty of boring and unhelpful PD over the years. This course has really made me think. And it will definitely make a difference in how I interact with children in the future. One of the sections discusses how early childhood is a time to lay the groundwork for developing a capacity for respect. The author of this particular section holds that a basic quality for being able to respect others is empathy - -  being able to put oneself in another’s shoes, imagine how they are feeling. Young children are developmentally egocentric. They need to learn how to step outside themselves. This is a challenge for them. It takes time, They need support as they find their way from a self-only world view to one that allows for the feelings and concerns of others. This is why social/emotional learning ...

The first snow of the season has arrived. There may be more today, if I am reading the forecast correctly. Kids will likely be enjoying some outdoor playtime today. Teachers may be wondering whether a Monday snow day is in the offing, and at some point today high school students will turn up on Twitter haranguing the school system with pleas, threats,and hard luck tales meant to influence their decision for tomorrow. This is also the first big snow of the Ball administration. HoCoGov watchers will be keeping an eye out to see how the new team handles the winter weather event. There will be the inevitable comparisons between administrations amongst those with partisan leanings. Most folks, I think, just want to feel safe and secure in knowing that the County knows what to do when it snows. So far this isn’t a cover the entire car and render most streets impassible snow, which is a very good thing. We’ll see how the day goes. People will be looking to keep up to date by checking ...

In the spirit of our friends over at Elevate Maryland, I have for you today my most unpopular benign opinion: I hate spelling bees. They really aren’t a sign of anything more than a capacity for rote memorization. Why must generation upon generation of American schoolchildren endure this 19th or possibly even 18th century public ritual each year? For some: anxiety and stress. For many: a whole lot of sitting around and waiting until it’s over. Although the concept of a spelling contest has now spread to a few other countries, it originated in the United States. We see references to public spelling matches after the publication of Noah Webster’s famous “Blue Backed Speller.” The great American educator  Noah Webster  first published A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, otherwise known as the Blue Back Speller, in 1783. His goal was to provide a uniquely American, Christ-centered approach to training children.   (Product description on Amazon) Ofte...

Five am has been looking pretty ugly this week. Today is much the same. I’m thrilled at the prospect of the impending weekend and a chance to sleep in a bit. I read an article this morning about two Ellicott City folks who are opening a sports bar in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. It’s great news for Baltimore but the concept itself sounds ghastly to me. But then, I am not a sports bar kind of person. Upcoming events: Earth Trekkers - - A Family’s Journey Around the World   January 12th from 10 to 11:30 am Howard County Conservancy Elevate Maryland - - Interview with Council Member Opel Jones January 14th at 5:30 pm Lupa Gay Day at the Mill  - - artists, performers, and history January 26th from 4 pm to 8 pm Historic Savage Mill Great Chili Cook -Off - - to benefit Grass Roots February 17th from 1 to 3 pm Clarksville Commons Evening in the Stack s - - an otherworldly themed fundraiser February 23rd from 7 to 11 pm East Columbia Branch So, HoCo. Do y...

In response to the announcement that County Exective Calvin Ball had chosen Lisa Myers as the next Chief Of Police, one man said: Well, we now know where you are coming from. This was not meant to be a positive response. I thought it was such an odd way to express disapproval. Dr. Ball has served on the County Council for twelve years. His record is out there. His campaign for Country Executive was a source of plenty of information about his goals and priorities. But suddenly, with the appointment of Lisa Myers,  ...we now know where you are coming from. Is this is indeed the case, may I just say that this particular commenter has not been paying attention. Of course, I don’t think for one moment that we are meant to take this comment at face value. These words are a racist dog whistle intended to indicate that Ball, a person of color, has appointed  Lisa Myers solely because she is a person of color. When whites appoints whites it must be because they are the most...

Twitter searches aren’t  exactly foolproof. A search for Columbia (Maryland) turned up this: We took the Hop On, Hop Off bus tour around Vancouver @ Vancouver, British Columbia. For a second I could almost imagine that Columbia had a tour bus. But that’s ridiculous. We don’t even have a decent local transit system.  But let’s pretend for moment. What if Columbia/Howard County did have a Hop On, Hop Off Bus Tour?  What do you think would be essential stops on the tour? Some thoughts: The Lakefront The Chrysalis The Mall Blandair Park Centennial Park Savage Mill Clarksville Commons Main Street Old EC Robinson Nature Center The Howard County Conservancy What am I missing? Please remember this is a purely hypothetical exercise. I’m not up for a lecture this morning on why having a tour bus in Columbia would be silly. Most regular readers of the blog will already know my penchant for contemplating silly things. Benefits to this...

Four year olds can really take the energy right out of you. After one day back at work I’m struggling a bit with re-entry. Today I’m sending you over to the Washington Post for this fascinating piece about community spaces for shared experiences: Why developers are offering ‘experiences’ to attract suburbanites  by Katherine Shaver Most developers aren’t shunning traditional retail as much as Kaplan plans to. But many say they, too, are focusing on more “experiential” ways to attract people and hold on to them long enough that they’ll browse and buy instead of stay home and click. Providing experience now goes well beyond the traditional winter ice rink or summer movie night. It’s why you’re seeing so many more restaurants, food halls, cooking demonstrations, outdoor yoga classes, smaller concert venues, bars and lounges, farmers markets, tot lots, fire pits, splashable fountains, restaurant-like bowling alleys, and cocktail-serving movie theaters — anything that helps...