Leave a comment Posted on Christmas Songs, mel tormé, teaching

It’s Christmas Time so Let’s Remember Mel Tormé

For years now on most Fridays I begin class not with a grammar or writing exercise but with a music lesson as a way to broaden my students’ musical knowledge by playing for them some of the great singers and composers of the 20th century, artists I know they don’t have on their iPods.   Why waste their time playing the latest Taylor Swift song from “1989” when I can introduce them to an entertainer born in 1899?

Around this time of year I usually do my Mel Tormé lesson.   When I ask my students if they have heard of him or know “The Christmas Song,” not an arm goes up.   However, when I play Nat King Cole singing the opening words “chestnuts roasting on an open fire,” smiles and nods appear.

What especially gets my students’ attention is when I inform them that Tormé was their age when he wrote his first hit song. Then I tell them the story of how he visited his then songwriting collaborator Bob Wells at his house in Toluca Lake on a 100-degree day in 1945.

As a way of escaping the stifling heat (the house had no air conditioning), Wells decided to cool himself off by writing a poem about Christmas. Those 25 words ended up becoming the beginning lines to “The Christmas Song,” completed after just 45 minutes.

That composition has remained a part of the holiday soundtrack after 69 years and counting.

Following my own advice to my students about contacting famous people who they admire, I reached out to Daisy Tormé, one of Mel’s five children, and an actor and a singer in her own right, who frequently hosts KCET’s special programming.   I wanted to find out how special her family Christmases were considering her father had a great deal to do with making the season bright.

It is something that the public easily forgets when it comes to celebrities, that after their work is done, they go back to being husbands and wives, fathers and mothers.   And to Daisy, Mel was a daddy first, “the best dad.”

She has cherished memories of Christmas with her father who would purposely not schedule any work during the holidays in order to spend time with his family.   She describes “The Christmas Song” as “an American Song, magical for all of us.”

Wall Street Journal’s drama critic Terry Teachout describes “The Christmas Song” as “one of the most harmonically complex songs ever to become a hit.” Still, if it weren’t for Christmas songs heard on the radio and in the stores this time of year, how many people under the age of 50 would know who Mel Tormé or Bing Crosby were? It is a shame how quickly artists who were once extremely popular over the course of decades can be quickly forgotten.

To further illustrate this, Daisy related a story about her father who was at the storied Farmer’s Market when carolers strolled by singing “The Christmas Song” which they knew he had written though ignorant that he was a renaissance man in the industry: songwriter, singer, actor, musician.

After joining the singers in finishing the song, one of them told him that he “wasn’t that bad of a singer.” When Tormé said that he had recorded a few records in his time, the young man asked, “how many?” “Ninety.”

One of the main reasons why the song resonates so deeply is the line “and so I’m offering this simple phrase to kids from one to ninety-two,” an unusual use of first person point of view where the songwriter directly addresses the listener.

Daisy wistfully reveals that “every time I hear the song, I get emotional because it is like getting a hug from my father.”

And while Tormé never did make it to “ninety-two” having passed away in 1999 at age 73, his song has been around for almost as long as he was—and will certainly go on as long as people wish to hear beautiful music at Christmas time.   To quote Messrs. Tormé and Wells, “Merry Christmas to you.”

Leave a comment Posted on Common Core, influential teacher, Public Education, teacher competence, teacher salary, teaching

Good Teachers Still Deserve Six Figure Salaries

Back in 1998 when I was embarking on my 10th year as a teacher, I had an op-ed piece published in the Los Angeles Times about paying good teachers six figure salaries.

In the 16 years since then, little has changed.

The argument for more money is based on respect, not greed. In society, how much a person earns is directly related to how that person is perceived.   Teachers have little leverage in their profession and that is due to their pay. Higher teacher salaries would translate into increased clout.

As President Obama referenced in his 2011 State of the Union address, in South Korea teachers are known as “nation builders.”   A significant reason they have this perception is that their salaries are equivalent to other professions in that country; not so in America.

Here a teacher’s salary is not only less than comparative careers, but is ranked third out of four pay divisions at a school: administrator, counselor, teacher, clerk in high to low order.

In Glendale Unified School District, the fourth largest district in Los Angeles County,, the starting salary of a teacher is $46,868, of a counselor is $49,391, and an administrator is $63,622, while the highest salary for each category is $90,802, $106,862, and $142,337, respectively.

The salary of a first-year administrator is equivalent to that of a 12-year veteran classroom teacher.   Twelve years is about one-third of a person’s working life. No wonder many administrators exit teaching after a short stint in the classroom.

Over the course of their careers, a teacher can’t quite double her salary, a counselor can double her salary plus $8,000, and an administrator can more than double her salary plus $15,000.

At the bottom of the pay scale, the salary of two administrators doesn’t quite equal the salary of three teachers.   However, at the top of the pay scale, two administrators’ salaries surpass that of three teachers.   In other words, with more experience, the separation between administrators and teachers lengthens, implying that the value of an experienced administrator is worth more than the value of an experienced teacher.

It is interesting to note that the turnover rate among administrators is higher than that of teachers even though they are paid more.

And, don’t forget, counselors and administrators have secretaries to assist them. Not teachers.

The main argument opposed to higher pay for teachers is that there is no money for it.

Yet, there is money for so many other things whose impact on student learning is questionable including extensive diagnostic testing. One cannot minimize the impact that a qualified teacher has on a young person’s life.

And the competency of that instructor rests on a wing and a prayer.

Without financial incentives, principals can’t motivate their teachers to work harder because they can’t offer a bonus or a promotion.   Principals can’t threaten teachers if they don’t perform at a certain level of competence since teacher tenure locks in instructors for life.

Paying teachers solely based on experience and education breeds a lack of quality control.   With no reward for more effective work, the only variable separating a good teacher from a poor one is that teacher’s personal work ethic, a trait not taught in credential courses or staff development, meaning that too much of quality teaching hinges on pure luck.

I am not proposing that the salaries of my colleagues in the counseling and administration departments decrease.   However, as long as teachers rank third out of four pay classifications, the power they wield will remain minimal, and the prestige of the teaching profession will continue to languish.

No matter how often people articulate the importance of teachers, the proof is in the pay scale.

Nation builders?   Not in America.

Leave a comment Posted on Chicago, Common Core, Public Education, teaching

Without parent involvement, NYC Mayor de Blasio’s $150 community school plan is bound to fail

Lost in the middle of the midterm election coverage this week was a major press conference on Monday by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announcing a $150 million infusion into the Big Apple’s 94 worst performing schools, creating community schools.

What is a community school?   Officially named “The School Renewal Program,”

the Mayor calls it his “whole child, whole school, whole community” concept. By “whole child” he means that schools will not just meet students’ academic needs but “all of their needs.”

In addition to providing children with books, desks, and supplies, they will also be given free food, including a pantry, free medical care for both physical and mental needs, weekly check-ups by dentists including cleanings, and free eyeglasses. One school already has a washer and dryer for families to use.

Frankly, it is surprising the bill for this “whole” thing is only $150 million.

This is a significant proposal.   Not in terms of money, but in terms of influence.

If the nation’s largest public school system is headed in this direction, how many more districts will follow suit?

The only thing that these schools will not be doing is clothe and house the students.   Hey, why not just build dormitories on school campuses?   Having students live directly on school property would cut down the tardies. Sure, the living quarters may take away playground space, but kids these days have little time to be kids; they need to be inside, on computers, learning the Common Core standards.

A cradle to career approach is a disturbing trend where the government takes care of children from the time that they are born through their entire K-16 schooling and beyond. Schools will evolve into social service hubs, their original role as learning centers receding.

The view that schools should do more than just teach kids is nothing new. As an extension to the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), President Obama signed the Community Eligibility Provision in 2010 allowing school districts to provide free or reduced-fee lunches to all students.   This program feeds 31 million school children each day costing $11.6 billion.   The cost has almost doubled since 2000 when it was at $6.1 billion.

This year Chicago Public Schools, the third largest in the nation, is expected to serve 72 million breakfast and lunch meals.

Statewide, 58% of school children participate in NSLP, 66.2% in Los Angeles County.

Public schools rarely seem to have sufficient funds as it is.   If monies that should go into higher teacher salaries, improved school facilities, and up to date computer technology get diverted into paying doctors, dentists, washers, and dryers, the future of America’s public schools may be bleaker than it already is.

Politicians excel at concocting education initiatives for failing schools without addressing the root of the problem:   at-home parenting.

Mayor de Blasio plans on holding the principals and teachers accountable, but no where in his speech did he speak of the accountability of the parents.   You know, parents who are supposed to rear their children, feed and house them, and, yes, push them to do well in school.

Parent involvement is not just attending PTA meetings; it is talking to their children, checking their homework, partnering with the teacher.

Without parent involvement, no amount of money or ideas to fix struggling schools will ever work.

The old saying about give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime needs to apply here.

Leave a comment Posted on Public Education, students, writing

Writing any Book is an Accomplishment

Last week I was invited to participate in the Local Authors’ Showcase held at the Buena Vista Library in Burbank.

For me, the event gave me an opportunity to talk shop with fellow writers, and to meet interesting people such as the executor of famed film director and screenwriter Richard Brooks who made films such as “Elmer Gantry,” “In Cold Blood,” “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” and “The Blackboard Jungle” (whose title I adapted for the title of my column).

Another encounter involved a former long-time substitute teacher who gave me an earful about how awful teaching kids are nowadays.   I stood there with a non-committal expression, politely letting her finish her rant, hoping that by not engaging in a debate with her I would encourage a sale. No such luck.

This wasn’t surprising when you think about it. Holding a “books for sale” event at a library is a hard sell (pun intended) since the people circulating from table to table are those who visit a library expressly because it is a public space with free wi-fi, books, and DVDs.

That’s why it made perfect sense when one elderly looky-loo told a fellow writer that she hasn’t bought a book in several years.

Having plenty of time sitting there watching people pick up my books and put them back down allowed me to ponder the plight of a writer.

While the vast majority of authors present were self-published (I was one of the few there who wasn’t), even the worst book took a certain level of dedication to complete.

If the ultimate goal of writing is to make a pot of gold, then most writers are failures.

Just as with other art forms, only the upper echelon of writers make the real money. That explains why publishers like Scribner pour millions into publicizing established moneymakers such as Stephen King, but will not fund the publicity of lesser known writers.   Why take a chance on a no-name when one can sell even more copies of what already works?

Yet success should not be measured by one’s Amazon sales ranking.

One writer with a walker, after receiving no takers at her table, decided to make the rounds of other writers, figuring she may as well make good use of her time by informing them of her memoir based on seven generations of her family.   This woman clearly poured her soul into this book even if no one was buying it.

By documenting her family’s history, she ensured that their lives mattered.

It’s the old philosophical question: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

If a book is published and no one reads it, does it exist?

Emphatically, yes.

This is the lesson I try teaching my students when they write their short memoirs. They get it “published” by having classmates read it. Knowing that there will be an audience, no matter the size, makes a big difference in the effort they put into the work.

So even though vanity presses and self-published books may be the step-children in the publishing world, there is some value to these works.   And that’s why events like a local authors’ showcase serve a purpose; even if it means no books are bought, stories are shared . . . and are worth hearing.

 

 

Leave a comment Posted on fathers, parents, Public Education

Saying goodbye to your child and his childhood is hard to do

Just a few weeks ago Dads Take Your Child to School day occurred in New York City. Another one of those head-scratching official proclamations that makes one wonder: do we really need to remind parents to do parent-like things?

For me, taking my youngest son to school is a pleasure, especially since I rarely do it due to my work schedule; my wife usually drops him off.

Whenever my wife can’t, I get to take my little 5th grader to his elementary school.   Only it is not a drop off.

After we get out of the car, we walk to the school gate, the closest point outside school grounds where parents are allowed to congregate.   Past the gate, parents must remain behind as their children walk on alone.

While most kids carry their backpacks as they walk to school, I willingly carry my son’s; after all, the backpack is much too heavy for his still growing spine.

When I hand off the bundle that would be charged extra if checked onto an airplane, I give him a tight hug, encourage him to do well on that day’s assignments, remind him that “Daddy loves you,” stand away from the small group of guardians in order to be better seen, make eye contact with him through the apertures of the chain link fence, and wave both of my arms as if I’m doing jumping jacks.   Looking ridiculous to others around me is the last thing on my mind.

My son is at an age where a full blown wave might make him look too much like daddy’s little boy to his peers so he settles for a half-wave with his left hand, arm bent at the elbow. He turns towards where his classmates line up, and every 10 seconds repeats his turning back with the half-wave as he maintains his forward march.

This dance of ours continues until he blends in with a sea of other blue/green backpacks 40 yards away.

Not until I am secure that he can no longer see me do I walk away.

What races through my mind is a mosaic of memories from my own childhood and from his, of saying goodbye to parents and children.

How quickly they outgrow the cute sailor suit in the window of the children’s clothing store, the swings on the playground, the annual trip to Legoland.

The next transformation will occur when the little boy skin symbolically falls away replaced with an adolescent armor, impenetrable by hugs and kisses.

With my oldest boy, I’m lucky if I get in a pat on the back goodbye.

What a shame that childhood can’t be twice as long, shielding them from the ugliness of the world that seems to worsen with each tomorrow, from Ebola epidemics to ISIS beheadings, before their enchantment of life evaporates.

Only 145 days remain of the current school year.   Hopefully I get to take my son to school a few more times before his wave turns into a shrug, his glance back is no more when he moves on to middle school. If only every day was a Dads Take Your Child day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a comment Posted on parents, Public Education, students, teaching

Teachers, the ultimate DIYers

Years ago doctors took blood pressure, drew blood, and administered medicine. Today, medical assistants perform these duties.

Years ago teachers took attendance, collected parent forms, and tutored students. Today, teachers still perform these duties.

The teacher remains the sole adult in the classroom working with students even though the job has grown increasingly more challenging over the decades.

Oh sure, there are adult aides in special education classes, and up until a few years ago GUSD used to provide ed assistants in English Language Development classes, but for the vast majority of the country’s three million public school teachers, they go it alone.

Ideally, a new para-educator position should be created, an aide who would assist teachers with the tasks that don’t necessitate five years of college. One para-educator could serve several teachers, so while it would cost additional money to pay them, it wouldn’t be astronomical.

A less expensive and more realistic alternative would be to restructure the clerks already in place at a school, assigning one to be the sole teacher secretary.

Administrators, the smallest employee group on campus, usually have at least two secretaries, the counselors, the next smallest, have one, yet teachers, the largest group of workers with the most student contact, have none.

Here are some things that a clerk could do for teachers that would go a long way towards making the profession more efficient.

Taking attendance, uploading homework and grades. Nowadays parents expect their children’s assignments and grades to be posted online.   Such a task requires hours of work, time outside the teaching day. How helpful it would be to email a secretary this information.

Arranging field trips.   Teachers are required to do all the work involved with organizing field trips, including filling out forms, calling the bus company, collecting money from students to pay for the bus, and beseeching parents to go as chaperones.   With a dedicated teacher secretary, more kids would have enriching experiences beyond the four-walled classroom.

Making photocopies. Up until two years ago, my workplace had a clerk who would make photocopies for teachers. Now, teachers are on their own to take paper to a copy machine, punch in a code, and then remove the paper.   Think of the time wasted for a teacher to do this instead of helping a student in his classroom.

The other day I needed to make 24 copies, an amount that normally would take a few minutes at most.   However, by the time I went downstairs to the copy machine, inputted my code (yes, we have a quota) and loaded my paper, a misfeed occurred.   After removing the crumbled piece of paper, the machine never reset.

Not wanting to leave the machine in that condition, I told a secretary nearest the room about the misfeed.   She told me she wasn’t the correct person to contact and for me to find the clerk in charge of photocopying.

Meanwhile, my 15-minute morning break was now down to 8—and I still hadn’t used the restroom. Sometimes those who don’t work in classrooms forget that those of us who do cannot leave our rooms while students are in them.

Dejected, I returned upstairs without a single copy made. Imagine a school principal or a district administrator using his time in this fashion.

With creative restructuring of the current clerks on hand, even a single employee that serves only teachers would relieve the burden upon educators’ shoulders.   However for this to happen would require a rethinking of the teacher’s placement on the education hierarchy, more of a challenge than assigning a secretary to help teachers.

In the meantime, teachers continue to be the ultimate DIYers in the professional world.

 

Leave a comment Posted on Common Core, Public Education, standardized testing, students, teaching, Uncategorized

Teachers Need to be involved in Decision-Making

In the game of education, there are many players: students, parents, teachers, administrators, district officials, state and federal politicians.   Too often, the group that has the most contact with the students, the teachers, is not part of policy decision-making.

For example, sometime beginning in the late spring, the Glendale Unified School District went ahead with a major endeavor, signing a five-year contract worth $3.4 million with Massachusetts-based Curriculum Associates to use their i-Ready diagnostic testing program, evaluating each kindergartner through 12 grader three times a year.

What was quite startling about all this was how few of the major stakeholders were in the loop, including some administrators.

Glendale Teachers Association President Phyllis Miller said that GTA was not part of any discussions about this program as well.

Just as the Common Core standards seemingly came out of nowhere, so too has i-Ready that no one knows with certainty will benefit students.

The difference between the rollout of Common Core and i-Ready was that GUSD carefully involved teachers in introducing the new standards over a three-year period; the systematic testing came like a “Bam!” a la celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse.   In the past, the district has piloted new programs before committing to them.   Not this time.

Product Marketing Director for Curriculum Associates Susan Arcuri claims that there have been positive results in Glendale.   It’s a mystery how she came to that conclusion considering testing has just begun.

Miller said that many teachers who have used i-Ready say that the test itself is taking much longer than what was expected.

Where I work, the reading test is currently being administered, taking two class periods to complete. If that holds true for the math test, that would translate to a loss of 12 hours of direct instruction in arguably the most important subject classes.

And don’t forget the time it takes school administrators to organize the computer labs and monitor the testing, time better spent elsewhere.

It’s understandable the district wants to do something to help students perform well on the new Common Core based assessments.   The idea of providing teachers with individualized data to help shape future lesson planning sounds ideal.   The problem is that it is not practical.

Any teacher watching an i-Ready presentation espousing its benefits could inform upper management of this.   How are teachers going to find the time needed to analyze the data and then to modify lessons to meet the needs of each student? If a teacher were at the decision-making table, these legitimately difficult questions would have arisen.

One would have to make quite a convincing argument that spreadsheets of colored graphs is preferable to lessons taught by a qualified teacher.

Often overlooked is the analysis already occurring in the classroom on a daily basis facilitated by the expert in that field, the teacher.   Teachers don’t need third party testing results to understand that a student has difficulty understanding a Shakespearean passage.   They discover it through their lessons and assessments.

I have had the privilege of having thousands of students spend time in my classroom. I’d like to make an impact.   But the effect I could have on a child gets further diminished with each hour of standardized testing.

Teachers are very possessive of the time they have with their students so there needs to be a strong reason to justify taking that time away.

Leave a comment Posted on Ferguson, Harper Lee, Michael Brown, Missouri, racism, students, teaching, To Kill a Mockingbird

Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson makes To Kill a Mockingbird Relevant Again

One of the charges of the high school English teacher is to help teenagers see the relevancy of literature to their lives. I’m always on the lookout on how to win over the students to read, in their minds, very old books from long, long ago.

For example, with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird that focuses on racism against African Americans in 1930s Alabama, it can be a challenging task to involve Glendale adolescents who reside in a community with only 1.3% black citizens as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau.   How do you get them to understand that there are people living today who dealt with segregation, blacks and whites with separate drinking fountains, bathrooms, and schools?

That’s why in a strange way, the killing of Michael Brown on Aug. 9 in Ferguson, Missouri, with a 67.4% African American population, can have a salutary effect on making the issue of racism relevant today in the here and now, not just vague stories from a history book.

When I was in grade school, World War Two ended only 20 years earlier, yet it might as well have taken place in the 1920’s for all I fathomed.   Only until I grew older did I realize how close my lifespan was to that major event.

So when I’m teaching Mockingbird and providing the background to the 1960 novel, namely the Civil Rights movement, I’m aware that for the average 15-year-old I might as well be talking about the Civil War.

In the past I’ve exposed students to the 1955 killing of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old from Chicago who while visiting his great-uncle in Money, Mississippi was killed in the middle of the night for reportedly whistling at a white woman, thinking that at least the fact that they have already outlived Till would raise an eyebrow.  

We make connections from real life to the novel.   It took less than an hour for the all-white jury to declare the defendants accused of Till’s murder not guilty, similar to Mockingbird’s all-white jury who took a few hours to reach the guilty verdict of rape against innocent Tom Robinson. In both cases, justice was not served.

We’ve listened to Bruce Springsteen’s “American Skin (41 Shots)” inspired by the 1999 death of Amadou Diallo who was shot 19 times by NYPD officers for reaching for his wallet (the police shot 41 bullets but over 20 missed). Likewise in Mockingbird, Robinson is shot 17 times when he tries to escape from jail.

The 2012 death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida made the book relevant again.   Even though the vast majority of my students are not African-American, here was a kid about their age with a bag of Skittles.

When I asked students to research what was happening in Ferguson, suggesting various newspaper and television websites, several came back excitedly reporting eyewitness videos they viewed on YouTube. One, in particular, showed a protester being carted off like a pig on a spit eerily reminiscent of black and white footage from the 1960s, another connection.

As we study Mockingbird this year, it may not be possible to know for sure how many students will connect with the 54-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner as a result of Ms. Lee’s brilliant prose or Michael Brown’s tragic death.  

All that is known is that what happened in Ferguson should never have happened in 2014, and hope that it leaves a lasting impression on today’s young people who will inherit this society from us very soon.

 

Leave a comment Posted on Common Core, influential teacher, parents, Public Education, students, teaching

What’s Better for Students: Dynamic Teachers or Diagnostic Testing?

This summer has not been kind to California educators with increased deductions from their paychecks to pay for the pension fund, and tenure and job protection ruled illegal by a Superior Court judge.

So it was refreshing to hear good things said about teachers at last week’s district kickoff meeting from keynote speaker Rebecca Mieliwocki, the 2012 National Teacher of the Year who still teaches 7th grade English teacher at Luther Burbank Middle School.

Ms. Mieliwocki spoke about her experiences traveling around the world as the U.S. teacher ambassador. Since so much attention in recent years has centered on how students from other nations score higher on tests than American children, she wanted to find what magic was being performed in other countries’ classrooms.

Ironically, Ms. Mieliwocki discovered that it was the American teachers who “were the envy of every teacher I met.”   The foreign instructors queried her about the methods of her homeland colleagues.

She went on to tell stories about the importance of teachers accepting students for who they are.  

One young girl in her class always wore the same cowboy boots with flowers on them every day to school.   Some students wondered why she didn’t have another pair of shoes to wear.   It turned out that her father had passed away and the boots were the last item they had bought together. When she wore the boots, she felt close to her dad.

Once her powerful message had been delivered, and teachers were inspired, on came the next speaker, a representative from a testing company called i-Ready.   Too bad the district didn’t seem ready to properly unroll this new program of testing all K-12 students three times a year beginning in a couple of weeks.

When Rebecca spoke, she had the full attention of the teacher throng. When the spokesperson for the new i-Ready testing program presented, a sea of LED lanterns erupted as teachers got out their phones, quickly feeling disconnected including one male teacher sitting in front of me shopping for a thong.

I had to go to i-Ready’s website to get basic information of what was behind the new diagnostic testing: “i-Ready provides data-driven insights and support for successful implementation of the new standards.”  

On top of new Common Core standards that teachers are still adjusting to, now we have this intrusive testing schedule that will devour at least 2 hours for each test.

It’s sad, really, that the district folks don’t get it.   Teachers don’t need more information on kids because we are not provided the necessary time to analyze the data we already have. Students march in and out of classrooms day after day.   Except for an hour long meeting here and there, teachers have no regularly scheduled full work days to examine data with their colleagues.

The kickoff meeting was a clash of two conflicting approaches to education: the inspiration of a dynamic teacher versus the top-down implementation of mandatory testing. The latter presentation quashed the excitement of the one that preceded it.

If only the district brass had the foresight to end the all-staff meeting immediately following Ms. Mieliwocki’s speech, releasing them to use the rest of the day to set up their classrooms for the students.

It reminds one of Charles Dickens’ powerful opening to A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

As Ms. Mieliwocki said, people “have to be brave to take on the work of an educator.”

Leave a comment Posted on Guardians of the Galaxy, Obscenity

“Guardians of the Galaxy” is not THAT good

When a movie earns a 92% from Rotten Tomatoes, it gets your attention.

So I cheerfully took my wife and 10-year-old son to see “Guardians of the Galaxy.”   Both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times gave positive reviews. 

Sometimes when you see a movie trailer that does not impress you, yet see the film anyway, it is surprising better than the coming attractions.   This is not the case with this film.

The trailer looked bad and the move, while not b-a-d, is just another run-of-the-mill, Marvel Comic Empire franchise product, with the obligatory Stan Lee cameo in the first 10 minutes.

We have another two-hour commercial for the advanced special effects $170 million can buy you these days. As the few negative reviews point out, there is no real suspense in the hard to follow narrative.

My wife and I both end up nodding off during parts of films like these because the action sequences are so derivative of one another—apocalyptic battles depicting utter destruction of cityscapes and outer space explosions—that the monotony of it all produces a somnambulant effect. I challenge anybody to watch a one-minute scene taken from any of these summer blockbusters and correctly figure out which film it is.

What also bothers me about a lot of the PG and PG-13 films these days is that the word “shit” and “bitch” have become quite common.   Despite a talking raccoon and tree, characters one would assume pander to children, the film blurs the line of entertainment that is supposed to serve both adults and kids.   It’s like a Mexican restaurant that has hamburgers on the menu in order to appease families with children who need their burger fix.

Hey producers:   Either make a film for kids or for adults—don’t be so greedy.