Month: January 2024

Parents: Please rethink those school-year vacations

Leave a comment
Vacations are fun, but if you’re planning to take your kids out of school for one, you might want to reconsider.

A story on the news the other day had me reaching for heavy objects to throw at the TV. The reporter was interviewing two sets of parents, both of whom thought it was just peachy to remove their kids from school to take family vacations.

I wanted to scream!

Now, before I express my concerns, please note that I understand taking a few days off in the event of a death or family illness, but the idea of dragging the kids to Disney World or Six Flags for some family fun—which is what the parents were suggesting—when the kids should be in school is just plain dumb.

Both mothers explained that since prices at the theme parks drop after summer, taking their offspring out of school should be perfectly fine. One even suggested that keeping children on a school schedule is too difficult, one that leads to their little darlings becoming bored. “Kids just going to school and home and back and forth gets really repetitive.”

So you know where my allegiance lies and in the interest of full disclosure note that I spent 20 years running a classroom. And I sometimes faced students who casually informed  me that they would be gone for a week or two because of a party or wedding. I knew what the extended absence meant for them and me. Said child would fall behind and it would be my job to catch them up.

If the student in question was on top of their studies and they agreed to take work with them on vacation, often the damage would be negligible. But, more often than not, the student would already be behind, mostly because of already missing too many school days, which is the natural outcome when school isn’t considered a priority. When adults make education secondary to vacations, children get the point loud and clear.

When you take your child out of school for a family vacation, it’s the teacher who has to get them caught up on the work they missed.

Here’s where I hear folks saying, “Parents know what’s best for their kids!” But I can’t help but opine that it’s the parents who are bored and are projecting their feelings onto their children.

School is a time to grow and discover what we’re good at, which hopefully leads to a career we enjoy. The daily schedule also prepares young people for life in the business world. Or at least it should. I recall my daughter with a sour look on her face when she discovered that when one has a fulltime job there are generally no summer vacations. Or fall, winter, and spring breaks.

“That’s not fair,” she said with a pout.

Sigh…

The thing is…children see what adults do and copy their behavior. If the parents instill the idea that school is of secondary importance to a fun vacation or family party, the kids will grow up with that attitude.

So, parents, please give that family fling at Disneyland a second thought if it’s during the school year. If not for your child for their teacher. Because, as I mentioned, it’s those of us who helm a classroom who have to scramble to pick up the pieces of your child’s education when you trot them off to ride roller coasters instead of being in school.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon

The mystery plant

4 Comments
Somehow, this mystery plant survived the recent hellish temeperatures here in the desert. If you know what it is, let me know.

Calling all gardeners! I need your help!

But first, an explanation. Some of you may know that those of us who reside in the Sonoran Desert recently survived a miserable summer and fall where temperatures soared and rain was non-existent. The thermometer bubbled up to at least 110 degrees 54 days, at one point topping out at 119. We went five straight months without a drop of rain.

I’ve resided in Phoenix, Arizona over 30 years and have never lived through such a dismal time. People only went outside when absolutely necessary. One could get third-degree burns from a seatbelt. Birds and even insects vanished. Our hearty desert plants that are practically indestructible were dying all over. Trees turned brown and dropped their leaves, leaving skeletal branches against unrelenting, cloudless skies. Even our signature giant—the saguaro cactus—toppled over, dead from the heat.

My son Troy helps in the garden, but there was no way to keep our plants alive in the blistering heat.

I planted my spring garden before the worst hit. Vegetable gardening in the desert is always a tricky task, but I’ve been doing it a long time and understand the pitfalls, still I wasn’t ready for the unrelenting heat. No matter how much I watered, everything eventually withered and died. I kept going out to assess the damage, but all I did was get depressed. I’d show you pictures, but then I’d have to put up that warning: “Some viewers might find these images disturbing.”

We have two planting seasons here in the desert, the second comes the first week of October, but as I’d planned to travel for five weeks around that time, and it was still inordinately hot, I abandoned my plans, figuring there was no way my 26-year-old son Troy would water the little plants enough to keep them alive.

When I returned from my travels, the temperature had dropped enough for me to consider at least popping some greens in the dirt, so I asked Troy to pull a big turquoise planter from the garden up onto the patio. And there it was. A plant I didn’t recognize. The container had been sown with a packet of sunflower seeds, but, along with everything else in the garden, it had been abandoned, so the seedlings never appeared.

When I’m lucky, my garden is bountiful, but with last summer’s heat, everything died.

Still, somehow, this green plant—clearly no sunflower—had survived. I have no idea what it is, but as I stood over the pot ready to rip it out and plant some spinach and red-leaf lettuce, I paused. Tiny white flowers winked at me. When I considered tossing it in the compost heap, I realized that the tough little bugger deserved better, like maybe a Viking funeral.

I left the mystery plant in the pot, saving the lettuce for another time. And now, it’s taking over, thriving without any help from me.

As I will be traveling again soon, the garden remains deserted. But this strange plant seems happy. If anyone knows what it is, let me know. But even if it’s just an everyday weed, I think it deserves a chance, considering all it’s managed to overcome. Don’t you?

Find Anne Montgomery’s novels wherever you buy books.

Goodreads

Amazon

AI Editor: Part deux

2 Comments
I named my AI editor Hal Jr. and I think he did a pretty good job.

A while back, I wrote about an experiment I agree to. My publisher asked if I’d like to try a new kind of editor. I have a book coming out in June—a historical fiction, World War II novel inspired by a true story called Your Forgotten Sons—and the idea was that I would work with an editor of the “artificial intelligence” variety.

I thought about that for a while, and when my publisher said I could switch to a human editor if I was unhappy with the results, in the interest of not being called old and technology averse, I agreed.

I recently sent the completed manuscript back, so here’s what I’ve learned about working with an AI editor, who I dubbed Hal Jr. First, since we authors have long been working remotely with our editors, the process didn’t feel all that strange. I received my document full of those red lines leading to comments I needed to consider. My job was to accept Hal Jr.’s fixes or not.

Almost universally, I said yes. He did a great job finding all those grammatical boo-boos I’ve made most of my life. You’d think that after writing nine books and having five published, not to mention my years working as a print reporter, that I would have figured out to spell compound words by now. But, no! Hal Jr. gently pointed out that corkscrew and curveball were single words, terms that have meant a great deal in my life and which one might think I would have no trouble spelling.

Then there were the homophones, which for those who don’t recall elementary school English are words that are pronounced alike but that differ in spelling and meaning. I have a serious issue with those, and Hal Jr. had his red pen out to illustrate my deficiencies: alter and altar, aisle and isle, and, rather embarrassingly, your and you’re.

I am also grateful that Hal Jr. sometimes identified words I misused, ones that were similar to what I wanted, but clearly wrong: resemble and reassemble, barley and barely, shuddered and shuttered, cheeks and checks.

And Hal Jr. did a damn good job at picking up those missing quotation marks and other errant punctuation, especially all those outdated commas. As a girl who grew up in a home where we debated comma use at the dinner table, I can tell you that the wee squiggle is no longer used as much as it once was. It’s all about clarity and flow, so I let Hal Jr. lead the way in the comma department.  

My AI editor and I then ran into one big argument. He kept correcting things that I thought were right. Turns out there was an issue with which English we were using. Hal Jr., it appears, is British and I’m American. Who knew there were so many disparate spellings between us: pummeled or pummelled, apologize or aplologise, humor or humour, ad nauseum. He and I agreed to disagree, and the American versions won out.

All in all, I think Hal Jr. did a great job, so much so that I wish he and I could maybe have a beer to celebrate the completion of the manuscript. I’m not sure if AIs drink beer, but if I had to guess, I’d say Hal Jr. would drink his warm, yet another difference between we Americans and Brits.

The manuscript is now out of my hands, so I hope it’s perfect, but I know that’s probably impossible. But should you find any errors please feel free to blame Hal Jr.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon

You know what teachers want? The gift of time

2 Comments
Yes, teachers need bigger paychecks, but they also need time.

I spent 20 years helming a high school classroom, so when I saw the headline asking, “How to keep Arizona teachers?” I thought I might help out.

While there are certainly obvious answers—like paying teachers reasonable salaries for the important, difficult, and time-consuming job they do—there’s one other thing I’d like to suggest. Can we do something about the endless meetings? Looking back, I feel like I spent almost as much time in the classroom as I did in meetings.  Now I don’t generally have a problem with group presentations, it’s just that often I couldn’t see the direct connection said speaker had to improving my teaching skills. I always found myself wondering about all the things I could be getting done—grading papers, planning lessons, meeting with kids and parents—if I’d had more time, so sitting in meetings got rather annoying, as you can expect.

One particular gathering stands out. My fellow teachers and I were asked to report to the cafeteria, where we were to sit with our department members at tables that sported cards: English, History, Math, Science, Languages, Music, Phys Ed, etc. I passed groups of teachers huddled around their tables chatting amiably as I looked for my own subject: Journalism. As I was the only person in my department, I felt like the kid no one wanted to eat lunch with.

It turned out that this meeting was about, um…holding meetings.

“It’s important that you run meetings properly,” said the tiny, high-voiced woman at the podium. “Everyone must feel engaged and heard. So, we will discuss best practices in regard to holding a meeting.”

I squinted at the empty chairs around my table and did my best to play along, but without meeting members to practice on, it was tough, if not laughable.

Teachers clearly need more time to do their jobs, so let’s eliminate unnecessary meetings.

I sat there for an hour, watching the little woman move from group to group giving suggestions. Finally she arrived at my lonely little corner.

“I’m the only one in my department,” I blurted out already frustrated with the whole affair.

“I see,” she smiled sweetly as if talking to a second-grader. “But it’s important that you learn how to be an effective leader.”

I blinked. “I’m pretty good at telling myself what to do,” I said trying to hold down the sarcasm. “I can make me do anything.”

She frowned, perhaps considering the absurdity of me holding a meeting with myself.

“Can’t I just go back to my classroom and get some work done?”

She shook her head. “No, you have to stay here like everyone else.” Again that elementary- school teacher vibe struck me. I considered grabbing my little paper Journalism sign and stomping off, but I did not. I decided instead to practice something I’m not very good at. Patience. Note that I’d gladly attend a meeting to improve my chops in that slippery area.

That said, to those of you who are concerned about the current lack of teachers—it’s estimated that roughly 200,000 classrooms nationwide are without certified instructors—perhaps you could think hard before scheduling mass meetings, so they have more time to do their jobs.

Just a thought.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon