"What it is" by Lynda Barry is astounding.

J came home with a book from the library the other day. I am riveted.

It is called What it is by Lynda Barry (NPR did a story on it in 2008). I don't actually know what to call this book. Beautiful? Not sure that is quite the word for it.

It is definitely an exploration of some pretty heavy ideas like "what is an image?" "What is an imaginary friend, and are there imaginary enemies?" "Can you remember something you cannot imagine?" In parts a philosophical exploration, in parts a biography/memoir of her development as an artist/comic artist. No research and lots of vignettes. The questions she raises and the ideas she puts forth definitely hold my attention. I find myself coming back to them later in the day (or on other days).

But the thing that really blows me away is the way the book is done. It is in parts collage, in parts doodles, in parts comics, in parts paintings, in parts text. Even then the text is used as a visual point as well as a verbal point. There are so many layers to this book. I find myself wanting to first just look through all the pictures. The pictures tell one story. Occassionally, my eyes are drawn to the text. Sometimes I try to make connections between the text and the pictures but not always. The words seem to tell a slightly different story from the visuals. The result is this really thick rich experience, like going through the layers of sandstone. Each layer contains information about a world that was complete and only existed in that time (in that layer).

Looking at the book evokes these sensations I do not yet know how to describe- a sense of electricity but odd calmness too. Is this what being on the edge of thrilling feels like? Kind of like the feeling before the thunderstorm at night? It also calls up these feelings of longing to participate. To immerse myself in this world of drawing, writing, creating so much that I want to be a part of it too.

That is a great piece of art. I hope you will check out this book for yourself.

A good blog post about how we do evaluation in American School systems

Check out this blog post by David Berliner in the Washington Post- am interested to hear your thoughts. He is an interesting Ed Policy academic.

http://bit.ly/4IFb37

What I take from this is that we should allow teachers to take a more active role in assessing students and their learning. We should take into consideration the situation of the school, the student, etc in considering the meaning of the evaluation. We should also reconsider the kinds of assessments we give our students. For example, a multiple choice test for a surgeon may test whether or not the potential surgeon knew facts and labels but might not show whether or not the surgeon actually knew how to do surgery on real people (where body parts aren't exactly where the book says they will be).

What I am worried about and can see someone misreading is that this could be considered a call for school systems to administer more of the standardized tests that they use to evaluate students. I used to work with student teachers and licensed teachers in the state of Maryland. In one particular elementary school, it was a bit tragic the impact of increased district standardized testing had on the teaching and learning that happened. For some odd reason, this school had a lot of tests their students had to take during a period of about 2 months. During those two months, I'd say no teaching and learning occurred. Teachers and students were all focused on helping students cram for one exam, then take the exam, then cram for the next one, etc. Time for course work was supplanted by the cram time (officially called preparing students for the exam). As everyone knows, when you cram, you are not really learning. You are just trying to hold as much as so you can deliver it on the test. After you have released the floodgates and dumped all that material on the test, you are not likely to recall much of that information.

change is afoot!

I had decided long ago to grow out my hair mostly because I wanted to see if I could do it. I had never had really long hair (e.g., hair to the middle of my back or longer) mostly because I never had the patience to grown it out. I knew that to have hair that long, I needed to learn how to style my hair (e.g., get the right kind of cut for my face, buns, French twists, etc) as well as taking care of it so I don't have split ends and the such. I gave myself a time frame- grow it out until I finished my dissertation and see what happens.

Well, my dissertation process took longer than I had expected, my hair got quite long- the longest I have ever had. It reached mid-back. It was an entertaining experiment but I don't think I look so good with hair that long (J kept asking me when my hair experiment was over and how my shag looked a lot like Joan Jett's shag). Additionally, since we don't usually use the air conditioner, I hate sleeping with my long hair. It sticks to everything, tickles me, and feels like it is strangling me at night.

With the summer coming and my dissertation done, I decided to cut all my hair off. It actually took two tries to get it this short. The first hair dresser actually was really really hesitant to cut my hair short. I basically had to fight to get it cut off. Even then, the cut he gave me was not short enough. So tonight, I went to someone else, armed with several pictures (of different head angles) and demanded that it be cut this short. She too was a bit hesitant but in the end, agreed and even said it could be a really fun hair cut. The funny thing is this hair cut is going to make me more of a high maintenance woman than before. I am going to have to style my hair with goop and wear accessories on a more regular basis now.