Follow Up on the News

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Shokan Safety Concerns

Some of these methods have been used in the area off and on over the years - such as the speed monitor that lets you know what your speed is as you approach. They work well while they are in place... Feldman also suggested that pavement scoring, such as that done on the Thruway breakdown lanes, might serve as a reminder to a driver that they have strayed outside their lane. He also suggested pamphlets that could be handed out to skiers and hunters (during road checks) to warn them of speeding.
Supervisor Leifeld made a motion to send a letter to NYS DOT. It seems the Ulster County Traffic Board has renewed their interest after the recent string of accidents that have claimed several lives in a very short course of time. It had been commented recently that in many of the cases, it was driver inattention that caused the accident, but Route 28 has become a dangerous road lately.
Moving on to town business, Leifeld announced the bids received for the replacement/repair of the Highway Department garage roof. The lowest was from Evergreen Mountain Contracting Corp. ($137,900); with Sure Construction Corp. coming in second ($139,000) and Precision Roofing at third ($188,000). Councilperson LaMonda made a motion to accept the low bid - which was unanimously approved by the remainder of the board.
Residents of Deerfield Road stepped forward at this point and presented a petition which was signed by all but three homeowners of the road. The petition asks that the road be given a speed limit. As it stands now, with no speed limit signs posted, it is generally thought that up to 55 miles per hour is acceptable. There has been an on-going problem with speeding and reckless driving along the once quiet, dead end road, creating an unsafe environment for all living there, both adults and children.
It was explained that without State DOT approval, the town cannot arbitrarily post a speed limit. The Police Department can, however, enforce other laws that would reduce speed and recklessness on the road. It was recommended that road checks be done to enforce all traffic safety, to all residents equally - not just to those who seem to be affecting the unsavory behavior.
Residents in attendance agreed that both adults and kids were responsible for inappropriate driving in the area and welcomed the thought of road checks. Apparently, there have been many, many vehicles in and out of one particular house for purposes suspected not to be of a legal nature, which led to the recent shooting at this same location.
Councilperson LaMonda motioned to forward the petition to the appropriate state officials for review of the issue, but again indicated that it takes months for anything to happen. Two area police officers, who happen to live either on Deerfield or at its entrance, voiced their concerns that police agencies should be doing a better job of making contact with the individuals who are creating the problems on the road.
"Driving up and down the road with the windows up and never getting out of the car to speak with them" is totally unacceptable.
State Police Rob Klein noted that numerous calls through the state police office shows that complaints have been received about incidents on the road. Deputy Glen Bettenger made the statement that he's been dealing with the Butler house since 2002, and there is no question in his mind that there has been an escalating problem there that needs to be addressed. He gave his home number so that neighbors could call him at any time of the night and he would respond.
"I moved from Kingston to get away from Henry Street, and now it's in Boiceville," he stated.
Klein said that all officers need to be doing their job and be more proactive with this situation or it will get worse. Residents asked that more patrols come through, that there are no problems in other areas of Olive, therefore, there should be a concentration of effort in this area.
LaMonda indicated that a meeting of the Police Commissioners is being held on Thursday evening, September 23, where these issues will be addressed. Leifeld invited Klein and Bettenger to attend this meeting to discuss further any procedures they feel might be helpful in getting things under control. Some residents were uncomfortable about making calls to report on the activities because they are fearful of retribution so LaMonda vowed that after Thursday, if any Olive Police Officer responds to a call for Deerfield Road, he WILL be addressing the individuals, and no one's name will be identified. If this does not happen, he said he would resign.
The number to contact Olive Police is 331 3115. If you call 911, they will dispatch the nearest law enforcement available. The 3115 number rings into the State Police barracks, where they will dispatch Olive officers if they are on duty - and if not, a state trooper will be sent to handle the issue. Klein recommended calling the 3115 number so that a record of the complaint will be on file.
In other business, the Olive Free Library is seeking 414 status through a referendum on this year's ballot. Basically, if the vote is favorable, the library will start receiving a fixed amount of $129,000 as a line item on your town taxes, similar to the way taxes are collected for the Fire Department. Currently, the budget allocates approximately $44,000 to the Library each year, but that amount is at the discretion of the Town Board. By having a set amount of $129,000 each year to work with, the Library intends to add other amounts they receive through grants, bequests and trust funds, to maintain an approximate $200,000 annual budget. The Town would no longer control the amount they fund to the Library, but would be required to budget in $129,000 each year. The Library would not be able to change this amount without another referendum vote.
In the final items of the evening, Resolution # 15 was unanimously passed enabling Supervisor Leifeld to list the property in front of the Sewage Treatment Plant in Boiceville for sale. Money received for the sale of the property will be paid to the Catskill Watershed Corporation as reimbursement for the original purchase of the property for the construction of the plant.

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The Rhythm Of Life

I was four months pregnant when I told my friends, they were really happy for me until I told them I was moving. We hugged and cried, one of my closest friends wanted to know why I was moving to a town where I was the only dark skinned one. Who is going to help with the baby she asked, and how was I going to show my art? She said I had more potential in the city than in the mountains. She thought I was crazy to move from the only home I had known outside of Jamaica. Everything my girlfriend said was on point, I was nervous about moving from the city, but I was also excited about having a baby and raising it in a clean environment in the woods. My studio apartment in Harlem on 125th Street had only two windows facing the street, the bus depot was behind the building and the bus stop was out front. The bus drivers would leave their parked bus running right under my window and the fumes would enter my apt and hang there. The walls were cracking, in the winter the heat went off and in summer it was boiling hot. There was also a Chinese take out in the storefront below that attracted rats and roaches-that place was a mess.
My husband tried to cheer me up, "look honey, at least you won't have to pay your greedy landlord any more rent." My first winter here was beautiful and surreal, piles of white fluffy snow, it was as if I lived in the Swiss Alps. My baby was due in the summer, in the mean time I did my art, cleaned the house and played with baby clothes. We took pictures of my freakishly huge pregnant belly. My mind kept wandering back to NYC. I contemplated giving up the artist life completely, anyway, who is going to sit six hours on a bus to come visit me? I thought I'd better get more aquatinted with my new surroundings since I definitely don't blend in. I do not enjoy being stared at. People unabashedly look me over carefully from face to feet. I stand out up here in the woods. The green, lush mountains of the Catskills surround me. I feel attached to the nature and the people I have met here, neighbors and friends--sure I miss NYC, but the silent mountains beckon. I know that not everyone is going to love me at first sight, after a while I accepted it and I am much stronger in my skin. I went from being an anonymous artist in the big overwhelming city, to being an anonymous artist living in the woods-thankfully I had a gorgeous, newborn baby boy to keep me busy.
When I was twelve years old I had my first religious experience in Jamaica. I was living in the parish of Spanish Town, an older woman we called Nanny lived next door and she was always friendly towards me. Ever so often in the evening just before dusk she would be dressed in a sparkling white man-shirt, buttoned from the top and a red plaid skirt. On her head she wore an intricately wrapped turban. She seemed very happy to be going wherever she was going. One day I saw her in her backyard hanging clothes on the clothesline. I asked her if I could go to church with her, she smiled and told me to ask permission first, anything to do with church I knew my stepfather would say yes to and he did. Nanny told me to wear white clothes and to wrap my head, she ended up wrapping it with me before we left.
The Pocomania revival was in a large old barn, holes in the ceiling completed the spooky feeling that came over me. There was a turbaned man, he was the priest, the people's voices were one and they were driven to frenzy by rhythmic drumming. They called the priest Shepherd Jaston and the congregation was mostly women; trooping and laboring they exhaled violently, "hup! hup!," as they straightened from bent positions to hop side ways, some of the women would fall to the floor in a trance. It was something for me to see at that age, the purity and passion in their expressions were so unguarded. I thought to myself one day I will capture what I saw that night.
I'm now working on my Pocomania pieces that I dreamt about ever since I was twelve years old in Jamaica. I need to capture it. Jamaica has changed so much since I left there twenty years ago, even the dialect has changed. I don't consider myself a primitive Caribbean artist nor do I see myself as naÔve, those terms are heavily burdened with racial and social preconceptions, even though Jamaica and Haiti's art are considered primitive because of their history. Information always comes to me creatively because I am from another country and my interpretation of American culture is viewed as an outsider taking a peek through the American window. In the city I could not think or focus, it was truly a rat race there. Always the best ones come from their county by boat or plane, they come here to America, the land of milk and honey, to be the best they can be. The competition is fierce, dreadful yet beautiful. I found NYC a challenge, I struggled at the dream to be acknowledged. All the hard work, the kids, the art, will it pay off? Only time will tell.
It's fall and my oldest is off to school, my mind is on the baby now. After he eats breakfast I play with him until he's bored, then he will find a toy that might distract him for a few minutes. I start the laundry, do the dishes and change his diaper. When my husband is home he watches the baby for a few hours while I do some outdoor activities like weeding the garden or going for a walk in the woods. After that I take the baby for a nice stroll and sometimes he naps. While strolling I focus inwardly blocking my mind from baby stuff and my inner artist responds. What shall I work on today, the background maybe? I'm thinking about the art the way I would think of my kids. What are they in the mood for? The baby is still asleep, I race back up the hill, sometimes depending on how tired he is he sleeps for an hour when I get home, then I'm determined to make it work for me. All the planning in the world won't matter if the baby wakes up as the stroller stops at the door: the inward scream-Noooo!
Months can go by before I get a chance to do any art. I don't have months to dawdle along right now. Next month is the Hudson art walk, it is when the antique stores display artists work in their window I have two places that are interested in my work. The anxiety is settling in my gut, fear of what could go wrong is reaching inside me, controlling, clutching at the edges of my mind. I must finish this art or I'll be miserable.
I'm a self-taught artist and sometimes I underestimate what I can handle artistically. In the piece I'm working on now I made a sketch a turbaned woman's profile in the foreground. I stood in front of the sketch and I felt that familiar feeling. Fear just looms up in me, I began a rambling self-talk to convince myself that I don't need to draw the ear. Maybe I can cheat and draw a flower in the place of the ear, I've never drawn a noticeable ear like that, I like the flower idea. Three days later I showed my husband my rough sketch. "Nice," he murmured. I asked him what would he think if I did not go with the ear, maybe a flower... he squinted his eyes, he was trying to see it from my point of view. After what I thought took him forever he blurted out, "you gotta do the ear man." "Really?" I asked trying not to sound too bummed out. "Yeah, it makes the picture." That was the plain truth. While fear kept tapping me on the shoulder as I began drawing the ear the strangest thing happened. I opened my mouth and whispered to my art, "no fear," and I kept repeating that until the ear was finished. Whether or not someone else likes the ear doesn't matter, I like it because I'm still smiling from ear to ear.

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Back To A Full Board...

Speaking in the bright lights of media cameras at a national school reform conference in Albany on August 30 about an educational policy she believes is progressively demoralizing teachers and students nationwide, Donna Bryan was as acutely aware of where the "Race to the Top" program being promoted by Secretary Duncan had come from as she was of the events of the past few years which had brought her there.
A decade earlier, Bryan, typically referred to as "Ms. B" by the students at Coxsackie-Athens High School, had written about the privatization of public education at the roots of the current federal "RTTT" program in terms that seemed far-fetched to some readers, even as conversions in the prison system to the private sector provided an obvious model for the process. By playing up faults and shortcomings in state and federal prisons, as analyzed by think tanks and public policy centers whose own funding shaped research agendas, a vast for-profit penal system had established itself. And Bryan observed the same processes at work in the academic arena.
Referring to a Brookings Institute report commissioned by the National Alliance of Business in an article she wrote in July, 2000, Bryan quoted the report's warning that "We are now entering an era that will increasingly recognize success and punish failure," and noted the "Improving Performance Competition In American Public Education" report's urgent request for the public posting of report card scores and homogenization of knowledge while "pitting teachers against one another by way of financial incentives for educators whose students toe the line." All of these notions are now familiar points of contention in recent educational legislation.
Now, Bryan found herself face-to-face with the most powerful advocate of replacing public education with charter schools in the nation's history, an official who was touring the South pushing the program with his boss's possible opponent in the next Presidential election, Newt Gingrich, and "moving in apparent lockstep," as Bloomberg/Businessweek put it, with the staunchly pro-charter Gates Foundation (which has separately funded numerous state applications in the Race to the Top lottery wherein one of the key rules of eligibility for a state to compete is to open the gates wide for private schools).
"School reform has been an issue since the first public school opened its doors," said Bryan. "The federal government believes that charter schools are the answer to that age-old debate but the evidence of charter school success doesn't hold water. Studies show more negative results and very few strong improvements according to their own criteria of standardized tests. It was NCLB (the Bush administration?s "No Child Left Behind" program) which placed so much emphasis on them, always citing 'scientific data' based on a business model which was often spurious and forcing a narrowing of curriculum which saw educators concentrating on test scores at the expense of a broader topic range."
Music, art, history, science, geography, social studies, civics, literature and other traditional school subjects have increasingly been diminished before the new intensified focus on math and reading skills featured in tests. Where test scores inched up under NCLB, it was often found that states had lowered the bar so that more students could hop over it or padded the numbers in other ways.
"What can't ever be forgotten is that standardized tests, the development of them, the research, writing and printing of them, the textbooks, software and technology that accompany them is a huge money-making operation," Bryan pointed out. "The NCLB structure that RTTT builds upon represents an unprecedented increase of corporate and federal control at the local level. The neglected areas this arrangement pushes out of the equation, along with budgetary constraints, are the ingredients which make up a fulfilling education. We can't talk about learning to be a fully developed human being and leave out these other expressions as ways to know the world."
An old expression, "You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink and you can stuff a man with knowledge but you cannot make him think," calls for a conclusion that this is something the subject has to do himself. But the trick is involving a student's interest deeply enough to ignite his or her intellectual curiosity. Bryan has found that mastering this knack makes all the difference in addressing active, engaged students or passive, disinterested ones just going through the motions.
Teaching in the Coxsackie-Athens district for the past seven years has brought notice and recognition to Bryan's efforts, including a 2009 Claes Nobel Educator of Excellence Award, a Teaching Tolerance Grant from the Southern Poverty Law Center; various district-wide accolades and articles in NY Teacher, the Albany Times Union and other publications which noted her teaching curriculum. Further notice has come from her participation in the WAMC Student Town Meeting radio broadcast series, and Ms. B's establishment, four years ago, of a World of Difference Human Rights Awareness Club at the school.
"The idea was twofold," Bryan explains. "It was to enlighten individual students about human rights issues and, also, to create a cadre of ambassadors to the school community and to the wider community in general, hopefully to educate others about the issues involved."
In November 2009, NYSUT Treasurer Lee Cutler, who was heading up a social justice initiative on the union's behalf, heard about the activities of the club and paid a visit to the school to sit in on Bryan's classes for the day. That visit eventually led to her recruitment to work with a group of eleven teachers from around the state on a project centered around the individuals and ideas expressed in the 2001 book, "Speak Truth To Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World" by Kerry Kennedy, Eddie Adams and Nan Richardson. Working in New York City and Albany with Kennedy and the "STP" group, Bryan chose Czechoslovakian playwright, politician and dissident Vaclav Havel and the issue of freedom of expression to expand upon.
"We each developed very focused and specific lesson plans using pedagogical practice and philosophy that could be adapted by other teachers, written with adherence to what the state standards specify is good teaching about Social Studies, English, and so on. The standards are very specific," Bryan explained. "For instance, one of the standards for high school English, Standard #4, is speaking, writing and researching language for social discourse. We wrote those lessons according to what I think are very sine qua non standards for language or social studies learning to advance the idea that we're educating human beings about their world, not just focusing on academic subjects."
Bryan finds an important element in broadening the horizons of students and honing their alertness to the world around them is missing in standard curriculum and that it tends to be an invigorating one for young people.
"My technique is to let students know that I'm not there to fill their heads with stuff; that I'm not an authoritarian," Bryan revealed. "We're there to learn together and the context is always that what we're going to learn is how to be responsible, moral human beings. I think it's important for anyone who works with teenagers, in particular, to recognize that the'?re a marginalized population. We say that we care about them, that they're important but the most prominent role they play in this society is as a target of marketing and manipulation- not only of products and services but also with ideas. As a population which is marginalized, they have a really deep and natural sense of justice. They understand what it feels like not to have a voice and they're deeply moved when they have information that illuminates how human rights are abridged for many, many people. It has a very liberating effect. That's something that Paolo Freire called 'the pedagogy of liberation...'.
"By focusing the lessons of the Speak Truth to Power project on those human rights defenders and their struggles, we can see a quality that they all shared...courage. Not only when they seek the truth but when they transmit their knowledge, and I think that's one of the underlying things about the project that's so important to me- to be able to transmit the importance of courage to students. Because they live in a culture wherein they're encouraged to look to experts for everything and intimidated not to trust their own judgment about things, they're further marginalized. But once students realize that they do have agency, that there is a conquest of fear in seeking the truth and in transmitting it, that is liberating and it's something that's not taught. It's not taught to be courageous."
Bryan, who has integrated philosophical thought into her curricula, sees the distinction between an ability to learn and an ability to think which is an absentee in the standardized approach of the tests.
"If we look at human rights as a river, education, teaching and learning is the shoreline from which we plunge into that river," Bryan observed. "Education comes from the Latin word 'educe,' which means 'to draw out.' So, you're drawing that individual person out and into the world. That's real education. Education is not about data and memorization, submission, fearfulness, intimidation and conformity. That's not education. That's indoctrination. And anyone can indoctrinate. All you have to do is make someone fearful enough."
As we will see in part two of this story, intimidation would not be a factor when NYSUT President Dick Ianuzzi asked Bryan to represent the union's position at Secretary Duncan's "Back To School" press conference in Albany, as well as a glimpse of the strategy of the union's concession on raising the charter school limits in New York. We will also cover the tidal wave of inspired response to the valedictorian speech of one of Bryan's students, Erica Goldson (published in these pages in early July), which "went viral" on the Internet and the impact it had on Goldson, Bryan and the Coxsackie-Athens school. We'll also see an alarming direct example of how the encroachment of corporatism and globalization is currently capturing the attention of school administrators in New York State.

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A Jar Of Olives...

Super Heroes
I also read all the superhero comics: Batman, Superman, Flash Gordon, Green Lantern, and Super Woman. Although I haven't seen people in Olive parading around in blue, red or green tights sporting masks and super powers, I am convinced we have our very own super-heroes right here at home.
Fred and Janelle Perry deserve super-hero status for organizing the Run for Jason at the Kent Reeves 5K race at Olive Day. Proceeds went to Jason Jones who is undergoing Cancer treatments.
Friends of Zack Hilty, who broke his neck diving into a swimming pool, deserve super-hero status for organizing bake sales and keeping friends up to date at a website.
The firemen deserve a super-hero shout out for planning the Country Jam at Shokan Park next Sunday, September 26. Truly, they are super-heroes for responding to every traffic accident and fire call.
The volunteers who prepare and cook for the church suppers deserve credit too. Maybe we can embroider a giant "V" on their aprons for the volunteer work they do. Following last week's Chicken Barbecue at the Reservoir Methodist Church, the Olivebridge Methodist Church will have theirs this Saturday, September 25th.
Patrick Burkhardt, cousin of Jason Jones, ran the Warrior Dash in Windham with lots of sponsors. He deserves the super status for the courage to run in a kilt.
There is a group of seniors who meet at Don DuBois' shop in Shokan. Don is a hale 96 who is joined by octogenarians Frank Carle, Bill Gray, Cary Wood and youngsters Ray Carlsen and Marianne North to build PET vehicles that are donated and shipped around the world for handicapped people, many the victims of land mines. These devises are Personal Energy Transportation that look like giant three-wheeled scooters. These men build to specifications and are in need of supplies, wood or money, to continue their good work. They use 1 x 6 x 3 pine planks in three-foot lengths. If you would like to contribute to this worthy cause, please call Frank Carle, 657-2347, for more information. They deserve commendation for their super contribution to third world nations.
I can remember my parents being worried because I read comics all the time. Thinking back, they made me a better reader, they gave me heroes to respect, and a few laughs. Thanks to Brenda Beesmer, remembering those comic books brought back many good memories. I remember reading Dick Tracy and pooh-poohing those wrist radios as a technical impossibility. Another lesson I learned from comics is: If we can imagine it, we can do it.