Dan Zen

I was the first person I knew who had a cell phone. It was the mid 90s and my sister was working for a little known company called Comcast in King of Prussia, PA. I had just graduated from college and bought my first used car, and she thought it would be a good idea if I had one of these cellular phones. I had no idea what cellular was but I was learning a whole lot of things that college did not prepare you for, so I said why not? She was able to sign the whole family up on this new device and probably received a hefty bonus.

It weighed as much as a brick and had to be charged every two hours. I left it in the car because it activated every security feature from CVS to the airport. The bill was $36 a month with local calls 75 cents a minute. I don’t remember much about the phone other than the weight and its inability to get reception anywhere but in the city limits. There were very few cell towers back then and none from Lancaster to Ithaca, where I spent most of my weekends.

I have had a cell phone ever since in all sizes and shapes but I've never learned to trust them. My cell phone bill is still around $36 16 years later and I have never left the carrier, though Comcast sold to Southwest Bell, then to Cingular, and now AT&T. My sister does not sell or operate phones. I do not have the internet, I cannot get pictures, and I pay for every mass text people send me. I still am stuck in the mid 90s with my cell phone mentality.

So as an outsider and keen observer of human behavior, I see the folly and insanity of texters who believe the cell phone is part of their human body and inherent rights. You cannot go anywhere without a texter polluting up the scenery, oblivious to the world and people around them. In fact, texting has replaced Smoking as the #1 public hazard and here is why:

1) Smoking is prohibited in hospitals and neither are cell phones. Smoking is not allowed in airports and airplane and often, neither are cell phones. One day, just like cigarette smoke, it will be banned because of the rude and insensitive behavior of being anti social and causing headaches to other passengers. I will not be able to take another burst of laughter coming from the passenger next to me who is glued to a 2 inch screen.

2) Smoking use to be allowed in the work place so people did not leave their cubicle every fifteen minutes to go outside. The regular phone call is too conspicuous today, so texting has become the escape most workers use to be unproductive. And from my acute observations, workers are texting more than anything else on the work place. Soon, texting will be banned to the front doors of the office place and instead of going through a haze of smoke for lunch, you will have to power through hundred of texters trying to get their fix.

3) Half of all Americans once smoked. The number must be higher with texters. For some reason, this teenage craze has expanded into the adult population who should be capable of holding a phone conversation if the thought is so important that it requires communication. I was talking with one colleague earlier this week, and he said his two teenage kids racked up over 7000 texts in one month. Only puberty ridden creatures could be so self obsessed to think they have so many important ideas to express. But alas poor Yorick, this mania has spread and cemented itself into the adulthood of society. It is an addiction found on every soccer field, professional stadium and church pew. The country is addicted to bad grammar and terse remarks often expressing a half backed immediate emotion to a situation or sending another picture of an animal in a tutu. Unfortunately, we have no non-texting spaces yet to avoid this insipid behavior.

4) Texting is destroying our education system because students and teachers cannot concentrate on anything without their “blankie” of a phone. Like cigarettes, withdraw symptoms begin immediately upon turning their head. If they sense a message coming, they cannot help but lighting their phone up. The students are texting in the bathroom, in the hallways, and on the bus. The teachers text their students bad behavior to other teachers, who must text back immediately. The only reading getting down is through the phone. Needless to say, the u and i have become the standards for proper pronoun use. Smoking might be more desirable since rarely did one smoke without doing something else and at least there would be 15 minutes between the next cigarette.

5) Smoking leads to cancer, plus we did not realize its full detriment until years later. Carpal tunnel issues of the future will explode. Early on start of arthritis will be coming in mass numbers to the clinic closest to you in twenty years. Eyeglasses will be universal by the age of thirty. We have all heard about the possible cancer connection with cell phones even as their use and existence become omnipresent. This addiction does have its consequences and probably will lead to some form of cancer.

Texting is a plague we can only hope falls out of fashion. I hate it like I hate cigarettes. I do not understand how it has replaced phone or personal communication, but it has. I long for the days of one cell tower, bad service, and brick size cell phones. Until then, I think I will start up smoking as a form of protest against texters. I can imagine the text: OMG  dsgust guy bloin smoke in my eye – loser!!

Courtesy of David Shankbone

When Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast this week, the pictures posted on Facebook by local friends and in the news were mind-boggling. Truly, I couldn't grasp what I was looking at. Familiar landmarks long gone under the water or sand. The news of the community in New York burning to the ground.

My husband has a cousin who lives on the water in Little Egg Harbor. I followed her postings on Facebook. The decisions and changes to those decisions. The need to get out NOW because evacuation was mandatory. My cousin is engaged to be married and become mom to a 4 year old boy who reminds me so much of my own children, especially my 4 year old. I can imagine how much she has worried about Alex amidst the chaos of the hurricane, making sure he has a place to sleep, food to eat. Is he safe? the overall lingering fear and constant worry.

When my husband's cousin posted about clean up efforts and salvaging what is left of her home, I realized I needed to do something. Driving to the shore was out of the question with 5 kids, and not the best use of my resources.

What I have is my check. I could send it to the Red Cross who would put it to great use. 90% of each donation goes directly to services. Or, I could send it to my cousin to help her buy supplies to protect her home while they were waiting for the insurance adjusters. Waiting for the lights to come back on. Waiting for some resemblance of normality. Whatever that may be.

Today we're going to the bank and then Home Depot. My kids will help me package the gift card along with Halloween treats, and we'll mail it at the post office.

Barb is a mom of 5 kids who spends her day keeping track of socks, stuffed animals, library books, and a 4 year old when she isn't writing about all the frugality, gardening, cooking, and reading she manages to fit in between the chaotic moments. She can be found at A Life in Balance, Frugal Local Kitchen, or on Twitter with daily doses of life in 140 characters or less.

Courtesy of Miss Blackflag

Okay, wait.  That’s not true.

In fact, bullying has been around forever. I remember sitting with my grandmother.  A 5’ foot tall, Irish woman, who had the sweetest face, and the sharpest tongue.  She was cute as a button, but that was only a façade.  I must have been only 5 or 6 years old and I remember her teaching me a little song.  I sat on her floral couch, wide-eyed and singing along.

Here’s my pinkie… Here’s my thumb… Here’s my fist you better run!

It was a silly little song, and with each line, we performed the corresponding movements.  We showed our pinkie, then our thumb, and finally raised our fist with a very serious look on our face (crinkled nose and all).  After the song we would laugh and laugh.  Then she would become very serious and looked at me with those piercing blue eyes.

“You listen to me honey; this is just a silly song.  And I want you to know that you never throw the first punch… ladies don’t act like that.”

I shook my head in affirmation. “Okay Grandma.” I said.

She continued on, “But if someone does start pushing you around, then you raise that fist and defend yourself like the feisty Irish girl that you are.” 

I smiled up at her.  She was the picture of class, with her pearl necklace and long pink skirt, but those who knew her, knew better than to cross her.  She could hold her own.  She was everything I wanted to be when I grew up.

I held onto the talk with my grandmother.  Drawing on it time and again, as the tween and teen years approached.  I never did have to recite the rhyme and throw a fist, but I used my words to fire back quite a few times; stood up for myself when no one else would.

I distinctly remember 7^th grade, riding the bus home from middle school. An 8^th grade girl, who, for whatever reason, decided to pick on me.  She made small comments about how she wanted to cut my hair, rip my pink backpack off my back and beat me up.  After about a week of this, I told my mom I didn’t want to take the bus anymore.  Through sobs I explained each humiliating moment to my mother.

She sat stoicly, listening and offered me a comforting hug.  Then she looked me straight in the eye and said, 

“I am not picking you up from school.  You are going to take that bus and your going to tell that girl to pick on someone else.”

I remember panic washing over me.  Didn’t my mother know that that was the LAST thing I was going to do? I wanted to avoid her and that bus… forever.

“Lana, girls like this are all bark and no bite.  You stand up for yourself and she won’t know what to do.  She’s a bully and she’s used to pushing people around.  Don’t let her push you.”

My mother continued on with this inspirational “Rocky Speech” to get me pumped up.  Throwing in that my grandmother would have never let anyone push her around, and I had to carry that legend on.
The next day, after school, I boarded the bus, sat in my seat and took a deep breath.  Trying to collect my thoughts as the bus pulled away and she began to taunt me.

“Nice side pony tail!  Sike!  You’re such a loser.”

When we reached the first stop, I stood up and cut her lewd remarks off.

“You know what Rachael, if you want to beat me up so bad, then get off the bus and do it.”  She fell silent, so did the whole bus.  “Come on, you hot shot, you want to yell at me every day then back it up.”  I took my back pack off and walked to the front of the bus and got off.

The driver looked at me while I stood waiting and gave me a wink.  The bus sat at that stop for three full minutes.  Nothing happened inside.  When I stepped back on, Rachael was sitting quietly in her seat.  As I walked back to my seat, I shouted one more thing to her. 

“If you don’t have the guts to back it up, stop flapping your mouth!”

I sat back at my seat.  The bus didn’t erupt into applause or anything like that.  This was real-life, not some Lifetime movie.  But that girl never bothered me again.  In fact she never bothered anyone again.  She was so embarrassed that someone called her bluff, she never made another peep.

So why can’t people just “handle it” in modern day, like I did in the 90s? Why?  Because there is no shame or embarrassment or ownership in a typed comment that is posted to a public wall or profile.  The opportunity to say it in person is lost in the incessant comments and postings. 

Bullying is old hat, but it’s only recently that the internet has thrown it into the spotlight.  Before the digital era, kids could only bully each other at school or at an after school event.  Now with the internet, the bullying can follow them home and onto their social media pages.

It’s sad really; that the drama of the day can’t fall idle when the hallways become quiet in the after-school hours.  It used to be that whatever kid was bullied or humiliated that day would most likely be out of the spotlight the next day.  You see, the 24 hour window of after-school time was enough for the adolescent brain to move onto the next oh-so-dramatic event.  Leaving the kid that was Thursday’s sacrificial lamb, to be old news by Friday—If not, definitely by Monday.  In current day, however, there is no quiet time for the humiliation to sizzle out.  Instead, the fire is fueled, kept alive and well, on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

But it’s not solely the internet’s fault.  I still think the onus lies on the parents.  Why are theses kids, ages 11-17 even allowed to have Facebook pages, webcams, YouTube or twitter accounts?  If posting pictures could be considered child-pornography, because you’re under age, then you shouldn’t have Facebook.  Facebook was created for college aged students in the early 2000s.  It then grew to be inclusive to older populations who could join the city they lived in as their network to create a page. Somewhere along the line, the idea of having to be “part of a network” died and Facebook was available to everyone.  So parents allow their tweens and teens to create digital identities.  So I say to you parents…what the hell did you expect would happen?

We’ve all been bullied.  We’ve all been picked on, teased and embarrassed at some point in our adolescence.  If you haven’t, well then you’re lying.  But what I don’t remember are kids that were “cutters” or “emo.” (Which by the way, stands for EMOtional?) This whole generation of hyper sensitive, fragile paper-thin tween and teens need their parents to pay attention to them and teach them coping skills.

So why expose your children to an adult forum that you know will only encourage the taunting?  What do you honestly think will happen to a middle or high school aged child who has Facebook?  Do you think they will post life experiences, perspective and respectfully comment on friend’s posts and pictures?   Get your heads out of your asses.  Be neotenous, and remember the soap opera of your teenage years.  The same stuff is going on. Remember how hard it is for your kids and do them a favor by telling them to get off the computers.  They don’t need social media; they need to learn social skills in real life.  Set them up for success NOT failure.

XOXO Lana

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG Talk to your children! Teach your children to communicate and speak about their emotions from an early age… then as they get older it won’t be difficult to speak with others if they are being bullied, harassed or threatened  in any area of life… Standing up for yourself is what each and every one of us needs to be comfortable with.

Lana Morelli is an English Professor at Neumann University and Delaware County Community College. She is also a full-time reporter for a California based Legal Magazine, Courthouse News. She is the former editor of St. Joseph's University's Literary Journal, The Avenue and her freelance work has appeared in various publications including; Philadelphia Magazine, Delaware Today Magazine, The Garnet Valley Press, SJU Athletic Media Guides, Gimme This  & That Magazine, Examiner.com and more. Last but not least, she owns and operates her own blog/website, www.lanamorelli.com. where is she is the authority on 20something topics.

Courtesy of Tuono Tuji

I had a singular focus.  Prepare students for their state mandated test.  Specifically, present them with readings of a similar quality and purpose of the state test, and then, drill them with the skills necessary to understand the texts in a desperate hope that the students would retain the skills, apply them to the readings of varying content and difficulty, and actually care about any of this to begin with. 

I learned quickly that too many of them were incapable of satisfying all, and in some cases, any of the unrealistic expectations. 

I left this school, firmly committed to the delusion that other schools were different.  After ten years, I’ve learned they’re not.  Granted, there are still schools, and their staff, that have eluded the debilitating demands and pigeonholed pedagogy of the testing-plagued reality of public education today, but they are fewer and fewer.  And their time will come. 

Ten years later and I am again teaching skills of questionable merit and molding (or manipulating?) minds into blind conformity all for a test of little to no immediate or long-term value.   This is education.  Sorry taxpayers, it’s true. 

As a culprit in this silly game, I can’t help but feel ashamed for sacrificing my professional integrity for such wanton and unachievable pursuits as “Adequate Yearly Progress” and “100% Proficiency”.  Most days I can deal with it, particularly in the summer time, but more than ever, when I stand in front of a class of such lethargic and insipid minds, browbeaten into a sad submission, I feel dirty. 

It’s the eyes that do it to me.  Those dead eyes.  Excuse the hyperbole, but if there is ever a true zombie apocalypse, I feel confident that public education will be to blame.  There’s arguably nothing sadder than the look of sheer apathy in a student’s eyes, especially when you’re debating the existence of the American Dream.  It happens, every day.  If only we could be assessed by our ability to produce such indifference.  Then we’d be respected. 

But that doesn’t stop me from secretly, and sometimes openly, admonishing their lack of intellectual curiosity.  Warning- Stop reading if you still believe in public teachers!  I make jokes, at the students’ expense, grossly sarcastic jokes, the ones we’re constantly told not to employ on account of their alienating effects.  The Horror! But this sarcasm that is my only professional and mental sanctuary loses its antidotal usefulness every year, every day.  It’s a coping mechanism.  I’ve read they’re bad. 

I still show up every day.  Well, most days.  I get there early, grade a little, prep some.  I greet the students at the door, just like I always have, knowing how important it is to get a feel for their mood, collectively and individually.  I nod, ask how they are, say hello, and model basic social skills and all-around civility. 

Teaching is something else though.  Every minute of every class of every day is accounted for.  I do my job, and do it fairly well.  I hold everyone accountable, by the same standard.  I attempt, with what little room I have, to expand their minds intellectually, never accepting a single point of view, always demanding multiple perspectives. 

Unfortunately, it’s all a façade.  We go through the motions, some days sprinting and others trudging, but we always get where we inevitably knew we would.  Another day, another test, another failure of modern education. 

Nothing purposeful occurs, and if it does, I’ll never really know, and neither will anyone else.  Which may be a good thing, at least as far as job security goes.  This is so many of my peers’ outlooks, even if they won’t admit it.  We frequently spurn the system that tolerates such mediocrity, but rarely acknowledge our complicity in its demise.  We routinely lament the students’ incapacity for real learning, yet hardly ever consider our own inability to truly teach. 

This is education.  This is teaching.  This is who we are, or at least who I am, and I’m sorry.