I came across this story in the news yesterday: Country star Gretchen Wilson, at 34, finishes high school. The crux of the story is that Wilson, a wealthy award-winning singer-songwriter who had dropped out of school in ninth grade, has passed the GED exam and will be getting her high school diploma next week.

The money quote that she gave to the Tennessean in their story on Wilson, which the AP article cites, explains that Wilson got her GED to be a model for her 7-year-old daughter. Wilson says, "...I certainly don't want her to think you can be this successful without an education."

While I laud Wilson for both her attitude and her actions, and I agree that everyone should get an education, I find her comment a bit ironic. Because the simple fact is that Wilson became as successful as she did without an education. Later on in the Tennessean's article, she even says that she doesn't think she would be where she is today if she had stayed in school:

"I don't think I'd be where I'm at today if I had stayed in school," she says. "What I mean to say is I think I would have never followed the path that I followed. I may have been in the music business, but I don't think I would have been an artist. I don't think I'd have been pushy enough. I kind of had to get out there and start fighting and clawing my way through the world, and that started really early and I think that's a lot of what it took for me to finally get that record deal."

So I'm thinking that maybe the example she should present to her daughter is a different one – not that a person needs an education to be successful, but that a person ought to have an education to be complete.

Tags: teaching

Yesterday I had the pleasure of teaching the students in this year's Odyssey: Tthe Fantasy Writing Workshop, which is being held at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. Last year, Jeanne Cavelos, the director and principal instructor of the workshop, asked me if I would serve as the summer's first guest lecturer, and I accepted with delight. Even though I left full-time teaching a while ago, I still enjoy the thrill of working with a group of students in a classroom. It's even better when the students are there by choice, dedicated to improving their skills in a field that obviously means a lot to them.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a summer science fiction and fantasy writing workshop, it's fairly easy to describe. Students from all over the world gather for six weeks in one location to write stories, critique stories, and learn about writing. I attended Clarion in 1994, and I usually recommend any of the Clarions or Odyssey to anyone who has the time and is serious about their writing. Odyssey does have one major difference from Clarion, which is the advantage of having one principal instructor present throughout the whole summer. Although Clarion does have directors present the whole summer, usually they fill a more administrative capacity. Jeanne serves as the head administrator, but also as a writer/editor/instructor herself. But like Clarion, Odyssey does bring in other writers and editors to serve as guest lecturers. Later this summer, the students will learn from Rodman Philbrick, Michael A. Arnzen, Elizabeth Hand, John Clute, and George Scithers, and the Special Writer-in-Residence will be Nina Kiriki Hoffman.

As for my own day at Odyssey...

I arrived a little before 9 AM and spent the first hour and a half presenting what I've come to think of as my workshop on "Idea-Building: Character, Context, and Plot." (Actually, I spent the first few minutes apologizing for having to switch my appearance from Friday to Sunday.) Generally, this discussion involves any one of three parts: trying to define the genre of science fiction and fantasy, playing the idea-building game, and exploring the concept of the plot skeleton. It's a good workshop to present near the beginning of a program like Odyssey, as it generally helps the students start to focus on the tools they actually need to turn a cool idea they have into something resembling a story.

During the morning session, I also worked in some discussion of professionalism in writing, and I explained how I came to write "Kaddish for the Last Survivor," which the students had read in advance of my appearance.

Over lunch, the students asked me questions. They were a little apologetic about it, since they felt it made it difficult for me to eat. I let them know that my official schedule for the day specified that I would be answering questions over lunch, so that made them feel better.

The afternoon began with actual workshopping of three stories. Now, I'm going to be honest here, even though I know that the students may very well come check out my blog to see what I have to say. (And if you are out there, please say hi!) The stories we critiqued were about what one would expect from the students just starting out in their first week of the workshop. None of them were atrocious -- there, now they can all breathe a sigh of relief -- but they did suffer from many of the beginners' mistakes that most of us struggled with as we became writers.

On the other hand, the level of critique was quite high. As I joked after the first critique, Jeanne may not yet have a group of professional level writers in the class yet, but she does have a good group of editors. Many of the students saw the same flaws in the stories that either Jeanne or I noticed, and it's obvious to me that any one of her students this year has the potential to eventually produce publishable material. Overall, I was most impressed with the brightness and enthusiasm of this group of students. I hope they manage to keep it up over the course of the summer.

On a personal note, I was amused to see how much of my own teaching was influenced by the teachers I had at Clarion thirteen years ago. I kept sharing pieces of advice mentioned by my own instructors: James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel, Ellen Kusher, Delia Sherman, Claire Eddy, Howard Waldrop, Kate Wilhelm, and Damon Knight. In particular, I shared a few of Howard's bon mots, such as this gem: "You can make a reader go 'Huh?' anywhere in a story but not on page nine. And you can never make a reader go 'Huh? What?' A 'What?' is a non- realization of the preceding 'Huh?'" (For more on my own Clarion experience, see my essay The Clarion Call.)

The day ended with my meeting individually with four of the students, to deliver private critiques of their stories. Again, none of the stories were yet at a publishable level, but they all had something in them that could be turned into a publishable story, once the students pick up the skills they need.

I wish them all the best of luck, and hope they'll remember to share with me news of their eventual success.

Tags: personal, science-fiction, teaching, writing, writing-advice

Today's New York Times has two more interesting sections about schools and teaching.

Firstly, there's the four letters they chose to publish in response to Tom Moore's op-ed piece under the title Heroic Teachers, On Screen and Off. The writers make some interesting points about the issues raised, and I've linked to the letters in case anyone wants to read them.

But secondly, there's an article on the question of middle schools, and that's what I want to focus on today.

The article, "Taking Middle Schoolers Out of the Middle" by Elissa Gootman, discusses the "national effort to rethink middle school." There are two basic philosophies when it comes to middle school, both of which are based on the assumption that middle school (meaning a school for grades 6-8)ought to be eliminated. One philosophy, expounded by Paul Vallas, the chief executive of the Philadelphia school system, is that students in grades 6-8 are better served if they are part of an overall K-8 school. His idea is that students in these grades need the stability and consistency of being in a comfortable, familiar environment.

Not too surprisingly, the other philosophy is that students in grades 6-8 are better served by being part of a high school environment, in which they can look to the older students as role models and begin to gain exposure to the concepts of varsity sports and applying to college. As it is, there aren't as many 6-12 school as there are K-8 schools, and most of those were created less to tackle the problem of middle school students and more to have extra time to work with students at a high school level.

I read this article with interest, as I've been trying to figure out where I stand on this question. My own experience is somewhat relevant. As a student, I never attended a middle school, per se. I attended two different 1-6 elementary schools, one from first to third grade and then the other from fourth to sixth grade. Then, from grades 7-12, I attended Hunter College High School, an exam school in Manhattan, meaning that overall I had what some might consider two possibly traumatic transitions over my own schooling. I left behind one peer group when I moved into fourth grade, and I left behind another peer group when I entered seventh grade. So not only did I have to deal with new schools, but I also had to deal with making a whole new set of friends.

Furthermore, I've taught in a variety of different schools. I taught at one K-12 school where K-6 was all in one building and 7-12 was in another; I taught at a 9-12 school, where students from different feeder schools mixed together; and I taught in a 6-8 middle school that was part of an overall K-8 school. And what I found is that while students had many different issues dealing with school, most of these issues didn't seem to be based upon specific transition difficulties.

In short, I'm not sure how much it matters. It's true that when I taught middle school, we had an overall philosophy of using the middle school years to help students transition, so that when they graduated they would be ready for the high school experience. And I like to think that we succeeded. But my guess is that such an experience could also be provided just as easily to a group of middle schoolers in a 6-12 school, or even to a group in a 6-8 school. To be honest, I never thought of middle school as an independent concept until I was teaching in one, as my own school experience caused me to see the natural divisions as 1-6 and 7-12.

In conclusion, well, I have no conclusion. I'd be curious to hear about other people's experiences and what they think on the issue.

Tags: personal, teaching

This weekend begins the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, and fortunately for us, we're spending the first two days with Nomi's parents. I say "fortunately" because we have had almost no time this week to prepare for the holiday ourselves. If we had had to build a sukkah, we'd have gone nuts.

Actually, we have no place to build a sukkah of our own; as always, we will be relying on the kindness of friends, families, and synagogues to take meals in a sukkah this year. But this post isn't about Sukkot; it's about the last three evenings that kept us occupied and up late.

Tuesday night, after work, I had an instructors summit at Grub Street, Boston's independent creative writing center. Although I'm not actually teaching a class or a workshop this semester, I still attended. Grub Street has been doing a lot of good work recently for the city of Boston, such as the Memoir Project (memoir writing workshops for senior citizens) and YAWP (a monthly teen writing workshop for Boston-area high school students). I wanted to find out more about them, as well as meet with my fellow instructors. But that meant not getting home until very late Tuesday night.

On Wednesday evening, Nomi and I met up after work and went to the Cingular Wireless store in Coolidge Corner, Brookline. We've had the same older-style cell phones for about four or five years, and I had been feeling the bug for a newer model. Cingular obliged, with a letter informing us that the new network would soon no longer support our old phones, but hey, here's a rebate deal for some new ones. So we went to the store and bought these spiffy new Nokia models and an updated contract. We can now take photos and access the Internet with our phones! Here's a picture of Nomi I took with my camera phone:







Now I just have to hope I run into Superman lifting a car, and I'm all set.

The only problem, though, was that the sales associate (a very nice guy) couldn't get the system to accept our upgrade properly. He had to call Cingular customer service, and they kept him on hold as much as they do the rest of us. So once more, we had a late night. In the end, though, we got the service we wanted, and we've been having fun text messaging each other.

Last night, of course, was the Sixteenth First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Although we did not manage to get together a delegation from the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet, we did attend the ceremony. This was our third time attending an Igs, and I saw fewer familiar faces in the crowd than I have in previous years. The ceremony, as usual, was very funny, even if they attempted to put the kibosh on paper airplane throwing. The 2006 Ig Nobel winners list has been posted at the official site. The winning "research" included investigations into why woodpeckers don't get headaches; the finickiness of dung beetles; the invention of a high-pitch tone to repel teenagers; a calculation of the number of photographs you need to take of a group of people to ensure at least one photograph where no one has their eyes closed; the report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly"; reports on how to terminate hiccups through "digital rectal massage"; an explanation of why spaghetti breaks into more than two pieces when bent; a report on ultrasonic velocity in cheddar cheese; and the discovery that the female malaria mosquito is attracted equally to the smells of Limberger cheese and human feet.

(If you're interested in learning more about the Prizes, this Saturday as usual you can attend the The Ig Informal Lectures at MIT. Nomi and I won't be there, of course, but we hear they're always good.)

Anyway, because it was our third late night in a row, we didn't stick around, but we headed home to do what packing we could for the weekend. (I'm still not done.)

So that's been the week. To top it all off, I had some Library Trustee business I needed to deal with by email, an interview of a horror writer to arrange, and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped.

Plans for the weekend include sleeping.

Copyright © Michael Burstein; photo copyright © Michael Burstein

Tags: boston, brookline, comics, jewish, movies, personal, pluto, science, silly, teaching, writing

Last week, Harvard University announced that it was eliminating its Early Action application program. I took a more than passing interest in this announcement, because years ago I myself applied for and was accepted under Harvard's Early Action program. And although I was glad to have that decision out of the way so early, I still recall wondering how fair the early application process was in general. Because I remember being told that applying early increased your chances of acceptance, and it seemed unfair for students who needed more time to make their final decision on colleges.

A little background. Back in the 1980s, there were two different early application programs in existence: Early Action and Early Decision. Under Early Action, students could get their application materials in by the beginning of November and have a decision from the college, usually an acceptance or a deferral, by mid-December. (In rare cases, a student might be rejected outright.) Early Decision worked almost exactly the same way, except that a student applying via Early Decision had to agree to a firm commitment to attend that school in the fall. Under Early Action, a student could send applications to other institutions, but under Early Decision, a student was expected to end the application process. In either case, though, a student could only apply to one institution via their early application program.

(Of course, any sort of early acceptance was usually predicated on the student maintaining a reasonable record throughout the rest of senior year. But most people tended not to notice that fine print in the acceptance package.)

Each college that offered an early admission program decided for itself which kind to offer. In my case, the two colleges I was most interested in were Harvard and Columbia. And Columbia only offered Early Decision, not Early Action. Had they offered Early Action, I might have applied early there instead, and perhaps my life might have taken a different turn. But that's a subject for another time.

For now, I have to say that I'm glad that Harvard has chosen to eliminate its Early Action program, and I have a feeling that this will lead to many other institutions revising their own application procedures. Because the fact is that for better or worse, Harvard University carries a tremendous amount of influence in the world of high school admissions. Let me give an example.

Back in the mid-1990s, when I was starting to work full-time as a high-school teacher, Harvard published a booklet about their admissions process. Being a science teacher, I was particularly interested in what Harvard had to say about science courses. I was gratified to see that Harvard's admissions office felt very strongly about science -- so strongly, in fact, that they expected all applicants to have at least three years of science, and those three years had to include Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.

Now, I attended an exam school, Hunter College High School in New York City, and I still remember that the only high school science course that was required was Biology in 9th grade. Chemistry was offered in 10th grade as an elective, as was Physics in 11th grade. Now, it is true that the school strongly recommended that all 10th graders take Chemistry and that most 11th graders take Physics. But not everyone did; if you could explain to your college counselor why those courses weren't necessary for what you wanted to accomplish, you could enroll in any of the other electives being offered. I knew students who chose instead to study another foreign language or to take creative writing, and none of them had difficulty getting into college with their transcript.

But in the 1990s, as soon as Harvard announced that it expected three years of science, many high schools took this as a cue to require a full course of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics for all their students. Never mind the fact that most students weren't planning on applying to Harvard College, let alone attending it; if Harvard said that three years of science were required for its applicants, then all students would be required to take three years of science, no matter what.

I had, and still have, mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, being a science booster, I feel very strongly that all students should have an excellent science education. Citizens need to understand the importance of science and technology to function productively in our modern world. But on the other hand, not everyone is interested in science, and, to be frank, not everyone can handle a Physics course. I remember one student I taught who had essentially found herself required to take Physics under "bait and switch"; the school hadn't required the course when she entered in 9th grade, and she was distraught when the rules changed on her by 11th grade and she found herself forced to study Physics. She hated the course, did badly in it, and would have been far better served by a survey course on Science and Society than on trying to solve momentum equations.

But instead, a decision by the admissions office at Harvard College -- an institution to which she never would have applied -- ended up with her being required to study Physics.

Based on this history, I reiterate my belief that Harvard's decision will lead to other institutions abandoning their Early Admission or Early Decision programs. And I think that in the end, high school seniors will be much better off for it.

Copyright © Michael Burstein

Tags: harvard, personal, science, teaching

Looking back at my journal over the last few weeks, I see that CowParade and the controversy over Pluto's status have been dominating my life. Yesterday gnomi and I actually had a convergence of the two.

Planets first. Yesterday, as anyone reading my blog would know, the IAU voted to demote Pluto to a "dwarf planet." Normally, I'd be blogging about this sort of thing in more detail, but since I set up savepluto that's where most of that blogging is happening. For those of you who are wondering, yes, we are serious about the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet, but as I noted in savepluto last night, we expected that everything would end with the vote. Instead, after the vote finished, we started to receive more emails of support than we had before, and requests for media interviews. We were also asked if we would be selling merchandise to support Pluto.

I have no idea if any of the media interviews will really lead to anything, but in the meantime, Nomi set up a Cafe Press store called Planet Pluto. If anyone wants to buy a T-shirt or a mug with our official logo, you can do so there. I'm getting a mug for myself.

As for how the IAU vote will affect things at work, saxikath talks about that a bit under Miscellany. The upshot is that no, textbook companies aren't about to make a ton of money from updating our books. But on a personal level, I have to admit that this is the sort of thing that makes my job more fun. We get to play with the textbooks and make some interesting edits. As saxikath says. this is a "teachable moment" for science educators everywhere.

Now to the cows. Earlier this week, Nomi and I photographed the last three CowParade cows that we were missing, so we now have visited, seen, and photographed all 117 official cows plus the one stealth cow designed by Nan Freeman in front of the Bank of America building. Yesterday was the book launch for CowParade Boston: The Cows Have Landed at the Borders in Downtown Crossing, and Nomi and I went during lunch so we could meet some of the artists and get them to sign a copy of the book. We met Howie Green again, and told all the artists how delighted we were by their work. I also told one of the CowParade officials that along with auctioning off the cow statues, it would be nice if they could also auction off a place for people to keep their new purchase.

So for now, that's my personal life. Be back here on Sunday when I when I anticipate announcing that I've lost two more Hugo Awards.

Tags: astronomy, boston, conventions, personal, pluto, science, science-fiction, space, teaching

1. This Thursday evening, I am running a seminar at Grub Street on World-Building:

Other worlds. Parallel dimensions. Mythic realms. The future. In this three-hour seminar, award-winning science fiction writer Michael A. Burstein takes you through the basics of creating on paper the fictional world that is so vivid and detailed in your head. Whether you want to set your story on the sand dunes of Mars, or in the world of Faerie, or even in the world of today, you’ll learn how to create a world that draws in readers, hangs together, and is as memorable as your favorite fictional places. This seminar will look at world-building through the lens of science fiction, but it is open to and relevant for all writers.

If you're interested in more information, click on the link above.

2. The blog Meme Therapy routinely asks science fiction writers and other such types to answer a speculative question, a feature they call Brain Parade. I'm one of the writers who responded in Brain Parade: The Aliens are Coming.

Tags: personal, science, science-fiction, teaching, writing

The very nice woman from NSTAR named Robin got back to me today, as soon as she had the information about Monday night's power loss. Apparently a transformer fuse blew, because the circuit our building is on had the highest load demand that they've ever recorded (for that circuit).

I'm very glad that she got back to me, but I have to say that I am disappointed in NSTAR. Let me say from the outset that I could very well have my facts wrong, but from what I understand, NSTAR hasn't done the upgrade they've really needed to do on our transmission lines over the past few years. Basically, it's a large capital expenditure to upgrade everything, so instead of fixing it all at once they've simply patched it as problems arose. Needless to say, this results in a system that in the long run, costs more money to fix.

It reminds me of an experience I had once at a school where I was teaching science with old textbooks. I wanted to buy a brand new set of books, but I couldn't because we didn't have the budget for it. Every year, however, I'd have to replace a bunch of the old books because students lost them, and so I had to buy replacement books that I knew were out-of-date. So instead of spending a whole lot of money at once to get new books, I spent that same amount of money over a few years replacing out-of-date books.

If anyone from NSTAR is out there reading this and can correct my understanding of the situation, I'd be happy to hear from you.

Tags: boston, brookline, personal, teaching

Earlier today, I found an anonymous reply from a student at Lehman High School. The student, whom I shall think of as "he" since I have no way of knowing their sex, was annoyed with some of what I had said about their recent copyright infringement case involving the musical Chicago.

I deleted his comment for a few reasons. First of all, I used to require all anonymous posters to identify themselves in the body of their post. This person didn't, and sadly, a lot of people have been ignoring my request. So I've now gone to account holder comments only.

But I also deleted it because the response included insults and foul language. My blog is my space, and I don't allow either of those things here. It says on my profile page that I reserve the right to delete any comments I deem inappropriate. And quite a bit of what this student said was inappropriate.

The fact is, though, that the student did have one legitimate complaint with my post, and a few that bear responding to. Had he replied in a more polite manner, I'd have left his reply up and responded directly. I didn't because I don't choose to leave insults up in my own space. However, should this student actually be checking my blog for a response, I thought I'd reply to some of his concerns.

1. The student complained about my characterization of the students whining to the press. He said that the press came to them, and that they did not whine.

My reply: This is quite possibly a fair point. I don't know how the press got involved, although I suspect that someone from the school got them involved. And I don't know if the students whined. But I do know that almost all the articles I read were biased in favor of the students, presenting their disappointment in such a palpable way that I could practically see their tears in my mind.

And, more to the point, I never said that the students whined to the press. I said that the school did. The student who replied to me does not seem to have caught that distinction in my post.

2. The students said that the New York City council members assisted them without their asking for it.

My reply: Again, that may be true, but it's irrelevant. I never said I was upset at the students for getting the city councilors involved. I said I was upset with the city councilors for choosing to get involved. Again, a distinction that the student seems to have missed.

3. The student suggested that if I wanted them to learn about copyright infringement, I should visit Lehman High School and teach them myself. He also wonders why I'm concerned with the lessons that they learn.

My reply: I'd been a teacher for many years, and I was always responsible for making sure that my students knew much more than the material I was technically teaching them. But in this case, it's not really my responsibility to teach the students of Lehman High about respecting copyright law. Frankly, in this particular case that's the job of the drama department. I don't think the student quite got that.

As for why I'm concerned with the lessons that they learn -- why shouldn't I be? If a school in Kansas chooses to teach intelligent design instead of evolution, for example, that has a detrimental effect on society as a whole. In this case, a school in the Bronx has taught a bunch of students that if you're caught breaking the law, you can still get away with it if you get powerful people on your side. To me, that's a chilling lesson, and not one we should be teaching our future voters.

To my correspondent: if you're still out there, I hope you'll take these replies into consideration. And if you wish to provide further correction and detail on just how the press got involved, I'd be more than interested in finding out. Just please be polite about it.

And finally, if any other students from Lehman High are reading my blog, please take note: I don't blame you for what happened, and I'm glad you got a chance to see all your hard rehearsal work pay off in the end. But I hope that you will take from this a better lesson than the one I'm afraid you've been taught, which is that it's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. I know of many other students who would have loved to perform in a school musical version of Chicago and were denied the chance because their schools obeyed the law and respected creators' rights. One day, one of you may be the famous playwright who discovers a school putting on one of your plays without permission. When that happens, I hope you'll choose to be as generous with that school as the producers of Chicago were with you. Because if you're not, then that would be hypocritical.

Copyright © Michael A. Burstein

Tags: copyright, nyc, personal, teaching

Yesterday, I came across the article That's Show Biz (and a Lesson in Copyright Law) in the New York Times. The article summarized a series of events that happened last week involving a student production of the musical "Chicago" at Herbert H. Lehman High School in the Bronx, which is being performed this weekend. For those of you who haven't heard about this yet, the story goes as follows.

The school drama teacher, Anthony Cerrini, decided that the school should put on a student production of the musical. He reconstructed the book by taking dialogue from the Internet, transcribing some of the 2002 film, and then writing some on his own. (Already I'm wondering what he was thinking.) The school bought costumes and built sets, and for the past few months a student cast has been rehearing.

And then, when the advertisements for the show were sent out, the Samuel French company, which controls the licensing rights for "Chicago," very properly sent them a cease and desist notice. After all, the school had not asked for permission, had not paid fees to the copyright holder, and was putting up a production too geographically close to another production (which, in this case, happened to be the one on Broadway).

So what did the school do? They whined. To the press. Two days ago, the New York Daily News ran the article Stop the music!, focusing on the poor kids who were crying their eyes out because all their hard work would be for nothing.

Now, I'm all in favor of going to the press if an injustice needs to be fixed. A few years ago, Stuyvesant High School went to the press when one of the two FedEx boxes of Westinghouse Science Talent Search competition papers that they had sent to Washington, D.C, arrived a few hours after the deadline. FedEx had picked up both boxes at the same time, and had guaranteed delivery by the deadline, but only one box made it in time. So when it looked like half their students' papers weren't going to be accepted because FedEx screwed up, the school administration went to the press. Public opinion threatened to go against both Westinghouse and FedEx, and so, in a stunning reversal for the first time in history, the Westinghouse Science Talent Search accepted the late papers. The next year, they changed their deadline rule, stating that if the papers were delivered by a carrier who guaranteed delivery by deadline, the papers would be accepted if a record proved that they had been picked up by the carrier within a reasonable amount of time beforehand.

I was fine with that turn of events because in that case, it was not the fault of the school or the students. But in this case, the mistake was precisely the fault of the school. The school principal himself , Robert Leder, even said that for the past 27 years they have never applied for a license when putting on a show. I'm boggled by this man's ignorance of copyright law.

And I'm boggled that public pressure got the rights owners to grant permission for "a single unauthorized, unlicensed performance at the school," as the Times put it. (On a side note, if they've given permission, how is it that the performance is now unauthorized and unlicensed?)

But I'm not just boggled. I'm appalled. I'm appalled that four City Council members and Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum planned to stage a protest in front of the Ambassador Theater where "Chicago" is currently performing. I'm appalled that Samuel French is being cast as the bad guy in this case. And I'm appalled at the message this is sending to the students. They haven't learned the proper lesson here, that the copyright of artists and writers must be protected. Instead, they've learned the old adage that it's easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.

I'm also upset. I'm upset because I'm a writer, and I've had people also appropriate my work without permission. Now some people might take the side of the students, because they see how much money "Chicago" rakes in for its creators and wonder what the harm one little student production can do. Well, I've met people who have their plays licensed by Samuel French, and many of them rely on these license fees for a living. Most playwrights aren't raking in the dough, and they depend on these amateur productions for their bread and butter. A case like this makes it more likely that some other school somewhere will decide to put on a minor play without permission, essentially taking money from a playwright's pocket.

But I'm not just upset because I'm a writer. For many years I was a teacher, at schools that put on many theatrical productions a year. Every single drama department at the schools where I taught made damn sure to license the rights to plays and musicals before performing them. The way I see it, all the schools that do the right thing, that respect copyright law and apply for legal licenses, are being punished. The message being sent is that a school which flouts the law will be rewarded if enough people whine about it.

I am gratified by two developments, though. First, Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor, is going to send out a statement immediately to remind all the schools about intellectual property laws.

And second, in light of what Leder said about never having applied for a license before, Samuel French is going to look into the school's productions from over the past 27 years. As Charles Van Nostrand, the president of Samuel French, said in the Times, "I'm a little curious about what those other 27 years were."

Go get them, Mr. Van Nostrand.

Tags: copyright, nyc, personal, teaching, writing