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To prevent is better than to cure

The Dave and Mary Alper Jewish Community Center in Kendall offers an eight-week fitness program called Team Fit in partnership with United Way and Baptist Health Systems. The program focuses on helping children ages 8 to 12 who are screened as overweight or at risk of becoming overweight.

Kids are divided into groups with a trainer to do age-appropriate exercises and games for an hour twice a week and for two hours on Saturdays. At least one parent must be at the session, and the center encourages families to participate and get fit together.“Being part of an organized program improves their motor skills, social skills and promotes weight loss,” said Feito, adding that kids should be involved in sports or activities outside of their school’s physical education. “It all starts with play.”

Alper JCC also offers one-on-one personal training session for teens ages 13 to 15 to learn about personal fitness goals and gym etiquette.

Miami Children's Hospital offers a 10-week wellness program called Healthy Chicas, geared toward mothers and daughters to exercise and get nutritional counseling together.

Dr. Maria Demma Cabral, a fellow in adolescent medicine at Miami Children’s, helps identify patients who qualify for the program and oversees their progress.Cabral tracks the patient’s Body Mass Index, a number calculated from a person’s weight and height, to determine when a patient is underweight, healthy weight or overweight. Patients who need to get their body weight under control, have high cholesterol or blood pressure are ideal candidates for the program.

“We follow up with them up to six months after [finishing the program],” Cabral said. “We see if they were able to [keep off the weight].”

Each week, kids and parents enrolled in the program spend an hour doing different types of physical activity, including salsa, belly dancing and yoga — anything to keep the heart rate up and boost metabolism.

Registered dietician Jennifer Caceres teaches participants about nutrition, hosts cooking demos and takes them on a field trip to the grocery store to learn about healthy, inexpensive alternatives to some foods. For example, buying pre-cut fruits is more expensive than buying the fruit whole and slicing it at home.Cabral tracks the patient’s Body Mass Index, a number calculated from a person’s weight and height, to determine when a patient is underweight, healthy weight or overweight. Patients who need to get their body weight under control, have high cholesterol or blood pressure are ideal candidates for the program.

“We follow up with them up to six months after [finishing the program],” Cabral said. “We see if they were able to [keep off the weight].”

Each week, kids and parents enrolled in the program spend an hour doing different types of physical activity, including salsa, belly dancing and yoga — anything to keep the heart rate up and boost metabolism.

Registered dietician Jennifer Caceres teaches participants about nutrition, hosts cooking demos and takes them on a field trip to the grocery store to learn about healthy, inexpensive alternatives to some foods. For example, buying pre-cut fruits is more expensive than buying the fruit whole and slicing it at home. The Miami-Dade County Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces offers an after-school program called Fit2Play at 41 parks in the county. The program serves as a childhood obesity prevention program, and anyone is eligible to apply.

The parks department collaborates with the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Miami Health System; doctors collect data from kids and track the health benefits of the program.

Dr. Sarah Messiah from UHealth says she measures each child’s BMI and blood pressure throughout the school year. In five years of conducting the study, Messiah has tracked how overweight and obese children are losing weight and have improved their blood pressure numbers. Like other after-school programs, Fit2Play offers homework time and snack time, but the curriculum is based on staying active most of the time.

“We play non-elimination games,” said Caleb Coppock, health and wellness specialist for the parks department. “The goal is to stay active for as long as possible.”

Kids are exposed to different games and sports — capture the flag, kickball, flag football, soccer, tennis, golf. The program is available for kids ages 6 and up and it costs $25 to $35 a week, although the county offers fee reductions depending on the family income. There are about 1,400 kids enrolled in the program this year.

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Mexican American Heritage was dead on arrival. Just as they promised in September, members of the Texas State Board of Education rejected the book, labeled as "racist," "inaccurate" and "embarrassing" by opponents. Wednesday's preliminary vote was  14-0 against adopting the book as a text approved for use in Texas' classrooms.
The book, published by a company owned by former conservative firebrand board of education member Cynthia Dunbar, describes Mexicans as "viewed as lazy compared to European or American workers." Mexicans, according to the book, operated on something called "mañana time," meaning they looked to put things off until tomorrow. Chicano activists in the '60s, the book also claimed, "adopted a revolutionary narrative that opposed Western civilization and wanted to destroy this society." An essay in the book about about former Mexican president Benito Juarez is available for purchase on a website called 123helpme.com.

As Mexican American Heritage has gone through vetting by the board, scholars, Texas legislators and members of the board have all come out against the book.
"This book is so flawed that it should never get the stamp of approval from anyone in the state of Texas," state Senator Sylvia Garcia said at a board hearing in September. "The board approval of this textbook would be a major embarrassment to this state. I personally have found the textbook unacceptable. It is one thing to hear political rhetoric that calls us lazy and calls us names, but we should never expect it as facts and accept it and put it in textbooks."

Before Wednesday's vote, Dunbar sent a letter to the board claiming that they were censoring her textbook. Board member Thomas Ratliff, a Republican, flatly rejected Dunbar's claims. During the initial hearing for the book in September, Ratliff described the text as "dead on arrival" saying it had no chance to get the board's stamp of approval.

"I think it's important to say what we are doing and what we aren't doing. What we are not doing is censoring a textbook," Ratliff said Wednesday. "Nothing prohibits [Dunbar] from printing the book exactly as it is. Nothing prohibits [her] from resubmitting the book and nothing that we are doing prevents [her] from selling the book to Texas school districts. What we are doing is following Texas education policy and our rules."

After the vote, Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa credited the board with rejecting racism.

“This is bigger than just a textbook, it speaks to the ongoing fight to ensure Texas embraces all of its children. How can we solve challenges like health care, education, or find good jobs if we have such blatant racism in our schools?" Hinojosa said.

Wednesday's vote is expected to be made final at Friday's board meeting.

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In an onstage conversation Wednesday, Oct. 26, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where Directors' Circle donors were previewing "Bruce Conner: It's All True," it was emphasized that Conner, "the quintessential artist's artist" by museum director Neal Benezra 's description, was a man of paradox.

"He was part of the beatniks, the hippie movement, very active in the punk movement," said co-curator Rudolf Frieling, SFMOMA media arts curator, "but he kept his distance."

"He was at the heart of all those movements," said co-curator Gary Garrels, SFMOMA senior curator of paintings and sculpture, and he managed "to traverse them." As reviewed by critic Charles Desmarais on Saturday, Conner worked on paper, he built assemblages, and he made films, dizzying and hypnotic at once. Images are projected so fast that they're unsettling; you can't look away.

Walking through the exhibition, art collector Norah Stone mentioned that years ago, she'd been seated next to Conner at a dinner at his dealer Paule Anglim 's house. He was "grumpy and funny," she said, elaborating a bit the next day.

"He was a curmudgeon in some ways, but he softened up after a while. He just didn't want to start any long conversations. ... I could have talked to him about North Beach and the history of San Francisco, but I wasn't one of his buddies. ... He didn't have any interest in impressing me with what he was saying."

At the time, the Stones didn't have any Conner work. But a piece owned by them - which includes a photograph of himself - is on loan for the exhibition.

As to the second quality, "funny," Conner's campaign speech - delivered at the Haight-Ashbury's Straight theater - for a 1967 run for the Board of Supervisors is presented in the form of a list that begins: "Apple pie, cherry, chocolate, rhubarb, pumpkin, mince meat ... banana cream!" (He received 5,228 votes.)

A large assemblage called "Wednesday" was simply "Untitled" when Conner made it in 1960. Descriptive material says Conner gave the work to Peter Selz, who was then a curator at New York's Museum of Modern Art. After Selz awarded Conner first prize in an art competition sponsored by the National Council of Churches, the artist retitled the work after Selz's cat. Wednesday had given birth in the base of the sculpture.

P.S.: Natasha Boas, who wrote the introduction to "Bruce Conner: The Afternoon Interviews," a newly published (by RE/Search) series of conversations with V. Vale recorded in the '70s, handed me a copy of the book at the exhibition preview.

In a 1979 conversation about punk, he addresses unlikely juxtapositions of punk (and himself): "You always think of things as being classically a balance scale, no matter what you do. It's going to include elements of the other side of the balance. And once the balance goes all the way down, that's the end of the balance, but it still represents that there's an opposition, which is the split in allegiance. ... And what I'm interested in is how they deal with it, how they make their choices."

*Fine dining connoisseur and Anchorage 5 restaurant fan Steve Rubenstein of The Chronicle says the printed breakfast menu provides a "Twilight Zone" experience: A two-slice half order of French toast is $7.95; a three-slice full order of French toast is $7.95.

*On Nov. 10, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Ore., in partnership with the Western Addition's Handful Players, will ask an audience of San Francisco public school students to lend them their ears for a free show at the African American Arts & Culture Complex. Members of the festival's touring company will perform excerpts from "Julius Caesar," and mash up other Shakespeare scenes with contemporary references.

On Friday, Nov. 4, the Montgomery Street art gallery 836M opens its third show in a series by artists from Oakland's Creative Growth, an art center/studio/gallery for adults with developmental, mental or physical disabilities. This show includes the drawing "Untitled," a felt tip pen on paper work by Dan Miller that is in the collection of New York's MoMa.

From the museum's description: "Miller's repetition of images, numbers and words creates complex abstract patterns. The varying density of the lines, obliterating any discernible form, reflects the artist's compulsions."

The work was purchased by MoMA's Friends of Contemporary Drawing. The description says nothing about the artist being autistic; the work stands on its own.
Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik
Public Eavesdropping

"She's a seasoned French press drinker."

Barista to barista, about a customer who'd pronounced the coffee "very liquid," overheard in Martinez by Jamie Jobb

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SFMOMA's retrospective exhibition of Bruce Conner, close and far

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SFMOMA's retrospective exhibition of Bruce Conner, close and far In an onstage conversation Wednesday, Oct. 26, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where Directors' Circle donors were previewing Bruce Conner: Walking through the exhibition, art collector Norah Stone mentioned that years ago, she'd been seated next to Conner at a dinner at his dealer Paule [...]

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Elisa Favoriti from San Francismo Chronicle

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Elisa Favoriti from San Francismo Chronicle

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Northern California has seen more than its share of new, renovated and expanded visual arts buildings in the past year. But the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis, opening to the public Sunday, is the first certifiably new museum. A hybrid set on a leading agriculture campus, it means to be both an unpresuming university facility and a glowing symbol of modern liberal thought.
The Manetti Shrem replaces what was called the Richard L. Nelson Gallery, a knot of repurposed classrooms that had served for nearly 40 years as the closest thing Davis had to the art museums that grace virtually all major university campuses. Professionally run but hobbled by lack of resources, in recent years the Nelson had little impact beyond the local. And zero curb appeal.

But besides its function as a container into which art might be placed, the Manetti Shrem has little in common with its predecessor, or with other institutions in Northern California. I have had brief discussions with Rachel Teagle, the museum’s founding director, about her plans and dreams for the project. But even without ever meeting her, one would easily intuit the differences.

Photo: M. Lee Fatherree, UC DavisIMAGE 1 OF 10"I Have My Eyes on Me Endlessly" (1992) by Robert Arneson is a gift to the Manneti Shrem Museum from the artist's widow, Sandra L. Shannonhouse.

The best museums — whether we are talking about buildings or what goes on inside them — express a clear philosophy. They function in service of a defined audience — one they seek to understand, even as they help it toward understanding of art and its place in history and the world.
The Manetti Shrem was built from scratch to serve a mission of education through interaction with works of art. With a total of roughly 30,000 square feet, the $30 million building is divided into three pavilions, all beneath a flowing canopy twice that size. There’s a Gallery Pavilion of 10,100 square feet broken up into several rooms for art exhibition.

But the plan — and we will watch to see how it is executed, of course — is not merely to hang works and wait for an audience to reverentially pass through, absorbing their aura. Equally important are what is called a Collections Classroom, set among the galleries — the museum maintains a small collection, largely related to UC Davis artists and their gifts — and an Arts Education Pavilion with a large assembly room and a teaching studio.

The Collections Classroom seats 30 at a large table, where students can see and work with real art objects up close — mostly prints, like the works by James McNeill Whistler currently reserved for a class. The assembly space, properly called Community Education, is a flexible lecture hall and meeting room. The studio is meant to be available to students — matriculated or not, art majors or otherwise — around the clock.

The signal is clear: This is a museum meant for teaching. All these spaces are available for the purpose, and some will even host semester-long scheduled classes.

An Operations Pavilion, including staff and volunteer space, completes the array, with a grand lobby tying the three pavilions together. Outdoor spaces, suited to the Central Valley climate, will encourage hanging out — hopefully leading to discussions of art — and even art-making, on a pad outside the studio.

The college or university museum has a long and revered history. There are some 700 such facilities on campuses across the U.S., with 90 in California alone. The Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, England, founded in 1677, claims the distinction of being the first, but teaching collections preceded even that.

Originally assembled as teaching tools, such collections and the buildings that housed them came to be thought of as essential to a liberal education, as well as markers of prestige. In 1864, Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., became the first in the U.S. to include an art museum in its original plan.
But the function of such museums has shifted over time. Museums were once designed for prominent, central sites on campus, symbolizing a place of honor for the fine arts in the curriculum. As universities slowly dismantle their ivory towers, seeking to engage the larger communities of which they are a part, art museums have the potential to become hubs of town-and-gown interaction.

For all kinds of good reasons — some altruistic, some political — the university museum often provides as much or more service to the off-campus community as to students and faculty. Accordingly, they have moved to the edges of their campuses, if not off the grounds entirely.

UC Davis and the Manetti Shrem Museum are attempting to have it both ways, which may be tough to pull off but worth trying. On the one hand, shrewdly located across the street from the university’s Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, the handsome new structure embraces the new symbolism. Like the UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, which opened its own new building in January at the entrance to the Berkeley campus, the museum is strategically placed at a primary entrance to the university.

In that role, the museum announces publicly that the university is a place that accepts all the complexity, nuance and irony that are at the heart of a liberal education. A place that embraces art as a statement of core principles.

At the same time, Manetti Shrem seeks to play the role of classroom — looking inward, toward the school, and back to the days that put education at the heart of the museum experience. To a place that values uncertainty, and where questions are as valuable as answers.

There’s an inherent conflict here that will have to be worked out. Whether and how that is resolved will be the measure of the museum’s success.

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The state’s education commissioner, aiming to end a long-brewing controversy, is proposing to scrap a rule requiring school systems to develop individual ratings for teachers and administrators based solely on student test scores.
“I heard loud and clear from teacher unions and administrators that having a separate rating has more downsides then upsides,” Mitchell Chester, commissioner of elementary and secondary education, said in an interview.

His proposal, however, would not entirely do away with the use of student test scores in evaluating teachers and administrators, prompting mixed reaction to the proposal Tuesday.

Instead, it would require school systems to fold the scores into a separate system of judging educator performance: the annual job review, a process that has been based largely on observations, and a review of other evidence, such as lesson plans.

“I don’t see any defensible way of rating the success of an educator that doesn’t take into account student learning,” he said, noting the primary mission of schools is to help students grow academically.

Under the current rules, districts were supposed to create a “student impact rating” for every educator — including art teachers and guidance counselors — based on at least two measures of student performance. The intent was to determine whether teachers or administrators were effectively boosting student achievement by assigning a numeric value to growth in test scores by classroom and school.

But the student impact ratings were proving difficult for districts to implement, especially for educators who don’t teach subjects covered by the MCAS or other standardized tests.

Consequently, superintendents, school committees, and teacher unions aggressively lobbied the commissioner to abandon the five-year-old requirement.Very few districts developed the ratings, which deemed an educator’s impact on student learning as low, moderate, or high.
Chester plans to present his proposal to his agency’s board at its monthly meeting Tuesday. If the board is receptive, it will send the proposal out for public comment before making a final decision.
The proposal — months making in consultation with teacher unions and administrator groups — is already generating considerable debate. The Massachusetts Teachers Association, which opposes using student test scores in teacher evaluations, formally came out against Chester’s proposal Tuesday.
“The commissioner’s plan fails to address the reality that there is no way to fairly and effectively judge teachers based on student test scores,” Barbara Madeloni, the MTA president, said in a statement. “Trying to do so is contributing to a hyper-focus on testing at the expense of more meaningful teaching and learning.”

Madeloni added that teachers already reflect on student work as they formulate their lesson plans to determine what concepts need to be reinforced and what new material can be pursued — and that kind of reflection can also have a role in evaluations.

Many teachers don’t like being judged on student test scores because other factors outside of school can influence student performance, such as a lack of sleep, hunger, or unstable home lives.

But representatives for associations representing superintendents and school committees said they believe the commissioner reached a good balance by incorporating student test scores in the overall evaluation instead of creating a separate, stand-alone rating.

“I think the commissioner has offered a very skillful and strategic accommodation,” said Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. “And it gives people what they want — not having to go through the hoops and developing the algorithms on how to do a student impact rating.”

If the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education approves the changes, the new requirements could still prove difficult to implement. In order for any school districts to make changes to teacher evaluations, they would need to negotiate them with their local teacher unions.

“The bottom line for us is we are hopeful that most districts will go to the table and have conversations about this and make it work,” said Thomas Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents.

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Alessandro Vitozzi from Wall Street Journal

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Alessandro Vitozzi from Wall Street Journal

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As some students protest the election of Donald Trump and others rejoice, teachers are wrestling with how best to educate them on a significant event that has split the country.

Textbooks have yet to catch up to one of the most contentious presidential elections in modern history. Lesson plans are being created on the fly, from the coal country in West Virginia to the Bay Area of California.

John Quesenberry, who teaches advanced history and government in Beckley, W.Va., has been leading his students in discussions of President Andrew Jackson’s appeal to the common man in seeking to explain the phenomenon that propelled Mr. Trump toward the White House.

He also brings in the history of executive orders and how campaign rhetoric in other countries is sometimes more sharp than actual governing. And in light of recent protests, the class discusses the First Amendment and “freedom of assembly.”

“It’s been real good to work in historical analogies,” Mr. Quesenberry said. “I try not to take a view, but give them the different things and let them draw conclusions.”

Some teachers are taking a more radical approach.

In San Francisco, Mission High School peer resources teacher Fakrah Shah’s lesson calls Mr. Trump “racist and sexist” and urges students to fight oppression. Ms. Shah has used the plan in her class and a copy of it was posted on a union web site for other teachers to draw from.

Howard Epstein, vice chairman of communications for the San Francisco Republican Party, called the lesson plan “ridiculous,” even for a liberal city like San Francisco. He said that teachers who use it “should be fired immediately.”
The San Francisco Unified School District has been neutral on the matter, saying the lesson plan is optional. A spokesman for the 6,200-member union said the lesson plan has been positively received by many teachers and some parents.

Few national organizations have developed lesson plans on the topic.

“It is a tough issue at the moment,” said Lawrence Paska, executive director of the National Council for the Social Studies. “You’re going to see a lot of organizations coming forward with resources.”

That leaves many teachers on their own.

In Arkansas, teacher Chuck West admits to having strong views about the election, but he says he keeps his lessons neutral at Little Rock Central High School.

Students in Mr. West’s advanced American History classes have discussed the “alt-right,” which he defines as people that “are further to the right than your typical Republican.” Discussion in his demographically diverse classes also has focused on a president’s powers and the impeachment process.

“I don’t encourage them to think in terms of impeachment, but they have questions,” Mr. West said. “They might not care about the war of 1812, but they care a lot about the election of 2016.”

At Easley High School in South Carolina, U.S. history teacher Tracy Todd takes a different route. “We do not teach about any particular candidate,” she said, adding that she follows her state’s academic standards, which are more general.

In Mountain View, Calif., an election lesson didn’t end well. A teacher was put on leave after allegedly drawing similarities between Mr. Trump and Adolf Hitler. The leave lasted part of a day and ended after about 35,000 people signed an online petition demanding his return. School officials said the leave wasn’t over the lesson but a parent and student complaint.

Some teachers say the election has provided many “teachable moments.”

Tim Sokolowski’s government classes in southeast Indianapolis have analyzed election results and studied the congressional hearing process as Mr. Trump assembles his team. They discuss whether pre-election polling should continue, in light of miscalculations in the recent election. And they talk about the Constitution, and whether it would allow banning Muslims from entering the U.S.

“Where’s that line of liberty versus security?” Mr. Sokolowski said he asked the students. “Give me an argument of why I can or can’t do that.”

Mr. Sokolowski said the students have handled the election maturely. He said that he can recall only one incident that he perceived as negative in class, when a student said, “Build that wall.”

Dallas high-school teacher Diane Birdwell senses the nervousness of students in her majority-Hispanic classes on oral history. They fear Mr. Trump’s agenda when it comes to immigration.

Ms. Birdwell, 56 years old, said that she has turned focus to the civil rights movement to help address the fears. She tells them that she recalls it being a lot worse in the 1960s, and that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would be disappointed with some of the current protests because they are unorganized. She talks about how far the country has come, noting that the current president is a black man, a race that once couldn’t vote.

Students also have to be able to say what they do or don’t like about Mr. Trump’s proposals in Ms. Birdwell’s class.

“I tell them, ‘Explain it to me, the white middle-age woman,’” she said. “I challenge them."

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William Wordsworth was an English poet. He and Coleridge are considered the founders of Romanticism and especially of the English naturalism, with the publication in 1798 of Lyrical Ballads and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. His posthumous poem The Prelude is considered a masterpiece. Wordsworth and Coleridge influenced decisively the nineteenth-century literature.
Their poetry is setted in the Lake District, in the north of Cumberland. Characters are people of every day life and the language used is simple.

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He was the son of a clergyman and a precocious child who was eager to learn. When his father died (in 1781) he was sent to school in London.
He entered Cambridge University but didn't find it stimulating and drifted away from his studies. He contracted substantial debs and joined the British Arm. He started to write in a weekly newspaper: The Watchman. He also wrote the conversation poem Frost at Midnight.
Conversation poem is a new form in which a speaker enters a dialogue with a silent listener to make him share the poet's thoughts. He also met William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy.
Two poets start a collaboration writing Lyrical Ballads (A collection of poems very important in English literature) and The Rime of Ancient Mariner. Coleridge also joined Wordsworth in the Lake District (A place where a group of poets had begun to write verse inspired by the beauty of natural landscape).
His latest works are Christabel (Collection of poems), Kubla Khan (Short poem full of assonance and alliteration, written one night after a vision induced by opium) and Biographia Literaria (Reflections about aesthetic). He died in 1834.

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It talks about the story of an old sailor. While he was travelling to the Antarctic, an albatross (bird of good omen) started to fly around the ship, but he killed it, triggering a chain of evil supernatural events and the ship got stuck by the wind in the middle of the ocean.  Suddenly appared a skeleton ship with two spectre-figures: The Death and The life in death.  The two figure began to toss dice, the death won the shipmates’ lives and the life in death the mariner’s soul. The mariner lived on, tortured by his guilt. The punishment ended when he unconsciously blessed some marine creatures,however he was condemned to tell people his cautionary tale.