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Hail
Mary This is the last week of school for most students in the 4J District. It is a good time to salute our local teachers. Some critics have claimed that teachers are bilking the taxpayers, but I think the opposite is true. The taxpayers should be grateful for the energy and resourcefulness that our local teachers have shown despite inadequate funding from the State. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, "Never before have so few done so much with so little." One teacher who deserves particular recognition is Mary Christensen-Moore. She educates, entertains and inspires over 50 kindergartners a day at Parker Elementary School. She gives taxpayers their money's worth and then some. Does Mary work hard? Let me put it this way. If private-sector employees worked half as hard as Mary does, our gross domestic product would be a gazillion dollars. (I'd be better with numbers if Mary had been my kindergarten teacher.) Mary shows up for work early and goes home late — after meeting with parents, designing lesson plans, and cheering for her students at basketball practice. This spring she built a cave in her classroom to teach students about nature. She has created "kinder bags" full of educational toys, books, and other materials for families to borrow. She helps to organize fundraisers for the school like jog-a-thons and burrito sales. Mary's hard work makes her an excellent teacher. My son comes home from Mary's class speaking Spanish, identifying bird species, and reciting biographical information about Martin Luther King Jr. The kids in Mary's class even learn how to bake bread! I'm still learning how to make toast. What amazes me most about Mary is a phenomenon that some of the parents have termed "the Mary Mojo." She can cast a spell over her students. She entices them to enjoy learning. Rather than order the kids around, she literally sings her instructions. The kids are enraptured. Barney the purple dinosaur could walk into the middle of Mary's class and no heads would turn. Not only does Mary teach kids well, but she also boosts their self-esteem. Mary has a kind word for every child in her class. No achievement goes unrecognized. Whether the feats are big or small, she always has plenty of kudos for the kiddos. Children from all over the 4J District enter a lottery to enroll in Mary's class. Though Parker is a neighborhood school, Mary's class has a longer waiting list than the kindergartens at many of Eugene's so-called "magnet schools." When I see Mary's selfless sacrifice, and then I read a letter to the editor claiming that teachers are punching the clock to collect PERS benefits, I realize why our schools are underfunded. Seventy-five percent of taxpayers in this state don't have any connection to our schools: Neither their children nor their grandchildren are presently attending public schools in Oregon. This three-quarters of the electorate doesn't know what really goes on in our schools. If the critics could spend an hour in Mary's class, we wouldn't need to sell burritos to pay for pencils at Parker Elementary School. Tom Lininger is county commissioner for the East Lane District. He formerly served as chair of the Lane School Board Association.
Building
Trust EDITOR'S NOTE: The below remarks were given as a keynote address at the Citizens for Public Accountability annual meeting May 14. We are in a world of hurt economically here in Oregon and the human toll grows daily. Our schools are under-funded, our health care system is in disarray, and our unemployment rate is the highest in the nation. Our most vulnerable citizens are losing the support that provides them housing, medical treatment or other basic needs. We find ourselves mocked by "Doonesbury" and discussed in major editorials across the nation. One part of me thinks we deserve the mocking and the other part of me laments the current national portrayal of Oregon. For more than a decade too many of us have been bystanders to the steady erosion of all that makes Oregon special. We stand on the laurels of the past, when Oregon led the nation in quality of education, protecting our beaches, recycling our bottles, land use planning and the Oregon Health Plan. We now find ourselves mired in short-term crisis and unable to move forward with long term visionary planning for our state and its people. Our Legislature is in the hands of those who were elected on an anti-government platform. Those who aim to destroy government have, for all practical purposes, succeeded in immobilizing it, making it essentially unable to adequately respond to the needs of everyday citizens. This immobilization only reinforces the growing distrust of government. Eugene is better off than many communities, yet we are known for endless bickering and polarization in our public debate and policy making. Every day someone talks to me about this polarization and their dislike of it. I sometimes wonder if we get talked into thinking we are more polarized than we really are. There are many things most Eugeneans agree on. We want to manage our growth in a way that we can continue to have a community we are proud of. We want jobs with good benefits and decent wages. We support human and civil rights. We want high quality education opportunities for our children, from pre-school through higher ed. We want a sound social service infrastructure to care for our most vulnerable citizens. We want a health care system that is accessible to all. We want prevention of crime and justice for all. We want clean air and water. There are more that you could add. Certainly we don't all agree on how to achieve these community goals, but we could pause and acknowledge that most of us — no matter our politics — want these things for our community. There are things that we think and do, though, that get in the way. There is a general distrust of policy makers from all sides. This comes to us be cause of the political messages we hear and the way we go about working together. We too often vilify those with whom we disagree. We believe we are cheated if we do not get our way. Money plays too heavy a role in decision-making. We feel frustration in a fast-moving world where we have few ways to impact decisions. We too seldom put all the community pieces together. We just look at the separate parts, the ones we are most interested in. We do not tout our successes at working together and build on them. We too often don't honor past agreements. We feel compromise is "giving it away" and not standing by our values. We don't listen to each other with the intention or possibility of hearing something that will alter our thinking. We worry that the game is already being played on the other side of the court and any movement only supports a further move in that direction. In short we lack trust. Building trust and learning how to bring diverse views to the table in order to build a common vision for our community is important. Perhaps learning how to do it well is as important or even more important that the actual decisions we make. I invite you to think about this with me. Kitty Piercy of Eugene is a former state representative and current public affairs director for Planned Parenthood Health Services of SW Oregon.
Food
Values My face is washed with blueberries and cream; my skin scrubbed with almonds and oatmeal, my body layered with banana and tangerines. Where am I? On a tropical island? A bit part in 9 1/2 Weeks? In the middle of a food fight? Nope. I'm just taking a shower. Every day women use tastebud-tantalizing body products in hopes of smoothing, cleansing, and peeling away any signs of age, hair, or, for that matter, identity. It seems that, according to Clairol Herbal Essences Organic shampoo ads (read orgasmic), that a woman can enjoy (publicly no less), the epitome of sexual pleasure through the simple steps of wash, rinse, repeat. (I tried it, it didn't work). We come away from our baths smelling like a balanced meal, and yet, our empty bellies belie the fullness we should feel. In a culture of denial, we are no more eating these foods than we are publicly experiencing orgasms. In fact, it seems like what we are buying for and using on our bodies, are reminders of some of the very things we aren't allowed to eat or to experience, at least not without a full serving of guilt. Once upon a time, being "bad" meant doing something off limits sexually. Today, when a woman says she's been "bad" or "good" it usually means she's either broken or stayed on her diet. But, vicariously at least, through the right combination of bath products, she can feel as if she's yielding to her yearnings without widening her waistline. But what does this tell her? What does this naming bath products after foods really mean? I think it means that we are reminded, in the simplest of ways, that some foods are alright and some are off limits; that we must, at all times, maintain self-control, or else we will surely fail to live up to the social definition of what is beautiful — meaning unrealistically thin. Taunted, teased, and tempted as we are to indulge in that crème caramel soufflé, we can maintain our waistlines and self-respect by buying it as a bath gel instead of delving into it as a dessert. Eat, we may not. Fanaticize, we must. That sucks. Now, has anybody seen my double chocolate soufflé lip-gloss? Debra Merskin, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the School of Journalism & Communication at UO.
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