For the past five years I have worked in the Somerville, MA public school system as a substitute teacher.  Over the past year I have enjoyed two stints as a long-term sub, that is, substituting for the same teacher for a month or more at one time.  That experience, and others, has given me a view of how we educate our children.  It has given me a bit of a different outlook.

It presently vogue to call for education reform, but what does that mean?  Education by definition goes through constant reform.  As new ideas of how to educate children come to light schools systems employ them.  That seems to be a constant market force.

My experience, however, has brought to light something I consider much more pressing, parental responsibility.  Children necessarily look to their parents for guidance and to set an example for them.  Those children in school who struggle invariably seem to come from homes where parents shirk their parental responsibility and fail to set a good example for their children.  This plays out in two ways in the classroom.  The first, and most obvious, is the child’s behavior.  Children who misbehave have a home life many times that can best be described as chaotic.  The parents think these children can fend for themselves because both parents find it necessary to be in the workplace when their children are at home.  These are the latchkey children.

You have to understand that I deal entirely with children in grades 1 through 8.  Parents who cannot be home will have their children attend an after school program.  That is a good thing but these programs can go for as little as one hour, and on some days, not at all.  The child goes home to an empty apartment, and these are children as young as 8.  An otherwise well-behaved child is then subject to the mercy of other children who are not quite so well-behaved and pick up on their bad habits.  Where these children don’t have those bad habits challenged, they grow them and then bring them to school.  The child misbehaves in school and eventually the parents are called in.  Frequently the parent becomes defensive and unwilling to see their part in the dilemma, they shift their child’s behavior problem to the school.  Schools simply are not in the business of teaching children discipline, although to be certain, discipline can be learned there.  In even a small school, if on 10% of the children misbehave on a regular basis, that can overwhelm a system that is chronically short on money.

The second problem is that of parental academic responsibility.  That quite simply means that parents must oversee their children’s school work in every aspect and not just what the child brings home.  One of the most serious problems I have seen is where the parent does not speak English and therefore cannot help the child with anything that requires a command of that language.  The resolution to this problem is difficult as it requires resources most schools systems probably don’t have, specifically, the ability to assign a tutor to the child in academic need.  But more and more, municipalities are required to test all children without regard to their ability in English.  That means that a bright child can easily fail because he cannot grasp anything more than the easiest concepts in a particular subject.  A child’s ability to conceptualize is tantamount to his education.  Without it, failure is almost assured.

Schools are saddled by appearances.  That is, schools are labeled as failing if certain goals are not meant regardless of how unrealistic such a goal may be given the circumstances of the school.  There is pressure within the school system today to move all children along even when they are failing.  The best years to hold a child back is in the first and second grades.  Sometimes just allowing a child to mature a little more is enough.  But other times the child’s inability to comprehend a subject at his grade level comes into question.   If too many children are held back at one grade level, the fear is that the school will be seen as failing when it is really just being responsible.  I am a perfect example of that.  I repeated my junior year in high school.  Now I can lay claim to being a Harvard alumni.  We do our children no favors but pushing them along when the absolutely need to be held back.

This is another place where parents have to take responsibility.  Parents can live in reality which states that failure is inevitable or in a fantasy land that says our children are perfect.  A child’s failure should give the parent a place to focus his energy in helping the child, and not an opening to blame the school system for not properly educating his child, because the latter is seldom the case.

Finally, the school I work in exists in a working class community.  Its location within that community is physically in an area that is in the lowest income portion of the city.  The teachers who work there, however, are for the most part really good educators who are truly committed to their job.  They are not lacking in the ability or desire to perform at a high level.  They are, however, limited by the resources allotted them to help the children succeed at the highest level possible.  If there is reform to be had in education, it is in the way we perceive the learning process and our response to the systemic problems the current exist.

Over the past year I have watched a cable t.v. show named “The Universe.”  I really enjoyed it because it dealt with many complex ideas in a manner I could understand.  Always a plus!  There were shows on the stars, the galaxies, how the universe came into being (big bang theory), how the universe might end, etc.   These shows were thought-provoking to say the least.  And there we have it, thought-provoking.  So I did a lot of it, thinking that is.  I even bought a couple of books on quantum physics and the universe.

I have talked over some of my own theories with a guy who I consider to be extremely intelligent and seems to be versed somewhat in this area.  I truly suck in math.  I got through trigonometry and advanced algebra, but when I tried to calculus, I crashed and burned, horribly.  I bring that up because physics is heavily reliant upon math to prove its models.  From that the obvious question arises, how I can propose anything or take to task any widely held “truths” about physics if I don’t have the means to do so?  I use logic.

I have long believed that the idea that light was not the fastest thing in the universe and that you can go faster than the speed of light.  No, this was not to satisfy latent “Star Trek” desires because I have none of those.  I simply had a feeling.  Having feelings in science is a really good thing if you can offer proof.  I could not until recently.  That proof came from an Italian physicist who believes he has measured neutrinos going slightly faster than the speed of light.  Now, if he is proven correct then Einstein’s general and special theories of relatively take a hit.  Einstein stated categorically that nothing went faster than light.  That’s actually the easier of the ideas I’ve come up with and I fully expect that when other scientists have vetted the Italian physicist’s findings, they will confirm them.

My next offering is that physicists have done science a huge disservice by suggesting that at “the bottom” of a black hole exists a thing called “singularity.”  That simply means that the four accepted forces of nature, the strong force (nuclear), the weak force (gravity), electro-magnetism, and radiation will all suddenly disappear into one force, gravity.  Furthermore, it also suggests that time disappears.  My numerous problems with this come from these physicists stating that gravity, the weak force, will destroy all the other forces combining them into a single force. They also like the idea of a single force because most ascribe to the notion that just prior to the big bang there was only gravity which at the big bang mysteriously divided into the other three forces.  Now, here comes part 2, big bangers also state that within the first few moments of the universe’s existence it expanded almost instantaneously into a universe that was maybe a billion light years wide.  Anyone see the problem with that?  I do!  It would mean that the entire universe had to expand in those moments at a speed many times the speed of light.

All right then!  Scientists generally agree that the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old.  I have no problem with that, they’re probably right.  But, here’s the next problem, the measure the universe as extending some 40 billion light years in any one direction, and up to 100 billion years in all directions.  Really?  Well, let’s go back to the speed of light, that barrier that nothing can exceed, and explain how anything can be more than 13.7 billion light years away.  You have to remember that a light year is the distance light will travel in one year.

Next we have the composition of light.  No one knows although scientists like to say light is a “wave” or a “photon”, one or the other.  Most scientists like to suggest that light has no mass but they really don’t know.  Well, let’s go back to our black hole.  These same scientists describe a black hole as something that not even light can escape.  Interesting!  I have a problem with that, not that light cannot escape, I think that true, but that light probably doesn’t have mass.  The problem is, the last time I looked gravity only affects things with mass.

There is even a further problem with our black hole.  If this singularity exists that means that when stuff hits the “event horizon” of a black hole, all the laws of physics are suspended and some new set of laws take over.  Why is that?  Einstein’s general law of relativity, defined by E=MC squared cannot be true.  Within that law is the law of conservation of energy.  That is, enery can be neither created nor destroyed.  It simply changes form.  From this all matter and energy exists.  But, and this is one huge but, the singularity of a black hole destroys energy/mass.

I have a general belief, man’s greatest shortcoming is his never ending devising of stories to fit the as yet unexplained.  For example, the Greeks created their gods of the heavens to give explanation to the rising of the sun, movement of the moon, what stars were.  They did it for pretty much everything else too.  We have journeyed past a geo-centric universe to a much better explained one now.  But, I have serious problems when scientists devise mathematical formulas to explain things.  For example, they state that 4+3=7 and that is the only explanation of 7 because they know exactly what 4 and 3 are.  They are not quite sure of 5 and 2 and still haven’t discovered 6 and 1.  They are using 4+3 to explain everything past the event horizon of black hole, and many other as yet unexplaned phenomena.  I take issue with that.  I would much rather hear them say, “we really don’t know and we can only guess at the answer.”

It is a beautifully clear windy day today in Cambridge.  It’s going to make the Patriots game interesting as the ball may make some unexpected moves.

My wife and I were returning home from a trip to Barnes and Noble.  As we reached the top of the hill on route 2 you can clearly see Boston.  There, in the direction of the old Boston Edison smoke stacks, was a large wind turbine that I had  not noticed before.  I remarked to my wife how such things are going to be an integral part of our future.

New England is hard pressed for renewable energy sources outside of the wind.  Our rivers are not conducive to building hydro-electric dams on them and we have zero capability for any geo-thermal generation.

In the 1930s the U.S. did a great job of harnessing our rivers for the production of electricity.  I’m certain we still have the ability to expand in that category.  But we also have the ability to expand in the geo-thermal category to a far greater extent that we do now.   In the states of Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, and Wyoming there are huge pools of untapped geo-thermal energy.  Creating energy from such a source requires the existence of magma close to the surface of the earth and a large water source.  Only in Hawaii is the water source most problematic.  Conversely, Wyoming may have the greatest potential of any state.  Yellowstone National Park is the site of the largest caldera in the world.  Some scientists refer to it as a super volcano.

The challenge in Wyoming comes down to two basic things, its remoteness and the building of a generating plant in a protected wilderness along with the necessary transmission lines.  Each of these can be overcome with a combination of inventiveness and the public’s willingness to accept that we need such solutions now.

The best example of the use  of geo-thermal energy is in Iceland.  Iceland is a natural with its many volcanoes and large glaciers.  But it must be remembered that initially Iceland had to make a large commitment to  building such facilities.  Today, 100% of Iceland’s electricity is generated by geothermal sources.  The next three largest, in order, are the Philippines, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Mexico.

It is time the government and people of the U.S. accept the fact that using oil, gas, and coal for the generation of electricity needs to be on the decline.  From a purely pragmatic point of view, it only makes sense that our future demands for electricity come from water, wind, heat, and solar radiation.  All are things that require no transportation and very little, if any, transformation into usable sources.

I am listing 25 movies I believe everyone should see.  I am not saying they are the best movies of all time but that I believe them to be very entertaining for various reasons.  I will list the movies in no particular order, just as I think of them.

1.  It Happened One Night — Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable star in this 1934 movie that was quite remarkable in its day.  Clark Gable appeared in his t-shirt, unheard of back then.  It’s a marvelous movie about a relationship that starts on a bus trip.

2.  The 39 Steps — This 1935 movie is an early Alfred Hitchcock movie set in England.  In some ways it gives a prelude to England’s involvement in WWII as it deals with spies and double-dealing.  There is one scene in which a gyrocopter appears.  This was the predecessor to the helicopter but in this movie it is an unedited chance occurence that has nothing to do with the movie at all.

3. Gone With The Wind — This 1939 movie was an instant classic.  This is one of the earliest full length color movies.  Margaret Mitchell’s story of the south in the Civil War was the standard that movies afterward were judged.

4.  Citizen Kane — This 1941 movie is still considered a giant.  It is film noir at its best.  Orson Welles directed and starred in this classic that is based on the life of William Randolph Hearst.

5.  The Best Years of Our Lives — This 1946 movies shows the lives of soldiers returning from war.  It is an unapologetic portrayal of how the wounds of war, seen and unseen, plagued the returning veterans.

6.  Dr. Zhivago — This is the 1965 screen version of Boris Pasternak’s novel of two people’s lives at the time of the Russian revolution.  Some of the most beautiful cinematography ever brought to the screen.  But Julie Christie and Omar Shariff excel, maybe the only time in their careers.

7.  The Great Escape — This 1963 film is based on the actual attempts of men in a German prison camp to escape.  Steve McQueen is part of a stellar cast in possibly his finest moment.

8.  On Golden Pond — This 1981 brought together Jane and Henry Fonda on the big screen for the first time.  In its making it helped mend their real life relationship.  The scene in which Henry goads Jane into doing a diving trick is something that was a reality in her relationship with her father.  It is also the first time Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn had ever met, let alone acted together.  It is said that upon their first meeting Katherine quipped, “Well, it’s about time.”  The hat that Henry wears as he arrives at their summer place originally belonged to Spencer Tracy, Katherine’s long time love interest.

9.  E.T. – The Extraterrestrial — A great “boy and his dog” story.  Drew Barrymore makes her debut.

10.  Star Wars – A small budget movie that changed everything in movies from then on.  Special effects took on a whole new meaning.

11.  She Done Him Wrong — This 1933 movie starred Mae West.  The movie is remarkable for two things.  First, Mae West had a running battle with the “decency board” that some cities had.  She was the master of the double entendre which flew right over the heads of 1933 audiences.  Evidence of this is her saying “is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me.”  Cary Grant, who costars in this movie, came to prominence from this role.

12.  The Bank Dick — This 1940 movie shows W. C. Fields at his best.  It’s hard to chose from his films for one over another.  Fields shows many of his vaudeville and juggling routines in this movie.

13.  Duck Soup — This 1933 flick stars the Marx Brothers in one of their many movies.  There is an irony to this movie as it tells the tale of an unscrupulous land dealer, Groucho playing Rufus T. Firefly, in Florida.  You also get to see Chico Marx show his piano skills.  One dialogue between Groucho and Chico stands out.  The dialogue is classic.  Note that Margaret Dumont, Groucho’s foil in this and many of the Marx Brothers movie, was a real life New York City socialite as she always portrays in Marx Brothers movies.

14.  To Kill a Mockingbird —  In this 1962 movie, Gregory Peck gives possibly his finest performance as Harper Lee’s Atticus Finch.  I doubt this movie will ever be remade, it was done so well the first time.?

15.  The Wizard of Oz — 1939 movie is a classic, what more is there to say?

16.  12 Angry Men — 1957 movie about a hung jury, where a single man holds out for the innocence of the accused.  A veritable cast of who’s who argue over guilt and innocence.

17.  The Caine Mutiny — On the heels of number 16 this movie is the court-martial of a naval officer, Captain Queeg, played by Humphry Bogart.  Queeg is a very unpopular ship’s captain who sees his men mutiny over their perception of his leadership.  The men maintain he was mentally unstable.  Throughout the movie Bogart plays with three steel balls in his hands lending to the perception of his mental capacity.

18.  Libeled Lady — This 1936 movies stars Spencer Tracy, Jean Harlow, William Powell, and Myrna Loy.  A newspaper man, his jilted fiancée, and his lawyer hatch an elaborate scheme to turn a false news-story into the truth, before a high-society woman can sue for libel.

19.  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington — This 1939 movie stars Jimmy Stewart as a political unknown who runs for office against the establishment and wins.  In Washington he starts a filibuster to get people to listen to his uncovering political corruption.

20.  Harvey — This 1949 movie stars Jimmy Stewart as a seeming eccentric man who has an invisible rabbit as a friend who advises him in life.  It’s a good movie that challenges one man’s beliefs against those of society at large.

21.  Patton — George C. Scott starred in this 1970 biographical movie of Gen. George S. Patton.  Scott won an academy award for his portrayal of Patton but in a first, and maybe last, declined the Oscar.  This may be the best war movie ever made.

22.  The Godfather — This 1972 movie is a classic that needs no explanation.

23.   Blazing Saddles — Mel Brooks 1974 comedy is, in my opinion, one of the funniest and most groundbreaking movies ever.  Brooks’ genius shows in this spoof of western movies mixed with racial prejudices.

24.  Monty Python and the Holy Grail — Some of the funniest dialogues ever written are in this 1974 vehicle.

25.  Fantasia — Disney’s 1940 full length animated movie starring Mickey Mouse may be this finest of this genre ever made.  The movie is a wonder mixture of animation and classical music.

Well, there they are.  I’m sure I  could think of another 25 but these are the ones that came to mind first.

I have decided to use this space as a sort of diary.  I am going to attempt to make a daily entry on one subject or another.  I have no desire to have one posting be a natural follow-on to the previous.  Mostly I expect I’ll be giving my feelings about something that is happening or that has happened.

At age 62 I can report that I’ve seen a lot of changes in my life, some good, some not so good, at least in my opinion.  I want to make this first posting to be of my observations of the 1950s when I was still quite young.

I was born in 1949 and my first memory is of my mother asking me to pray that her next child would be a girl.  As a young person I thought of my mother as being quite religious, Roman Catholic to be exact.  My father was a non-practicing Unitarian.  I think he later considered himself a member of the Church of Christian Science although I am not certain that is true.  To be certain, he was quite accepting of people as they were, a very Unitarian belief.  The difference in faith made my parents a bit of an odd couple in those days.  The Catholic Church did not have much room for interfaith marriages.  That being so, my parents had to get married in the rectory of St. Michael’s Church in North Andover, 1946.  I was the first-born and my brother followed close behind.  Two boys were almost more than she could stand so I suspect that is why she prayed for a daughter.  She got her wish.

My next memory is of 1954 when in the span of two weeks the Boston area was hit by two hurricanes, first Carol and then Edna.  They were devastating.  We lost power for weeks on end it seemed.  Fortunately, our house had “hurricane lamps,” kerosene lamps, which served us well.

I remember seeing telephone poles along Andover Street, from the corner of Osgood Street, knocked over for as far as I could see.  It was if a giant had come along and knocked each on its side, the cross arm holding the pole at an angle to the ground.

During the summer of 1959 our family took a trip to Bar Harbor Maine.  In 1959 the Interstate High System was far smaller than it is today.  It was a mere three years old at the time.  There was a link, I-95 that extended from Boston to Kittery Maine in 1959.  From there you took the Maine Turnpike.  That turnpike was built in 1947.  From Portland we had to take US Route 1 the rest of the way to Portland.  Then, as now, route 1 wound its way along the Maine seacoast.  Route 1 was like all other US highways.  It was the best way to get from one city’s center to the next.  The big difference of such highways from lesser roads is that they had been engineers to somewhat limit access, maybe only a quarter of the limited access of today’s Interstate system, but still, an engineering feat in its day.  Those engineers had never considering engineering a highway to bypass any city.  Only a few of those highways have totally disappeared from our landscape so it doesn’t take much to imagine things as they were before the Interstates, you need only remove the Interstate from your view.

The 1950s was a decade of great transformation. The television entered most homes.  The nuclear age and jet age also entered our lives.  It was not uncommon to hear a sonic boom as a military jet flew overhead a speeds exceeding the speed of sound.  An FAA law later eliminated such possibilities.  I don’t remember anyone minding the sonic boom but I guess some must have been annoyed or thought it warranting change.

But as people marveled and delighted at the grandness of the jet age, they feared the expanding nuclear age.  After the Russians exploded their first nuclear device, the US and Russia engaged in an ever escalating series of above ground nuclear tests, each side exploding a slightly larger nuclear device that the other had previously exploded.  With that happening, the US quickly engaged in dealing with what was called “civil defense.”  Nuclear bomb shelters were built, sirens erected, and planning how to survive a nuclear attack.  We school children were taught to “duck and cover” as a way to survive a nuclear attack.  If you were at school you were supposed to “duck” under your school desk and “cover” your head with your hands and arms, as if that would save you.  We were, of course, all so naive that we believed such drivel.  But I don’t think any of us children took it all very seriously.

Other things, far less earth-shaking, were also happening.  MacDonald’s opened their first restaurants around the US.  We all flocked to them.  You couldn’t buy much more than a hamburger, fries and a coke.  But since no one had ever experienced fast food prior to that, the novelty is what we were enjoying.  Shopping still largely existed on Main Street.  Shopping malls were few and very far inbetween.  Most cities were not in the business of public transit.  Most people had never flown on an airplane.  The biggest decision anyone had to make with regard to television was which of the 3 or 4 local stations to watch, there were no others.

Television too was a novelty.  We kids watch cartoons that had originally been meant to be played prior to movies.  We were captive to the Mickey Mouse Club, American Bandstand, and Pinky Lee.  Adult television was I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, and others.  Families actually watch tv together, mostly Ed Sullivan, but other variety shows as well.  Everyone watched Walter Cronkite religiously.  There really wasn’t anything else.  We believed him, who wouldn’t?

World War 2 had forced the American government to re-identify itself as not only a world power but as the world power.  This was a position formerly held by England.  The American public, however, had not yet reached that point so our “world view” did not extend my beyond the borders of the state in which we lived.

What I like about those days, as I look back upon them, is how much slower they were, less noisy, less demanding.  Our innocence was being ripped from us but few seemed to notice.

I am certainly not wishing the “old days” would return, that is a fool’s fantasy.  I look at the contrasting parts, then and now, and wonder if it had to become as it is.  I think today’s world has a way of making the beautiful ugly.  People seem far less willing to take responsible for their actions, ever shifting blame, or even assigning blame.  Our government, and others, have allowed corporate interests to make decisions they should have no part of.

I love how science is uncovering the wonders of the universe, the secrets of life.  But I despise how people are allowing corporate interests to rule our lives, to make laws, to dictate how we will live our lives.

We have become slaves to comfort.  We have lost our way.