Salon.com > Catherine Davis

Yosemite summer

Mon, 25 Jun 2001 19:27:00 +0000

When I was 19, I lived in Yosemite National Park for a summer and fell in love with a gay man. I can see now that I must have known, at least subconsciously, that he was gay. But at the time, I was so crazy about this guy I couldn't see straight. The attention he showered on me was captivating, like the first sun of the season on bare shoulders. I closed my eyes, basked in the glow and never considered how an affair with him might end.

Edward was 25 and had blond hair that fell in big, loose curls around his tan and chiseled face. We worked together at the village store in Yosemite. It was dingy and dirty from the dust of Yosemite in the summer, and constantly filled with tourists who had driven from all over the country just so they could wait in line to buy Yosemite toaster tongs or laminated El Capitán place mats. The store sold sweatshirts with neon graphics, the worst of which was a bestseller: It had "Stokin at the Dome!" emblazoned across a hot pink outline of Yosemite's famous Half Dome.

Money talks

Fri, 26 May 2000 18:35:00 +0000

I taught fifth grade in a district where it was not uncommon for families to donate more than $1,000 to their child's school throughout the course of the year. This windfall of cash transformed our small public school into an exceptionally flush campus, on a par with many of the private schools in the surrounding area.

Unlike other California public schools, where state funds have been repeatedly slashed, my students had weekly art lessons, a library program, a drama coach who directed a play for the fourth- and fifth-grade students and computer classes four days a week. Donations from my students' parents even made it possible for me to have an aide in my classroom nine hours a week, which meant frequent opportunities for one-on-one tutoring. My classroom closets were crammed full of fancy art supplies, books and the newest educational software.

When I was first hired to teach in this affluent district, I thought I had scored a pretty honey gig. But after teaching there for several years, I felt frustrated and stifled. The parents who made extraordinary donations to the school assumed that their generosity would be rewarded with power. They expected to have a commanding voice in administrative and classroom decisions, to have control over curriculum.

Hooked on tutoring

Tue, 29 Feb 2000 17:00:00 +0000

Not too long ago, I taught fifth grade in an exclusive Northern California
suburb where even the second graders can tell you where they want to go to
college.

The school where I worked is just over the hill from the University of
California at Berkeley. By fifth grade, my students already knew not only
the words to the Berkeley fight song but also where Berkeley fit in on
their lists of preferred universities -- below Harvard, below Brown, below
M.I.T., but definitely above any public state college. On Career Day, when
my students were asked to invite someone who worked in a field that
interested them, they brought in the president of Bechtel, a neurosurgeon
and an astrophysicist, among others.

The students in this community are aiming high and their parents are right
behind them, propelling them in any way they are able. For franchised
tutoring programs like Kumon, Sylvan Learning Center and Score! and
supplemental programs like Hooked on Phonics and Lindamood-Bell, this mix
of wealth and ambition represents a gold mine. The parents in communities
like this are ready -- even anxious -- to pay top dollar to make sure their
child has an edge in competition that is furtive, furious and
fueled by the purveyors of academic weapons designed especially for the
battle.