Paul Prattles On

I've been in GMEA since my first year of teaching, and have served in various capacities in several local districts, and I have been in districts 1,2,3,7,8,9 (when it included current districts 13 and 14),11, and 14 (when it was 13).  During that time, I have hosted District Honor Band/All-State tryouts, served as Vice-Chairman of a district, and, of course, judged numerous tryouts and solo/ensemble events. When I was in college, and initially heard about MENC and GMEA, I was philosophically opposed.  Why should I have to join an organization just to participate in their events?  Of course, as I left college, I saw the fallacy of my thinking and realized the reasons for this policy. However, I have a few "beefs" with GMEA over certain policies and procedures they have.  The first is easily solvable.  Many years ago, before email and the internet, it made sense to require LGPE or All-State registrations to be submitted months in advance, as everything was done my US Ma

Maybe hate is too strong a word.  Maybe one of these is better: abhor, despise, detest, loathe, disdain, disfavor, can't stand, object to, recoil from, or shudder at.  (Thank you Thesaurus.com!)  However, because I have done it so much, I often joke that I should start a moving company! I'm in the process of moving again, but it's a little different this time.  This SHOULD be my last move, but I've said that before.  Also, we are sort of taking our time with this move.  I'm stuck paying for the rental house in Hiram until the end of July, so we are moving a few boxes at a time.  Unfortunately, we are about to have the living/dining room carpet replaced, so we have had to rent a small storage unit until that's completed. The other "problem" facing us is that Eric and his friend Kevin are currently living in the house in Dahlonega.  That means we can't fully move in until they find a place and move out.  As we've discovered, there aren't

I'm the youngest of six children.  My two oldest brothers, John and Jack,  are 13 and 12 years older than me, my sister Lezah and brother Pete are 8 and 7 years older, and the closest in age, Phillip, is 2 1/2 years older.  Today, I want to talk about my brother Jack, who was second in line. Jack would have been 66 today, had he not been murdered back in 2002.  This is always a difficult day for me, but I want to share some of my memories of Jack, in no particular order. Since Jack was so much older than I was, we didn't have a lot in common.  Heck, he started college the year I started Kindergarten!  He always said that when he got rich he was going to buy me a Lamborghini.  He did buy me one, but it was just a model. Jack was the kind of guy who would give you anything, if you needed it, and if he had it to give to you.  When I was in college, he would give me $20 every time he saw me, which, unfortunately for me, wasn't often enough.  My parents paid for the 5-day

Now that the 6th District election is over, everyone I'm sure will be glad that we don't have to watch those campaign ads anymore.  They were getting a bit ridiculous, but I guess they must work, or they wouldn't keep airing them.  Personally, I have never decided who to vote for based on a TV ad.  The only advantage I see to political ads is name recognition, but if you didn't know who Ossoff or Handel were by now, I'm not sure anyone can help you. Speaking of political ads, I believe one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court was the one allowing unlimited donations (Citizens United) and allowing Super PACs.  This has transformed elections, and led to over $50 million being spent on this one election.  It is also leading to more half-truths and outright lies being spoken in these ads- who would you sue for libel? I wonder what the Braves will do when Freddie Freeman is available again?  Matt Adams has done a heck of a job replacing him, and

The last few days have been what I imagined most of retirement would be like, but they can't last.  I'll need to supplement my retirement income, which means some kind of income producing activity in the future.  (Anyone have any ideas about possible jobs for me?)  Plus, with the move coming, there is lots to do.  Then, once school starts, I'll be involved with my youngest son entering his junior year of high school.  Ah, but the last 5 days... Friday, I did a little cleaning up, because we were expecting Stephen and his father-in-law for lunch.  Karyn arrived in the early afternoon, and we attended the Braves Father/Daughter game that evening (see previous blog for my review of SunTrust Park and the game experience).  Since Karyn was so tired, Jackie ended up driving her home, which necessitated Stephen changing his plans for Saturday. Saturday, Stephen was supposed to pick up his FIL in Danielsville, then drive here, where I would grill out hamburgers and hot dogs, an

I attended my first 2 Braves games at SunTrust Park yesterday and today.  It was quite an experience, both positive and negative.  Let me share a few thoughts with you, in no particular order. Friday, I went to the game with Karyn for our 4th annual Father-Daughter Game.  Getting tickets for the game was fairly easy; I simply went to the Braves website and purchased them.  However, since I had no idea of the layout of the new park, and the little diagram of the park only got blurry if I made it larger, I selected "best seats available", and was given seats in Section 152, labeled "Home Run Porch".  In the confirmation email I received, I was advised to buy parking in advance, and to use Waze to take me directly to that lot.  Sounded great!  Except I couldn't find anywhere on the site to buy parking for that date.  I contacted someone from the Braves (Celeste Mercer), and she got parking for me, in Lot 9. I was also told in that email that I needed to downloa

Growing up, my family attended the Presbyterian Church.  My mom had been a Baptist, and my dad grew up Methodist, so I guess this was a compromise.  I did all the normal kid-at-church things: nursery, VBS, Sunday School, Wednesday Night Suppers,  acolyte, confirmation class, youth group.  I really enjoyed my time, and grew to really appreciate the time spent there. When I went to college, I intended to continue going to church, and even went a few times, but just stopped going.  A big part may have been that Sundays was the only time I could sleep past 7 am, especially in the fall (football games on Saturdays).  And once you stop going, it's easy for things to stay that way. My senior year, I met Jackie in my Educational Psychology class.  After 6 weeks of dating, I proposed, and she accepted.  We were married at her home church in Snellville, St. Matthew's Episcopal Church.  It was my first exposure to the Episcopal Church. We lived in Hazlehurst our first 18 months of m

When I was young, I was very skinny, and could eat whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted, and couldn't gain weight.  I weighed 125 pounds when I graduated high school.  In college, I quickly gained 15 pounds eating at the UGA cafeterias, but I pretty much stayed at 140 throughout my time at UGA. When I student taught, suddenly I was in the classroom or in my car, not spending hours walking around campus.  I began to gain weight.  By the time I married in December that same year, I weighed 165, a weight I maintained for a pretty good while, thanks to being in the Army Reserves. As the years went by, I slowly added weight, topping out at 232 early in January 2003.  Someone from school (Fitzgerald HS) told me about the Atkins Diet, so I bought the book, read it through, and decided to give it a try.  It worked! Even with a trip to Disney right in the middle, I still lost 45pounds in 6 months!  And lots of inches off my waist, chest, and neck (among other parts).  I felt the best

I have always held the strong conviction that I would never teach in a system that I would not send my kids to school in.  For the most part, my kids went to school in the same system I taught throughout my career, with a few notable exceptions. I have taught in all kinds of schools: large and small, rural, suburban, and urban, majority Black, majority White, and 50/50 schools.  What I have found is that kids are kids, no matter where they are. Jeff Davis and Madison County were roughly 90% White.  Greenville, Juliette Low ES in Savannah,  and Mitchell County were roughly 90% Black.  Fitzgerald, Elbert County, and Southeast HS in Macon were roughly 50/50 schools.  And then there was Lithia Springs, which was roughly a 33/33/33 school- Black, White, and Hispanic.  Lithia Springs was also the largest school I taught at, where Mitchell County was the smallest.  Jeff Davis, Madison County, Fitzgerald, Greenville, Elbert County, and Mitchell County were all rural schools; Southeast and J

I have met a lot of band directors over my 31 years of teaching.  Most have been good, and a few have been great.  Then there are the elite, who are beloved by their students, the parents, their fellow teachers, and the community.  These are the ones looked upon by their fellow band directors as models for their own program. My own assessment of myself is difficult to pinpoint.  My life plan was to find a school and teach there until I retired.  That isn't quite how it worked out, since I taught in 9 different school systems.  The closest I came was my 11 years at Madison County HS in Danielsville, Ga, just north of Athens.  Looking back, what I seemed to be best at was taking over "down" programs and elevating them to very good.  As one principal told me, "I don't know how you get these kids to sound so good!"  My gift seemed to be taking over a program that was struggling in quality and quantity, and improving both aspects, so that they were ready for th

Well, that's been a failure!  Goal #1 is out the window!  Yes, I said I was going to do a daily blog.  That lasted about 5 days.  Then life, as it so often does, happened. Spent the weekend doing, I don't know, STUFF.  Thursday was Jackie's birthday.  I had labs done for my annual checkup that morning, then we drove to Dahlonega for Jackie to have a job interview.  While I visited with my son, Eric, Jackie took Miller to a meeting at church, renewed her driver's license, and then we had dinner out, followed by driving to Athens.  All-in-all, a pretty full day, I would say.  Not much time to blog. Friday was more of the same.  Spent the day fixing things in Karyn's apartment, then we drove back to Hiram, arriving close to midnight.  Only time that I had to blog was during the afternoon.  Unfortunately, my computer took that time to update, taking over an hour, and all of my charge, to do so.  Opportunity lost. Saturday!  Now here's a chance!  Woke up, did r

So... Bob Stoops retired today.  For those of you who don't know who that is, he was the head football coach at Oklahoma since 1999.  Won a national championship in 2000, won consistently at a high level, and is still relatively young- between 55 and 60. I bring this up because it has become very rare for a college football coach to stay at one place for so long, and never leave for another job or get fired.  The standard for what is considered success has become near impossible to meet. When I was growing up, as a Georgia Bulldog fan, what was considered success was quite different.  The expectation was that the Dogs would win 7 or more games, get to a bowl game (which was MUCH more difficult then), and occasionally win the SEC, but consistently be in the hunt for the conference crown.  With the advent of the BCS- the Bowl Championship Series, all that changed.  Before the BCS, the national champion was "decided" by the AP poll, or one of various other polls that e

Creativity is a strange beast.  Not only is it difficult to define, it is difficult to measure.  During graduate school, I took a course called "Creativity Theories".  It was a fascinating class! Several concepts stood out to me. One is the idea that creativity is difficult to measure.  For many people, identifying creativity is like identifying a good teacher: you know it when you see it, and you can describe it, but it's difficult to develop a method or rubric for evaluating that particular talent that takes all aspects into consideration.  Furthermore, which aspects are more important?  How much weight should each get?  Difficult questions to answer, which I believe is one of the reasons we have yet to come up with an adequate way to measure either creativity or teacher effectiveness.  I'll have thoughts on teacher evaluations on another day.  The other concept is the one called the flow experience.  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the main proponent of this (see hi

This will be my last installment for the "What Now" series.  Then, I promise to get outside of myself and write my opinions about outside events.  I just felt it necessary to express where I am coming from for both my and my reader's (all 5 of you!) benefit. I have noticed a lessening of passion for things I used to care about.  While I still have passion for my family, and had passion for teaching and music, other interests have fallen by the wayside.  For example, I was really looking forward to the Braves opening day this Spring, but when the time arrived, I didn't really care if I watched or not.  This has been going on for a few years.  I used to feel like I had to watch the Falcons, or the Braves, or the Dawgs.  The anticipation is still there, but it seems to wane the closer the event gets.  It's like I lose interest.  I can't really pinpoint why this is happening, but I miss the excitement.  On the other hand, it has simplified my life somewhat- I no

Getting a little bit of a late start today, since Jackie and I spent the day traveling to Hilton Head.  It's one of those vacation packages where we have to sit through a presentation for 90 minutes, knowing we have no plans to buy a timeshare.  Anyway, that leads me in to the first of three additional activities I would like to do now that I'm retired: travel. First a little background.  When I was little, around 5-years-old, my family took a trip to the Grand Canyon.  I have very little recollection of this trip, other than vague memories triggered by pictures.  When I was a little older, maybe around 7 or 8, we went to Connecticut for my cousin's wedding.  Finally, when I was around 8 or 9, we went to Disney World, shortly after it had opened.  The rest of my travel as a child was to the beach in Mexico Beach, Fla, with band trips to Six Flags Over Georgia, Fort Walton Beach, FSU, the University of South Carolina, and Pittsburgh, with a church youth group trip to Panam

Now that I am officially retired from 31 years of teaching, the question becomes, "What now?"  I'm still relatively young, and there are lots of options, but which ones do I choose? Obviously, one avenue I have chosen is to write this blog, but this certainly won't "fill my days". Do I want to write?  I've had lots of ideas for novels through the years, and have always wanted to put them on paper.  But more importantly, do I have the discipline to set aside the time every day to write?  Part of the reason for this blog is to test that very thought.  What about composing or arranging?  While I have dabbled a bit in both, I'm not sure the quality is where it needs to be.  Perhaps with more work and experience.  And then comes the question of discipline.  Will I set apart time each day to devote to this activity?  See, this is a different challenge than I've had from teaching.  Teaching band (or chorus) basically consists of listening, evaluatin

Welcome to my blog!  Now that I am retired, I hope to do some writing, something I have always wanted to do, but have never really had time for.  The title comes from the fact that I have always enjoyed being funny (though my family may disagree that my being funny is even possible), and that there isn't really any overarching theme.  I plan to write about whatever feels important to me.  So let me introduce myself, so that you can know what to expect, and where I am coming from. I have been a resident in Georgia for most of my life, only living in McKenzie, TN when I was 8 months old to when I was 5 1/2 years old (I'm the youngest of 6!).  I was born in Athens, Ga, grew up in Columbus, Ga, and attended the University of Georgia.  I met my future wife, Jackie, my senior year at UGA, in an Educational Psychology class.  Jackie was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and it was virtually love at first sight, though I didn't recognize it as such at the time.  We dated