Dopplegangland

If you DON’T know who this is, then you need to enlighten yourself immediately…because I never thought we’d see him on the screen again…

As I’m in the middle of final exam marking, posting will be slow for the next week…so here’s something to tide you over, courtesy of a fellow teacher.

Ron Clark, author of “The End of Molasses Classes: Getting Our Kids Unstuck — 101 Extraordinary Solutions for Parents and Teachers,” has been named “American Teacher of the Year” by Disney and was Oprah Winfrey’s pick as her “Phenomenal Man.” He founded The Ron Clark Academy, which educators from around the world have visited to learn. Here are some of his recent wise words, which every teacher wishes many parents would take to heart…

This summer, I met a principal who was recently named as the administrator of the year in her state. She was loved and adored by all, but she told me she was leaving the profession.

I screamed, “You can’t leave us,” and she quite bluntly replied, “Look, if I get an offer to lead a school system of orphans, I will be all over it, but I just can’t deal with parents anymore; they are killing us.”

Unfortunately, this sentiment seems to be becoming more and more prevalent. Today, new teachers remain in our profession an average of just 4.5 years, and many of them list “issues with parents” as one of their reasons for throwing in the towel. Word is spreading, and the more negativity teachers receive from parents, the harder it becomes to recruit the best and the brightest out of colleges.

So, what can we do to stem the tide? What do teachers really need parents to understand?

For starters, we are educators, not nannies. We are educated professionals who work with kids every day and often see your child in a different light than you do. If we give you advice, don’t fight it. Take it, and digest it in the same way you would consider advice from a doctor or lawyer. I have become used to some parents who just don’t want to hear anything negative about their child, but sometimes if you’re willing to take early warning advice to heart, it can help you head off an issue that could become much greater in the future.

Trust us. At times when I tell parents that their child has been a behavior problem, I can almost see the hairs rise on their backs. They are ready to fight and defend their child, and it is exhausting. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I tell a mom something her son did and she turns, looks at him and asks, “Is that true?” Well, of course it’s true. I just told you. And please don’t ask whether a classmate can confirm what happened or whether another teacher might have been present. It only demeans teachers and weakens the partnership between teacher and parent.

And if you really want to help your children be successful, stop making excuses for them. I was talking with a parent and her son about his summer reading assignments. He told me he hadn’t started, and I let him know I was extremely disappointed because school starts in two weeks.

His mother chimed in and told me that it had been a horrible summer for them because of family issues they’d been through in July. I said I was so sorry, but I couldn’t help but point out that the assignments were given in May. She quickly added that she was allowing her child some “fun time” during the summer before getting back to work in July and that it wasn’t his fault the work wasn’t complete.

Can you feel my pain?

Some parents will make excuses regardless of the situation, and they are raising children who will grow into adults who turn toward excuses and do not create a strong work ethic. If you don’t want your child to end up 25 and jobless, sitting on your couch eating potato chips, then stop making excuses for why they aren’t succeeding. Instead, focus on finding solutions.

And parents, you know, it’s OK for your child to get in trouble sometimes. It builds character and teaches life lessons. As teachers, we are vexed by those parents who stand in the way of those lessons; we call them helicopter parents because they want to swoop in and save their child every time something goes wrong. If we give a child a 79 on a project, then that is what the child deserves. Don’t set up a time to meet with me to negotiate extra credit for an 80. It’s a 79, regardless of whether you think it should be a B+.

This one may be hard to accept, but you shouldn’t assume that because your child makes straight A’s that he/she is getting a good education. The truth is, a lot of times it’s the bad teachers who give the easiest grades, because they know by giving good grades everyone will leave them alone. Parents will say, “My child has a great teacher! He made all A’s this year!”

Wow. Come on now. In all honesty, it’s usually the best teachers who are giving the lowest grades, because they are raising expectations. Yet, when your children receive low scores you want to complain and head to the principal’s office.

Please, take a step back and get a good look at the landscape. Before you challenge those low grades you feel the teacher has “given” your child, you might need to realize your child “earned” those grades and that the teacher you are complaining about is actually the one that is providing the best education.

And please, be a partner instead of a prosecutor. I had a child cheat on a test, and his parents threatened to call a lawyer because I was labeling him a criminal. I know that sounds crazy, but principals all across the country are telling me that more and more lawyers are accompanying parents for school meetings dealing with their children.

I feel so sorry for administrators and teachers these days whose hands are completely tied. In many ways, we live in fear of what will happen next. We walk on eggshells in a watered-down education system where teachers lack the courage to be honest and speak their minds. If they make a slight mistake, it can become a major disaster.

My mom just told me a child at a local school wrote on his face with a permanent marker. The teacher tried to get it off with a wash cloth, and it left a red mark on the side of his face. The parent called the media, and the teacher lost her job. My mom, my very own mother, said, “Can you believe that woman did that?”

I felt hit in the gut. I honestly would have probably tried to get the mark off as well. To think that we might lose our jobs over something so minor is scary. Why would anyone want to enter our profession? If our teachers continue to feel threatened and scared, you will rob our schools of our best and handcuff our efforts to recruit tomorrow’s outstanding educators.

Finally, deal with negative situations in a professional manner.

If your child said something happened in the classroom that concerns you, ask to meet with the teacher and approach the situation by saying, “I wanted to let you know something my child said took place in your class, because I know that children can exaggerate and that there are always two sides to every story. I was hoping you could shed some light for me.” If you aren’t happy with the result, then take your concerns to the principal, but above all else, never talk negatively about a teacher in front of your child. If he knows you don’t respect her, he won’t either, and that will lead to a whole host of new problems.

We know you love your children. We love them, too. We just ask — and beg of you — to trust us, support us and work with the system, not against it. We need you to have our backs, and we need you to give us the respect we deserve. Lift us up and make us feel appreciated, and we will work even harder to give your child the best education possible.

That’s a teacher’s promise, from me to you.

THE REICHENBACH FALL

Written by Steve Thompson

Directed by Toby Haynes

“I knew you’d fall for it. That’s your weakness. You always want everything to be clever. Now shall we finish the game? One final act. Glad you chose a tall building nice way to do it.”

Definite, imperative, and monumental SPOILER alert…you have been warned most emphatically!

It’s the ending that’s making me feel…ambivalent.

Up until the climax, The Reichenbach Fall is content to present the destruction of Sherlock Holmes with devastating, surgical precision. It’s full of magnificent twists and turns, as Moriarty seems to have anticipated every (and I do mean EVERY) situation, every contingency, every move that Holmes makes. It is the story of an insane genius, unwilling to live in a world full of “ordinary” people…yet unwilling to depart until he has eliminated the one rival he has among the dross he calls humanity.

In fact, Moriarty’s suicide is the greatest shock of the series. Madness and Holmes machinations notwithstanding, I simply didn’t see it coming…and I can’t decide if Holmes was surprised or aghast by the madman’s decision.

In every respect, 90% of this episode is brilliant, and I’m not going to waste any more time trying to come up with a list of superlatives…especially when I’m still dealing with my ambivalence over the conclusion.

It’s too clever for its own good. It should have been solely about the emotion. It should have been told completely from the point of view of Watson, as he pieces together everything that happens, and watches the new world he has built for himself tossed into the rubbish bin. The genius of Conan Doyle’s original “Final Problem” is that Holmes WAS killed, no questions asked. The equal brilliance of “The Empty House” was to demonstrate the ultimate “get out of that” without sacrificing or compromising any of Holmes’ genius & courage.

But Reichenbach Fall has one problem: I can SEE the machinations. I can SEE the beats where explanations, solutions, tricks, sleight-of-hand & illusion can (and no doubt will) be added after the fact. All the clues as to what type of preparations have been made are TOO clear…and now it’s only a matter of next-season explanations. And I HATE HATE HATE the fact that Holmes shows up in the final moment. This episode should have ended with Watson at the graveside, dealing with his crushing emotional damage…NOT such an in-your-face statement that everything about Sherlock’s death was an obvious put-up job. It’s an ending that wants us to pat the production staff on the back and say “well done“…which is the LAST thing I desired. It’s a slap in the face.

The ending is salvaged by Martin Freeman, single-handedly saving the final moments with his best acting of the entire season. It’s a great pity it was employed for such a dubious conclusion.

So that was The Reichenbach Fall: an utterly mesmerizing & sublime final episode, sabotaged by an ending that feels so much less than what Sherlock is worth, as a character and as a series. Sherlock is all about genius. Simply being clever reduces the series to what Moriarty hates about everyone else in the world: being ordinary.

9

…so let’s give some love to my favourite Doctor & the hero of my childhood.

So…an hour ago, a friend of mine informs me that the title of the next Star Trek film is TALOSIAN JUSTICE.

My brain, naturally, heard this as: WHAT THE HELL?!?

I haven’t (so far) found any confirmation of this, anywhere reputable on the net…other than a brief mention in an unrelated article on Ain’t It Cool News.

I hate it. I’m repulsed by it. It makes my right eye twitch.

It’s too fanwank. It’s heir to the kingdom of fanwank!

It’s too B-movie. In fact, it’s so B-movie, it belongs on the video shelf next to a host of other made-for-DVD-films such as Megalodon & Killer Bees!

It’s too much of a sop to fandom…and a movie works best when it’s appealing to a wide audience base, not fandom alone. That’s why christening the title of the previous reboot as simply STAR TREK — sans numeral — was a stroke of genius.

Pay glorious homage to Star Trek’s rich history, by all means; the first film did that with much grace and deftness. By all means, adapt the plots of The Cage & The Menagerie for a film…it honestly never occurred to me, and holds great potential for epic expansion. But please PLEASE choose another title, for the sake of everyone & anyone with a modicum of taste.

Memo to J.J. Abrams: Talosian Justice is NO justice at all.