9/11 Remembrance

September 11th is a day of remembrance. I hazily remember sharing the infamous Dr. Loganbill's freshman English class at NM Tech in Socorro in the spring of 1975 with Victor Saracini, pilot of United Airlines flight 175. In Tech parlance, Victor was a Townie. He didn't live on campus, and thus wasn't known well by many of the other students. Still, I recall liking him.

 

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Charlie Kirk - One Year Later

The martyr didn't martyr like they hoped:

But when I survey the legacy of that fateful day in Utah from the vantage point of 2026, something else becomes clear. What conservatives thought they might harvest from the death of Kirk—a soft-power cultural mandate, broad bipartisan empathy, perhaps an assertion that it was liberals who were the real psychopaths in the room—never came to pass. Instead, ironically, I’ve concluded that Kirk’s killing represented the tipping point of Peak MAGAdom, a breaking of a certain fever. It had been less than a year since Trump had retaken the presidency—and unlike in 2017, in 2025 the masses were grappling with whether Trump’s movement was culturally ascendant. Kirk’s murder proved that it was not.

I Want To Get Better At [X]

I returned to the Montessori School on Thursday, substituting as an instructional assistant in a different lower EL (grades 1-3) class than I had been in on Wednesday. The teacher here was more focused on compliance than the teacher on Wednesday had been. I was puzzled, because I thought this class was better-behaved than the other had been. I had no strong opinions on how the class should be managed, but there certainly were strong opinions out there. No one has a stronger opinion on a class than the students taking the class. 

At lunchtime, I led the class to the cafeteria and we waited in line to enter. One of the students, who apparently has autistic tendencies, complained that several girls had cut the line when I wasn't looking. He seemed genuinely hurt, not so much by being pushed to the back, but by the injustice of disorder. I heard his complaint, and tried to comfort him. 

Because of the heat wave, outdoor recess was cancelled, so recess was held in the classroom. The teacher said there were various games in the classroom, but she wouldn't be there - she had a teacher meeting to attend - so It was up to me and another substitute to find these games. One of the older girl students knew where the games were located, so she retrieved them, and borrowed my authority to impose her vision on how indoor recess should be conducted. 

Every Montessori class has a Singing Bowl, used with a striker to get the students' attention. I rang the Bowl. The girl announced that there were to be no more than four people per game. Seemed reasonable. I showed her how to ring the Bowl - it's a bit of skill - and she rang it more times, with a commanding, almost-cruel edge to her voice, to announce that certain online learning games were allowed and others were forbidden. This was a level of detail I didn't understand, and judging from the students' reactions I think they didn't understand it either. The girl rang the Bowl more times, and learned that if you ring the Bowl enough times, no one pays attention to you anymore. 

The teacher returned, and another teacher got added during rotation. Some non-compliant behavior emerged in the afternoon. Kids get cranky when they get tired after lunch. 

At the end of the day the teacher assigned a sentence for the students to complete: "I want to get better at [x]." She offered several suggestions for "x", like "soccer," or "helping others," or "dancing," etc. I heard a slight undertone in the class, adding a "t" to the word "soccer," to get "stalker." I'm not even sure that was deliberate - young kids sometimes have trouble with words. 

There wasn't enough time available to finish the sentence, so the teacher suggested thinking about it as homework for tomorrow. This caused a panic for some of the first graders, because they had never written a sentence down before in their lives. They didn't know how to write down the word "want." They didn't know many things. Could I write the sentence down, so they could at least copy it? Poor guys! I know that academic panic well! 

At day's end, I put my cap on my head. I recalled my musical-theater training and placed my nearly-empty water bottle on top of my head, balancing it there a la "Fiddler on the Roof." Four students who had been watching me closely immediately placed whatever they had in their hands on top of their heads. Cute!

The Time to Start Paying Attention is Coming

The Atlantic hurricane season has been remarkably quiet this year, but there are signs it's beginning to awaken. The water is certainly warm enough; all you need is reduced wind shear. 

The long-range GFS model forecasts have been suggesting a major storm will come out of the Caribbean in about two weeks time. It's still way too early to know if there is anything to this or where it might go - Texas, Mexico, Florida, Cuba - but when long-range weather models begin to predict a specific outcome over consecutive runs something of the sort usually occurs. So, the time to start paying attention is coming.....

I am a SECOND GRADER!

Once again, I was a instructional assistant (IA) substitute for Lower EL (grades 1-3) at the Montessori School today. The teacher was doing a lot of individual assessments today just outside the classroom, so it was the job of us two IAs to keep the students on task. This was frustrating, mostly because of four squirrely students. That's the way it always has been, and always will be. 

We had a cursive know-it-all moment at the start of class. Among the first rituals of the day is having a chosen student write down the date on the whiteboard. At first, she forgot to write down the year, but when prompted she wrote down "2026" with two cursive twos. Another student objected, saying these weren't twos at all, but rather two cursive capital Q's. I thought this was a curious argument. Even though the figures did resemble cursive Q's, the cursive twos were perfectly fine as they were. The teacher had a similar reaction, and the know-it-all student did not have the satisfaction of triumph. 

Lunchtime brought me into contact with more Lower EL students. Lunchtime is always loud and boisterous. One student remembered playing keep=away with my cap about six months ago and he resumed this game with enthusiasm. I kept my cap, though. 

Outside post-school recess was abbreviated by the rapidly-rising afternoon heat. Students were sent into the cafeteria. The students rapidly-improvised a game of tag that was almost frightening in its vigor, just as my energy was flagging from hours on my feet. 

One girl playfully hid behind me, giggling and tapping my shoulder, and moving with my movements in order to avoid detection. Later, she reminisced, "I used to see you a lot when I was in kindergarten - now I'm in second grade." And she was right! Time is whipping by. Two minutes later, a playmate shouted in her face, and collided into her, intruding into her personal space. She summoned her personal dignity, and announced, "I'm not just some kid. I am a SECOND GRADER!" 

And she is! 

Here's something more on the theme of the know-it-all student.

 

Courtney Barnett - "Avant Gardener" - Sacramento, CA, August 24, 2026

I failed to get this on video, but this person succeeded: