Roy F. McCampbell's Blog

Originally posted on 24 December 2012 when my now 5 year old was 4.

Tis the season…for my 4 year old to ask me to sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer repeatedly during any car trip longer than 30 seconds. My apologies to anyone who gets caught in the crossfire. My singing does not get better with repetition.

My kids also love the Rankin/Bass stop animation classic film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. As you probably have come to expect, I have had a lot of time to wonder about how two seemingly normal reindeer could have a child with a glowing nose. Classic genetics is well-equipped to deal with this problem.

Both Santa and we should be very concerned about the genetics of red reindeer noses. According to Wikipedia, the Rudolph story dates back to 1939. There have probably been quite a few foggy Christmas Eves in the intervening…

OK, so it’s like the night before the night before Christmas and all through the house, the only thing stirring is reruns on television and my fingers on the keyboard and mouse.

My parents are all snug in their beds and I’m wide awake on the couch cause I ate too much bread.

Snow has fallen and it’s zero degrees,  I forgot about runny noses and the bite of the cold winter’s breeze.

But all is well and there will be good cheer, I just saw It’s A Wonderful Life and again shed a tear.

So a wish for you all on this eve of the eve, may the big man in red have some real magic up his sleeve.

All the presents are wrapped. The stockings are ready to be filled. All that’s left is for Santa to show up and move everything into place in the dark of night.

Sometimes Christmas seems more like a deadline than anything else. But when all the goals are met with a day to spare, the relief makes the enjoyment of the Holiday all that much sweeter.

Not that my family is hard to buy gifts for. You don’t have to ask them twice what they would like.

The Kindergartener has made a cottage industry of asking for things. Any toy that is advertised on TV, he wants. Even if the toy is marketed toward girls, he’ll take it. He may not plan to use it as was intended, but Barbie’s jeep can always be cannibalized for spare parts. He wouldn’t look a gift Pretty Little Pony in the mouth. With a…

David Gamberg, superintendent of schools in both Southold and Greenport, New York, is an educator who cares about the whole child. He knows what matters most. He knows that test scores are not what matter most in the development of a healthy child.

In this post, he describes the music classes in second grade in Southold. He sees the joy that the teachers and students share.

And he can’t help but reflect on teachers and schools and districts that have been hurt by budget cuts; on schools that have lost their teachers of the arts; on teachers who are testing their students–not teaching them to sing or dance–so as to be evaluated themselves.

In this reflection, we are briefly reminded of what education is about and how lost our national and state policymakers are.

Let us all hope they find their way. And if they can’t, let’s hope they listen…

Dear Izzy, Max, and Kate,

We’ve been passing around the “The Jesus Storybook Bible” by Sally Lloyd-Jones in my men’s Friday morning Bible study. While last year I used Charlie Brown (actually Linus) to tell you about Christmas, this year I can’t think of a better way to tell you about the meaning of Christmas than these pages from “The Jesus Storybook Bible.”

Someone gave us a very special anonymous gift this year as well. We came home to a surprise on our front porch Sunday night and I was able to talk to you kids about giving and The Christmas season, because of some kind person. Thank you so much whoever you are.

Oh yeah, and we saw Santa yesterday too.

Merry Christmas kids. God’s gift to us was his son Jesus. And eternal Salvation if we accept him into our hearts. You three and Mommy are my reminders…

Consider this historical satire. It was written by Paul Horton, who teaches history at the University of Chicago Lab School.

A Modest Proposal for the Gang of Four

(Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush)

Your plan for defeating the yellow dogs of reaction has not been effective. You need to get serious. Because you know very little about the history of revolutionary progress (Mr. Duncan, you were fed the phrase “Potemkin Village” by someone with a reactionary history degree) you need some motivation. If you cannot make this happen within two years, you will not benefit from a future in the Foundation Politburo, you will not be granted a passport, and you will not be allowed to shop in party stores.

To continue the Cultural Revolution in Education we need to break the spirit of the reactionary teachers who insist that there might be value in…

Our family went last night to visit a shrine. as we do every Christmas. The lights were magnificent! The live manger was awe inspiring as the choir sang nearby. Of course, over the years it has become more commercialized…Merry Go Round ride for $3. Ride in the trolley, $5. $4 dollar popcorn and $5 dollar cotton candy. $12 for a small book about the nativity, and $25 for the accompanying small stuffed sheep. $9.95 for a children’s chicken nugget meal. Of course, with more and more lights, the expenses increase, and they have to fund it somehow. But I digress… The money making aspects of the shrine in no way minimizes the true spirituality and healing nature of the location, which is worth all of the money in the world.

We adopted Dinora from Guatemala at the age of 6 weeks, and I was so thrilled to have a daughter!!! …