The polls at the Astor Learning Center in Rhinebeck, New York, closed today at 3:45 p.m. Under the supervision of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), polling had taken place over lunch and after school at the times specified.  Two poll watchers separately representing the administration and the faculty monitored both sessions. At the end of the day, neither found the need to contest any of the ballots cast. With style and grace the organizing and election phases of forming an employees union were done. Left now was only to count the ballots.

Two representatives of the NLRB counted the paper ballots. As the count was carried out, they placed the votes, one at a time, in a position for each of the monitors to view and confirm or contest.

As the four participants completed the count, there gathered around them, a group of a dozen or so teachers, teaching assistants, and support staff. With baited breath the twelve to fifteen employees waited the results of the election. The question before them was to form or not to form an employee union at Astor Learning Center.

The results were resounding. With 8 not voting, 4 voting NO, and 43 voting YES, Astor Learning Center in Rhinebeck, New York, established its own local chapter of New York State United Teachers (NYSUT). It is to be called Astor Staff Association.

A sigh of relief and a few cries of delight came from the crowd. The courage to take the risk to stand up for ones rights had paid off.

As the tension dissipated, the staff gathered themselves to talk of the need for a small celebration sometime next week. Thereafter, however, it would be off to the work of drawing up by-laws and affirming a Constitution.

That, however, could prove to be, as well as work, something of a pleasure--just as it always is when shared interests, dreams, and hopes are drawn upon to prepare a better future.

Roberta in Po-Town, Just glad

School reopened this week. Monday provided a galloping overview of how to individualize lessons in response to students' learning styles. For fun, I worked with the music teacher.

I'm a speech language pathologist who's never played an instrument. My dad played the trumpet like a dream. And my uncle, Arthur, used to play the guitar, yodel, and serenade me when I was a child with his Country Western repetoire. And my grandfather played the French horn so I cut my listening ears on John Phillip Sousa when Granpie played concerts with the marching band. I was four at the time.

Anyway, in the workshop we decided to differentiate lessons on beat for some imaginary students. (Which prevented me from having to confess that for all practical purposes, I can't read notes.)

For the student with natural rhythm, we proposed demonstration. For the visually oriented, we came up with mapping beats on a scale. For those who could sing, we thought we might provide a melody with a certain beat and ask the student to sing another one they knew that had the same beat. For the really creative and talented we thought we could ask them to vary the beat within the same song sung more than once. Somehow we never got to the mathematically inclined. Or the visual artists. But it was fun.

My vacation had been marked by my hungry return to novel reading, the result of my having purchased at Odd Lot, ten hard covered ones. For the price, I hadn't been able to resist.

One of the books went to a niece, one to my oldest grandson. The ones on the Adkins Advantage went one to a sister and one to me. One of the books I read which will remain nameless went in the garbage. Tearing it up was a satifaction.

But the three I really enjoyed most were--most serindipitously--all novels about Russia and Germany. They spanned time from 1936 and Stalin through the Cold War and into this century, including questions related to the Al Queda. This is what I found:

The last in this accidental sequence, I read first: Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva. It was a fascinating representation of the potential for instant communication around the world using government-provided minature sources and the role it played in rescuing a journalist from Russia in this century.

The first in this unexpected sequence, I read second: Child 44, written by an Englishman named Tom Rob Smith. It spanned the years 1936 into the fifties at a time when Communism viewed itself--as a result of its pervasive (if somewhat illusionary) plenty--as having wiped out all crime other than crimes against the state. Except there was a serial killer on the loose and no interest in hunting him down as such a crime was not, technically, punishable. So what if a few children were murdered here and there. Fascinating, but not for the feint of heart.

And the third I read should have been second: Trudy's Promise by Marsha Preston, which takes place in Kruschev's and JFK's time, mostly in the 1960's, when the Stasi in East Berlin kept even their nearest neighbors in line and the Berlin Wall divided families, one from another. Probably the most human and down to earth of the three.

For my tastes, Smith's book was the best written--wrenching but most informative. Preston's book had the most heart, so to speak. Silva's, the fastest pace and all over the place--Italy, Russia, England, America. Any one of them is worth reading but the three together are mind-blowing. If you're up for it--as certainly they are not for the person seeking roses and happy endings.

Roberta in Po-Town, Still feeling the impact of these reads