STORYTIME TAPESTRY

And now on to the good stuff..........

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Animal awareness series endorsed by Shiloh and Hank our mascots; all stories must receive their approval.

Caught No Fish
Kathy Anne Harris

Caught no fish -
tell you why
water too low
wind to high

left dark glasses
brought wrong bait
boots sprung leak,
started too late

too many people,
drat those boys!
too many dogs,
too much noise

flies wouldn't float,
lost best hooks,
owner of stream,
gave dirty looks

rocks and bushes
all in the river,
too many snags
rotten weather!

too many flies,
mosquitoes, too,
sky was gray
wasn't blue
lucky fish got away!
boy, what an awful
rotten day!

slippery rocks,
fell in the river,
hour later got
the shivers

got no fish
tell you why
pole fell in the river,
my, O, my

could tell you more,
talk two seasons,
got no fish,
plenty of reasons!

Copyright ?© by Kathy Harris
by Kathy Anne Harris
kathyanneharris @spirit-soul.com

About Me:
I live in central, sunny California, where
I share my life with my husband and our
furry family. I work full time for a
living, and I write in order to live
fully. My works have been featured in
2TheHeart, StoryTime Tapestry, Starfish,
Driftwood, CatTails, Petwarmers,
Heartwarmers, Insight of the Day*,
Moments of Reflections, Gwen's Place
Newsletter, and Eternal Ink. I am also a
weekly columnist for the publication
"Frank Talk" which is distributed in
three counties in Michigan, USA.

I have four published novels, 3 fiction
and 1 non-fiction, which can be ordered
from Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com

************

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today's Queue Stories:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Becoming a Virtuosos
Claudia Kerens

???Understanding is knowing what to do; wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is actually doing it.??? -- Tristan Gulberd.

There are 199 days left in 2004. That means we??™re almost half way through with a year I would gladly exchange with 1983 ??“ the year a car accident left me nearly dead.

By the end of February, the docs finally were able to diagnose an auto immune disease called sarcoidosis. When I say finally ??“ I am to become a case study because it took them over twenty years to --as a final point --line the stars and the moon up in a straight line and go: ???Aha! By George! We??™ve got it!???
What is that?
???The disease can attack any organ of the body in any location. The disease is characterized by the presence of granulomas, small areas of inflamed cells. They can be either inside the body or on the body's exterior, appearing as sores on the face or shins. But sarcoidosis is most frequently found in the lungs.???

While on the surface that may seem like nothing, the problem was the disease had been ravaging the good old immune system for over two decades. And by March, two weeks after my father??™s death, I had 3,000 out of the required 175,000-180,000 platelets a body needs to live. Scary, huh? Geez- Millie could have discovered a dead kid in bed.

Ever since that news was provided, I had images of my mother adding my own ash box to my father??™s in the bottom of her closet. That??™s where Bob is for the moment. We never made it to the burying part because I was a bit busy sucking up enough platelets. Of course, that didn??™t happen as readily as I thought it would either.

I was knocked out of school for most of March, all of April and May. Teachers tell people that being absent is harder than being present and slugging it out in the trenches. Even while I was in the hospital, I spent a couple of hours lecturing the class over the phone. That miracle of technology made me thankful at least the kids couldn??™t see me all strung up with the oxygen stuff and the IVs.

However, it also didn??™t take too long to get the hospital staff hopping along in a merry way. One of the drugs they used to improve Pulmonology function keeps a body awake at all hours. So in the middle of the night, I would be lying on my side, looking out at the raindrops hitting my hospital room??™s windows. The nurses coming in to take vitals would erroneously think I was asleep. I waited until their footsteps were right at the end of my bed. Then I turned over and in the brightest of voices said, ???Well, Good Morning! And how are you????

After they got finished jumping back and catching their breath, we laughed about how usually on the night shift they never really talked to their patents given that the normal ones would be sleeping. Ha! Didn??™t take them long to find out I was anything but normal. On subsequent early mornings, they would find me grading papers or creating something new and improved for the students since I couldn??™t be there to act it out for them.

By the second morning I figured out my phone card well enough to call down to the gift shop to have them send up the newspapers and a cappuccino! That made the 9AM hour a great time! I was wired to feed my news junkie habit and grab some caffeine while I was at it. That almost made the hospital tolerable.

By the end of the third day, I had talked them into showers ??“ no bed baths for me! I even got shampoo! By the end of the week, I was thinking this hospital visit wasn??™t nearly as bad as the six weeks visit in 1983. Plus the staff had gotten to know me so they even added to my cappuccino dreams!

They were amazed with my laptop and how I was able to send off lesson plans to the substitute. They also had never seen how many papers there are to grade. I think they learned to think about teachers differently.
Unfortunately, the platelet drip wasn??™t working using a universal platelet bag. They had to find my blood type. That??™s when I discovered a relative shared that characteristic and my best friend. Boy that made it easier!

With the exact blood type platelets coursing through my system, my immune system took notice. And, I could start planning a release date! Now that was a reason to unearth the PDA and check my schedule; after all, I had been in bed a little over a week, I should be raring to go, right?

Well, it wasn??™t so great. In fact just walking out of the hospital- I had talked them out of the wheel chair ??“ I let the nurse wheel my stuff down to the car, was more tiring than I ever imagined. But, I was going home! That was reason to tap dance!

And, it was way wide of the mark! First, I wasn??™t quite as strong as I thought, they took my car keys away??”my poor Vibe was being given a rest. I looked out the back window and felt sorry for a car that had lost its driver. I even imagined the Vibe was begging me to get off my duff and drive??”like the new Focus commercials. How does one explain to a car that it was out in the pasture for a while?

Millie couldn??™t drive it ??“ macular degeneration tends to make insurance men say, ???I don??™t think you should be behind the wheel of the car.???
I felt sorrier for the darn car; it was used to flying down the road to the university three to four times a week. Then I realized, I was having a bit of a pity party myself. I flat wasn??™t used to staying in one place for too long.

I retreated to the new study area where Millie had sent my computer stuff after my father died. This was to provide more space and it was upstairs- so only fun stuff could be downstairs. The point? I was going to be broken of a severe bad habit I have. It is called work--alcoholism---- I was going to rest.

Depressed, I would collapse in my father??™s mission recliner. Then I would swear he had put a hex on it because I would think I was settling in to read a book or grade some papers. Before I knew it, I was fast asleep. It was my own snoring that woke me up several hours later.
To this day, I know if I sit in that chair, slumber will descend. I will lose two or three hours of life- so to speak. Funny, I don??™t sleep as well in my own bed.

By late May, with all of the mad rush to end the school year, I came to understand that virtuosity could be achieved if I simply stopped the rat race and looked at the changing environment.

One of the starkest moments occurred when I experienced one of those ???Aha!??? moments that can grace our lives. Those moments provoke such clarity that one can envision the future even more clearly.
And since the emotionality of the year had misted my eyes obscuring my vision at times, and given the cow paddies one may have to trek through or have thrown at them??”in order to reach the acme of virtue; one has to keep the end game in mind.

Understanding is knowing what to do; wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is actually doing it??”no matter who. disagrees??”because the soul??”nurtured by the Maker-says it is the right thing no matter how hard the road traveled.

Thus, the ???Aha??? moment only adds to the will to get back up to 8 cylinders??”life is not over, yet.

Claudia Kerens
mina1986 @midwest.net
************

Symphony of the Experienced
Claudia Kerens

Pay attention when an old dog is barking. --Old Proverb
Being a change artist of sorts, I have witnessed a few times when that SST like fueled ???change agent??™ energy whirls through educational hallways supposedly to spin everything on its head. The importance of the ???newest methodology??™ or some legislator??™s dream law or some Timbuktu judge??™s court decision is supposedly going to magically be THE absolute way to raise ???those??™ test scores! It is the ultimate answer.
The problem will now be solved, for---ever-----. Right ??“ O! It sounds as simple as ???Book ???em, Danl.???

Teachers will teach happily ever after and students will learn happily ever after! Sounds angelic, doesn??™t it? Unfortunately that revolutionary set of ???new and improved??™ ideals, laws or court decisions [take your pick] -seemingly from heaven- slam into a very thick brick wall.

Led by the Experience conductor, the ???I told you so!??? choruses are emitted by the choir section called Geriatrics on the downbeat as if they were competing with the ???Alleluia??? chorus of the Tabernacle choir singing The Magnificat.

The brick wall is Common Sense. Sometimes, that brick wall doesn??™t get into the action soon enough. By the time the brick wall brings down a less than workable solution, millions of taxpayer dollars have been squandered. And, no measurable, real teaching/learning improvement is attainable. Point in case in Illinois, just changing the name of the state test from IGAP to ISAT cost millions in printing.
If it sounds too good to be true, the Geriatric chorus crescendos with, "It is!"

Some of the members of that section whine a bit more than necessary simply because the only words they know to use when evaluating new educational methodology is, ???I told you so.???

So what kind of symphony does an Experience conductor of Common Sense want to orchestrate?

First of, music lovers know that the Experience conductor is well versed in a wide variety of symphonies that actually work. This conductor has a warehouse of different musical tools at the tip of his baton. These could include an Etude, or an Elegy, or a Polonaise, or a concerto, or a scale exercise, etc.

When the Experience conductor peruses the warehouse, the tool picked is the one that the Experience conductor believes most- if not all of the members of the orchestra -will be able to perform well. Once the Experience conductor ascertains the level of skills orchestra members possess, then the next selection of music will be a bit harder and harder and harder. By the time the Experience conductor is done training the orchestra to play the complete opus, the members are sent on to the next level where they will learn the Symphony of life. Sounds like the educational process, doesn??™t it?

This type of methodology ??“ dogma, if you will, never hits the Common Sense brick wall. Why?

It is logical to think that a human will not run before walking. Humans will not walk without crawling. And once the foundation for that bodily activity is rotely acquired, the human may then learn to ride a two-wheeler or swing a bat, etc.

The point is most all things that are important enough to be taught are learned in steps. Each step raises the bar of knowledge and practice of that information so that the next step may be assigned. That??™s what any form of true education requires. And logic again defines that there is one and only one way to learn anything- it??™s called Experience.
It is also why an experienced instructor has a warehouse of teaching and learning tools that is usually voluminous because quite frankly, not everyone learns the same way. Thus the experienced teacher must reach into that warehouse and find the tool that will best serve the mission: ???Learning the skill/material.???

One of the more common methodologies used is as a questionable educational method: ???Read the chapter, complete the definitions, and answer the questions at the end of each section. Then do the worksheet. Test on Friday.???

Bah Humbug on that!

Common Sense can predict that 80% of those type assignments turned in will be copied; and this method gives the students the ???green??™ light to cheat themselves out of an education. There??™s no guided practice and certainly not enough discussion ??“ unless one counts the students asking to trade papers and answers. If this seems unbelievable, come observe a Study Hall.

Look, the experienced instructor must possess the mind and heart of a multi-tasker as well as a learning diagnostician. That takes a bit of time. The instructor needs the planning time and the teaching time to ascertain the correct methodology to incorporate. And, cramming the classroom full of more than 25 students lessens the chances that all students will receive the attention they deserve. Pay attention to the class size issue. Educating students should not be operated from the ???assembly-line??™ view: Cram them in that classroom and run them through! Sure, it costs less monetarily, but what price did the students pay when they didn??™t have the knowledge when they needed it?

The best warehouse teaching methodology is to use the knowledge in a ???hands-on??™ way. Getting students to experience why the knowledge is important to their corner of the world is step one.
Encouraging students to be able to orally discuss the knowledge is step two.

Step three is usually a collaborative or teaming effort to demonstrate that the framework of the knowledge is understood while step four is an individual effort to ascertain how the student intrinsically experienced the knowledge.

An experienced instructor my also add a dash of ???Reality Therapy,??? ???Assertive Discipline,??? ???Mastery Learning,??? ???Outcomes Based Education,??? ???Essential Schools Learning Tools,??? and sometimes good older tools are, ???Memorize this by tomorrow,??? ???Keep all of the material in order in a three ring binder,??? ???Take Notes,??? ???Go to the White Board {chalk board} and conjugate the verb,??? ???Read this chapter tonight and be ready to orally discuss it tomorrow,??? and that list can go on.

The bottom line is there is NO QUICK FIX! NO HURRY UP AND GET IT DONE! Or the most inane, ???I didn??™t like this in school, either - therefore we??™re not going to cover it.??? All knowledge has purpose.
People learn different skills at different times in life. No one really learns it all by the time that high school diploma is earned; rather, what they should be walking out the door with is a ???base??™ knowledge to go find their future life.

Hopefully by then they will have also learned how to play in the Experience conductor??™s world symphony called Common Sense.

Claudia Kerens
mina1986 @ midwest. net

About Me:

General Bio - 51 year old educator who has
worn several hats in the broadcasting,
office and restaurant worlds. Turning 50
is a freeing experience thus most of my
writing revolves around lessons learned
and wisdom to pass on so that others don't
hit the same brick walls I did. The sooner
folks love themselves, they can give love
to others. And that, is the greatest
gift of all.

**********

This was written when I came back from a walk along the Cornish cliffs to a little village called

Mousehole
Maria Doherty

Slither of moon, and a setting sun,
Slowly I tramp my way home.
Wind whistles around me, caressing the sea,
And darkness is close on my heels.
The gold of the gorse is growing dim,
Its brightness fades with the day,
My mind is cloaked in the shadow of you,
And I long for your hand in mine.

The next brought back memories of the fights I had with friends at university over drug taking. I was always passionately opposed to them, perhaps foreshadowing my own brother's downward spiral into madness through his addiction.

Fool - I call out blindly
And stumble from your room,
As you swallow down the pretty coloured pills
That speed you to a whirlwind of the senses,
Where mind explores the darkening lights of chaos,
And cannot cry, for tears bring no release,
For grief bereft of hope in lies,
The shadows of your mind's confusion,
My questions screaming to be spoken,
Unborn children of the human curse of caring.

Anyway, here are two of them seeing the light of day, after thirty plus years. Now it's time for bed here in Scotland.

Maria Doherty
mariadoherty @blueyonder.co.uk

About Me:

Maria Stepek Doherty is a psychotherapist
and spiritual development coach, who comes
from Scotland. She lives happily with her
husband of 16 years, their 14 year old son
and their 13 year old dog, Jessie, in an
old Georgian house built in 1820. She has
her own weekly newsletter ???Out of the
Chrysalis???. It is only in the last two
years, that she has started to write
creatively again, after a silence of over
20 years.
She can be contacted at :

mariadoherty @blueyonder.co.uk

Her website is :
www.chrysalistransformations.com
Magic be your dreams
Sweet swept to abundance
On creation's tides...........

*************

SENIOR WRITERS

Agee,Vance, Apted,Violet, Baker,Kathy, Batt,Al, Berry,Nell,

Boda,Ginger, Bryant,Sharon, Cassady,B.J., Crider,Mark, Deming,Barb, Goodier,Steve,

Harris,Kathy Anne, Hunt, Sharlette, Jacobson, Gary, Kiser,Roger Dean, Jenkins,Pamela, Liles,Norma, Mazzella,Joe, Moore, Loren, Ojeigbe,Georgewaters, Sims,Richard, Vaknin,Sam, Walker,Joe, Whirity,Kathy, White,Robert

STORYTIME TAPESTRY STAFF

Publisher: Carol Roach-founder

Moderator: Thelma Hartselle-co founder

Chief writer: Loren Moore-co founder,

Co-Publisher, Moderator: Kathy Baker

Moderator, Publicity Director

Moderator: Clara Westerfer