Education Station NewsOK.com Blogging Community

My wedding photos are in! …All 800-something of them, not counting the black-and-white duplicates.

I’m not at all complaining though. The photos are beautiful, and I have the long Labor Day weekend to look through them again more slowly and decide which ones to order prints of.

I got married Aug. 5, in Fort Worth. The ceremony was wonderful - how could it have been anything else? - and our reception at The Fort Worth Club afterward was both elegant and fun.

Twelve stories high in the middle of downtown, the Club is ornately decorated by rich woods and high chandeliers. The band kept everyone on the dance floor.

My husband and I have scanned through the photos, and there are some of us with guests we don’t even remember dancing with or talking to because it was such a whirlwind day, so I’m glad someone else caught all those memories for us.

Even better than just capturing a memory, the pictures capture just how happy we were that day, and how special it was to have so many family and friends - more than 200 of them from 17 states - there to share in our celebration.

Whatever you do during this holiday weekend, be sure to take pictures to remember your celebration by later. Plus, submit them to MyNewsOK.com to share with other readers.

Staff Writer Wendy K. Kleinman (I’m still not used to the new last name yet!)

When I left home this morning, I told my preschooler that Mommy was getting her eyes fixed today and wouldn’t have to wear glasses anymore.

I was going to get Lasik surgery today, and was giddy with anticipation.

So giddy that I forgot to verify the appointment day and time.

It’s not until next week, I found out when I arrived at the doctor’s office.

Darn, another week of spectacles. I’ve worn contacts since middle school but to prepare for surgery, I’ve been wearing my glasses for about a month now.

Still, all good things come to those who wait, right?

Will my daughter need eyeglasses one day? She has no signs of poor vision.

But she’s got my genetics — which pretty much destines her to bad eyes and crooked teeth — both completely fixable by modern medicine.

Besides, wearing glasses isn’t a bad thing … some well-sighted celebrities wear them just to make a fashion statement.

I clearly remember the day I got my first pair. I was in second grade, I think.

On the drive home, I was astounded by a clarity of vision I’d never before known. Edges were sharper, colors were brighter, the shapes whizzing by were recognizable — at last!

But not all children are as lucky as I was to have access and money for vision care, especially those in developing countries.

The World Health Organization estimates that 153 million people have uncorrected refractive errors (near-sightedness, far-sightedness and astigmatism). Refractive errors can be easily corrected with eyeglasses, yet millions in undeveloped nations lack access to basic eye care.

That’s why Lions Club International has long served as collector of used prescription eyeglasses, which are cleaned and distributed to needy people around the world.

Go to www.lionsclubs.org to see if a chapter in your area has a drop-off site.

Also, a coworker tells me that LensCrafters stores also collect used eyeglasses to give to the less fortunate.

When I do make my donation, I’ll probably take my daughter with me, so that she sees how helping yourself can also mean helping others.

Susan Simpson, Education Writer

I’m about to start working on a story on tips for high school students, and their parents, who are scouting out colleges. One of the places I visited back when I made campus visits was The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Though that’s not where I decided to go, I did love the campus - and the town.

For grade-school teachers who want to give their students a chance to visit Colonial Williamsburg without the cost and red tape of taking a class on a 1,300-mile field trip, subscriptions are available for “electronic” field trips to the historical grounds.

The Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence has more than 130 Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trips to award to fifth- and eighth-grade teachers at Oklahoma public schools. Students can phone-in questions to town historians and participate in online activities that connect them with students in other states.

For more information and an application, visit www.ofe.org.

And if you’re a student or parent making the college-tour circuit now, or if you’ve been-there-done-that and have tips for others, send an e-mail to wkleinman@oklahoman.com and share your experiences with me. They may just make the paper at a future date.

Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter

Homework.

It’s a noun with a public relations problem. While accurate — it is work that you do at home — it just doesn’t sound like a lot of fun — with the work part and all.

Maybe we should start calling it Supplemental Educational Opportunities? Or Brain-Boosting Bonanza? “B-to-the-3″ has a nice ring.

Regardless of its name, homework is here to stay. My step-daughter has been bringing home assignments since she was in kindergarten. We usually try to get it out of the way early in the evening, but sometimes it’s a struggle to fit it in or keep her focused.

What tips do you have for helping your children with homework? How do you assist the younger ones, or encourage older students? Do you think homework is worthwhile?

E-mail me at ssimpson@oklahoman.com

Susan Simpson, Education Writer

There are lots of good reasons to buy used textbooks — they’re cheaper and if the former user was a good student, the most important passages are already highlighted.

But that “used book smell” isn’t something I remember as a plus. Pizza-smudged fingerprints, dried splashes of coffee or worse. That’s what I remember.

Apparantly there are students who like the musty scents that come from some old books. At least that’s what e-book seller CafeScribe says. They commissioned a Zogby poll that found 43 percent of college students find smell — either new book smell or old — as the thing they most love about books as physical objects.

To meet that need, while peddling their own electronic products, CafeScribe says it will now send a scratch and sniff sticker with every purchase of an e-textbook. The scent: musty old book.

I guess that’s better than perfume de Bud Light or aroma Ramen noodles.

Susan Simpson, Education Writer

No new taxes.

That was the message that Cliff Hudson repeated time and again today while speaking at the Oklahoma City Chamber’s State of the School luncheon at the Skirvin Hilton.

He was pitching the Oct. 9 vote to pass a $248.3 million bond issue to continue MAPS for Kids. Because the new bonds will be issued as the current MAPS for Kids bonds are paid off, the tax levy will remain the same.

Continuing funding is necessary to maintain improvements and keep up with new needs for Oklahoma City schools, he said.

“We’ve got to keep the momentum going. We’ve got to move forward or we’ll fall back,” Hudson said.

Everyone at the luncheon got a brochure urging “Yes for Kids!”

While no formal opposition to the plan has emerged, it’d be unlikely they’d tout “No for Kids!” as their slogan. The issue isn’t as simple as a bumper sticker slogan.

What do you think? Has MAPs for Kids been an investment you are willing to continue? E-mail me at ssimpson@oklahoman.com

Susan Simpson, Education Writer

My cell phone rang this afternoon as I drove to a press conference – unknown number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Brinks Security.”

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

The motion detector on my home alarm is going off. Do I want Brinks to send the police? Yes, please.

My husband and I already have had a few problems with the house we bought a few months ago – a burst faucet, flooding from rising rainwater, an air conditioner that needed new parts. I really didn’t want to have to add a break-in to the list.

I focused on the press conference and told myself it was a good sign my phone didn’t buzz again, because the woman with Brinks told me that I wouldn’t get a call if everything was OK.

Still, I called back afterward to find out what happened. Turns out, a back door somehow swung open. The police secured it and left. That was a big relief.

To the Brinks people I spoke with and the officers from The Village who responded to the call, thank you. It’s nice to know that the security company and the police will take care of my house, even when I’m not around to know something might be wrong.

Because if the house is empty and the problem is ever more than a loose back door, I feel much better knowing that there’s still, in a way, a guard dog there with the teeth to do something about it.

Do you have a home security system? Has anything ever happened at your house that made you thankful you invested in it?

E-mail me at wkleinman@oklahoman.com.

Wendy K. Kleinman, Education Writer

Did you know that 55,000 people die every year from rabies, a disease that is 100 percent preventable?

The majority of victims are children that live in poverty, often in undeveloped countries.

Two Oklahoma State University students, Alex Glover and Jennifer Moreno, aim to help prevent the deaths by raising money with a 5K Race for Rabies at 8 a.m. Sept. 8 at Boomer Lake in Stillwater.

The entry fee is $20 and includes a T-shirt. And dogs can even join their owners, provided they have current proof of rabies vaccination.

The proceeds will go to the Alliance for Rabies Control. Also OSU veterinary students will be eligible to win a symposium by international rabies experts and can apply for a two-week internship at a field site in Africa.

For more information, contact Moreno at jennifer.moreno@okstate.edu

Most of the students entering college this fall, members of the Class of 2011, were born in 1989. For them, Alvin Ailey, Andrei Sakharov, Huey Newton, Emperor Hirohito, Ted Bundy, Abbie Hoffman, and Don the Beachcomber have always been dead.
That’s according to Beloit College’s annual mindset list, which can be found here:

http://www.beloit.edu/%7Epubaff/mindset/2011.php

Here’s a sampling into the mind of today’s college freshmen:

1. What Berlin wall?
2. Humvees, minus the artillery, have always been available to the public.
3. Rush Limbaugh and the “Dittoheads” have always been lambasting liberals.
4. They never “rolled down” a car window.
5. Michael Moore has always been angry and funny.
6. They may confuse the Keating Five with a rock group.
7. They have grown up with bottled water.
8. General Motors has always been working on an electric car.
9. Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
10. Pete Rose has never played baseball.

It’s the first day of school for a dear one, and I’m a little teary eyed.

Not because my friend is embarking on a lifetime of learning, but because he’s embarking on a second life of learning.

Armed with a bachelor’s degree from OU, a work history here as a fine education reporter, and some new orange duds (well, maybe not), Michael Bratcher is now a Oklahoma State grad student — a Cowboy. He’s embarking on a degree in hotel management, having picked one of the nation’s top schools in this area.

A few years from now, expect Michael to be running a luxe resort on some breathtaking beach somewhere. And doing a darn fine job of it.

It takes a lot of guts to leave a job you do well for a chance at your dream vocation.

We’ve all wondered about it … what we would do if we could go back to school and pick a new career? I love journalism — it’s all I know — but what if I could also get a degree in creative writing or art history or some other subject I love?

What would you do? Where would you go?

E-mail me at ssimpson@oklahoman.com

Susan Simpson, Education Writer