Saturday, September 30, 2006

Maybe I DON'T Want to Teach in Public Schools...


So, I'm driving with my family to one of our bigger country fairs, and on the way, we're listening to Whad'Ya Know on National Public Radio. I'm a pretty big fan of Michael Feldman; I really appreciate his sort of deadpan humor. Anyway, the weekly show begins with Mr. Feldman doing a quick-and-dirty rundown of the news, and this week's offerings included the following stories:

In Jackson, Mississippi, a public school PTA sent letters home to parents asking for their participation in the group. At the end of what I imagine was the usual PTA pep-talk about how important parent involvement in the schools is, the recipients of the letter were asked to check one of two boxes: "YES, I want to be involved!" or "NO, I do not want to get involved. I want my children to be thieves, drug addicts and prostitutes." That last bit? A DIRECT QUOTE, People!

The other feature was a story about an art teacher in Dallas, Texas - with 28 years of service, it should be noted - who was FIRED from her job after she took a fifth grade class on a field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art. It seems the parents of one of the children complained to the school board that their child had been irrevocably scarred by seeing a nude sculpture.

I'm not making this shit up. Go here for the PTA story and here for the Dallas art teacher story.

What the HELL is wrong with people?! Between the stories I get from CT about the crap that she's going through at the hands of her administrator, and the regular outrages I hear from Bowyer about the unethical stuff that's going on in his school - and now these stories - I'm almost grateful I didn't find work in a public school this year. It's little wonder that our nation is experiencing a crisis in education - teachers are too afraid to teach anything substantive for fear of being sent to the unemployment office.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

"She's a super-geek! Super-geek! She's super-geeky, YEOW!!"

Rick James got nothin' on me!

I went into my local Barnes & Nobel to buy a gift certificate for Organic Mama's younger daughter's birthday present. It's important that you understand that my ONLY intention was to walk out with the gift certificate.

I should know better by now.

Fifty-some-odd dollars later, I walk out with three grammar books and the wonderful collection you see to the left. B&N has come up with a series of university-level courses on CD on an AMAZING range of subjects; the inside cover of the book that came with the series lists 25 different titles in 6 different areas of concentration. Seriously; one can get anything from how men and women communicate to the Treaty of Versailles to appreciating classical music to the gem *I* picked up, "What a Piece of Work is Man."

The set comes with eight CDs upon which a professor - in this case, Harold Bloom of Yale and Harvard - expounds upon the subject at hand - in this case, seven selected Shakespearean tragedies. The set is intended to reflect the lecture series of an entire university class, and I have to say (having taken more than my share of university classes) that they've done a pretty good job. The box I have - I can't speak with any authority about what's in the others - also contains a book with the transcribed lectures, study questions, suggested reading and useful websites. From what I've seen and heard thus far, it's remarkable. A concise, inclusive, intelligent and well delivered course on the Bard's tragic works.

I've been listening to the lecture on Hamlet in my car as I've completed the various errands of my day, and I have to say that I'm very, very pleased with the purchase (there's a fair bit of alliteration in this post, isn't there? I assure you, it's not intentional). And one can't beat the price. As an undergrad, I paid upwards of $1300 for the Shakespeare course I took in the summer of '95. While no one is going to offer a student credit for listening to lectures on CD, if the goal is more about what's in your head than what's on your transcript, you can't beat a college-level course for less than 40 bucks.

Getting Ready


I've been thinking about my Foundations of English class today. I haven't actually met with the students yet - our first class was supposed to be last Monday, but was taken up with the placement exam that most of the students should have already taken at that point. I've got five weeks to get through sentence structures, to cover the eight parts of speech, and to work on their writing skills and reading comprehension.

Since I won't have access to the actual tests they took - and the college made an error by not administering the essay portion of the exam to this batch of incoming freshmen, so I don't have that as a guide to what the kids know or don't know - I'm going to run the first class pretty much on the fly. I'm going to start off by emailing the class as a whole tonight and asking them to come to our first meeting on Monday having read the first chapter of their text and with a short essay telling me five things I should know about them. I'm going to need an idea of where we are as a whole before I can really dive in and work on what the students really don't know. I'm going to run on the (slightly pessimistic) assumption that they don't know a whole lot. I figure, that way, I won't be disappointed.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

The Lessons of Yesterday

I spent today at a workshop given by holocaust survivor Irving Roth which focused on the use of memoir. It was well worth the cost of the seminar and the two hours it took to get to the university where he was presenting.

Roth started his presentation by calling up the words of John Dewey, who essentially believed that it's impossible to teach anyone anything new; that new knowledge must be built upon knowledge or experience that the student already has - or, lacking that, the student must be presented with an experience that will help him or her cement the new knowledge they obtain through the experience in real and meaningful ways. I'm not doing the theory a whole lot of justice here; let it suffice to say that Dewey wasn't a big fan of lecture-based learning, and neither is Irving Roth. He spent the rest of the day explaining how to take the enormity of the holocaust and make it relevant to high school-aged students through exercises in empathy and human experience.

It's very easy, he explained, to be completely overwhelmed by the events of the 1920s through the '40s. The coincidences of geopolitical, economic and social factors that brought about the rise of the Nazis and Fascists are really secondary to the point that the holocaust was an essentially human experience that orbited around the very human experiences of loss, betrayal and fear. We are all human, he continued, and we are all capable of experiencing these things. Understanding how to lead students to tap into those recognizable experiences - those experiences of loss and fear and betrayal that our students already carry within them - and to relate what we teach them of the holocaust to those experiences, helps young people come away from the lesson with a deep sense of the humanity of it all. When students are encouraged to feel as they learn, the holocaust is no longer a disembodied event that happened sometime in the murky past. Students are able to create connections - to practice empathy - and to begin to internalize the vast and timeless implications of the era.

Roth also spent a great deal of time emphasizing that we are all orchestrators of choice. Every act we take, every decision we make, every relationship we play a part in is composed of a series of choices that not only brought us to this point, but which will bring us through to whatever is on the other side of those acts, decisions or relationships. He very beautifully illustrated that we, as humans, are all equipped with a moral center (though the argument can be made that there are certain individuals who lack that center, but those who truly do are rare enough to not really come into play for purposes of our discussion). If we are to be truly human, we have to constantly refer to that center - to inform every single act and decision from a standpoint of what we know in our core to be "right" or "wrong". It is in doing this, Roth says, that we are able to survive the greatest horrors that we as humans can experience. The choice is to remain human in the face of evil that would seek to take our humanity from us.

I have about twenty pages of notes that were absolutely effortless to take; notes about questions of morality, notes about the overwhelming statistics of death and destruction during the Nazi reign, notes about hope for the future. Roth has a way of storytelling that is compelling and animated; he is an expressive man who (not unlike my father-in-law) likes to bounce up and down on the balls of his feet and wave his hands in the air to illustrate action. He is a man who, despite the horrors he experienced, the losses he suffered, and the attempts made on his humanity, chose to stay in the light. He has made it his life's work to see that light kindled in others by creating the Adopt a Survivor and Surrogate Survivor programs. He tasked us educators to carry on the work of keeping the stories alive, of celebrating the lives and spirits of those who experienced the holocaust firsthand, and to see to it that the next generation understands the lessons that history so desperately wants to teach us.

Irving Roth inscribed the inside cover of his book Bondi's Brother for me. "Dear Mrs. Chili," he wrote, "may the lessons of yesterday guide our tomorrows." As a teacher, it's my job to see that those lessons are taught. It's a responsibility I accept, and continue to strive to be worthy of doing well.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Let's Begin With a Challenge, Shall We?

I arrived for my first class, complete with appropriate teacher-clothes, my computer, a syllabus, the textbook and a lesson plan covering sentence structure and nouns. Oh, and a box of Dunkin Donuts Munchkins because I want the kids to like me right off.

I arrived quite a bit early, mostly because I had some photocopying to do because I also came equipped with a bunch of grammar-related comics to lighten the mood. I wanted to have a quick chat with Joe to see if there was anything in particular he needed me to do today, and I found him in a high state of agitation.

It turns out that this class - the Foundational English course - is set up for students who earn a certain grade range in a placement test that all students take when they are admitted to the school. The test is administered in a number of different sessions, one of which was held in an all-day run on Saturday, and the results of the test tells students which sections of math or English they will be taking. It turns out, though, that a rather large number of students haven't taken the test yet - and didn't show up on Saturday. As a result, my roster shows the names of six students (one of whom didn't show up for the first class - I'm wondering what's up with THAT) and I'm writing this from the computer lab at TCC while I watch 12 other students take the placement test.

Oh, and to make this morning even MORE fun? There was a class being held in the room where MY class was supposed to happen. Not that it matters much, really, because my class isn't actually happening, but the fact that a professor from the culinary school just decided to plop his lecture into a room he wasn't assigned sent Joe precariously close to the proverbial edge, though it seemed like a non-issue to me, given that my class wasn't going off anyway.

All this means is that I now have FIVE weeks to cover the structure of the English language with my students instead of six. Woe befall ProfessorChef if he's in my room NEXT week, though. I've got work to do!

Sunday, September 24, 2006

A Shameless Plug


The Divine Ms. P - also known as Organic Mama - has a new blog up. She and I went to grad school together and, as luck (and my bossiness) would have it, are teaching different sections of the Foundations of English class over at Tiny Community College. I'm very excited that she's blogging - I really think you're going to love her style. Surf on over to New Beginnings and check her out.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

The Keys to the Kingdom

I start my Foundational English class at Tiny Community College on Monday. I can hardly wait.

The class is essentially remedial. I've got six class meetings to go over the nature of sentences (I've got this one going on ALL THE TIME at my house - I've been drilling my daughters about it since school started, and both of them can recite the five things that make a sentence complete. Can you?), the parts of speech, subject / verb agreement, the various tenses, how to use commas and semicolons, things like that. It's going to be a wicked sprint, but I have faith that we will get through it just fine.

While this isn't exactly what I got into English teaching for - I'm more of a critical analysis, writing about literature kind of gal - I recognize and have a deep and abiding belief in the importance of learning the fundamentals. Learning to walk before one learns to run and all that. That I can get an idea out of my head and put it into yours using nothing but language, that we can share an experience through reading and that we can set parts of our souls free through writing are all staggering to me. Stop and consider, for a moment, how amazing language really is; about how you recognize when people use language really well and, conversely, how easily you recognize when people use language badly. You may not know the technical, grammatical reasons why something sounds right or wrong, but you know it when you hear it. Knowing why something is right or wrong, though, gives you that much more control over how you communicate, how you make your needs and feelings known, and how others form impressions of you. That's a remarkable kind of power, and we are all entitled to it.

I'm going into this class with a high volume of enthusiasm for the subject matter, and I'm going to spend a decent portion of the first class convincing the kids that this stuff is worthwhile and important. Being able to communicate well is where the real juice is, and I suspect that many of them already instinctually know this.

Many of my students will be attending their first college-level class EVER on Monday morning with me as their instructor - don't think I'm not mindful of that responsibility. Grammar doesn't have to be boring, and I want them to understand that I'm doing nothing less than giving them the keys to the kingdom. Get the basics of your language down, and you're well on your way to the most important life skill a human can possess: The ability to REALLY communicate.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

The New Kid Gets the Short Stick...


Joe called me this morning. "I have good news and bad news," he told me. ("oh, GOD," I thought, "here it comes...")

The bad news, he said, is that there was a mistake with the course enrollment numbers and the college has combined a couple of sections of Foundational English. The combination means that one of the sections had to be dropped and, since I'm the newest kid on the block, mine was the section that got dropped. The good news, he bubbled, is that I'll be able to focus more attention on my other two courses. I was okay with it, really - I wasn't overly invested in the Foundations class; while I was more than happy to get it, I wasn't crushed to lose it.

About half an hour later, my phone rings again. I said "hello" and the voice on the other end said, without greeting, "You should know that you work for an idiot." It was Joe, calling back to tell me that he'd made a mistake - that it WASN'T the Foundations course that was being combined out of my schedule, it was the Composition course.

I find I'm a little more disappointed about losing the Comp class...

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Oh, By The Way...


So, on Friday I went into Tiny Community College (hereafter known as TCC) to do some administrative stuff. Joe had sent me home after our interview on Monday with a packet of papers from the human resources department - a TON of papers, actually, that took me nearly an hour to fill out - and I wanted to bring them all back. I also had to provide my driver's license and Social Security card to prove that I'm not an illegal alien (who's dying to teach English - I thought that was kind of funny). I was going to just bring my passport, until I realized that the key to our bank box isn't in my car anymore - it's in Husband's - so I went with the "one document each from columns A and B" option. Anyway, after delivering the forms, all properly signed and dated, an official copy of my transcripts and the legal citizenship documentation, I headed over to Joe's office to pick up the texts for the classes I'll be teaching.

I found Joe in his cubicle, furiously trying to get a bunch of loose ends tied up before he leaves for an unexpected trip to the midwest on Monday. He was tapping away at his computer, trying to get notices and forms out to all the people who would need them, finalizing the schedule for the term that starts next Monday (which is part of why I'm telling you all this in the first place - just bear with me) and making sure that he returned all his phone calls before his flight takes off on Monday afternoon. We sat and chatted for a bit, he told me about the orientation that will happen next Friday then turned to me and said:


"How would you feel about taking on another class?"


It turns out that he has a bunch of sections of "foundational" English that he's got to find instructors for. Remember I told you that TCC doesn't have any admissions standards? That if students hold a diploma or a GED, and can afford to pay for classes, they're in? Well, as a result, a lot of students come to the school with less-than-stellar skills in English and math, so the college sets up classes for them to hone some of those skills before going on into the classes for which those skills will be required. The classes run for six weeks instead of eleven (or twelve, in this case - they take foundational English for six weeks and foundational math for the other six) and classes start a week from Monday.

I told Joe that I'd be more than happy to take on another class, and that the short notice doesn't bother me in the least. The course dovetails very nicely with the others I'm teaching as far as scheduling goes - the Foundations class runs just ahead of the Public Speaking class - and doesn't interfere with my ability to get the girls ready and on the bus in the morning. To say that Joe was relieved would be a bit of an understatement; as he walked me back to my car, he joyfully announced to at least two people we passed by that "one more hole is filled!!"

I'm really excited by all of this activity in the professional part of my life, though I'm trying to keep an even keel about it and approach with a fair dose of caution. Just this weekend, one of my Capital-G-Girlfriends wrote me an email in which she said that this "sounds like the perfect gig to keep you active while you wait for YOUR job." That got me thinking...

What if this is MY job?

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Wow. You Guys are GOOD!


Also titled: "In Which a Miracle Occurs."


Thank you, thank you for your good wishes today - they really paid off!! You are now reading the blog of an adjunct professor of English at Tiny Community College!

It was, perhaps, the strangest interview I've ever had - not that I've had that many, really, but still. Joe did most of the talking, regaling me with the history of the college ("The school is more than 100 years old, you know!") and about how they were recently bought out by a conglomerate which buys small schools and turns them into for-profit institutions ("which is both a good and a bad thing," Joe told me. "Good because there's a lot more access to materials and resources, and the kids can use the corporate umbrella to do some great networking and find jobs after they graduate, but a lot of older faculty don't like the way some things had to change when we made the transition.").

The school is mostly career-oriented; they offer certificate and associate's degree programs. As such, they don't have a liberal arts department, so the English classes fall under the General Education department and are maintained so that the college gets to keep its national accreditation. Joe explained to me that the school doesn't have any admissions standards - if you have a high school diploma or the equivalent and can afford to pay for your classes, you're in - and that many of the students come to the college without an effective grasp of reading and writing skills. He asked me a couple of questions about what I thought about the classes he had open - did the lack of admissions standards frighten me and what would be the most important thing I wanted my students to come away from the class knowing, for example - and I answered them as forthrightly and honestly as I could. He seemed impressed.

When it was all over, after a tour of the building and what I hoped wouldn't be a quiz on the names of all the people I was introduced to, Joe asked if I had any questions. When I said I really didn't, that he'd done a remarkably thorough job of explaining the ins and outs of his school, he turned to me and said, "SO! I would like to offer you the position, but I won't accept an answer until tomorrow. Go home. Talk it over with your family. Sleep on it. If, tomorrow, you still think it's something you want to do, give me a call." Even though he wouldn't accept my answer, he still sent me home with a new-employee packet.

So, here's the deal: I'll be teaching a composition class on Monday evenings from 6 - 7.30, and an "Effective Communication" (public speaking) course on Monday mornings from 10.30 to noon, with an added online class sometime during the week (I gathered from Joe's explanation that there have to be so many credit hours for general education classes, and the online portion makes up the missing time). Their terms run for 11 weeks, and I'll start early in October. If, at the end of the term, the college and I decide we like one another, I'll be offered new courses when the next term begins.

I'm excited and relieved and generally pleased at the results of today. This is pretty much the perfect first gig for me - I get to teach what I know, I get to do it in a pretty relaxed atmosphere with a bunch of supportive people around me (did I mention that I'll be assigned a mentor?), the schedule is very, very flexible and the commitment is only for 11 weeks at a time. This leaves me open for being able to accept a position at a high school should one make itself available. And, as Kizz so rightly pointed out, now I'll have something to talk about here!!

And here's the part where I offer heartfelt gratitude to all of you - for your support, your encouragement and your friendship. I'm so glad to have you around. Thanks.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Oh, Please, Please, Please!!


I just got a phone call from Tiny Community College. They have a couple of openings - one for a public speaking course ("Effective Communication") and one for English Composition - and Joe called to find out if I'd be interested in either of them ("Um, gee, let me think. YEAH!!")

I interview tomorrow at eleven in the morning. Please pause for a moment around that time to wish me well; I REALLY want to work!

Saturday, September 09, 2006

The Little Engine (I think I can, I think I can...)

Well, Friends, I've done it again. I sent in my application for a full-time substitute position in a semi-local middle school. I am nothing if not persistent.

From what I can gather, this is the sort of job where I would show up every day and, if there's a teacher out, I would sub for that teacher. If there's not a teacher out, I would still be there, covering duties and running errands and the like.

I think that this is a brilliant way to arrange for substitute teachers; the work and income for the subs is steady, the kids get to know who the teachers are, thereby limiting the amount of nonesense and attitude that the subs typically receive, and there are no 6 a.m. phone calls. The school gets a sense of who their subs are and where their strengths lie, and have a ready pool of teachers to pull from should a position open up.

Bowyer hooked me up to the opening. He works in that school district and has been encouraging me to apply because he sees it as a good way to get in the proverbial door. He's pretty sure there'll be openings in the high school this coming year, and both of us would love nothing better than to work in the same building.

As always, Dear Readers, I will keep you constantly posted on the outcome.

Friday, September 08, 2006

Nothing New to Tell...

I'm writing, but I have nothing of interest to say.

I have no job and no prospect of a job. At this point, I'm not sure that it's worth actively looking for a job, really; the school year is pretty much underway, and I'm guessing that all the positions that needed filling are filled already. I'm not whining, exactly; I'm finding that I have plenty to keep me busy, and my lack of outside commitments means that I can volunteer in my daughters' classrooms and chaperone field trips, so it's all working out.

Even so, I'm going to re-send my resume to all the school districts in which I'm willing to work, just so they have my information should something come up during mid-terms. I wouldn't mind starting fresh in January.

I'm also looking into taking some workshops this fall and, perhaps, a class in January. Whether I'm actively teaching or not, I still have to complete hours to keep my certification current, and I figure it's easier, in terms of scheduling, brain-power and finances, to spread the hours out over the three years that the license is valid, rather than trying to cram all the time into the last few months before the state comes looking for its renewal fees. There are a couple of workshops at a not-so-local college that focus on the Holocaust and social justice that I wouldn't mind attending, so I'm going to register for those.

I've started reading the Outlander series again. I got through the third book in the set, loving every single page, and realized that there were a lot of details that I was failing to carry from one book to the next (I had thought that reading a different book between the series installments would help to prolong the enjoyment of the story, but it really just proved a distraction). In case you were wondering, it's just as good the second time around.

If you're still reading, thanks. I'm sorry that I've nothing more interesting or challenging to offer lately. I think I might try to do poetry week starting this coming Monday, or maybe a series on short stories. I'm also open to suggestions, so feel free to comment.

Have a great weekend!

-Mrs. Chili

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Dream Interpretation


This morning, we were all sitting around the breakfast table enjoying pancakes and discussing those of our most recent dreams as we could recall.

When it got to my turn, I told my family about the dream I had this early morning in which I was a nurse in a hospital ward which cared for babies. I had one patient in particular who concerned me greatly. He was an older baby, perhaps close on to a year old, who was enormously obese and had yet to learn to walk.



His father, an absolute giant of a man who was so huge he was unable to walk himself, berated me every time I entered his son's room for his daily physical therapy. As I hauled the child to his pudgy feet and encouraged him to at least TRY to balance upright, the father would scowl and humph from the corner of the room. "The kid doesn't NEED to learn to walk" the blob would growl at me, "I don't walk, and I get around just fine." The father DID get around just fine, in fact; he made his way through the world in a wheelchair-like contraption that actually turned him sideways so he could fit through doors.


His son, too, didn't seem to mind not walking. He would roll happily where ever he felt he wanted to be. The effect reminded me a great deal of Violet Beauregarde being rolled to the juicing room after expanding to a giant blueberry. The baby didn't seem to mind my coming every day to teach him to be bi-pedal, though; he was happily rolling around in his crib, and when I opened the door he stopped, his face splitting into an enormous, fleshy smile he giggled gaily and rolled toward me. I hoisted him from his crib and helped him upright where he wavered between delight at the exercise and frustration that he couldn't maintain the posture by himself.

That's pretty much all I remember of the dream. When I told my family the story, though, my husband had an immediate and intriguing interpretation, which led me to post this here for you. He said that the story speaks to my opinion of the state of our educational system and my own place in it: the indulged child rendered incapacitated by guardians (whether they be parents specifically or "the system" in general) which expects nothing of him but who, despite all that, really WANTS to learn: the frustration I feel at not being able to actually DO my job, hindered by the powers-that-be who won't offer up the chance for me to show how much good I can really do: and the excitement and joy I felt at the excitement and joy the baby showed when I came in the door echoing the eagerness I'm keeping contained at the thought of actually being able to get into a classroom, where I can see to the care and keeping of my own "babies."

It's not such a stretch. Freud he's not, but I think my husband's got a good case for his interpretation of my dream.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Me Being Anal....


...or do I have a legitimate gripe?

My grocery store has this annoying habit of offering "daily specials" at the register. They don't offer USEFUL things - like city trash bags, which I ALWAYS leave the store without, because one can't buy them in the aisles; they must be bought at the registers. Nope; often, most of these specials are horrid offerings - sugary "fruit" snacks or dreadful BBQ chips - but the other day, my brazenly pierced check-out girl asked if I would like to try Fruity Cheerios. Given that I was starving - I hadn't eaten lunch, and hadn't bought anything that could pass for emergency tide-me-over food - I said "sure, why the hell not?" (I used those actual words; I thought brazenly pierced check-out girl could hack it). I popped open the box before I buckled my seat belt and decided that, as far as impulse buys go, this was not a stinker.

Right about now, you're wondering "what the HELL does this have to do with teaching?!" Patience, Grasshopper; I'm getting there...

ANYWAY, we've started eating breakfast at a real table lately, with the occasion of new floors and space in which to put said table. My children, I may or may not have mentioned, are excellent, eager readers and, in true kid-at-the-breakfast-table form, love to read the backs of cereal boxes while they crunch. Frankly, so do I, which is how we got here in the first place.

So, I'm reading the Fruity Cheerios box, where there are four little balls on the back filled with information that is supposed to make moms everywhere prefer Fruity Cheerios to those "other" fruit-O cereals. The very first ball, in fact, says, and I quote:

Excellent source of WHOLE GRAIN
Did you know that only 1 in 10 kids get enough whole grain per day?
It's recommended that most kids get at least 48g of whole grain per day.


Now, aside from this seeming like a WHOLE HELL of a lot of grain, and the fact that no where on the box does it mention how many grams of whole grain are actually in a serving of this stuff, the first complete sentence is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! One in ten kids GETS enough - there's only ONE kid - there should be a singular verb there, folks!

I wrote an email to the Cheerios people. Here's what I said:

As an English teacher and mother of two voracious readers (who enjoy reading the back of Cheerios boxes while they eat breakfast), I need to take some issue with the grammar on the back of the Fruity Cheerios box: "Did you know that only 1 in 10 kids get enough whole grain per day?" The subject of the main clause in that sentence is the "one kid," which means that the verb should be the singular "gets." Please help me do my part to teach our young people correctly and to save our language.

Too much, or am I well within my parent/teacher boundaries to request that they get themselves an editor with a grasp of the target language?