Mike,
Considering it's taken me a few decades to figure this paint thing out, I'll take that as a compliment. Thanks.
I'm probably one of those "thorn in the side of the administration" counselors. That is, I don't care to play the PC game that stands in the way of doing what's right for a kid. Don't know what the percentages are in our district, but some days the story I'm getting is: "I ain't going home 'cause my mom is hitting on my boyfriend, and she's been stealing from my stash." No corner on that market whether you're in the Yukon or the 'burbs. So... I just keep trying to
comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Sometimes I think affluent parents know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. They might try spending some time with their kids.
Even though I've spent 34 years in public high schools, I always felt that the most dangerous time is middle school - we "lose" an awful lot of them to the craziness they don't successfully navigate in grades 7 & 8.
High school just becomes a continuation of the patterns their folks let them settle into early-on. Lot's of kids out there who are raising themselves; you've been in the classroom long enough to know that. Tell you what, you keep trampin' those little ones of yours around God's Country and making them your hunting and fishing partners and they'll be o.k. (as we can see they're well on their way to being).
"Presidents' Day" today, so I did get some a.m. time in the shop (hey, I have a houseful of kids, too). Here's a hint if you're still writing color mixes that worked on scraps of paper and pinning them to the workbench (been there). I stopped trying to remember colors and mixes a long time ago, and started writing my procedures in the margins of a copy of Gooder & Boyer's
Ducks of North America. I like the book because they have a clean simple painting style that makes it easier to reduce a bird to essentials, but it started to be my "notebook" some years back.
