A student with two teachers

 I made a monumental decision this week. I picked a retirement date. I have been fighting the good fight for teachers almost 10 years. Along the way I have had some fabulous students and some that needed lots of work. I have loved them all, even the challenging ones. I have never tried to "indoctrinate"  a student to believe the way I do or think the way I do. I have tried to support them in all their endeavors and give them the tools to think for themselves and evaluate everything. Always ask why. Those questions are important.

The photo at the top of the page is my senior yearbook. I thought I would tell you a little story about my high school experience because the people in power right now are trying to take that away from children.

I had been educated early in Department of the Defense schools. You can imagine that those might be pretty conservative. They weren't or I don't remember them to be. I learned to read and write, explore and ask why.

When I moved home and became a student at Lakeland High School, I had a variety of classes. They ranged from Black History/Literature to Business Math. I had a language class in German and one in American Short Stories, World Geography and Psychology. The two that I am writing about actually are about the teachers, opposites if you will, and what I learned.

Beverly Burnsed was a ball of fire. as a teacher. She taught Current Affairs and Language, was the sponsor of Student Government and coordinator of Student activities. She was the tennis coach and she was liberal as the day was long. She signed my yearbook, "Best of everything, Jean, for now and always. Mrs. B." When she left teaching in 1976, she was elected to the Florida Legislature where she served for 12 years and sat on 10 committees. In 1988, she left the legislature and served as Assistant Secretary of State until 1992. She then became the first female vice-president of FSU, which she had graduated from to become a teacher. She retired in 2006 and died in 2019. She was an important teacher to me.

Switch now to my Americanism vs. Communism, a class which was required by the state at the time. Remember, the Cold War was still going on and we hated communism. I believe they ended that class shortly after I had to take it. Mr. Dennis Mason was my teacher. He was also the sponsor of the chess club and the Key Club. If I remember correctly, he was a Vietnam veteran who had been injured and walked with crutches. He was pretty conservative, kind of like my father, also a vet was, but like Mrs. Burnsed, he never tried to force his beliefs on us. He taught us the truth. We talked in class about the war. We discussed the world and the subjects. I don't know if Mr. Mason is still living. He didn't go in to politics as far as my research would show. I hope he is alive and doing well. I hope he is still talking about both sides and compromise. 

I cannot believe what parents are doing to teachers today and I cannot believe that this is how students are going to learn to make decisions on their own. 

I am not sure where this will end. I hope it does not continue to split the country the way it is doing now. I am going to sit back and watch from my recliner. Thank God for Dennis Mason and Beverly Burnsed. They allowed me to learn. Too bad teachers are so handcuffed today by rules and regulations that have more to do with politics than education and that students' education will suffer.

Summer did not bring teaching peace of mind

 Teachers try and regroup emotionally and physically during the summer. This is done in different ways for different teachers. In my case, I try and do lots of PD, lots of pool time and time spent with my dogs.

This year, I found relaxing very hard to do even with meeting all my goals of summer. I did the PD. I lounged in the pool. I spoiled my dogs. I also was exposed to Covid-19, even though I am vaccinated and boosted and wear my mask most places, I came home from a trip to DC and tested positive. This caused me to miss important first days of school and left me feeling a little tired with a feeling of breathlessness that I am having to take medicine for. 

I also came back to a shitstorm of political proportion from both counties I am associated with. I know the conspiracy theory folks, ultra conservative, abortion is murder, stop indoctrinating our students are fighting hard on one side to take over the school boards of the county in which I live and the county in which I teach. 

I know we are fighting hard to retain some semblance of normalcy but even the teacher's union has backed a known person who only wants political control and does not really have our students in his vision. It saddens me but it also makes me angry.

I am old enough to retire should I want to. I turned that old in July. I had always planned on teaching until I was 70, but my understanding at this point is, several of these groups who think we teachers are indoctrinating their children, have vowed to come after any teacher who does not believe the same way they do. They were actually having classes in Tampa a few weeks ago on how to track teachers like me through their social media so they could make sure they were fired from their jobs. All this while Florida is suffering from an extreme shortage of professional teachers.

Now veterans can teach and their families, many with only a high school education. What is going to happen when a snarky teenage girl comes home crying because a teacher insults her in her mind or a snarky teenage boy who accuses one of these macho veterans of putting their hands on them in a negative way and they felt threatened so they ran home to mommy and daddy. Think that won't happen? Just wait. 

So no masks, no real history, nothing that may hurt someone's feelings or you can be sued. Don't mention slavery and make sure the kids understand that everyone was not bad just because they owned humans. They were our founding fathers so we need to revere them. Not discuss their bad sides. 

I am lucky. I teach at a Title 1 school where the parents are much more concerned their children are fed and educated. They don't really care how we do it as long as it gets done. They want to know when their child does good or bad and for the most part, are highly supportive of us. In all my years of teaching, I have only had two parents actually object to something I had taught. 

I may not make it to 70. I am going to try. But these alt right parents who think they own the world and get to make decisions for everyone's child, not just theirs, need to take a pill and chill. You are getting your 15 minutes of fame. Let someone else step in. 

Summer Brings school for teachers

 

For the past two years many school teachers have taken online seminars over the summer to try and keep up with some continuing education which is required for most teachers. If you are like me, you take so much professional development you have extra hours to spare.

I begin next week taking something called Social Studies Workshop: Teaching Social Studies to ELLs which should help me engage my English language learners with history. This is put on by my district and we will be in class from 9-3, Monday through Thursday. I am excited.

The week after I will be in Orlando at the AVID conference. AVID is Achievement Via Individual Determination is a non-profit organization that provides professional learning for educators to close opportunity gaps and improve college and career readiness for high school and middle school students, especially those traditionally underrepresented in higher education.

I then return home until July 10 when I fly out to San Diego for a week at the University of California at San Diego to study SE Asian Art, which should help me formulate better lesson plans when my world history classes resume. 

The final week of the summer I will be in Washington, DC at the Cato Institute. Their Sphere Summit is for teachers to work on Teaching Civic Culture together. I attended the very first one and this one is more developed for secondary school students. They take applicants on a rolling basis and I am excited that I will be able to attend this program because of the valuable things I learned the last time I was in Washington. 

In between, I will spend as much time as I can outside, in the pool and yard and being with my dogs. Summer is a time for teachers to refresh but it is also a time for them to develop better lessons for their students. 

Any of those fools who think we have summers off should just walk a mile in a teacher's shoes. We all know that is not going to happen so have a great summer and I should be back the end of July or so with a column on how summer went and what we are preparing for in the fall. Enjoy!

Reading for children

 

This blog is not about the horrific killing of the children of Uvalde, Texas at Robb Elementary School. After watching this horror happen over and over again, I cannot write about it without becoming so upset, I begin crying.

This leads me to write about another pet peeve of mine, the mistaken idea from some parents that their children will somehow suffer if they read material which has sex, religion, relationships, murder, and most other topics which are deemed unsuitable for children.

Do you see this magazine cover? This is a pretty calm one. No one is half naked and there is no blood on the cover. Compared to some, it is very tame. Of course, the headlines are straight out of the book of  inflammatory language. "New Year's Killing of the Boy-Girl Stripper" and "all he wanted was to chop up Carol."

When I was in fourth grade, I spent the summer in Florida, going back and forth to my grandparent's houses. At my Grandmother Sloan's house, which was in the city of Lakeland,  I was surrounded by romance novels of every kind. From the streets of Paris to London and even Charleston in the beginning, I followed women around in all their escapades where they normally ended up with the prize. (according to the book) 

At my Grandmother Watkins' house, which was in the middle of an orange grove with no air and hot as hell in the summer, I would lay around during the hottest part of the day and read whatever my Aunt Shirley had scattered around. She was the youngest of my father's siblings and she normally had a supply of the above mentioned magazines to read, a few 16 oz. Pepsi's in the refrigerator and plenty of bologna to make fried bologna sandwiches for lunch. 

I had never been told I could not read something that was in either house. Never. So I read everything. Now, before you say I must have been raised in a non-political, non-religious household, where anything went. Not true. I was raised as a Southern Baptist, church every Sunday and Wednesday and I always won the dollar in Sunday School for knowing the book, chapter and verse of every lesson we had. We also had separated classes between boys and girls. 

By the 9th grade, I was reading on a senior in college level. Perhaps parents today might factor in interest when they are determining all the books they deem unfit for  their children to read. Because the schools had just integrated and the students from the black high school had been trying to learn with subpar materials, Civics proved to be a difficult class for them. Because of my reading skills, I surpassed most of the students and was given extra work to do to stay busy. Mrs. TenEyck, my teacher, caught me reading the above book during Civics one day and took it away from me because she said it was not fit for a 9th grader to read. She was going to call my mother. 

My Mom very respectfully told the teacher that I had gotten the book from her bookshelf and her children had never been told they could not read something in the house. She asked for Mrs. TenEyck to please return the book to me and she would make sure I was not reading for pleasure in Civics again. 

I have never forgotten that. I am also still a voracious reader. I believe children should be allowed to flex their reading muscles on things which may interest them whether it is true crime or romance as in my case. Just a side note: my father read westerns. Those bodice ripping, good guy rides in on a white horse, gets the girls and kills the bad guys. I never found interest in them but Daddy carried one in his back pocket all the time. 

Stop limiting your children. They are the ones who then stop reading. They are the ones who end up having to take reading classes because they are so far behind their peers. 

Just another rant to keep my mind off the horrific, unnecessary murder of elementary school children because of politicians who can be bought.

What the end of another school year brings

 

Receiving a graduation announcment from one of my first students, a lovely young woman who is doing great stuff, was another bright spot in the end of this school year. We must grab those bright spots when we can.

When I began teaching, I had no idea of the change which was coming in the political arena. I could not imagine teachers having to deal with even more challenges to their authority, much of it coming from entities which should not even be involved in the process. This includes the new laws concerning things which must be taught and things which we are not supposed to speak of. The threatening of changing a  graduation speech to trying to stop a group of high school students from receiving their yearbooks. 

There are too many things we are supposed to do in school now according to our governor, I cannot list them here because he keeps adding to the list. I continue to be surprised that any of us adults who actually went to public school in Florida received an education since we did not have to worry about things like learning. Our teachers simply taught us. Our parents sent us to school. We did not have these infernal and on-going tests to have to deal with.

But on to great news. The invitation up top was the last thing I received this week. My teacher evaluation came in and although I always feel like I have done a good job, validation is always a good thing. Mine was very good this year.

I, along with our yearbook teacher, have five of our students, who are very deserving, be accepted with full scholarship to a summer journalism week at the University of Florida. I cannot say enough about the director, who has worked with me this week to get applications in and try and keep these students, even ones who turn in things late, on track for acceptance. When I began searching for summer programs for my journalism students, the cost for many can be overwhelming, especially for the students at my school, which is a Title I school. I encouraged them to fill out the scholarship application and see what happened. When they were accepted with full scholarships, these kids were in tears, calling their moms and walking on air. 

I encouraged another student apply for the Close Up Foundation's summer program to spend a week in Washington, DC and apply for a scholarship. She did and received the news she was accepted and would spend a week studying our democracy. She was very excited when she received the news she would get to have dinner with some of our congressional representatives. For a 17 year old, from a small town in Florida, this is a very big deal. 

I try to show my students what is possible if they just apply. From the invitation to the acceptances and all the passing of tests, my students rocked my world this week. I am glad I have a full summer of PD planned, so I don't miss them so much. 

What hangs on your walls?

 

This tee shirt is hanging on my wall in my history classroom. I happened to win it at a history conference by spinning a wheel at the booth for the Reagan Library. I actually voted in this election and not for Reagan. He was not a favorite of mine, but being a history teacher, my classroom allows all different viewpoints to be discussed. 

This poster hangs in my journalism classroom. There is nothing wrong with it. It simply promotes one world. It came from Teaching Tolerance, the educational branch of the Southern Poverty Law Center. They are now known as Learning for Justice and can be checked out here.

Anything wrong with either of these? No. There is not. My classroom exists for learning for everyone. I have some of the most diverse students I have ever had. Should they be exposed to everything I can expose them to? Absolutely.

I had a little accident at a conference last week in which I managed to break my patella. The students with me and the other advisor were so caring and concerned. I wanted for nothing the whole trip, even though I was on crutches and laid up most of the time. These are tough kids; ones who work one and sometimes two jobs, have parents they may not be so proud of, come from very rough neighborhoods and trust me. They feel safe in my presence. They expect me to be honest with them. They expect me to tell the truth about the world. They live in a tough society and they don't want sugarcoated. 

When my district or my admins decide that I cannot hang on my walls, anything which may not be politically correct in their eyes, they had best not pull it off my walls or tell me to take it down. Shades of indoctrination. Isn't that what teachers are being accused of? 

If you want your constituents to grow up even more angry and bitter, who will become voters because I was their teacher, will change the world because they want a better one for their children, keep going on this war against teachers. In the end, you will lose and the students will win. 

Handling Disney all wrong

 I do not like Disney. I have not been to Disney since my son was a very small child and he will be 44 in June. I have never made any excuses about why I don't like Disney: what they have been allowed to do to the state of Florida; how Walt Disney sold his idea to the Florida legislature and the impact this one company has had on the destruction of our state. 

I have written about the book Florida's own Carl Hiaasen wrote about this travesty, "Team Rodent" and no one really cared. They have their own little dictatorship going and the state and the people who make so much money off the service people never raised an eyebrow. They developed land which should have been left wild, demolished beautiful rolling orange groves to have manicured lawns full of bushes trimmed to look like Disney characters and agreed to pay for roads and infrastructure as long as they were allowed to go about their business. They provided low paying jobs, most entry level, attracted other business who do the same and everyone loved them, including all the politicians. Trying to hold Disney accountable was certain death to political aspirations. 

Now here comes big business, let them eat cake, Ron Desantis and his minions in the Florida legislature who believe selling the soul of Florida and riling up his voting block about emotional issues to keep everything in the state influx, has decided to speak out against The Mouse. They don't agree with the new "Don't Say Gay" policy and asked him to not sign the bill. He is using his political office to punish a private business for disagreeing with his political policies. Shades of destroying our Constitution. 

Why do his cronies agree? Ever seen the people who are going to end of paying all this bill? Have you seen the demographics of Orange County? With Florida in the midst of not only a rent/mortgage crisis, we also have homeowner's insurance issues. This  thanks to another policy which the governor has allowed to happen and that gives the insurance companies even more power over what they charge people. 

Do I believe we should begin the process of taking some of Disney's power away? Absolutely. Do I think the governor has the right to punish a business for disagreeing with him? Absolutely not. Let's go about this the right way. Not the way of a dictator. 

 

1984 

This was a synopsis written by one of my journalism students about a banned book.

A book about a guy named Winston Smith who’s against the way of the government aka ‘the party.’ The party is an organization that basically watches over everyone in Oceania. They decide things for everyone and hold all the power. If someone does not agree with them, unimaginable things would happen to them, some including death. Winston doesn’t believe in this way of life; he doesn’t like the idea of being controlled and forced to stay silent. He proceeds to write about his ideas against the party in his diary. If his diary was to ever be found by one of the many spies around town, it would lead to severe consequences for him.  

This book was banned after people in Jackson County, Florida believed the book to be “pro-communist and mentions explicit sexual matters.” Pro-communist means being for the idea of a society where there is common control of all production, and everything is shared and belongs to all. Or in simpler terms; in favor of or supporting Communist policies and ideologies. Although, some people believed that this book spoke the truth and that it should not have been banned. That it was merely a book of fiction. 

After reading this book I don’t believe that this story is pro-communist. More so, that it’s a fictional book based on what if... what if society was truly like this?  Where you couldn't think for yourself; parties make all the decisions for you, leaving no room for you to think for yourself. A society where everyone is brainwashed into believing what the parties are telling you, and if you don’t agree you're punished. While in other parts of the world, some societies are described in the book. I don’t think this story is saying they are for a life like this. It’s a book based on things that do happen in real life, but with a twist to it.

For the most part, I thought the book was great, it’s a story that really gets you thinking. It also had an interesting plot and plot twist at the end.  

I thought the book was great. It's a story that really gets you thinking.

Isn't this what we are supposed to be teaching our children? To think?

I will return to teach another year

 As the end of the school year is fast approaching, I felt some final thoughts on education might be fitting for a column. I use teaching among other things for ideas to write about. Just my own personal take on the world according to Jean. As always, if you don't like it, don't read it. I do it for personal satisfaction. 

I have been teaching for 9 years. Teaching, as you all know, is my second career but I have been teaching one way or another since I can remember. I will be 65 this year. I do not feel 65 but do understand that there are things I cannot do any longer. I still keep trying. Those things, like teaching keep me young. 

I am also single. I have no one to help take care of monetary obligations should I retire. It will all be on me. I have a small, actually tiny retirement from my second husband's work, and it helps, but it is very small. Everything I do financially is for my comfort in retirement. I do not want to struggle when I am in my 70s because of stupid decisions I made in my 60s. 

So I plan on continuing to teach until I hit 70 years young. Now, that could always change but I don't foresee that happening. I know lots of people who are counting the days until retirement. Many of those people are choosing to not teach any longer. Some of those people have set themselves up to be able to retire at a younger age than me. I had all that planned out as well, but situations don't always work out the way we have planned them. 

Do I see the government of Florida, much less Manatee County ever treating me like I am a valuable commodity and worth more money? Nope. Not gonna happen in my lifetime. Do I feel like part of a team, actually working together for the greater good of the students? I do at school, but not so much with others within the system. Am I totally crazy? Some would argue that I am. 

But they have not experienced the joy in a student's eyes when they discover something really cool or learn something new. They have never had a kid tell them that they never thought they would enjoy my class but now it is their favorite. They haven't listened to a group of girls giggling about prom dresses or, in my case, packing 6 outfits to have something to choose from for the journalism banquet in Orlando they are attending next weekend. 

How about the student who came to class with the biggest smile on his face because you had let his mom know he was one of your best students?

Do I get discouraged? Yes, I do. Do I think the education system is in trouble? Yep, I agree with that as well. Am I concerned with some parent coming after me because their child is learning in my class. Nope. Do I think I have all the answers? Nope to that as well.

I do have passion and I do love my students. I think we have to keep going. All things are cyclical, including education. I will be here for the kids. That will be my part but it would be a little easier if they state would pay me a little more. 

Parental Rights

 I watch with disdain, the circus in Tallahassee that concerns these bills which are supposedly designed to give parents rights in the classroom they apparently feel they don't have. This is an anomaly to me. Since when do parents have to have some kind of bill passed for parents to have rights over their children? 

As I type this, I also would like to remind parents that schools still must have rules and regulations. This prevents chaos. Or it should. In today's classroom, I have had students throw things at me. I have had them tell me to fuck off. (I wonder where they heard that from?) I have had them tell me that if I took their cell phone, which students are not permitted to operate on campus, they were going to run home and tell momma that I took her phone away. Now, this is high school. 

I have had parents pull students from my class when they were caught cheating and put in a class with a teacher they knew and would apparently give the cheating student a little more leeway. I have had parents who don't even know me, call for my firing because I said I would teach the truth in history. I have had parents up in arms because they thought they knew best for their student, regardless of what the school district via the state was told to teach. 

I have a son and I had certain rights when he was in school. I had the right to expect he would be taught. That is it. If he did not cooperate, which he was not the best at, I would deal with him at home. His teachers could always contact me at home or while I was working with any concerns. Trust me when I say, I did spend many hours with teachers while I was trying to get him raised. 

I never,  not once, worried he was being instructed to be gay. I never worried about what books were in the library for him to read because I was too busy trying to get him to read something, anything. I didn't worry about if he knew about slavery because I taught him what was what. I did that, I did that having conversations with him. I did that showing him historical things. Was he the best student? No. Did he always listen? Do your teens listen to you?

When did it become okay for parents, any parents, to tell teachers they did not do their job? Isn't that the job of their boss and their bosses boss? When did it become okay for parents to determine what was "proper" curriculum for their student in public school? What about me? My taxes also pay for public school. What if I want certain books in the library? Do I get to scream at a school board meeting and talk about what right do "they have to indoctrinate my students." Most certainly not. 

School is supposed to teach students to examine facts and then decide what side of the issue to come down on. Where did we lose our sense of diplomacy? What happened to civil discourse for students. Just because a parent says something is white, but it is really gray, should we be forced as teachers to teach all the students that is is white? 

I continue to be concerned about the state of public schools today. Want Christianity? Send your kid to a church school. Want to teach the Koran. Send your kid to  school that specializes in the Islamic faith. Practice Judaism and don't want your child exposed to any other religions? Send your child to  Jewish School. Want your kid to learn about all three? Send your child to public school. Oh, wait! We can't teach he different religious philosophies because some parent might think we are indoctrinating their student. 

What's a teacher to do? Well, you see them leaving. You see the mass exodus. I am still here. I keep thinking that if they run off all the teachers, they can instill people who really do indoctrinate and not teach. That will be a sad day. Let us hope it arrives later than sooner, or not at all.  

Taking advantage of Spring Break

 

Today is the beginning of Spring Break. Saturday and Sunday were days where I did nothing but sit in my chair and veg on stupid television. I mean, the dogs and I slept and rested, and slept more. It did not hurt that it was Daylight Savings Time change so we went back to my favorite time of year. 

Today I am going to try and clean the yard and pool, which have been trashed by all the weather we have been having. I have at least two days of work ahead of me. 

Tonight I am going to Bored Teachers Spring Break Comedy Tour with a friend. I hope to laugh out loud. I need it. It seems this years has lasted a very long time. 

When I return to school, I will have nine weeks of instruction left. Only nine weeks to try and wrangle some knowledge in my students' heads. I am not sure if they will be receptive or not. It seems the closer to summer we get, the more they lose their minds. 

I do have a couple of bright spots in my journalism class and we will be going to the FSPA Spring Conference in April. Only two of my students wanted to participate. two and a half days in Orlando with a bunch of other newspaper, yearbook and broadcast students and they didn't want to go. 

I have applied for several PD opportunities in the summer but am still waiting to hear back from them. So today won't be a rush around day. Neither will tomorrow which is a dentist appointment day. I have 7 more days to do nothing. I am going to take advantage of them to prepare for the last nine weeks. 

Bloviating on social media

The Florida legislature and governor continue to brutalize public schools, teachers and students on the premise that they are giving parents more control over what their children are being taught when they must leave their sight for 7.5 hours. 

Before you continue, please note this is not a column to sing their praises or speak on what a great job they are doing. Remember, I am one of the tree hugging, feminist, union liberal snowflakes that are so disparaged in today's political landscape. Problem with that is, schools are not supposed to be battlegrounds for politics because it is not the adults who suffer, it is the students. 

Let me begin by stating the things I don't do. I don't teach CRT. I don't teach literature. I don't teach human sexuality. I don't teach religion. 

I do teach history. I do teach journalism. I do teach children who need to understand both sides of every story and are given the tools to, in order to think for themselves. I do teach students who have questions which need to be answered. I do teach students who are homeless. I do teach children who live in group or foster homes. I do teach children who do not have a parent at home they can talk to. I do teach students who are more mature than they should be due to the life they were born in to. I do teach students who see what adults do on a daily basis and don't want to grow up like them. 

I am honest. I don't know how to be anything but honest. History is not pretty sometimes. History has some very negative parts. The United States is not always the good guy. She has done or I should say, her politicians are not lily white as they would have you believe and they do not always have your best interests at the core of what they do. 

Most teens I teach are young adults who know a lot more than I did at their age. Parents who believe by not speaking about the LBGTQ issues, they can prevent their children from becoming gay. Tell that to the parents whose child was kicked out of school because they beat up a young man so terribly, he had to be hospitalized. There are parents who believe if sex is not discussed, they can prevent their children from having it. Tell that to the 7th grade boys who were caught with the 6th grade girl giving oral sex in the bathroom at school or the two girls who walk around school holding hands because they are girlfriends, but their parents don't know. 

What am I to tell the young woman who was raped but I can't speak to and she can't tell her mother because her mother has already told her she would carry a child of rape if it ever happened because abortion is murder. 

I respect parents. I really do. I am one. I also began speaking to my son about sex when he was 6 and the AIDS epidemic was just beginning. Nothing major was said, but it was explained to him. I spoke to him about sex in high school and the consequences. I also explained history and religion.  I gave him that foundation at home but he also had education at school. He had teachers he spoke to because once he hit high school, he became a foreigner to me. That is what happens as children begin to grow up.

They have thoughts and feelings that may not coincide with parental thought and despite what parents would like to believe, that is pretty normal. They are growing and changing and are not robots that we can program.

So you keep on protesting and the legislature can keep on passing these insane bills and eventually, as history shows us, this cycle will begin on a downturn, and all your bloviating will be for naught. I might not be around for it. I am old but it will happen. It always has. 

Aging Gracefully (or not): Why educators still come back

Aging Gracefully (or not): Why educators still come back: Being on time by Alex Sanchez  The cartoon on this page was created by a student. Let me give you some background. Alex was my student last ...

Why educators still come back

Being on time by Alex Sanchez

 The cartoon on this page was created by a student. Let me give you some background. Alex was my student last year in World History. He always tried to get all his work done but he did have difficulty getting to first period on time. He worked very hard to keep his grades high, and told me his parents owned an ice cream shop, his father had contracted Covid-19 and he was having to help even more in the business because of his parents being sick. 
He was always smiling. Always. He was always drawing little cartoons for his friends and he would show them to me. I loved them and when I found out I was going to be doing a newspaper again this year, asked him to come and be our editorial cartoonist. He declined because his core classes were pretty tough and felt he wouldn't have the time to dedicate to art for a class. I sadly said okay.

When this year began, I saw Alex in the hallway outside the journalism room, big smile as normal and he asked how my year was going I responded with a,  "Great. But it would be better if you were drawing for this class." 

He asked me if there was anything particular I would like him to draw and I said just something about school life and he presented me several weeks later with the above cartoon about being late to school. This may not seem like a current issue  and it was drawn as a full page so I took it and kept it in hopes I could use it in a future edition. 

Fast forward to our last edition of the year, which we are currently working on. I had decided to increase the paging to 12 with full color and glanced to the side of my desk where the cartoon had resided since Alex gave it to me. I read it again and thought of how current it was now. 

You see, the tardiness to class had been increasing since school began and had reached epic proportions. New rules like after school (1 hour) and Friday school (2 hours) had be put in motion. Alex's cartoon fit right in. So the cartoon will run in the final paper. 

This young man who seems to always smile, works hard with his family, and draws for fun, is not even in my classroom any longer. He took a situation from his own life and created a cartoon which may hit home for some students. It sure did with me. 

These are the moments which keep teachers coming back, week after week, even when things are so bad they are leaving the profession in droves. This is one of the students who inspire me to keep going; keep working with them; keep encouraging them to blossom in their own way. There are many out there who outnumber the ones we watch circling the drain. We must keep going.  

Kudos are just as important as criticism

 

As a teacher, I sometimes catch myself being my father. When I was young I could not understand why my father was so tough on me. I felt like the odd man out because although he required just as much from my brother and sister, I felt he was especially tough on me.  

Once I was grown and had a child of my own, after a heated discussion with him, I asked him that question and his response floored me. " You are the smartest of you kids. You don't have to work as hard as your brother or sister to accomplish what you want and I hate when you make stupid mistakes." 

After that, he never harped on me about getting things done quicker or better or anything like that. I think that conversation stuck with him.

I find myself, sometimes, becoming my father. I could be extremely tough on my employees at the newspaper and I can be tough on my students. I do think they benefit because they need toughness in their lives but I have to remind myself that they are still kids and still learning. I examine how I felt when my father was so tough on me. I take a step back and reevaluate.

I also learned early on in my career to not only work on bad behavior and grades, but give kudos where they were due. I think we forget sometimes, that honey does catch more flies than vinegar. 

So this week I began emailing, calling or texting parents about the good their kids are doing in my class. I picked all those who had a high A . My ELL student names were sent to one of their teachers to call their homes and speak to their parents in Spanish. Talk about inspiring. Many of these students are just learning English and work very hard to maintain their grades. I like to say they have not become Americanized yet. 

These are some of the remarks I received from some of the parents I contacted: “Thank you for reaching out to me. I appreciate you letting me know she is progressing so well in your class.”

“Thank you so much for looking after my girl. She was so excited to make Dean’s List for the first quarter and first semester this year and I am so very proud of her. If there is ever anything I can do to help or anything you need for the classroom, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

And this one, “Awww, that’s awesome. I am very proud of him because this has been very hard for him in the past. You just don’t know how much that means to me to hear you say that. Thank you so much. It is good to know we do still have teachers that really care about the students.”

For a school which is not known for its parental involvement, you might be surprised at how much these parents do care about their children. They like to hear from the teacher. They may work a lot, or have a lot of children, or simply be very busy. That doesn't mean that if you contact them, they won't care.

The students care as well. They know when you are proud of them and they know when their parents are proud of them..

So don't forget to give kudos. They are just as important as the criticism we all seem to place on our students at one time or another.

Religious freedom is just that; nothing more

 I don't talk about my religion much. I don't find the need. I am a Christian who was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition but with parents who were more progressive and allowed us as young adults to go the way we wanted. We all went to Sunday school and church as youngsters, but as we became young adults, our parents allowed us to go or not go, to both. We were not forced by this time to attend any religious service. 

When I was a young teen, probably 8th grade, I attended a church in Augusta, Georgia and many of my friends went there as well. There were a couple of guys in the neighborhood who would hang out around the basketball court when we were outside and one of them really started liking the choir director's daughter. He began coming to church, just to spend time with her and in time, brought a friend along. 

These guys were typical "bad" boys who began attending services almost every time the church was open. In the 1970s, long hair in a strong military presence did not sit well with some of the deacons of the church and on one particular Wednesday night, one of the young men came late and sat in the back. He was carrying a rose. A deacon asked him to leave making the statement that "Hippies weren't welcome in his church." When his friend found out, he quit attending also. I heard later that one of them was in prison for murder and one had committed suicide. I pretty much stopped attending organized religion after that. The Jesus that I had grown up with would have never treated those young men that way. 

I also recall see an episode of The Walton's where a new German family had moved on the mountain and a local preacher organized a book burning again the immigrants because he said they were Nazis. John Boy stopped the book burning when he pulled a German Bible out of the fire. 

This helped open my eyes as a young adult on when is religion or the free practice of such, really free? So I worship in my way to my God and try not to get involved with any of the other Bible thumping, holier than thou, my way is the only way, type of religion. 

I spoke against it when all the naysayers were saying if we allowed students to learn about Islam that we would all be practicing Sharia law. I spoke against it every time I see my Jewish friends dealing with the antisemitism which is still very prevalent in our society and I sure do it when some nutjob preacher begins burning books in Tennessee.  Educate yourself on religion. Don't be ignorant. Make up your own mind. 

Can someone please explain to these folks that religious freedom does not mean you can trample on everyone else's freedom of religion. It means you can practice yours. 

Our founding fathers did not want us to be ruled by religion because they had seen what it could and did lead to throughout much of European history. Let's try and remember that before we continue to bomb abortion centers, burn books and hide religious education from our children all in the name of Jesus. It just doesn't jibe well with the Bible. . 

How did you learn to write?

 

How did you learn to write? Do you remember? I don't. I remember practicing my handwriting but not actually learning to write. In fact, I don't think we had anything like they do now for writing. I don't remember the never ending paragraph writing trying to figure out a theme or a tone, or having to pick out if a paragraph was an argumentative or informative one. I cannot imagine how bored our students are when they are required to do this. 

Can they write? Not given the parameters that are expected of them. I have no idea where these ideas came from, but our students are struggling. Can they write? Of course. Give them some parameters which make sense to them. 

The photo at the top of the page is of some little fairy tale books which were written by my 7th and 8th grade reading students a couple of years ago. They all begin with "Once Upon a Time" and end with "Happily Ever After". I wrote a grant to have them printed, 5x5 size on slick paper. The students thought up all the concepts and were going to take them to the elementary school to read to the little students. 

From enchanted crystals to an ogre who loves chicken nuggets, they were creative and thoughtful and I was so very proud of them. We got the idea from a novel we were reading at the time where the main character used fairy tales in describing her life. This was not from a computer program they were on several days a week which did not help them in my opinion. 

This photo was used in class one day when I asked the students to tell this child's story. Where was she at and why was she lugging the teddy bear. You would not believe how creative the students were and the stories they came up with. No one had ever allowed them to think for themselves and tell the story. 

I watched a whole class of budding journalists try and figure out how to put this on a page to use as a background on our school newspaper. The articles were written by a senior and the designer wanted to highlight the page, since it is color but was struggling because no one had ever let them decide what they wanted to do. When I invited the rest of the class over to help her out, explaining it was their newspaper and they each had an opinion for style, they were so surprised and then discussed for the whole class period how to best make these stories pop. The student designer told me at the end of class she would take this class for her whole high school career because she had never been allowed to express herself and not be told what she could and could not do or invite other students to discuss what worked or did not work. 

The writing that had the most impact on me and convinced me that telling the story was the most important thing you could do was a poem I was exposed to during my senior year of high school with Mrs. Thelma McCann. She had us chose a poem or reading from a select group of authors and then illustrate the work the best way we knew how. The poem was Merry-Go-Round by Langston Hughes and the class was Black Literature. 

Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
White and colored
Can't sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There's a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we're put in the back—
But there ain't no back
To a merry-go-round!
Where's the horse
For a kid that's black?

If you do a search on this poem, someone will explain the theme and break the whole poem down for you. How the merry go round goes from injustice to justice, perhaps the complexity of racism and the simplicity of equality? To me, it told a sad story that should not happen. Thank goodness I didn't have to explain it the way students must today. I also received an A and have never forgotten the poem. 

Reading stories that students can understand and relate to, even stories written decades ago helps create writers. Developing vocabulary which students struggle with develops writers. Allowing students to use their minds to develop their own ideas and creations helps develop writers. Reading out loud develops readers. Computer programs and never ending paragraphs don't. 

Do not censor our material; we actually do know what we are doing

 

I am a teacher of young minds. Most of the time, I cannot figure out what those young minds might be thinking of or whether I am actually reaching them as a teacher. 

I am also a mother of a child who remained challenging up until the time he grew up, which was probably when he was in his late 20s. Although I grew up reading everything I could get my hands on and was never told a book was not good for me to read or that I was not allowed to read it, I could never convey that to my kid. He can read and does. He has an excellent vocabulary and when he has a conversation, you would think he was college educated. He isn't, although he makes almost as much money as I do at his job. He did, however, love music. Especially the kind that I disdained as noise, the new (to me) groups that rapped. He was fascinated with them and when one of them, 2 Live Crew was set to perform in Hollywood, he still remembers them cancelling the show because the group was vulgar. He also remembers his stepfather saying at the time, "Sure, make them even more popular by not allowing the kids to listen. That makes sense." How right John was. This story is from 2010 on the 20th Anniversary.

The book at the top of the page is on several banned book lists because it is the story of a young, immigrant girl whose mother ends up in a detention center. She is Haitian. I guess some people do not like the way the government is portrayed. I had a wonderful student who is an immigrant from Haiti, begin this book today. Her reading scores on these infernal tests are low. I bet if I can get her reading and improving her vocabulary, her scores will go up. 

I enjoyed this book tremendously and had to read the articles several times before I could figure out what the heck these parents were talking about for banning this book. Teens love this book. The story is universal except it takes place on an Indian reservation and the character is gay, although I never really got that from the story. I could not keep enough copies of this book in my classroom and even today, had to order another one for a student who asked to read it.

 

One of my favorite books, although I saw the movie before reading it. I have disagreed every time this book is in the news for an inappropriate book. The story is a great story and students love the story. They understand it was written in a time period when language was accepted, not that it was right. They understand the accused charge of rape and realize this also happened. They truly don't see Atticus as a white savior, but as Scout's father. They are much more interested in Boo Radley than the language used. 

The above book, has never been banned but has been challenged due to the content of an angry young man who fights against the status quo. It was ridiculous then and it never happened again. It still made the way to my classroom and several years of students along with several other books by the same author. At the beginning of the book, Mr. Villsenor chastises teachers he had along the way and the treatment he received as a Mexican immigrant student. Although he was born in the United States, he stuttered, so he was bullied twice. It is an excellent story and my only regret is I could never raise enough money to have him come and speak to my kids. 

This book could have been banned in several school systems due to content, but I have never heard of someone challenging it. That is a very good thing. The book has gangs, murder, poor people, medical treatment inequities due to race and money, and street kids. It is a true story and one of my students recommended it to me. I read it and have had several of my classes read it. I always keep at least 2 copies in my room for my students. Mr. Moore is now running for governor of Maryland. It is an excellent book. 

I have always had a rule for my life. If it is in my home or in my classroom, you have permission to read it. If I don't have what you want to read, I will try and get you a copy. Any book you take, enjoy it, tell someone else about it and keep it to pass it on. My students' reading scores should go up. At least if the Florida legislature will STOP trying to limit what I can and cannot do or say in my classroom. 

Tracking a teacher; shades of Big Brother

 This idea refuses to die and it seems that many people believe it is a good idea and I hate that. I hate that this may come to fruition and I will have to retire. I hate that we have entered the time of Big Brother, because everyone believes that they know best when it come to teaching and education. These misguided people will cause me to leave a job I adore and am good at, simply because the education system is now the most current political football. 

Teaching is my second career. I was lucky in that I also adored my first career and when it came to an end, I found teaching. Seeing my kids every day keeps me young and keeps me involved. I spend hours trying to come up with lessons to keep them interested and educate them at the same time. 

Now the state of Florida has come up with this idea to put cameras in the classrooms and microphones on the teachers. This is to "protect" the students. Huh? Protect them from what? From me? 

This was my past week as far as protecting students. Big fight, 4 students suspended. Girls. I had 2 skip and not show up for class. I had one suspended for leaving campus to smoke an E cigarette. I have students out sick with the virus. Two sent to the office for inappropriate phone use. I spent time waking up students who were sleeping and continuous reminders to put their phones away. (Tik Tok has no place in my classroom)

The ones in class don't know where the Mediterranean Sea is. They cannot tell me why the Civil War in the United States began, or the year. They do not know when the United States entered World War II and why or the difference between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire. They think it is funny when we are discussing others in the world who are starving or live under a different political system where education is controlled by government and the propaganda involved. 

I spoke to parents of two different students who are failing my class to ask for help in turning them around. They don't know what to do, short of taking the phone away. So take it away. These students are snarky and rude, disrespectful and belligerent, but all I can do is continue to try and get them to do the work before they fail for the year. 

I have called  and emailed parents with absolutely no response. I have applied for grants to make sure my students have what they need to succeed. I am always at the school for something. Teachers attend sports and buy tee shirts to support the teams. We order popcorn and candy. During the holidays, we buy poinsettias using what little bit of extra cash we have. 

We console crying students who simply feel like no one listens. We are always in their corner, yet we are compared to police who wear cameras. They also carry guns. Oh yeah, in Florida they also believe teachers should be armed. 

So let's arm the teachers with guns, some are still trying to get that idea passed, record their actions with cameras and microphones to make sure no students are being bullied, a bill now in the Florida legislature and pay them less than a good waiter at an upscale restaurant makes from all the tourist dollars that are coming in to the state. Yeah, those are great ideas. 

Let's try this on for size: How about all those people who believe teachers are more bad than good, come visit a school. Sit in a couple of classrooms and walk the halls. Don't interact, just listen. Listen to what the teachers hear; see what they see; experience their day from beginning to end. Then take all this money it would cost to implement this idea of cameras and mics in the classroom and put it to good use in our salaries, Pay us like professionals. The year is 2022, not 1984.