NaBloPoMo: I’m on it with a little hop in my step and a “tally-ho” spirit, raring to go. Onward and upward, and all that sort of rot. To quote my sister when she was very young and we had suffered yet another family trip crammed in the back of the blue VW bug, “Are we there yet?” No, dear. Just keep writing…
November 8, 2007
Board of Education Members
Bakersfield City School District
Dear Elected Members of the Board:
I never cease to be amazed that those who choose to sit as members of a school board seem to be obsessed with the most repulsive sort of demagoguery. With respect to this latest example of proof, congratulations.
I do believe that the U.S. Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” and although you are most assuredly not members of the U.S. Congress, you are, as are we all, governed by that and all other amendments (even though judges enjoy the freedom to interpret them in their own way).
Additionally, the California Education Code, Section 220 states that, “No person shall be subjected to discrimination on the basis of sex, ethnic group identification, race, national origin, religion, color, mental or physical disability, or any actual or perceived characteristic…in any program or activity conducted by an education institution that receives, or benefits from, state financial assistance or enrolls pupils who receive state student financial aid.”
Therefore, your recent decision to place in 2,300 classrooms and other gathering places within your school district posters that read, “In God We Trust,” is inappropriate on several levels. The fact that you feel you’re “not going to accept the agenda of some radical leftists who want to expunge God from public dialogue,” Mr. Vegas, is beside the point.
The point is that not every one chooses to practice your religion, share in your beliefs, pray to the same god that you do, or pray at all. Perhaps they do not believe there is an entity to pray to. They are entitled to those beliefs just as you are, whether they are in the majority or not. Or should I say “accepted” majority?
Clearly you think them wrong. That they’re carrying the future of society and its children to hell in a hand basket. One that belongs to “radical leftists.” Perhaps the same “radical leftists” who pay taxes that end up in your school district’s coffers, and with whose funds will be used to pay for the “In God We Trust” posters you will purchase.
It’s a problem.
The kids won’t care because it’s just another adult pissing contest that is very “junior high” in its characteristics. The “in” clique got what they wanted, and in the process has engaged in name-calling of anyone who isn’t on their side. If you don’t think $12,000 worth of posters that will soon become faded wall paper should be in our schools, then you’re un-American.
Because we all know that our beliefs should be plastered on our bumpers, our homes, our classrooms, and on our sleeves. That we’re card-carrying members of the “I Believe” sect and anyone who doesn’t strut it is suspect.
It makes me sick to my stomach. How do these ridiculous humans get elected? Oh, that’s right. They get elected by other humans who aren’t satisfied wanting what they want for their own children; they want it for everyone else’s as well. Because our children must certainly be what’s wrong with society. Damn them heathens. Actually, what they want is to not have to pay for a private, religious based education. They want us to pay for it.
Ah, yes. America. The land of opportunity. You, too can have whatever you want, have someone else pay for it, and then complain about it or send it back after you decided you didn’t want it after all.
In conclusion, you may want to take a look at your district’s budget. This is the time of year when school administrators begin to organize their site finances for the next school year. Since it could be losing quite a bit of state and federal funding due to your self-serving actions, you’ll have quite a bit of adjusting to do to make ends meet. And if you don’t lose the money there, then it will most likely go to court costs when someone files suit over your recent edict. But hey! At least you’ll have pretty posters on your walls that no one will notice in a few months.
And just think As board members, you only set policy. The educators then have to scramble to clean up your mess.
Now that you’ve had your moment in the sun, perhaps you might focus on whether students are ready for college. Hmmm?
Yanno, I was going to have a lovely, quiet morning. Feh.
After a much needed eleven hours of sleep last night (evacuated relatives, non-stop fire coverage, no school, no work, and a busy Las Vegas weekend) I stretched, poured my coffee and began to plan my day. Fire coverage is dwindling (thankfully and finally), the Santa Ana winds have completely died, and fire fighters are focused on what’s remaining — still a concern, but nothing like it was even a day ago.
I was cozied up to the MoH’s laptop (instead of my beloved mac since the RT is home and is putting in iTunes time) getting ready to do a bit of research on a recipe I’m going to tackle and I came across this article.
Remember when I had the nuclear melt down over the Jeep Princess a week or so ago? Well, that was mild in comparison to the flare of heat I felt when I read it. The rush of anger, barage of razor sharp opinions, and flow of thoughts bottled for the better part of a year made their presence known. Matilda the Hun is alive and well in the smoke-filled skies of Paradise.
And to put the turd in that caustic punch bowl…
Dub-yah just landed in Air Force One to survey the burn areas.
I was going to go get paint for the RT’s room, which we’ve been sanitizing and organizing together. Miracles do happen. I was going to be physically constructive for the better part of the day instead of exercising my agile fingers and brain. But the article was a serious deterrent. And Dub-yah is guilty by association with NCLB.
Before I really get going, consider this: In his sophomore English class, the RT has to read whatever he wants — at least 100 pages a week. No big deal. He has to keep a list of what he reads and make a couple of entries in a notebook. No guidelines, just a note or two about each item he’s read. At the end of six-weeks, the teacher will go around the class, look at each list, “pick one of the items on the list” then expect the students to write about that item in class for a grade. Can the RT do this? Of course. The kid reads. He always has. And yes, he can write about what he reads, if the teacher is willing to subject herself to his tortuous handwriting. But what is the real point of the exercise? To catch the students who can’t, don’t, or haven’t read? Or to confirm the original assessment that their writing skills are seriously lacking, and that even though you haven’t taught them anything to begin to correct this problem, you’re going to test them? A test is supposed to be a measure of more than just a student’s learning. It’s a measure of the effectiveness of one’s teaching, also. Or the quality of the test. Or the material taught. Or the motivation of the students. Or the motivation of the teacher. Okay, so this is going no where fast. This video sums things up fairly well.
Until everyone — EVERYONE stops thinking that “things” should remain the same as in the good ol’ days, and that what and how you and I were taught should be fine because “we turned out just great…” then we’re part of the problem. Unfortunately, a very large portion of the teaching force is part of the obstacle to change. A huge number of teachers are reaching retirement, and although many have had productive careers influencing countless children in positive ways, the sheer idea of having to learn radically different techniques that involve a strong understanding of how technology works is something less than attractive for many. Not all. Many.
Those interested in learning are facing obstacles caused by the dysfunctional system, the equipment, and the often less than knowledgeable quality of support staff. I’m sure I’ll burn with the politically incorrect in hell for making these statements — another problem. The world of education is quite two-faced. Face to face, it’s all peaches and rainbows. Behind the scenes, it’s all snarking and biting. It would make a terrific reality show.
There are newer, more idealistic teachers coming into the profession, some of whom are from different professions. And yes, they have much to learn from their more experienced colleagues, and should definitely listen. But it rarely works in reverse, and that’s too bad. Why is it that as we age, we close our minds? We think those younger than us, or from outside our system, lack knowledge and ability. We forget how we felt when we were their age, and what we knew. There is a very odd culture within the educational system that is unlike that of others who understand the value of working together, and sharing ideas. Individuals in the medical profession, engineers. There seems to be a fear that prevents the development of an intellectual community within the educational system. That if you gain certain heights, you’ve forsaken the masses, and are to be questioned. What is that called?
No, not all teachers exhibit that level of closed mindedness, but many.
I’ve raised three sons who are pleasant, productive people. They’ve watched some television, played some video games, played some sports, and had to endure some chores to earn an allowance. And they’ve had quite a bit of time to learn to entertain themselves with books and hobbies. To use their imaginations. To feel boredom and develop a willingness to do something about it.
Unfortunately, they’ve also had a fairly lack-luster experience at school with primarily lecture-driven instruction supported by textbooks that are so sanitized it’s a wonder the information inspires any degree of critical thought. They’ve had county schools, city schools, Montessori schools. They’ve had experienced teachers, new teachers, engaged teachers, and people who should have been encouraged out of the profession before their second year. They’ve attended low-performing schools, mediocre schools, and extremely high performing schools. It doesn’t seem to matter. We’re good at perpetuating the notion that learning occurs in a box in this country. Extremely.
It would be so easy to launch into a diatribe on parenting at this point because parents are the primary responsibility for their children. But if society acknowledges that not all parents are capable of raising their children appropriately (and they’re not because anyone can have sex, and unfortunately children can’t choose their parents), then the educational system has got to provide. (Rush Limbaugh is probably choking right now…) And what is provided can’t be the same across a district, or a county, a state, or the country. That thinking persists because it’s easy. That thinking persists because we’ve been doing it for so many years.
That thinking will persist until the people who work in the public education system work together to change their thinking.
It’s not challenging. You just have to be willing to wrap you head around the idea that things are possible instead of not. It’s called optimism. Optimists are shot down in the educational system. Those who stand out and work to achieve different possibilites are frowned upon and talked about. Surely, innovation is suspect. Negativity and snarking about “the pendulum” swinging back again inevitably begin. How nice to be able to act in such a sanctimonious way. To think that the kids are going to hell in a hand basket and that you can’t do your job because you’re not being given the same material you used to be given.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but school is supposed to be a place where you actually learn, and not show up to show what you know. Increasingly, it needs to be a place where students learn HOW to learn — impossible if someone is standing in front of the room talking and then assigning homework. When’s the last time you had to sit in a room and just listen to someone who couldn’t possibly know all he or she should know to teach you? Fun, wasn’t it? And yet we subject our kids to that.
I’m not suggesting that educators aren’t intelligent. No one in any profession can possibly contain all the information necessary to truly teach. Things have changed. Information is available everywhere. Students need their teachers to understand what and where the sources are, teach them how to discern credible information from what is faulty, and push them to develop their own hypotheses and investigate their own theories. Publish their own findings. Constructively argue the validity of their own findings.
Teachers are the key. They have to be. They can’t continue to complain about their administrators, the parents, the students, the lack of materials, lack of technology, support staff, pay, and stress on the job. All of those issues can be part of the problem, but when has complaining accomplished anything?
This rant is far from done. But it’s all over the place today, and god forbid that someone out there correct my choice of syntax and punctuation (which is much easier to do than use the questions I’ve posed to analyze and evaluate their own part of the problem).I respect the fact that anyone can stay in a profession for their entire career. That they can look back on their accomplishments and feel good about them. That they can speak as an “expert” because of that experience and make comments about “what the problem is” without considering that they, too, could have a share in being the problem.
That it can’t possibly be only the students. That it can’t possibly just be their parents. That it can’t possibly be just the administration, or the lack of funding, or the feds. That maybe. Just maybe. They are partially to blame because their thinking, their strategies, their unwillingness to become part of a solution, take action, and let go of their negativity, could be part of “the problem.”
When you examine the lives of individuals who are successful, and listen carefully to what and whom they’ve been influenced by, rarely to they say it had anything to do with their education. And if it does, it’s a dedicated teacher here or there. A coach, a professor, a dance instructor.
Ask a writer whether he or she learned to write in school. Rarely, if ever, are they able to attribute their skill, talent, and passion to any writing teacher — unless one considers a particular author a teacher — and I do. So do they.
Ask yourself to what extent your education inspired you. And not just through the K-12 years, but beyond. And then wonder what works, for whom, and why?
Or just pat yourself on the back that you made it to the end of this.
ambivalent (adj.) having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone…
Yesterday late in the afternoon, I received an email referencing this piece. I’ve read it several times since, and caught myself mulling over aspects of it.
Politeness. Authority. Acculturation and silence.
Self-negation.
But Verlyn Klinkenborg’s piece is about writing, isn’t it? He acknowledges that when “you talk about writing…you always end up talking about life.”
I know. I see what he sees as he observes and writes. The students, the classroom. The quiet. It’s what gets in the way most often when you’re teaching someone to write and they’re struggling, not understanding that aspect of it all, thinking that it fits neatly into a formula with five double-spaced paragraphs in 12-point helvetica. It’s easier to think of those very concrete things. More safe. There isn’t a commitment, really. Is there?
Writing comes from life. Everything we’ve said or thought or done is a path from which words come in whichever voice we choose: one of passivity and compliance, or cold detachment.
Abject humor.
Writing is not linear. It’s messy. There are no clear cut rules even though most of us had rules thrown at us about what we should or shouldn’t do as writers. We were asked to complete lifeless narratives or produce dull regurgitations of information on gross national product and chief exports — if we were asked to write at all. We received letter grades for our efforts, in pen at the top of the paper where everyone could see it, and when you turned the paper over, could feel the embossment, and think about the teacher putting it there.
It’s safe to expect students to write about those things. Nothing personal will arise. There will be no worries about whether one piece on “Where You Went On Your Summer Vacation” will differ from the next. You don’t have to have confidence in anything like that because you just write it.
Unless you didn’t go anywhere on your summer vacation.
Or lacked the confidence to realize that it didn’t mean your summer vacation was insignificant compared to that of others. That lying in golden, waist high grass to watch clouds drift, or listening to pebbles clack hollowly against one other in a ditch as the water from lawn sprinklers carries them along may not be considered worthy of being written about.
That the teacher might look at your paper and think, “I knew there was something not quite right about this girl…Who must her parents be?”
We’re pigeon holed almost from the beginning to behave and think and act in particular ways. To speak in a specific fashion. To dress ourselves just so. To do and to be what others expect.
First at home, and then at school. Especially when others are watching.
There could be a high correlation between the seeming lack of confidence exhibited by students repressed by societal norms and the degree to which they let loose, get rowdy, and party hearty when they’re not being watched.
Or being controlled.
Eventually, they escape if they really want to.
Klinkenborg concludes by stating that when “a young woman suddenly [understands] the power of her perceptions, ready to look at the world unapologetically — I realize how much has been lost because of the culture of polite, self-negating silence in which they were raised.”
Lost as writers, or lost as humans with life to experience?
Oh, look, everyone. It’s nearly wordless Wednesday. That would be the modified version for those of us who simply can’t keep our fingers still. But you will be impressed today with my accomplishment of fewer words…
Meet “Iron Fang” who showed up on the kitchen counter after school yesterday. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I wonder which class the RT drew this in when he was supposed to be acting like he was interested in the lecture?
His large feet shush across the carpet toward my bed in the dim rainy day light. I can hear his hesitancy as he approaches and know he must be wondering if I’m awake, or even alive. I’m tangled in and out of covers and sheets after another restless night. It must be time for him to leave for school and he’s come to check on me since I’m not downstairs. For a second I wonder if he thinks I’ve forgotten carpool duty on my one day off.
“Morning, Doog,” I mumble to him before he turns around to leave, trying to sound more awake than I am.
“G’ morning, Mom,” he responds in a voice with a Friday lilt. I can sense that he has drawn closer to the edge of the bed and is standing there, most likely trying to decide just how he might give me a hug. But I’m not perched on my usual edge. Instead, I am sprawled across the middle and not quite reachable for a 15-year-old who more and more seems to find the business of hugging awkward. I find myself wanting to erase his discomfort.
“Are you ready for school? Do you have all your things together?” I ask even though I asked last night before bed, and even earlier after his homework was complete.
“Yes. I’m ready.”
“Do well on your tests today, okay?”
“‘Kay. And I just wanted to remind you that I won’t be there to pick up after school ’cause I’m going with W,” he tells me, already headed out of the room.
“It’s not my day, Doog. Don’t forget your book for English so you can read today,” I add unnecessarily, as that, too had been discussed last night.
“I won’t, Mom.”
I hear the weight of his still growing body on the stairs as he heads down, and a few muffled words with his father as he clicks the lock on the front door to leave, his backpack banging against its frame. It’s 7am and his car pool is most likely waiting outside. “Bye, Mom,” he calls.
“Bye, Doog,” I say, never quite loud enough.
“See-yah-later.”
“See you later, too,” I finish.
I wait to hear the car pull away before I drag myself from bed and shuffle down stairs to take care of the animals.
It only takes a second to notice that he has left the book I reminded him about. It’s on the floor right where he drops his backpack each day.
I sigh and am glad that I have resisted learning how to text message. What good would it do to remind him of what he’s forgotten unless I plan to drive the book to him? It would just remind him that he just can’t seem to get the details of school right. Besides, when it’s time for him to need his book, he’ll remember that I reminded him, and that yet again, he has forgotten. He hates it. But he also seems fairly incapable of fixing the problem.
I head into the kitchen and tell the MoH. Annoyed, he tells me it isn’t too late to call the RT to let him know he can’t go to his friend’s after school. I make a mental note to not tattle on the RT unless it’s important, because it doesn’t solve the problem. It just sends the MoH off to work on a Friday morning with a less than buoyant attitude about his son. It all feels a bit Ward and June-ish to me.
It isn’t that important. What is important is that he takes the time to say good morning to me before he leaves for school on a Friday.
I’m left wondering when the last time was that I told him I loved him. I pick up his forgotten book and place it near his calculator which he has also not taken to school today.
It’s a little difficult to write when my iTunes playlist is soothing the crabby writing self I was planning on strutting today to commune with my First Day of Not Going to School hangover. No, not that kind of a hang over. Sheesh! It’s more of a recovery from the smackdown all those papers that came home from school by way of the RT dealt me.
Such conflicting reactions I had while reading them all, gauging my emotions all the while, and then getting royally pissed off that I was annoyed. Or maybe it was the other way around. You follow? I can imagine not.
I suppose on some level, I found myself remembering my own class syllabi and the reactions parents must have had reading them. Yes, I was a pain in the ass demanding teacher, but I NEVER wrote things such as:
Students are expected to: attend class daily, learn daily, take clear, organized notes daily, bring pencils and erasers, ask a question if the material presented is not understood, and do each day’s Class Fun and Home Fun each day, i.e. don’t wait and then try to cram a month’s worth of work into a weekend! No eating, candy, mints, chewing of gum, or drinking is allowed in the classroom. Students are expected not to: sit idle, sleep, sweaar, perform personal grooming, do the work of another class, leave the classroom before the bell rings, or wear clothing which is against the dress code. Students may not be out of their seats without my permission. I may confiscate anything on a studnent’s desk which is unrelated or inappropriate. This includes, and is not limited to : cell phones, iPods, CD players, Blackberries, Treos, other classes’ books or work, food, drink, makeup, makeup work, homework, artwork, and personal lettes or ntes. These inappropriate items may or may not be returned to the student.
*GASP* Oh, and yes. We have another paper size freak on our hands. It has to be EXACTLY 8-1/2″ x 11″ which means that the 10 packages I purchased for 69 cents a package which measure only 8″ x 10-1/2″ will not be acceptable for this class. Mind you, the actual writing space of the paper I purchased is EXACTLY the same size as the writing space of the larger paper. The area in the margins has been reduced. One just may consider that it is for the purpose of CONSERVATION, mightn’t one?
And what it hell is “Class Fun” and “Home Fun?” Does she actually think that 10th graders will find this humorous?
And the paper that I had to sign so that he would be able to use a graphing calculator purchased with private donations — but only while in class, and not until I signed and returned the paper I was reading — but couldn’t take home to use for his homework — most of which required the use of a graphing calculator…
The subsequent trip to Staples for the graphing calculator set me back about $250. No, not just for the calculator. Art supplies, planner, additional notebooks. I had already been to Staples for the basics. Ugh. What if I had six kids? Condoms, anyone?
Mothers with young children out there…just wait. Those of you with no children, remember being in high school? It’s just a bit different now. Hell, his crap doesn’t even fit in his backpack. And do you think he got a locker? Nope. He said last year he didn’t use the one he had (he doesn’t like to worry about being late to a class…) so at this rate, I’ll have to steal a shopping cart from the local grocery store.
Wait. They installed those locking wheel guards that clamp when you try and wheel them over the magnetic line so the road agents wouldn’t take them. Not funny? Whatever.
It’s just that when I watch the RT hoist the academic megaload over one of his shoulders, I swear I can see him bend and sway a little in the middle like a twig does when a fat bird sits on it, and I wait to see if he’ll snap in two. I don’t dare say anything or I’ll get The Flat Look. The one that suggests I’m verging on being tiresome at best. Downright a pain in the ass at worst. You know. A mother. Okay, so whatever if your mother was June Cleaver. My mother never had to check up on any of us because we just did what we were supposed to do. Why in hell does it just seem like such a bigger pain now days? It makes no sense. I thought we were supposed to be moving away from industrialization for crap sakes. Consider the continued nonsense from the math teacher:
You are tardy if you are not in your seat when the bell rings. The Paradise High School Tardy Policy is enforced in Ms. Persnickety’s classes, and significantly affects your citizenship grade. I track minutes tardy; these minutes accumulate and count towards “periods absent.”
Read: if you aren’t at your station ready to squirt the eyes on the candy chick when the bell sounds, I’ll dock your pay, you worthless cretin.
You know, when the kids read this, they most likely don’t pay any attention. Their eyes glaze over and they stare out the window. They wonder what’s for lunch even though they’re only in their period one class and have three more to go. They think about everything but what matters to that teacher. Well, not all of them. But still. I’m on a roll, here, okay?
The art teacher sounds great, expecting excellence and organization — WOOT! and I can’t wait to join in on the lessons. Why not? She has all the sketchbook assignments for the year laid out already. How cool is that. I’m gonna get right on it. Maybe that way the RT might consider drawing something other than war machines. And weapons.
The history teacher (who is a coach) didn’t even give him a syllabus. I guess there are no expectations for that class. But the RT says he’s a nice guy, so all righty then. We’re set.
I know it’s not Wednesday, but still. I couldn’t resist. Well, actually I must have, because there aren’t supposed to be words here, right? Feh. I so don’t know how to not say anything. It’s a genetic problem. But I had to in some way celebrate that I:
was not at school on the First Day of School for the first time in over 20 years — give or take one or two;
was not sick with worry about whether we’d have enough students to keep all our teachers (i.e., tell one who has prepared very hard to get ready for a school year that he/she would have to leave);
did not have to be concerned that we had a vacancy for a position necessary to run the business part of the school — or have to train a new one who has absolutely no idea how to do his/her job;
did not have to act like it mattered that NCLB may seem great on paper but will never really work, and that YES! we’re all revved up about those test scores;
didn’t have to work the kinks out of a new lunch schedule, or bell schedule, or bus schedule, or duty schedule, or master schedule, or budget, or any of that.
I didn’t have to wonder for the 8,000th time why boys think pants that hang off their rear ends are comfortable to walk around in, and adolescent girls think everyone wants to stare at their cleavage and bellies;
I have many very good friends who do think and wonder and worry about these things — today more than most other days — and they are very good at making sure it’s all taken care of with no discernible sign of angst.
Instead, I:
joked gleefully with my new captive carpool kids, who didn’t laugh, even though I thought I was captivating;
drove down the hill past a good friend of mine who was on cross walk duty at her school — I did beep and wave, and I’ll bet she wishes she could have given me a special wave as I cruised past;
cheered with glee (well, not really) that the temperature here (77 today! and shhhhh….maybe the humidity?) dropped at least 10-15 degrees, and I can now thaw out my brains by turning off the AC;
successfully avoided doing anything I should do on this very special day;
obsessively thought about doing something I should be doing while I was doing what I wanted to do;
spent a lot of time going through blogs to get them on my netvibes feeder and was dismayed to find that many won’t go…;
waited anxiously for the RT to come home and tell me all about his first day back at Paradise High;
waited until the last minute to do this truly thoughtful and well-written post;
couldn’t resist and instead of writing about how The Govvenator is going to save those of us in SoCal from dying of thirst after that stupid ruling that is designed to protect a fish that most use as bait when they go fishing, I’d don his visage just for hoots;
thought about the last two Halloweens the RT wore this mask and wondered if he had blown his nose….
It isn’t that on most days they aren’t, but the sense of fullness is different today. The difference is the result of something I’ve grappled with for many years — a by product of raising my sons. The result of years of observation, interaction, angst, and tribulation coming to a conclusion milestone by sometimes painful milestone.
My youngest finished his first year of high school today, and in a few weeks, will be 15. But he did not beat The Geometry Teacher. He received a “D” for his hoop-jumping efforts in her class. In this newly completed step toward the rest of his education, I’m left wondering so many things about what I have strongly held on to about learning and raising humans:
Some humans are better at being trained to jump through hoops than others. In fact, some are so good at it—it’s the point of their existence. Their day revolves around how many hoops are lined up, how far apart they are, and whether each successive hoop is positioned higher than the last. Whether the person jumping next to them is quicker, or more graceful in their quest to finish first. It isn’t about what is at the end of the hoops they crave. It’s the hoops.
Some humans are more easily missed than others. Or skipped over—like one skips a step when jogging up a flight of stairs to get to the next floor more quickly. Their non-hoop jumping idiosyncrasies are not easily understood by others, and often difficult to tolerate. They are more than capable of jumping through the hoops than many others. Many. But they don’t seem interested. What they see in the world and think about from one day to the next is difficult to know. They are quiet about much that matters, and talk about things that don’t. Hoops are not one of the things they think or talk about.
They even bruise differently than most.They haven’t figured out how caught up in the hoop game most people are. So when a zealot moves a hoop at the last minute to trick them, it takes them a while to start the game again. They are only just beginning to understand, or, if they do understand, have a tendency to forget that there are people on this earth who live to have power any way they can get it. It’s probably another reason that hoops don’t interest them. It’s all so petty.
I am not a mother of hoop jumpers. And I am routinely reminded of this fact.
I have diligently tried to raise my offspring to understand the construct of the world. But they are very content to think about, getting around to, considering, being involved, possibly participating, in life’s basic rules of engagement at their own pace. They construct their own hoops. Unfortunately, when you’re their mother, the hoops resemble hurdles. Large ones.
It’s not supposed to matter to me that so-and-so’s daughter is in “advanced this” or AP that. Or that this person’s son was recommended for such and such. That this acquaintance has a daughter that crosses all her T’s and dots all her I’s all the time. Sometimes those same people don’t understand how hard it is has been to let my children be who they are instead of what I want them to be. What I believe they can become. It’s not supposed to matter. But it does. It always has.
I’ve tried many years to act like not having a hoop circus at home doesn’t matter. I believe strongly that many have been duped about the educational system so many of us willingly send our children to each year. “All children can learn,” is what that system blithely professes. We have so willingly trusted that it will meet their every need beyond what we have worked to meet ourselves at home. But not every child fits into that system. It’s not supposed to matter. But it does. It always has.
I cringe every time I realize that my nobly held philosophy could be a sham by wanting more for my boys than they seem to want for themselves. I argue with myself that I don’t really want them to care. I swear I’m not interested in wanting them to want what society expects them to want. The way society expects it. The way the system acts like it’s structured to prepare them for.
How sad to have to admit that I want for my sons something I say I don’t believe in. I would never tell them because I have acted like a hoop jumper most of my life. And they probably figured that out a very long time ago.
Words can bring me to a screeching halt. Yes, of course, spoken words — especially when I’m not expecting them, take issue with their purpose, or with the person who delivers them. But that isn’t what I’m talking about. At least not today.
When I’m reading, a phrase molded in just the right way, or a thought expressed at a particular point in the text begs to be captured and saved for another time — to be marked, or jotted down and saved much like a penny found on a sidewalk. Found coins add up over time.
My frame of mind guides me to these bits of someone else’s thinking — bits buried in much larger and sometimes very forgettable text. The weightiness of the words and their message, not quite in focus, sit on the edges of my life, pushing at me to notice them and to think about what is important. Or better yet, force me to wonder why I haven’t committed myself to pin point their significance. It’s odd to think that words written hastily on a two-inch square note can hover in and around an office, and then a house without becoming lost. Car keys are misplaced, sunglasses left behind, and important papers tossed carelessly aside — but a red sticky note manages to appear here and there over the course of a couple of years, moving from desk, to organizer, to counter and patiently waiting for interpretation, and application
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.
I don’t remember where I found the words, or what text they were buried in, or who made reference to them. I read so many different eye-crossing publications then:
Leading in a Culture of Change by Michael Fullan;
The Magic of Dialogue: Transforming Conflict into Cooperation by Daniel Yankelovich;
Leadership Without Easy Answers by Ronald A. Heifetz;
Big Brother and the National Reading Curriculum: How Ideology Trumped Evidence by Richard Allington;
Paradoxes of Group Life: Understanding Conflict, Paralysis, and Movement in Group Dynamicsby K. Smith & D. Berg;
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by L. Bossidy & R Charan; and
Learning by Heart by Roland Barth.
Only a fraction of the list. I won’t bore you with the countless publications read on methodology, content, and practice that also filled my brain. But you do have an idea, about why I may not exactly remember where I first saw the words, right? And why I choose not to read such meaty books right now? I’ll understand if you suggest my head is buried in the sand.
What does matter — or at least it used to — is what was happening at the time that I found the words.
I was serving in my first assignment as an administrator at a large elementary school located in an impoverished area just south of our city center. The school was nearly a hundred years old, surviving rebuilding, renaming, and a shift from its original population of immigrant students from Eastern Europe, to that of African American, and then in the past decade, to immigrants from Mexico. The poverty rate was 99%. Over 95% of the children spoke English as a second language. The literacy rate was dismal in both Spanish and English for a majority of them. A unique aspect of the school was that a good portion of the staff had worked there for a long time — many for ten, even more than 20 years. Unusual for an inner-city school. Approximately one-third of the staff was male — also unusual for an elementary school, many of which are completely staffed by females.
For more years than I know, the school had been struggling academically, regardless of its population. At one point, it was designated as one of a group of schools court-mandated by the state to improve and monitor student reading, language, and mathematics progress. For twenty years this went on until it was decided that the initiative largely failed. Nothing had really changed — except the shift of ethnicity of the students.
The school is closed now, but before that happened, emotions amongst staff and local community members ran high. People were angry. Teachers were tired of the expectations thrust upon them with regard to improving their practice. Staff was split between: 1) those who felt they couldn’t possibly work harder than they already were for little or no “measurable” gain in student learning; and 2) those who were viewed as dead weight, and professed to care about the students, but never quite walked the talk. Teachers vacillated between being angry with parents for not providing for their children, and contributing what they could to support family members who often had not been in school themselves.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s words — found and written on that small piece of paper — were apropos, but never quite tacked to the bulletin board over my desk. Instead, they began their drift in and out of presence, catching my eye on just the right day, conjuring a flare of vindication when I most needed it. But upon hesitation, they forced me to think about my role in the tension the school was wrapped in. When you’re the leader, everything is your responsibility, regardless of when you arrived. Regardless of what you know. Regardless of what you believe everyone can join together in doing for the school.
I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be…
I couldn’t say the words aloud. If I said them in reference to the seething undercurrent that was our “professional” community, then I believed I would appear to be casting blame. I would be perceived as pointing my finger at the naysayers, exhibiting weakness, behaving as one of our very young students upset to be accused of something he or she didn’t do. I kept the words to myself.
I don’t know that I believe the words at this point, five years later. They suggest that I’m incapacitated unless others pull themselves together. Is that always true?
Isn’t it more true that with each example we set, another follows? Isn’t the effort I make to live my life in the best way I know, something others may emulate?
Am I incapable of being the best that I know how to be if I point fingers at those who I deem as obstacles to my success?
The red square of paper will continue to hover in and around my life prodding me to occasionally wonder about the decisions that could have been made with my staff at the elementary school, but the context is so different now.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly…
My small experience seems so inconsequential considering King’s intent, rallying individuals to consider their involvement, or lack thereof, in making a difference, in speaking out and doing something — anything — about what is not just.
Nice guy that he is, the MoH gently reminded me that I had carpool responsibilities this morning. It’s Tuesday already, and not Monday, so perhaps I was in a Monday frame of mind. The RT and I slunk to the car, I put ‘er in reverse and sat outside The Princess’ house for a few minutes until she graced us with her flowery scented presence. “Good morning,” I began, as usual, attempting to present an image of one who, although wearing pajamas and a rank sweatshirt, was chipper and ready to take the week by the horns. “How was your weekend?”
“Ohmygodyesterdaywasthemostbeautifulday,” she trilled, her eyes wide as I sneaked a look in the rear view mirror. “We went to the beach and everything was just perfect and you know how there are little sand places between the rocks? Well the four of us fit right in there, and well, it’s kind of a coveted location, so when we were ready to leave people were right there ready to take our spot,” she continued, rapt in her recollection of what I remembered was a pleasant day, but not that special. Oh, that’s right. I went outside late in the afternoon to pretend like I was going to finish my book, and ended up lazing in the sun, nodding off occasionally to make up for two late nights in a row. “Only 15 days of school left,” she finished, the non sequitur ending her atypical morning liveliness.
Only fifteen days left. That’s always significant if you are in any way connected to school: you’re a student; your kids are in school; or, if like me, an erstwhile educator who recognized that the countdown to summer posted on the board would get you some points from your students, whether my principal liked it or not — thinking it “negative.” Uhhhh…what rock did she crawl out from under? Doesn’t everyone look forward to summer? Why act like that isn’t the case? Ahhh….summer. The Beach Boys and “No more homework, no more books.
No more teachers’ ‘dirty looks’” or whatever the words of that schoolyard chant are. Vacation. Ten. Whole. Weeks. Of sleeping in. Of lazing around the house. Of re-runs on television and sweet oblivion.
It’s a bit strange now since I am only marginally connected to this annual ritual that has been a part of my life in some way for about 40 years. Yes — I know. Longer than some of you have been alive. Through my childhood and college years, my two older boys’ school years, my re-entry to college, and then finally my career in education. Nearly my entire life has been filled with the peculiar ebb and flow of time related to school years. The RT is of course still connected, and will be for many years even after we pack him up kicking and screaming, and throw him on a train and off to college.
It was 20 years ago that I was beginning my career as a teacher. It’s pretty frightening how quickly 20 years can fly by. In 1987, I was ready to take on my first class of Third Graders, and finally do what I had always longed to do: teach. It was exhilarating after waiting so long. From the time I was in junior high, school counselors had gently tried to talk me out of the profession. Really. I’ve tried to remember the details of those conversations, but it was so long ago, it’s difficult. Besides, do adolescents really listen the way we want and need them to when we are gifting them with our experienced advice? Do pigs fly? Does a chicken have lips? Like I said — difficult. And now I don’t need the details, because I recognize their quiet words as something designed to open different worlds to a young person — one more exotic, more glamorous, and most likely, less practical. Perhaps they were at a point where they imagined something different for themselves, so that yearning influenced their words to me.
Regardless, I heeded their advice, and went off to college declaring my major to be Family Studies and Consumer Sciences in order to become a Therapeutic Dietitian. Why this? I had to choose a different, but still practical something to replace my dream of wanting to become a teacher, and I had read something in Time magazine about careers in the health industry, so that made sense. Why not? Are hospitals and schools all that different? Um…never mind. You don’t even want to know what I think about that one.
I never became a dietitian. In fact, I changed my major to Library Science because I really did want to be involved in education on some level. And there were very few jobs available for teachers then, so why not be a Librarian? I loved books, after all, and if I couldn’t be a teacher, I could hover in their vicinity. But I ended up leaving school.
The part time job I had was paying more than what first year teachers made, so it was easy to leave the books and the routines to get married and have two boys. Easy until I felt my brain begin to rot with inactivity. So I finally found myself back in college to pick up where I left off with two young children in tow, the same part time job, and an ex-husband left somewhere in the dust — an unfortunate casualty of someone who should have stayed the school course to begin with. But my two boys were the silver lining of that detour, and they are worth it.
Completing a degree and a credentialing program with kids in tow was crazy on several levels, but lots of people do it today. What was gruelling was subjecting my kids to the insane rigors of a new teaching assignment in an inner city school, and master’s degree work all at the same time. That’s why I have such a high regard for the MoH. He helped all three of us survive those years.
Twenty years. Don’t blink. You may miss them. Now, I’ll have to live vicariously through the RT’s last few days of school wondering if he’s as ecstatic as I would be if I was still counting down to summer.
