Tag: education

SubscribeStar Saturday: SCISA Reaccreditation Team Visit

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Reaccreditation is the process that private schools go through periodically to assure they’re meeting minimum education standards.  As I explain it to my students, having accreditation gives their diploma value in the eyes of colleges, universities, and employers.  The reaccreditation team makes sure that the school is still meeting and/or exceeding those standards, so that the diploma from those institutions will still mean something.

There are different accrediting cycles.  My school (accredited through the Southern Association of Independent Schools [SAIS], which shares accrediting standards with the National Association of Independent Schools [NAIS]; we’re part of SCISA for academic, athletic, and fine arts events) goes through reaccreditation every five years.  SCISA offers three-year and five-year options, with slightly different standards for the longer term.  SCISA also has separate reaccrediting standards for different types of schools; for example, Montessori schools have their own set of standards, because the Montessori approach is quite different from typical educational approaches.  In the world of independent schools, there is, not surprisingly, a great deal of independence.

That’s something worth bearing in mind, too:  reaccreditation does not mean standardization.  Yes, there is a certain baseline, such as schools needing to maintain adequate safety protocols, or keeping immunization records on file, but the how of teaching and curriculum is left up to the schools.  The reaccrediting team offers recommendations for a school, but the main point is accountability—are the schools delivering what they promise their stakeholders, or making steps to do so?

I am usually not one for bureaucratic paper-shuffling, but apparently I’m good at it, as I take lots of notes and can figure out how to optimize a system fairly quickly.  I possess, too, the capacity for consuming large amounts of information quickly, which includes scanning files for necessary documents and information.  I also love education (even though I have my issues with it), so it was really cool being part of this visiting team.  I’ve heard some horror stories about schools that lacked even basic documentation and that have actively avoided reaccreditation (which is, ultimately, self-defeating, because it likely means you aren’t delivering on your promises to parents and students).

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SubscribeStar Saturday: SCISA Music Festival 2026

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Another SCISA Music Festival is in the books, and it’s a bittersweet occasion for yours portly, as it’s the last one as a music teacher at my current school.  I’ve been taking kids to Columbia, South Carolina for the SCISA Music Festival every year since 2012 (except for one year when I had to stay on campus for our reaccreditation visit, and during the COVID year, when we hired a judge to adjudicate our pianists on campus).  My Instrumental Ensembles, whether in the “Small” or “Large” categories, and either High School or Middle School, have earned Gold medals every year since 2013 (the High School Small Instrumental Ensemble in 2012 earned a Silver for an instrumental rendition of “The Circle of Life”).

Because we are not a traditional concert band, there’s a good bit of “tech” that goes with the group.  Essentially, my Music Ensembles are large rock bands, often with multiple guitars, basses, pianos/keys, and whatever other instruments happen to be enrolled in the class.  One year, I took an ensemble that consisted of the following mélange of instrumentation:  piano, electric piano, viola, alto sax, euphonium, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, electric bass guitar, and ukulele.  It was one of the oddest mixtures, but it worked.
This year, my High School Ensemble featured the typical guitar (all electric), keys, basses (three of them!), and drums, but also alto sax, violin, clarinet, and guzheng.  The last of those is a traditional Chinese stringed instrument.  We incorporated all of that into a cool arrangement of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic “My Favorite Things.”
That selection itself came about as a result of organic creativity.  I was stumped as to what piece to pick for the High School this year, until one of the students came for an after-school lesson and asked to sightread some jazz piano pieces.  We found a Jamie Aebersold book with a number of pieces, including “My Favorite Things.”  He had immense fun playing it.
Just a day before, my older brother had texted me a lengthy live recording of John Coltrane playing the piece.  It seemed serendipitous that my student was also drawn to the piece, so I decided we’d try it as a group.
It began to morph from there.  Our alto saxophonist is phenomenal, and I worked out an odd little “Middle Eastern” scale for him.  Essentially, it’s an E Phrygian scale, but instead of a G natural as the third interval, it’s a G#; to wit:  E F G# A B C D E.  That raised third creates a really interesting interval.
My guzheng player and I also collaborated.  He is a delightful international student from China, and he will often practice during my afternoon planning.  The guzheng typically uses a kind of “open” pentatonic tuning, so he contrived a unique blended tuning in order to get the pitches he needed to play the melody.  I told him that I wanted the piece to sound like “East meets West.”

It all fell into place from there.  One thing I will miss about teaching music in a group is that very process of collaborative creation.  The molding of our arrangement felt like a musical conversation that unfolded gradually, each element falling into place at its appointed time.  The process was truly magical.

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TBT: Short Sax Starter Pack Recommendation

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Note:  this post contains several Amazon Affiliate links.  I receive a portion of any purchases made through these links, at no additional cost to you.

My students and I are back at the SCISA Music Festival this morning, and yours portly has a saxophone gig tonight.  As such, it seemed like a good time to look back at my “Short Sax Starter Pack Recommendation” post from 12 March 2025—one year ago today!

The thrust of last year’s post was that, for under $400, you can purchase a decent—not great, but serviceable—alto saxophone.  Indeed, I’m playing at this very same saxophone tonight:

Here are the updated prices for the items I listed last year; remarkably, the price is lower than a year ago; however, Slade seems to be phasing out the horn, as there is only one sax available at the time of writing:

Grand Total:  $290.67 (down $33.18 from the typical price in 2025) before taxes

With that, here is 12 March 2025’s “Short Sax Starter Pack Recommendation“:

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TBT: Midweek Mongol Madness

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It’s my second consecutive year teaching World History (I taught it last school year for the first time since the 2011-2012 school year—whoa!), and I’m pleased to see that I’m two weeks ahead of schedule compared to where I was last year.  That’s likely due to having a bunch of my lessons done this year, so I’m not trying to pad out lectures with a bunch of riffing.

So it is that, as of the time of writing, I’ve just covered the Mongols in detail (minus a couple of slides before we talk about medieval Japan).

The Mongols are wildly fascinating, in part because they were wild—nomadic horsemen who would drink the blood of their horses when they were low on supplies; wore silk underwear that served as protection against arrows; and would switch horses mid-ride, spending as much as ten days in their saddles.  Under Genghis Khan, they spilled an immense amount of blood, slaughtering an estimated 40,000,000 (that’s forty million) people, equivalent to low-end estimates of those who perished in the Second World War.  Again, these are estimates—numbers from the thirteenth century aren’t necessarily reliable—but that comes to roughly 13% of the global population at the time.  Indeed, while writing these numbers, they seemed fantastically large; I had to go back and consult my World History textbook (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you).

Genghis Khan’s conquests, as well as those of his successors, brought an odd peace, the Pax Mongolica (also an Amazon Affiliate link), to Eurasia for about 100 years.  It was the peace of the graveyard, as so many people were killed in the course of these invasions, there was no one troublesome enough left to cause a ruckus.  It also marked one of the few times in human history that a single political unit (sort of) controlled the great Eurasian steppes, allowing for the (alleged) journeys of Marco Polo and doubtlessly thousands of other unsung but intrepid merchants, missionaries, and explorers.

Naturally, the largest land-based empire ever to exist in the world could not long survive.  The Mongol Empire was probably never anything as such—a single, unified political unit—but more of an amalgamation of tribes, peoples, and regions swearing allegiance to the Great Khan.  After Genghis Khan’s death, the empire was divided into four khanates, with an ostensible Great Kahn ruling over the four, but with the regions going their own ways in practice.

Nevertheless, there is something captivating about the sheer scale of these conquests, and the way a nation of clannish, nomadic horsemen swept across the world, spreading their terrible fury and bloodlust as they went (and, it seems likely, the Black Death that would depopulate 25% of Europe).

Will another horde arise from the Eurasian steppes?  If so, let’s pray they fall far short of ambitious conquests of the Mongols.

With that, here is 5 March 2025’s “Midweek Mongol Madness“:

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TBT: The Portly Politico Presidents’ Day Extravaganza

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The United States observed Presidents’ Day earlier this week, and yours portly is enjoying a decadent Winter Break for the next couple of days.  Of  course, the decadence will end abruptly on Saturday when Dr. Wife and I load up yet another U-Haul with the last remaining stuff from her house.

For today, though, I’m enjoying a little bit of time with the dogs while Dr. Wife slaves away at the hospital.  She’s a good woman.

It seems that February is always a bit of a low-point for the blog in terms of my own preparedness and output.  I’m not sure why that is.  Perhaps the initial rush of the New Year has passed, with Reality settling in heavily.  It certainly seems like everything has been busier lately.

Regardless, here’s to a few days off—probably the last for a good while!

With that, here is 17 February 2025’s “The Portly Politico Presidents’ Day Extravaganza“:

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Midweek Midterm Exams Update

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It is midterm exam week here, which means my schedule is a bit more flexible.  My World History students take their midterm exams today (Wednesday, 17 December 2025), which means I’ll be monitoring and grading throughout the day.

With a bit more flexibility this week, I have been going through my belongings to prepare items to sell on Facebook Marketplace and/or eBay, and to find things to donate to neighbors, friends, family, and/or Goodwill.  It is wild how much detritus one accumulates in a small house over the course of seven years, especially when it’s someone with latent hoarder tendencies like yours portly.

This morning a colleague purchased these Star Wars action figures from me (as well as a few other Kenner figurines I had sitting around the house):

My father-in-law went on a Facebook Marketplace kick when he and my mother-in-law were downsizing earlier this summer (see also:  my U-Haul adventure), and my own mom does a brisk business through it as well, so I’ve been turning stuff I don’t want to move to the new house into moderate treasure.  Some items move quickly and/or generate lots of interest; others sit in unsold purgatory, awaiting either redemption into paradise or a bleak end in the donation pile.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Concert 2025 Postmortem

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Good afternoon, my loyal subscribers!  Apologies for a late post today; yours portly crashed out after a long but productive day at work yesterday, which included my students’ annual Christmas Concert.

I’ll allow GEOTUS to articulate this sentiment in the way only he can:

Regardless, in the grand tradition of The Portly Politico, it’s time the annual Christmas Concert Postmortem, where I break down the program and how everything went.

For non-paying subscribers, don’t worry—the kids did a fabulous job, as they always do.  My Middle School Music Ensemble (MSME) played three pieces:

  • “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”
  • “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”
  • “Last Christmas”

And my High School Music Ensemble (HSME) played four pieces:

  • “What Child is This?”
  • “Mary Did You Know?”
  • “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”
  • “O Holy Night”

For whatever reason, the HSME played a lot of songs whose titles are questions.  Don’t ask me why!

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Play Week!

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

This past week involved the intensive preparations for the big Christmas Play, which was last night at my little school.  It’s a pretty big night from a technical perspective, as the Drama Teacher also conducts the Choir and our Dance classes.  As such, all of her students—actors, singers, dancers—all perform as part of a performing arts extravaganza.

It makes for a unique and fun, albeit hectic, experience, and requires yours portly to pull out all of his amateur audio tracks to make it happen.

All of our productions are, out of necessity, staged in the gym, which I call the “Gymnatorium” (at one point, students ate lunch there, too, so it was the “Gymnacafetorium”).  Getting good sound quality, especially for plays, has always been a struggle.

Fortunately, our Athletics Department invested in a new sound system, which offers much more complete coverage than the 15″ speakers I’d been using for years (although those speakers are great).  The problem is that the system came with a new digital mixer (a good thing) that only has six functional channels (that’s the bad part).

Because our productions often require at least a dozen inputs (and frequently more), I had to get creative with the sound system setup, and came up with this bad boy:

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Memorable Monday^16: Thanksgiving Week!

The Portly Politico8 Comments

It’s hard to believe looking back at this post that Dr. Wife was Dr. Girlfriend around this time one year ago.  It’s wild to contemplate how much can change in a year.

Dr. Wife and I have this conversation frequently, especially when enduring some trial or difficulty:  it doesn’t last forever.  Indeed, things can change very quickly.  It’s also a reminder to enjoy the good moments—and with Dr. Wife, there are many of those!

We’re honeymooning, so I actually wrote this post while Dr. Wife was still Dr. Fiancée!  I’m thrilled that she is not the former.  I’m very thankful for her, my family, my friends, and God.

With that, here is 25 November 2024’s “Memorable Monday^4: Thanksgiving Week!“:

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