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.