Acceleration

I've spent the last three days at a conference on "acceleration," our new community college buzz-word. There is some research indicating that under-prepared community college students can do as well or better with less remediation rather than more. There is a push to apply this principle to ESL, my field, which I find counter-intuitive.

Achieving academic proficiency in a second language is not really remediation, for one thing. Thinking of it as such might even be regarded as a subtle form of imperialism, since it is most often required of people from less powerful countries or communities who must establish squatters' rights in a dominant culture in order to improve their prospects. Certainly I couldn't do college-level work in any language but English, and neither could most other Americans. And plenty of long-established research suggests that it takes a number of years to get there.

My French, for instance, is probably more or less equivalent to my intermediate students' English. Suppose that I were a bit younger, found myself in a French-speaking country and wanted to get a university education there. I would have at least a few years of hard work to get ready for that, and would not be in any way served by an attempt to "accelerate" the process from a few years to one.

Anyway, after three days of sometimes inspirational and sometimes annoying pep talks, my conclusion is that, probably unbeknownst to the people actually running this conference, "acceleration" is a characteristically Californian spin on all the devastating budget cuts.

You see, it's actually good for the students to spend less time in school and reach their goals faster, and we can make this happen for them by working really, really hard and teaching really, really well, and oh, yes, spending less of the taxpayers' money, so it's a win-win all around.

People there were boasting about how teaching is their whole life, they need no other.

I tried this "teaching is my life" thing for a few years in the early '80's, during which time I drank a lot (something that was also in evidence after-hours at this conference). Then, throwing up on the compost heap in the back yard one night, I was blessed with a moment of realization that I stood poised in a window of opportunity between heavy drinking and truly addicted alcoholism, a good time to quit.

Without that hazy cloud of alcohol at the end of the day, "teaching is my life" no longer seemed quite so fulfilling, and I was forced to diversify my portfolio.

Waxing Moon

Magical work for fertility, prosperity, growth and plenty:

Harvest crops and herbs that grow above the ground.

New Moon Divination for the Ailing Economy

I am a Witch and not an economist. However, the current confusion and cluelessness of economists is giving me confidence in my intuitions.

The economy is not going to get better for any of the fiddling proposed by either Democrats or Republicans. The current economy has reached the hospice stage at which we work not for a recovery, but for an easy passing and auspicious rebirth.

The problem is that while most of us played Monopoly as kids, relatively few of us hung in to the end. Most of us got bored with the interminable length of the game, or frustrated with the older cousin who kept putting up hotels everywhere and charging outrageous rent. So we turned in our assets and wandered off to watch TV, or go for a swim. We never learned the lesson about capitalism that the game aptly demonstrates.

Monopoly ends when somebody like Cousin Dick finally has all the money and all the property, and nobody else has anything to play with, so there's no longer any game.

Now, when this happens, there happen to be options. Karl Marx predicted a proletarian revolution, but he did not realize how many proletarians were going to be distracted by literal interpretations of the Bible and the performance art of Sarah Palin. Another possibility, prescribed in a part of the Old Testament that modern fundamentalists generally overlook, is the Jubilee Year: to continue the Monopoly analogy, this means that you just start a new game. Cousin Dick has to give back all his play money and red plastic hotels, and everybody starts over again with an equal allotment of stuff, as dictated by the rules.

Or maybe, just maybe, there could be an entirely different kind of game that would be more fun.

New Moon

(when the first sliver of the moon shows in the sky)

Divine the future (this is when the priestesses at Delphi prophesied)

Move to a new house

Trim hair or nails in order to make them grow faster

Sign contracts

Auspicious for:

Consecrations and initiations

Marriages and new partnerships

Major purchases

New enterprises, new investments, starting a business

When you see a new moon for the first time, salute Her by kissing your hand and saying, "New Moon, leave me as well as you found me."

(According to folk tradition, you are supposed to kneel on a rock while you do this, but in my neighborhood it is hard to find rocks large enough to kneel on.)

Tornado on the Connecticut River

Way east of Berkeley, where Mrs. Drinkwalter originally came from:

At the Dark of the Moon

Introspection, trance work, self-evalution

Dream work

Fast or eat sparingly

Don't overwork

Wrap yourself in a covering or veil of some kind, arranged so you can breathe properly (oxygen deprivation is not an essential part of the experience.)

I especially like some slow and evocative sound for this--Tibetan temple bells, for example.

Close your eyes and go into a cave. As you go deeper in, the light becomes fainter and fainter, and you have to feel your way with your feet and hands.

The passageway becomes narrower, and more difficult to negotiate. You go deeper and deeper into the earth.

Then after a time you will suddenly lose your footing and go floating in free fall, around and around, down the passageway, until you land in a cavern deep inside the earth.

There you may find something, or you may meet someone.

You may be told something you need to know, or you may be given something to take back with you.

Perhaps you will find or be given something that must remain in the cavern, but which you can return to again.

When you are ready to leave the cavern, you will find that you can float up and out the passageway, by the same way you came.

Then you will find your footing, and make you way along the passage, feeling with your feet and hands, until you return to the mouth of the cave.

Smithsonian Article