Lincoln High and the Lincoln's Birthday that is masked by the "Honors-all" Presidents Holiday that really honors none.

Today is the Presidents Day Holiday. There used to be two separate holidays in February, one on the 12th for Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, and one holiday on the 22nd for George Washington’s birthday.

The holidays now honor neither Lincoln nor Washington, and are supposed to be a tribute for all the presidents. Going from the two most famous presidents in the country’s history to a generic holiday for all who held the office is an honor to none of them.

Looking at Lincoln High that has a namesake with a rich and vivid history is still pretty dismal with the way that the birthday on the 12th of February and the all-purpose Presidents Day is recognized at Lincoln. Sometimes I wonder what other “Lincoln High’s” do across the country- are there doing any better in dissemination of any history of this president or are they just plodding along like the LAUSD non-distinguished manner of doing anything commemorative or informative?

We used to talk, as teachers, about "teaching" strategies, "teachable" moments, scaffolding, and "engaging" students as activities for the purpose of enhancing or maximizing the learning experience. So when it comes to using Lincoln’s birthday as such a vehicle to focus some better attention on such things of history, they miss the boat and it just doesn’t happen. I do have to say that this is not the case for everyone that was teaching at Lincoln, but the task should be something coordinated from the policy and decision-making levels for accomplishing some overall impact in education instead of being left to chance and totally an unplanned event.

I could be just too picky here and what with all the drop outs and the problems with passing the High School Exit Exam and dealing with budget cuts, it might be too much too ask of a school to try to find each opportunity to develop a higher level of education while shoring up some of the lost pride that has eroded so much from the days when I graduated from Lincoln. There’s a lot that can be accomplished at this school in a lot of small ways to improve things but most of the time somebody is looking for a bigger, flashier solution to fix everything. Unfortunately, I don’t believe the solution is all just one thing. It’s a lot of little things working together to move the whole program along. Waiting for some big bang theory of education to arrive or to be created is not the answer. A little bit of parent involvement, more student participation in decisions (and that does not mean abdicating everything to a student body choice), work in some community business activity of a reciprocal nature and try to get alumni working in more than the limited peripheral activities at football games or cash awards for select programs and students.

Right now, the budget crisis keeps the LAUSD busy doing a lot of hand-wringing and the potential for more job cuts is growing. On the teachers side, headed up by the union, it just looks like there is some wagon-circling going on for a priority of maintaining teacher job security under the union umbrella, and the district is moving in a slow and unsatisfactory manner to solve things. (I will talk about LAUSD’s move to kick up property taxes by $200 a parcel separately.) In the meanwhile, the main reason for schools and the District is still the students and the attention to their educational needs takes a back seat, as usual, to the other parts of the system, the adults.

So, while there is a day off from school today and while most government offices are also closed, there is little recognition of any particular one of the presidents that this re-structured holiday has fostered while replacing the Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday holidays. It’s been a real step backward.

Jay Leno used to have a segment of his show with man on the street questions posed that brought out some really ignorant answers- a city election was going on months after the Presidential election ended and a couple of young women were asked who they voted for. “Obama” was the answer for each. They were asked again, “No, who did you vote for in the city elections today?” They answered, “ Oh, what elections? Is there an election today?” Aside from the comedy aspect of this, it shows a cloud of ignorance in basic history and civic awareness that hangs over the heads of a lot of people in L.A. That drift to creating a larger group of less-informed persons (in this area, at least) is what allows greater control to be granted to those who are informed and can take advantage of things based on that condition. They tend to be politicians and they are more able to manipulate the less educated masses for their own purposes. Look around and see city and state conditions for that happening.

That’s the kind of general deterioration of education that’s come about by making changes in these holidays for the political expediency of creating room for more contemporary holidays. Changing the holidays around didn’t cause the current ills by that singular act, but it’s a part of a lot of things that work together to get us here.

If check LHS’ web site, you might see what I mean. Last year was the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. There was a display case in the main lobby of LHS prepared by the Alumni Association. Not much else was observed by me about this event at LHS. This is the now the 201st birthday but who would know? I would like to be wrong about seeing nothing happening along these lines, and maybe I just haven’t caught much of the news from LHS because I didn’t look too hard or they didn’t promote things too much. Either way, I don’t think there is as much to represent the educational system at work to use opportunities in this narrow slice of the entire pie of school actions.

"Presidents Day"- LHS gets day off for which President?

Today's holiday is called "President's Day" and LHS along with other schools, federal, state and local government offices are closed, along with the banks. Your L.A. City trash pickup is unchanged, so don't forget to put that out on the curb if today is your day. What do we have to think about on this holiday? And what is this holiday supposed to be, anyway?

Presidents Day is what the Abraham Lincoln's Birthday of February 12 holiday and the George Washington's Birthday of February 22 holiday have become- not really for Abe and not really for George- it doesn't fall on the same date either because it's a "Monday" holiday for your convenience, which mean that it's a watered-down holiday that has lost most of it's meaning.

The "Monday" holidays that give you a 3-day weekend really turn into a day off, a day for a barbecue or some other enjoyment. This year in L.A. it's turning out to really be a "watered-down" holiday if you have been outside- pouring rain that's predicted to be the heaviest of the year so far for the whole day.

The only thing really unaffected for this holiday by the rain is the "Presidents Day" sales for all the stores that have survived bankruptcy filings of the last few months. At least we can expect that street crime will be lower today with less people out on the streets for both sides- the criminal's and the victim's- but like the change from Lincoln and Washington actually being honored by the holiday that I remembered from my LAUSD days, it's different now.

The Mayor- Tony Villaraigosa, just a bit younger than me- still says, "L.A. safer than it's been since the 1950's," and brags about the crime rate being down. I tend to disagree since I don't rememember that we had street shootings happening so often like today when those events don't even really rate much of a news story anymore.

When my friends and I went to Lincoln, we did not really worry about drive-bys and all that stuff when walking around Lincoln Heights to school. Going to the L.A. Times Boys Club or to the Lincoln Park gym at night did not have that life-and-death shadow that you have now at night- or even during the day. That was the 60's, maybe less safe than the 50's, but if a shooting happened, it was for sure a news story. Today it's sadly too common. My students more recently at Lincoln were so used to shootings happening and even having family members or themselves shot and shot at. I can't even compare that attitude of acceptance with our school-age experiences that differ from mine just a bit, Mr. Mayor.

The Mayor says you need more cops and so he jacks up the fees for trash to do so, and we still don't get the extra 1,000 cops hired, so you get MORE fees and taxes created. It's not even for OUR safety, but for TONY to have HIS dream happen. That dream? Becoming the "Governor of California in 2010" but AFTER Tony wins the mayor's race on March 3. And if there's a runoff-election that's very strong possiblity with a few more voters coming out, you will really see all stops pulled out by TONY to win-

And you know politics on a local level affects this all the time these days. Our Mayor has let this happen and has made L.A. life worse for most people other than developers and the unions that pay his campaign funds. BUT NO DEBATES FOR TONY. He's got nothing good to say and too much that can come out without being defensible by him and he knows that. TONY doesn't deserve to inflict another terrible term on us, especially with so many lies, big and small, that he's told like the simple one where walking around at night now IS a much riskier proposition that in my high school days. Can you see HIM walking around the streets at night without his police bodyguards? Of course, some places are very dangerous and some are pretty safe, but the idea is that overall, violent crime happens everywhere and is too common.

City life in L.A. is getting to be, more and more, a different experience than you or I remember. Even if you are of the "younger" generation, you have to see those changes, too. If you moved away from "the Heights" and haven't been around for a few years or longer, maybe the changes are more eye-opening. The "improvements" from advances in technology have come along to bring things we could not even imagine as high school students.

Another change that is noticed for high school students is about the level of basic skills students have attained in school. More of our students are ill-prepared, continuing to struggle to pass CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL EXIT exams in math and English, written at an 8th grade level- and that, my friends is what we called, "Jr. High" level. It should be able to be done and done early in high school, not coming up every year to make a student wonder if he or she will be able to joing classmates graduating in June. Performance at "grade level" is not the norm, and when you see that many have fallen behind several years, you have to wonder what was done to let it get ONE year behind grade level. This kind of weak attention to even-handed attention to students' progress just makes them to become weaker, and for many, to be attracted into criminal activity where they can be accepted and succeed with a different group.

A holiday should be enjoyable and the basic reason for its creation should be understood. Presidents Day has become as dissoved as the dirt on the streets in today's rainstorm and neither Lincoln nor Washington really are honored or remembered. Our schools have changed with simple historical items remaining a mystery, even to those at school bearing the same name. Every little bit of education helps round out the knowledge base and make more learning more able to happen.

A lot of basic things we older alumni have experienced in learning just don't happen anymore, even with all the changes in technology and information. And it doesn't have to be like that. Education is affected by things in the school and in the community and we need to pay attention to changing what needs to be changed to equip the students for life success.