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.