South High Minneapolis

My third son, Joe High School, started at Minneapolis South High this week. He will be in all tenth grade classes as a ninth grader except for French. Since he has a tin ear, I suspect French, or any spoken language, will be difficult, despite his native smarts. He should have taken Latin, which they offer. That way there would be no worries about the accent.

He is the third of my kids to enter the Liberal Arts program at Minneapolis South. This is the district's effort to provide a prep school program at public school prices. In addition to Latin, they offer Ojibwe, most AP classes, and really fine music and theater programs. This is all done on a very small budget--one that's become ever smaller since my first kid (Joe College-Grad) hit South High eight years ago. Despite this, Minneapolis South High is one of the jewels in the otherwise rusty crown of Minneapolis education. But it won't continue for much longer. The classes are large--usually more than 35 students. This is not good, and it's not improving. Go to South High Sucks to get a pretty good view of what's happening to a once fine urban school.

I've offered to send him (and his brothers) to St. Paul Academy, where the average class size hovers around 15 at worst. I firmly believe that it's class size, not the qualifications of the teachers, that separates the sheep from the goats, educationally speaking. Minneapolis South has some outstanding teachers.

But those boys won't go. All their friends go to Minneapolis South. Moreover, going to an inner city school gives kids an edge when they enter the real world, whether it's at college on the south side of Chicago, or teaching first grade in an elementary school in New York City. So I've let them choose public schools.

And when I attend the South High concerts, I am amazed both by the abilities of the kids to make music, and the ability of the conductor to develop a coherent and skilled voice from a disparate gro

Off to the races, part deux, or Gay 90's bites the dust

Turns out Joe College didn't go to the Gay 90's after all (see September 4 post). Did he get cold feet? Couldn't he get a group together, or did he have no intention of going at all and just wanted to see how we'd react? Your guess is a good as mine.

Macro and micro, or more than you want to know about cleaning

My spouse and I have developed a system for household management. He does the big stuff, I do the details. This seems like a fair division of labor, although, as he’s pointed out, it’s more noticeable if he doesn’t do his part. No one (except me, he claims), notices if there are fingerprints on the light switches. But, if the lawn isn’t mowed, folks talk. But, as Martha must have said, "The devil is in the details."

Speaking of mowing, here’s how the allocation of labor works in the lawn care department. He mows the lawn. I sweep up the walkways, and then mow the actual edge of the lawn. Occasionally I use the weed wacker to get the bits that can’t be reached with the lawn mower, such as the underside of the swing set. Recently, though, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend, a personality change. I’ve caught him pulling grass out of the cracks in the sidewalk, a task that used to be mine. Maybe landscaping is something that grows on you, appeals to the male need for public acclaim, or something. In any event, I haven’t seen this change when it comes to the interior of the house, where the division of labor is still crystal clear.

Take the kitchen, for example. He will load and unload the dishwasher—no one is faster in the dishwasher derby. I clean the sink, where I find bits of lettuce, strands of spaghetti, remnants of grapes, and stuff best left unidentified(I think he believes that a stainless steel sink does not require cleaning). He takes out the garbage, I wash the garbage container. He wipes the counters, I dust the top of the fridge. He cleans the top of the stove, I polish the exposed disposal parts. He feeds the cats, I wash the hardened milk spots off the floor. I think this is a pretty equitable arrangement, as it leaves me with the energy to do the interesting stuff, like using a toothbrush to clean the infinitesimal space between sink and countertop. He thinks I’m nuts.

Laundry operations work in a similar way. He washes clothes, and even sorts them first. For a long time he added at least a cup of liquid bleach, but recently switched to powder, as he was beginning to notice the massive white stains on his jeans. If I get there in time, I do the spot cleaning, take the money out of the pockets, remove the used Kleenex, and clean out the dryer vent. I wipe the top of the machines. I match the socks. No one irons. We are united in this.

Dusting is very easy—I do it, he doesn’t. He vacuums, and quite well. He washes the cars. I take torn, ragged pillowcases out of service. I sew on buttons, removing the safety pins that appear when his waistband gets a tad snug. I change the towel in the cat bed. He scrubs the tub, I clean the tile. He bakes cookies, I scour the tins. I think you get the picture.

Is this simply a question of Mars and Venus? Or not seeing the details? Or seeing them and not caring? It could be all of these. But my theory is that what folks will tolerate in their environment is fixed at some time in their developmental years. When this happens varies. But my wonderful guy probably reached that point sometime in his first year of graduate school. At that stage, simply having your own apartment was the grand prix. What the inside of that apartment looked like was secondary. And, graduate students are exploring the celestial life of the mind, not worrying about down and dirty dust bunnies. I’ve resigned myself to the existence of a perpetual grad student, even though he’s long been a full professor. It could be so much worse—he could be a neat nut, and then I’d be sunk. I’d have to clean systematically, rather than just doing the fun stuff. Like cleaning the blinds with a large Q-tip.

Teaching in the Bronx, living in Harlem

If son #2 is Joe College, then kid #1 is Joe College-Grad. Instead of going to graduate school, and immersing himself in the work-study-get-ahead-kill mode of some of his high achieving peers, or trying to get a job and failing, like many of his other pals, he choose Teach for America(TFA). It didn't hurt that this path leads him to New York City, where he now lives in Harlem, part of the gentrification of this previously gritty part of town. It also doesn't hurt that he is paid the beginning salary of a New York teacher, or that TFA assumes the interest on his loans during his two year stint. It's all good. There's a doorman...

Except....Joe #1 walks across Harlem to the #6-IND train, which takes him into the depths of the Bronx, where he then catches a bus that takes him into the neighborhood where Amadou Dialo met his end at the hands of the New York police. The school, PS 107, is a troubled school, with significant staff turnover and less than wonderful test scores. Surrounding it are some elderly housing projects. None of this dampens his enthusiasm for the first graders he meets tomorrow.

"I'm going to teach them to read," he announces. "They will read every day, I will send books home, I'll visit their apartments, I'll talk with their parents. I'll read to them in class. They'll have a great start to their education." We talk over the noise of the airplanes and wind blowing through his cell phone as he suns himself on his Harlem rooftop. I try to restrain myself, telling him only once to take the bus to the subway rather than walking across Harlem at 5:30 in the morning. He tells me he's bought some neckties. "Gotta look serious, Mom." I am so proud.

Off to the races, or my son goes to the Gay 90's (sort of)

Joe College, a.k.a. the middle son, says he might not attend the freshmen events scheduled tonight for his U of M dorm (lame?). Instead, he announces, he might go to the Gay 90s, a Minneapolis gay bar, drag club, and general tourist trap downtown.

We pounce immediately. I say, "Please don't get picked up by an HIV-positive guy." Dad, more sensibly, says, "Are you going in a group?" There's some eye rolling, and it finally emerges that he's been there before, he doesn't like guys but enjoys the drag shows, is going with a group, and will only drink Coke, Sunday being an 18+ night at the club.

He thanks us for dinner, and charges out the door. As he passes the open window he shouts, "Of course, I might just go to the dorm event, too." And then he climbs on his bike and is gone. His Dad and I look at each other with love, wonder, and amazement at what we have wraught. Have we given him what he needs to navigate a very strange world? Have our Unitarian values rubbed off on a non-joining guy? I don't know.