Published in the Current
It was almost bedlam in the Pond Cove gym around midday Tuesday. All of the third-graders and about 60 of their parents had gathered to share what they had learned in character-building sessions earlier in the morning.
The parents had met in the town center fire station to participate in a workshop entitled “Parenting: the biggest job we’ll ever have,” led by Laura Gauld, co-director of the Hyde School in Bath, which focuses on character building and involving the whole family and community in raising and teaching children.
“Our kids are not in their comfort zone” for most of the day, Gauld told parents. She encouraged parents to get out of their own comfort zones, to become role models by trying new things. “We will set an example for our kids to follow,” she said.
Gauld also cautioned parents against trying to become friends with their kids. “Do the job you need to do; you will have that relationship” eventually, she said.
Meanwhile, at Pond Cove, high school students from the Hyde School and about 25 Cape Elizabeth High School juniors and seniors had led discussions with third-graders about learning to be themselves.
When they all came together, parents spoke first, stepping forward out of the crowd to tell students what they had learned, including the importance of attitude when approaching a challenge; letting their kids try difficult things without automatically jumping in to take over; and having families agree on principles they all work toward.
One parent said she had learned that “it’s more important to do the right thing, even if it’s the hard thing.”
The students, for their part, spoke about their private feelings and the public face they put forward; what they want to be when they grow up; and what principles they stand for. They participated in skits demonstrating ways to overcome stress and how to treat people better.
Parent Kelly Dell’Aquila, who is a social worker, pushed for the workshop to help kids deal with bullying behaviors in school. Pat Wright and Karen Niehoff, the Pond Cove guidance counselors, and Katie Lisa, the high school social worker, helped plan and coordinate the events.
Funding was provided by the Cape Coalition, the Pond Cove Parents Association, the DARE program and Oakhurst Dairy.
At the end of her session, Gauld quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Our chief want in life is someone who will make us do what we can.”
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Chinese teacher comes to Pond Cove
Published in the Current
A Chinese teacher, Wu Shumei, better known as “Mei,” will be visiting Pond Cove School for the rest of the academic year, sharing Chinese culture with the school’s students, as well as children at the town’s other schools.
At a welcoming party, Mei spoke with neighbors, kids, parents and friends about her school in China and her family, as well as her time in Maine. She is from Jiangxi province, in southeastern China, and teaches high school English at Linchuan High School Number 2.
She is working with the allied arts team at Pond Cove, bringing Chinese arts to the elementary school classrooms, and will also teach Tai Chi and other aspects of Chinese culture to high school students. Mei’s mentor teacher is Shari Robinson, the school’s librarian and media center supervisor.
She has also helped the South Portland Branch Library with its Chinese New Year festivities.
“I hope I will do a good job,” Mei said. She is excited about meeting the students and the teachers, and hopes to learn about American educational practices, as well as perfect her English. The Pond Cove team is very excited to have her – a number of teachers told the Current how great it is to have Mei there.
She is on an American Field Service program and has already visited a school in Readfield for several months.
She is staying with the Belden family, and is helping them teach their daughter Lydia about her heritage. The Beldens adopted Lydia from the Jiangxi region of China several years ago, and learned from Mei that her original Chinese name is that of a village near where Mei lives.
A Chinese teacher, Wu Shumei, better known as “Mei,” will be visiting Pond Cove School for the rest of the academic year, sharing Chinese culture with the school’s students, as well as children at the town’s other schools.
At a welcoming party, Mei spoke with neighbors, kids, parents and friends about her school in China and her family, as well as her time in Maine. She is from Jiangxi province, in southeastern China, and teaches high school English at Linchuan High School Number 2.
She is working with the allied arts team at Pond Cove, bringing Chinese arts to the elementary school classrooms, and will also teach Tai Chi and other aspects of Chinese culture to high school students. Mei’s mentor teacher is Shari Robinson, the school’s librarian and media center supervisor.
She has also helped the South Portland Branch Library with its Chinese New Year festivities.
“I hope I will do a good job,” Mei said. She is excited about meeting the students and the teachers, and hopes to learn about American educational practices, as well as perfect her English. The Pond Cove team is very excited to have her – a number of teachers told the Current how great it is to have Mei there.
She is on an American Field Service program and has already visited a school in Readfield for several months.
She is staying with the Belden family, and is helping them teach their daughter Lydia about her heritage. The Beldens adopted Lydia from the Jiangxi region of China several years ago, and learned from Mei that her original Chinese name is that of a village near where Mei lives.
Piano Man coming to town?
Published in the Current
Rumors abound that Billy Joel has bought a house in Cape Elizabeth, but it appears to be just a lark.
“As far as I know, Billy Joel has not bought a house in Maine,” his publicist, Claire Mercuri of Columbia Records, told the Current.
The rumor has found its way to the schools, Town Hall, the police station, homes all over town and even the Sugarloaf ski area. But there is no record of any such deal in the property transfer records in the town assessor’s office (current through Dec. 31), or at the county’s registry of deeds (including deeds filed as recently as Feb. 7).
Police have not received any requests to keep an eye on any property that might be owned by the singer, according to Capt. Brent Sinclair.
Several houses are rumored to be the one Joel has purchased, including one for sale in Delano Park and two on Shore Road.
Frank Strout of Shore Road said the house next door to his was taken off the market several weeks ago, but he doesn’t know whether the house has been sold, or who the new neighbors might be.
“As long as he doesn’t play his piano too loud, I don’t mind,” Strout said of the prospect of Billy Joel living next door.
Rumors abound that Billy Joel has bought a house in Cape Elizabeth, but it appears to be just a lark.
“As far as I know, Billy Joel has not bought a house in Maine,” his publicist, Claire Mercuri of Columbia Records, told the Current.
The rumor has found its way to the schools, Town Hall, the police station, homes all over town and even the Sugarloaf ski area. But there is no record of any such deal in the property transfer records in the town assessor’s office (current through Dec. 31), or at the county’s registry of deeds (including deeds filed as recently as Feb. 7).
Police have not received any requests to keep an eye on any property that might be owned by the singer, according to Capt. Brent Sinclair.
Several houses are rumored to be the one Joel has purchased, including one for sale in Delano Park and two on Shore Road.
Frank Strout of Shore Road said the house next door to his was taken off the market several weeks ago, but he doesn’t know whether the house has been sold, or who the new neighbors might be.
“As long as he doesn’t play his piano too loud, I don’t mind,” Strout said of the prospect of Billy Joel living next door.
Parents talk circles around teen drinking
Published in the Current
Cape Superintendent Tom Forcella told about 70 people crowded into the Town Council chambers Feb. 6 to discuss teens, alcohol abuse and school policies that in terms of teen drinking Cape is “the most accepting” community he has seen and the culture needs to change.
The forum, hosted by the Cape Coalition, was entitled “Contracts and Consequences,” a subject of widespread community discussion in the wake of the suspensions of a basketball star and hockey player from their teams following a huge party at Sugarloaf over New Year’s.
“We wanted to try to provide a forum” for discussing in a larger group what is already being talked about in small groups around town, Coalition co-chairman Terry Johnson said. He wanted people to “start to agree on a fair and consistent message” to send teens about drinking, but that did not emerge from the meeting.
Parents and teens were present in droves, and high school Principal Jeff Shedd was there, as was Superintendent Forcella and School Board member
Kevin Sweeney.
Policy, problem not new
Parents began the discussion by saying they are concerned about preventing a teen-drinking tragedy, but want to have an environment in town and in school where kids could learn from their mistakes, rather than suffer severe consequences on the first or second offense.
A School Board policy that took effect at the beginning of this school year requires student-athletes and their parents to sign a contract saying they have read the rules and agree to abide by them. The consequences of drinking are laid out on paper, with a first offense punishable either by suspension from two games (if a student or the student’s parents tell school officials about the infraction) or for the remainder of the season (if the school finds out about it another way). A second offense results in suspension from all athletic
teams for the remainder of the year.
Shedd announced in December that the rules would be enforced equally for all students involved in extracurricular and co-curricular activities, rather than just for athletes.
Further, students who host parties where drinking occurs, and who do not take steps to break them up (by calling police or parents), could also be in trouble.
Parents and teens alike said the contract had previously been seen as “a joke” and not enforced. Specifically, star athletes’ transgressions had been “winked at,” one adult said. The new enforcement of the rules does not make Shedd popular with students, some of whom expressed concern about how the rules were communicated to them.
Many parents said athletes don’t read the contract before signing, though no student said that was the case. Students did say that increasing coach and team involvement in following the contract would help them do better at it, though several students in the room said they did not drink.
Parents go to bat for teens
A number of parents were concerned that taking away athletics – seen by school officials as a privilege – would put teens more at risk than allowing them to “work their way back” onto a team or activity.
Many parents said the school’s role in this is too big, but Sweeney said the School Board was responding to parents’ demands. Each time something happened with teens and drinking, parents came to the School Board demanding to know what the schools were going to do about it, he said.
As a result, the School Board has supported outdoor education programs in the middle school, DARE programs and this policy, he said.
One parent suggested the school step back and let parents enforce household rules when drinking occurs outside of school events.
Another said the policy makes school officials “policemen” when really they are educators. And, he said, the policy isn’t fixing the problem.
One parent suggested alcohol violations be treated similarly to academic probation, in which a student who is failing a class must come up with a way to bring his or her grades up, and is checked regularly on progress, but is allowed to play sports while working on the problem.
One parent said drinking is different because it is against the law, and allowing kids to get away with drinking is letting them go down a slippery slope to lawbreaking.
Another said parents aren’t enforcing the policy, the law or any other rules. At least 25 kids party “every weekend,” one said. Parents also typically do not show up to Cape Coalition meetings to discuss the issue, according to coalition organizer Liz Weaver. By contrast, students are often at coalition meetings.
Cape Superintendent Tom Forcella told about 70 people crowded into the Town Council chambers Feb. 6 to discuss teens, alcohol abuse and school policies that in terms of teen drinking Cape is “the most accepting” community he has seen and the culture needs to change.
The forum, hosted by the Cape Coalition, was entitled “Contracts and Consequences,” a subject of widespread community discussion in the wake of the suspensions of a basketball star and hockey player from their teams following a huge party at Sugarloaf over New Year’s.
“We wanted to try to provide a forum” for discussing in a larger group what is already being talked about in small groups around town, Coalition co-chairman Terry Johnson said. He wanted people to “start to agree on a fair and consistent message” to send teens about drinking, but that did not emerge from the meeting.
Parents and teens were present in droves, and high school Principal Jeff Shedd was there, as was Superintendent Forcella and School Board member
Kevin Sweeney.
Policy, problem not new
Parents began the discussion by saying they are concerned about preventing a teen-drinking tragedy, but want to have an environment in town and in school where kids could learn from their mistakes, rather than suffer severe consequences on the first or second offense.
A School Board policy that took effect at the beginning of this school year requires student-athletes and their parents to sign a contract saying they have read the rules and agree to abide by them. The consequences of drinking are laid out on paper, with a first offense punishable either by suspension from two games (if a student or the student’s parents tell school officials about the infraction) or for the remainder of the season (if the school finds out about it another way). A second offense results in suspension from all athletic
teams for the remainder of the year.
Shedd announced in December that the rules would be enforced equally for all students involved in extracurricular and co-curricular activities, rather than just for athletes.
Further, students who host parties where drinking occurs, and who do not take steps to break them up (by calling police or parents), could also be in trouble.
Parents and teens alike said the contract had previously been seen as “a joke” and not enforced. Specifically, star athletes’ transgressions had been “winked at,” one adult said. The new enforcement of the rules does not make Shedd popular with students, some of whom expressed concern about how the rules were communicated to them.
Many parents said athletes don’t read the contract before signing, though no student said that was the case. Students did say that increasing coach and team involvement in following the contract would help them do better at it, though several students in the room said they did not drink.
Parents go to bat for teens
A number of parents were concerned that taking away athletics – seen by school officials as a privilege – would put teens more at risk than allowing them to “work their way back” onto a team or activity.
Many parents said the school’s role in this is too big, but Sweeney said the School Board was responding to parents’ demands. Each time something happened with teens and drinking, parents came to the School Board demanding to know what the schools were going to do about it, he said.
As a result, the School Board has supported outdoor education programs in the middle school, DARE programs and this policy, he said.
One parent suggested the school step back and let parents enforce household rules when drinking occurs outside of school events.
Another said the policy makes school officials “policemen” when really they are educators. And, he said, the policy isn’t fixing the problem.
One parent suggested alcohol violations be treated similarly to academic probation, in which a student who is failing a class must come up with a way to bring his or her grades up, and is checked regularly on progress, but is allowed to play sports while working on the problem.
One parent said drinking is different because it is against the law, and allowing kids to get away with drinking is letting them go down a slippery slope to lawbreaking.
Another said parents aren’t enforcing the policy, the law or any other rules. At least 25 kids party “every weekend,” one said. Parents also typically do not show up to Cape Coalition meetings to discuss the issue, according to coalition organizer Liz Weaver. By contrast, students are often at coalition meetings.
Reality vs. myth: True West burns through the curtain
Published in the Portland Phoenix
Sam Shepard doesn’t waste any time. A comfortable 1980s-style kitchen becomes, in the opening minutes of True West, a scene of brotherly discord, soaring hopes, dashed dreams, and sobering reality. Like the flaring of the opening match, the play starts suddenly and grows in intensity until it burns fully by the end, the hot flames of paper in a trash can literally wafting smoke through a packed theater. And when the flames go out, the darkness is just as sudden — no more comforting for the light not shed upon the disturbing substance of the story.
Sam Shepard doesn’t waste any time. A comfortable 1980s-style kitchen becomes, in the opening minutes of True West, a scene of brotherly discord, soaring hopes, dashed dreams, and sobering reality. Like the flaring of the opening match, the play starts suddenly and grows in intensity until it burns fully by the end, the hot flames of paper in a trash can literally wafting smoke through a packed theater. And when the flames go out, the darkness is just as sudden — no more comforting for the light not shed upon the disturbing substance of the story.
Two brothers, an Ivy League grad struggling to make it as a Hollywood screenwriter without ever having really “lived” and a small-time burglar who has tasted the blood and marrow of life but can’t articulate it, face off in their mother’s kitchen, while she escapes on a trip to Alaska.
The Ivy Leaguer, Austin (played by Todd Cerveris) and the thief, Lee (Don Harvey) clash awkwardly, as family members with a shared past but no way to relate in the present. In Lee’s words, he is a desert coyote, howling mournfully and terrifyingly all night long, while Austin is a city coyote yapping fruitlessly at the darkness.
The complexity of the characters is intense, and to watch the two establish their dynamic on stage is to be drawn into a tense cycle of violence and silence. “Lee’s like a tiger. He’s like a tiger who’s hungry,” Harvey says of his role: He has to be ready to pounce at any moment, but when the tiger smiles, it is possible for a brief moment to see a heart behind the teeth.
Shepard’s play takes on the cultural mythology of the West and rips it open, disclosing, cringing in the stage lights, tiny humans inside monstrous beings, pulling the controls like Pinky and the Brain inside large humanoid robots. It is a masterful play, rich with the juice of reality and glistening with the slick sheen of falsehood.
“Once it gets you into that world, it then begins to twist,” Harvey says.
He and Cerveris know this well — each has performed Shepard roles. Each also knows, from experience in film and television, that the sunny surf of Hollywood has a powerful undertow.
The two swap roles in True West — almost — as a man with whom Austin was hoping to start a project offers Lee a large screenplay deal. But now they need each other more, Lee at the typewriter and Austin drunk, singing, on the floor. They play off each other well, though Cerveris could stand to go drinking for real a few times — his lines are delivered far too clearly to be the insights of a real bumbling drunk, and he moves more like an old man looking for dentures than a person who will suck down the hair of the dog in the morning.
As Lee’s developing story becomes a chase scene, the drama of this Western–style play becomes increasingly tense. The rages, the double-dealing, and the no-good-dirty-scoundrel behaviors really begin.
The tension is challenging, and Harvey admits it is easier to perform the play than to rehearse it. Rather than stopping and starting to make small changes, the energy in a full performance can flow through the actors, allowing them to handle the randomness of 20 pieces of toast popping through several minutes, as well as the unusually challenging element of timing a champagne cork to go off just as the scene goes dark.
(It popped far too soon during the show I saw, and the actors grinned at each other, waiting to see who would cover it first. The moment allowed the real power of the actors to shine through — they were deep in character and immediately handled the situation as each character would have, though it raised the question of what would have happened in real life, whether the laughter would have taken over and the moment dissolved in shared experience.)
But the twists continue, tying the brothers into immobility. The mother (Barbara Mather) comes home early from her trip, because she missed her beloved plants, now dead because the brothers neglected everything but themselves, turning the kitchen into a wreck and never bothering to cover the evidence of their harsh reality, splayed out on the floor. Mom, clearly used to getting through chaos by diverting her attention, begins to prattle about insignificant nothings, unable to deal with the causes and certain outcome of her sons’ struggles for life.
True West
By Sam Shepard, directed by Paul Mullins. With Todd Cerveris, Don Harvey, Ron Botting and Barbara Mather. At Portland Stage Company through Feb. 23. Call (207) 774-0465.
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