In this wild and scary world there are numerous challenges facing teachers. There are so many aspects to being an effective teacher that begin with mastering content and developing a strategy for how to teach it, meeting ever-increasing state mandates, dealing with the mass of paperwork and finally, meeting the learner in the classroom. There is the curriculum, mandated and explicable, but then there is the hidden curriculum reinforcing inequities and socio-economic differences and based on some abstract idea that there is a regular learner.

25 Years Ago

From the Vineyard Gazette editions of November, 1982:

Last week nearly 500 religious communities around the country screened the movie Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, a film that raises such questions as: how did torture become an accepted practice at Abu Ghraib and what governmental policies allowed it to happen? Here on the Island, it was shown at the Hebrew Center on Oct. 24 in a jointly sponsored, interfaith program by local religious communities. Why screen a film about the torture of political prisoners perpetrated three years ago, in prisons halfway around the globe, and for which several of the perpetrators have already been tried?

I come from a family of wavers. We wave at each other (brothers, aunts, sisters in law), acquaintances (neighbors, businessfolk, fishermen), and strangers (you know who you are). I also come from a town of wavers. Pittsfield, though geographically located in Massachusetts, shares more personality traits with Fort Wayne than it does with Boston. Waving, then, is not only in my blood, it’s in my brain as well.

GLAD HEARTS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

We write to express our appreciation for the Martha’s Vineyard community’s support of our daughter, Virginia, during her life, and for its recognition of her inspiring qualities following her death on Oct. 5.