Every company has them. Energy zappers are those people who spend their days telling whomever will listen all about their latest illnesses or the accident that happened on the freeway. These are the people whose mission in life is to make everyone feel as bad as they do.

They’re negative people who seem obsessed with finding something wrong in every situation. If it’s a beautiful, sunny day they’ll tell you about the storm that’s coming tomorrow. They lie in wait for some terrible tragedy to befall them instead of enjoying the present moment.

While they may be good, caring people, they’re difficult to be around. If you’re having a fantastic day the energy zapper will come along and rain on your parade. You know the people I’m referring to. We all have them in our lives. Unfortunately, many times they’re some of the people who are closest to us, perhaps even family members. You may be going along having a fantastic day, feeling awesome, as happy as can be, when suddenly you encounter the energy zapper. Within five minutes of listening to her, you feel like you need a nap. She sucks the energy and good feelings out of you.

In this chapter, I will consider ways of working with disturbed children that take into account what we now know about how children's minds develop. There has never been a more urgent need to do this, on grounds of humanity as well as cost effectiveness. At present there are some quite widely accepted strategies intended to change behaviour that are based on a misapprehension of how minds develop, and so are counterproductive. For example, in a difficult moment with a child, imposing solitary “time out” might be necessary for the adult perhaps, useful in helping them to regain the capacity to process emotion, but in itself it is not likely to be helpful for the child as a way of developing new responses. The naughty step approach is likewise unhelpful for children who have suffered adversity. It leaves them without another body and mind to help process the strong emotion to which their bodies and minds are subject, and so deskills them further. It is likely to evoke shame, which as we have seen is one of the most corrosive emotions. These measures are thus more likely to reinforce than to ameliorate wired-in responses that are adapted to previous circumstances.

8.

TEXANS WITH SCOTT

SAMUEL WALKER MISSED THE BATTLES of Monterrey and Buena Vista. On May 27, 1846, he had been commissioned a captain in the Regiment of Mounted Rifles, although he was not formally mustered out of the Rangers until October 2. Newspaper coverage of the war had made the Texas Rangers into national icons, and Walker was seen as the Ranger sans pareil. Shortly after he was mustered out, he reported to Washington, where the government used his popularity for a recruiting drive in Maryland. Once that was completed, he met with Samuel Colt to discuss purchasing weapons. As a Ranger, Walker had used Colt’s Paterson revolver with a five-shot cylinder that gave the Texans an edge in Indian fights. Now Colt had the prototype for a vastly improved model and, after testing, Walker enthusiastically endorsed it. This brought Colt a desperately needed government contract, and together the two men worked out final specifications. It fired six .44-caliber balls and, at four pounds nine ounces, was designed to fit a saddle holster. Tooling for the Walker Model, as it was formally designated, began in January 1847, and Texas troops would be the first to receive it.¹

Part One, Day 1

Part One

Day 2

BURIED FOREST

River Mile 103.5 10:30 A.M.

It was a misty, magical morning. The gentle rain lasted a short time; a dense fog lay over the water, but it was dispersing, so I packed and stowed my gear and pushed off over the glassy water into the mist.

About ll:00 A.M. just below Cowart’s Bend, I came upon a high, colorful bluff. It was once a steamboat landing, and was the terminus of a branch of the Magnolia Springs road. The cutting action of the river here reveals about

25 feet of floodplain history covering possibly 5,000 years. At normal water level, there is at the bluff base a shelf of the rock-like gray clay found at various shoal sites between Dam B and Sheffield’s Ferry. It appears to be of

Fleming Formation age as it tests high on the pH scale. (I carry a small bottle of 10 percent hydrochloric acid to test materials suspected to be calcareous.)

Above this rocklike clay are several strata of different materials. There is a layer of ocher-colored silt above the clay, then a layer of compressed snowwhite, fine-grained sand, over that a layer of red iron oxide sandy clay, all topped by a dark topsoil. The erosion of these materials has created many strange and beautiful shapes and colors. They are transient in nature as the heavy rains, water seepage, and floods erase them and make blank walls for new creations. One white wall had an abstract design of brilliant red oxide painted onto the surface by water seepage from above. Buff-colored walls

CHAPTER 4

PREVENTING OSTEOPOROSIS

Osteoporosis doesn’t just mean having thin bones. It also means that your bones are brittle. Unfortunately, there are no tests for bone brittleness. If you frequently break bones from relatively minor falls, you already know that your bones are brittle. Otherwise, you may have no idea. Doctors tend to rely solely on bone density tests to diagnose osteoporosis because brittleness can’t be evaluated. However, your bones may be thinning but they may not be particularly brittle. It depends, to a great degree, on the balance of calcium and magnesium you’re getting.

Both calcium and magnesium control the density and brittleness—or flexibility—of bones. Calcium makes bones more brittle, and magnesium makes them more flexible. A good example of this can be seen when you look at the difference between chalk and ivory. Blackboard chalk is calcium carbonate. Drop it and it breaks easily. Ivory is a combination of calcium along with good amounts of magnesium. Drop a piece of ivory and it bounces without breaking. Your bones may be more like chalk, or more like ivory.

Through their rulings, courts determine what school administrators cannot do—for example, punish students without some form of due process (see Goss v. Lopez, 1975)—and what they may do—such as regulate student speech (see, e.g., Bethel School District v. Fraser, 1986; Morse v. Frederick, 2007). However, these decisions do not encompass all possible circumstances or fact patterns. Indeed, the courts are reluctant to stipulate particular actions or procedures for school officials to follow. Furthermore, decisions based on sound legal reasoning are value laden and can have unintended consequences, such as reproducing inequities in society (Conley & O’Barr, 1998; Kairys, 1982; Kelman, 1987; Ward, 2002). Thus, school leaders find themselves having to fit rulings and laws into real-time situations in contexts that are at once similar and different from those on which legal rulings were made. Additionally, by merely obeying the law, school leaders can as easily foster social injustice and social justice.

Appropriation, Round 2: Immigrant Folkloric Dance

Triton Community College features a large, high-ceilinged, adaptable open space that is flanked by the student service center and the bookstore. During the day it serves as a cafeteria. On this evening, teachers and students of the English as a Second Language program have gathered for a night of international culture. Fliers were distributed to the classes and posted around campus. Tables have been rearranged to accommodate displays of art and samplings of food. Against the solid west wall of the space a set of risers forms a stage. The district encompasses large Eastern European and Latino immigrant populations and the evening reflects the demographics of the surrounding communities. Polish and Mexican folk culture is presented as art, food, and dance. I take some pictures and talk with some former colleagues. The event, as teachers report to me, occurs largely because of student impetus; teachers assist in the organization, but it is students that really make the evening happen. It is a most public and direct expression of the kind of cultural exchange that pervades the transnational ESL classroom. Students learn about the English and culture of the United States. Their teachers and classmates learn about peoples and places from all over the world. Here, the whole campus is encouraged to join the exchange.

Play is children’s work, and whenever children are engaged in play they are ‘doing’ (Winnicott, 1968). As we have seen, play is the way children try to understand and control outside situations and events. In order to do this, they need the opportunity to play in their own way. When I asked some four- and five-year-old children what they thought ‘play’ was, they answered, first of all, that play was fun. Then they said that it was something that you did how and when you wanted to do it, and that you ‘were happy to play’ and that you could spend ‘a lot of time doing it’. Essentially, they were saying that play is internally controlled, motivated and rewarded. Play also takes time, and the children pointed out that they did not like to be interrupted. They said that adults must not consider play important because they interrupted it, but they did not interrupt writing, mathematics or reading. When teachers told them to go and play, the children felt it meant that the teachers did not want to be bothered with them. They added that teachers said they liked their play, but they never asked them questions about it, whereas when it came to reading they always had a lot of questions (Weininger, 1987). Thus, although children see the vital importance of play, they recognize that most adults do not.

Being a nurse administrator is a challenging, tough, exciting, meaningful, frightening, fun, difficult, rewarding, demanding job. It has its ups and downs, but it is never dull! This book is intended for the nurse administrator who needs a time of reflection, and it is intended for nurses who wish to become administrators. It will not be a text for learning the basic skills of management (such as how to interview or discipline or do performance evaluations), and it will not be a rehash of old nursing or management theory. Rather, this book will explore some of the dilemmas and ethics of administration, and it will review some of the newer management theories and how they may impact the practicing administrator.

Since this book is about caring, part of the goal is that the book be caring. This requires a relationship of sorts between the writer and the reader. Therefore, I will write in the first person. As I share myself in these pages, I hope you will feel the passion I have for caring and for nursing administration, and I hope my experiences and thinking will be meaningful for you. The goal of the book is to use caring theory to develop some theoretical yet pragmatic ways of thinking about nursing administration that can be an anchor in the difficult days of everyday administration.

Pop 3.5 million

If you want to distil the essence of Poland’s eventful history, head for Wielkopolska. The region’s name means Greater Poland, and this is where the Polish state was founded in the Middle Ages. Centuries later, the local population has an understandable pride in its long history.

Though Poznań is a city focused on commerce, it exudes a lively character and has plenty of sights. Beyond, the Wielkopolska countryside offers a selection of charming towns and rural scenery. Among the region’s attractions are castles, steam trains, palaces, churches, nature reserves and a memorable Iron Age settlement. And at the heart of it all is the great cathedral of Gniezno, the birthplace of Catholic Poland.

It’s an impressive menu, but Wielkopolska is also a great place to strike out on your own. Wherever you end up, you’ll be sure to find something of historic interest: it’s that kind of place.

AMar–May Welcome spring by hiking through Wielkopolska National Park near Poznań.

The underbelly of joy

Rachel Newcombe, L.I.C.S.W.

The waiter had just served us our salad, more precisely, a baby arugula salad tossed with sliced red onion and mushrooms. Larry and I knew right away that the traditional wedge of iceberg lettuce with a big hunk of goopy blue cheese was not our salad of choice. We praised ourselves for ordering sensibly, keeping in mind that a rather large T-bone steak, also to be shared, would be arriving shortly. As for the appetizers, we passed; no mushrooms stuffed with crab or lobster bisque for us. Nope, not even tempted. We knew the healthy way to order. When I think back to that night, Larry and I negotiating the menu and compromising, our steak medium instead of medium rare, I realize how intimate it felt to be making these decisions. There wasn’t the low grade bickering that accompanies restaurant dining when a couple has been together for a long time, both people set in their ways, uncompromising and exacting about food preferences. Larry and I are not married but we are most definitely a couple, a psychoanalytic couple.

Mortified & Demoted

I

don’t really know why I went to Texas A&M in 1912, but I enrolled with very high expectations. So, when I received my first scholastic schedule, I was shocked and mortified. Solid geometry and physics were the same texts I had finished in high school. I knew both thoroughly. Dean Puryear refused my strong plea for more advanced courses. He even laughed as he told me that a review would do me good. I was so disgusted I debated going home.

Hazing saved the day. I was quick, agile, and strong. Also, maybe strangely, I was blessed with an unusually tough hide. After a couple days, the hardest blows, with heavy leather belt or with bayonet, produced only temporary pink stripes. There was no pain.

Running the gauntlet I would have made Daniel Boone or Kit Carson envious. I had a ball! In fact, any honors I received at A&M must have come because of my freshman speed, my tough skin, and my ready laughter.

In my first physics class, I explained to Prof. Skeeler about my hassle with Dean Puryear. He examined me thoroughly and had an exciting job waiting for me. It was my most pleasant experience at A&M.