Recently, Todd Starnes of Fox News, wrote an article asserting his stance regarding a New Hampshire School's Defense of a Sexually Graphic Novel.
Here's an excerpt...at the least the portion I choose to reference in my response.
Heaven forbid the superintendent of schools be the arbiter of decency. So who, pray tell, is responsible for deciding whether children are exposed to pornographic literature?
“It’s a decision of the local community,” he told me.
I was especially intrigued by the school board’s official statement. Read carefully:
“The School District policies IGE, IJ, IJA, KEC (available on the school district website) refer to the procedures for the use of novels containing controversial material. The district will take immediate action to revise these policies to include notification that requires parents to accept controversial materials rather than to opt out. Furthermore, the notification will detail more specifically the controversial material.”
Did you catch the part about forcing parents to accept racy, bawdy novels rather than opt out?
This school district may very well be the poster child for why you should home school your children.
Author Jodi Picoult told the Union-Leader that she was aware of the controversy in Gilford. Her solution was to make the novel a family affair.
“Read the book with your kids, by all means use it as a springboard for discussion with your kids,” she told the newspaper.
And afterwards, why not take the whole family down to the local strip club for dinner and a show?
Baer told EAGNews.org that he believes the incident is proof that public schools are trying to indoctrinate children with moral relativism.
First, as a parent that actually parents and raise my children, I understand the parent's outrage at NOT being notified. Furthermore, as an educator for the past 14 years, I am shocked that the teacher omitted the policy in notifying the PARENTS via written and electronic form. However, my harmony stops there.
Yes, the excerpt referenced is graphic. But it's also indicative of what's going on in high schools NOW. The kids are either curious about or having sex. And, the ironic thing is that majority of the parents are in denial and/or not taking a more proactive role in educating their children about sex--dangers, pitfalls, risks, and possible outcomes--so it's left up to books, educators and mentors. So bluntly put, either do your job and have it done the way you want it. Or, pipe-down and let the educators, writers and peers educate your children. Yes, the choice is that simple.
I taught in high schools for 10 years as an English teacher. My shock at seeing pregnant girls in my classroom gave me the reality check that the censorship of these types of books (like the one centered in this controversy) is not needed. High school students are testing out their sexuality, figuratively AND literally. Honestly, if the worse case scenario is their reading about it, then count your blessings. Case in point, I about fell out of my chair, when my 17 years old student (who was 8 months pregnant) suggested that WE have a joint baby shower, as I was 30 years old and 8 months pregnant. To use their catch-phrase: WTH???? On what planet of crazy did that idea come from? Furthermore, what the Hades did your mother say when she found out that you were in high school pregnant? Her response to my questions..."she's happy she's going to be a grandmother!" WHATEVER. How's that for moral relativism?
I'm by no means saying that Picoult's book should be used as a sex manual or in self-help aspect, but what I AM saying is that insinuating that parents take their kids to the 'strip-club' because the school district refuses to censor the book is such a damn ridiculous suggestion it makes me wonder whether Starnes' soap-box has a "sexual taboo" hiding under it...heaven forbid anything worse...I wrote that to demonstrate how ridiculous and absurd pointless comments can be. Nevertheless, FoxNews does have a reputation of outlandish TV personalities that call themselves journalists/reporters. But that's another post...
I agree with the author's suggestion for parents to use it as a means to have a discussion about sex, BECAUSE MOST OF THEM ARE NOT!!! Take a look at the schools, whether they're on a TV show for being a teen and getting pregnant or in their first relationship and just "curious" how it works, if you don't parent teenagers, they will parent themselves...pay attention to the pun because the next name-calling will be "Grandma" or "Paw-Paw," Mr. Starnes.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Friday, April 25, 2014
President Obama in His Best Role Ever!
I'm not a political junkie, but I do vote. I've never been a fan of Presidents simply because they're one person, leading three ring circus of opinionated, sometimes hypocritical "leaders" (I've yet to meet a politician that leads my cause effectively...but that's another post).
But what I appreciate about President Obama, as a man, is his humanity. He's not abashed to let down his guard or stand on the grounds of "political correctness," especially when it comes to the nation's children. I say this in reference to the Washington Post's tweet of the President Reading Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, one of at least 10 Books Every Child Should Read. His character, something that's lost in a lot of souls, shines through at this moment. Is he perfect? No...neither am I. Am I his friend? No...but I'd like to think he's very selective in his choice of friends...just as I am.
But as a librarian, I can't recall a President getting into "character" to read for children. That's why I appreciate him and his leadership. I wouldn't trade shoes with him for a minute. Scrutiny is not my cup of tea. However, for this moment (and some additional moments, for he's read this beloved children's book SEVERAL times-see below) he's the BEST guy I know, who's using his character influence, justly!
But what I appreciate about President Obama, as a man, is his humanity. He's not abashed to let down his guard or stand on the grounds of "political correctness," especially when it comes to the nation's children. I say this in reference to the Washington Post's tweet of the President Reading Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, one of at least 10 Books Every Child Should Read. His character, something that's lost in a lot of souls, shines through at this moment. Is he perfect? No...neither am I. Am I his friend? No...but I'd like to think he's very selective in his choice of friends...just as I am.
But as a librarian, I can't recall a President getting into "character" to read for children. That's why I appreciate him and his leadership. I wouldn't trade shoes with him for a minute. Scrutiny is not my cup of tea. However, for this moment (and some additional moments, for he's read this beloved children's book SEVERAL times-see below) he's the BEST guy I know, who's using his character influence, justly!
President Obama read "Where the Wild Things Are" to kids today. He got into it. http://t.co/jhQCnV5ChU pic.twitter.com/HMhj7AKg5C
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 21, 2014Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Hip-Hop & Science
Though I'm classically trained as a cellist, my 2nd love is "hip-hop." BUT before you hit the road, know this...I love old school hip-hop, where rhythm, rhyme and slang discussed the morale, tribulations and "going-ons" of the beautiful innards of "cocoa-life." Sure, there were curse words involved, but there was also a frankness that seems lost in the political correctness of the world now.
True, I'm biased and liberal, but I'm also quite realistic...blame it on my Gemini nature! When this WuTang rapper, the one and only GZA, said "music is in everything," I thought of Mozart, who heard harmonies in his head and could memorize a song after hearing it once. And, Beethoven, who composed, having not heard his own notes, the most invigorating music of mankind. For it was the opening measures of Beethoven's 5th Symphony that inspired the Morse Code taps for victory.
So, please listen to this video. GZA and his panel of young rappers are, in a word, poignant. It's a perspective you never thought of, unless you're a cocoa girl from the '90s, who wishes these popular rappers, who continually water-down the original rapper's creed, would just RIP. Don't worry, I won't put any rappers on blast!
True, I'm biased and liberal, but I'm also quite realistic...blame it on my Gemini nature! When this WuTang rapper, the one and only GZA, said "music is in everything," I thought of Mozart, who heard harmonies in his head and could memorize a song after hearing it once. And, Beethoven, who composed, having not heard his own notes, the most invigorating music of mankind. For it was the opening measures of Beethoven's 5th Symphony that inspired the Morse Code taps for victory.
So, please listen to this video. GZA and his panel of young rappers are, in a word, poignant. It's a perspective you never thought of, unless you're a cocoa girl from the '90s, who wishes these popular rappers, who continually water-down the original rapper's creed, would just RIP. Don't worry, I won't put any rappers on blast!
Monday, January 20, 2014
MLK: Ceremonial Stalemate
Good Morning Everyone! Today is the ceremonial, nation-wide celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (prominent Civil Rights leader, who, along with others (white and black), petitioned a much needed change in America). But, honestly, if Dr. King lived on to see today's America, do you think he'd be impressed? I think not!
Why would I say so? After teaching for 13 years in the public education system, I still see the blatant slapping in the face of Brown vs. the Board of Education. I still see white faces in power-making positions, while minorities struggle for funding for their education (public and private) and are bred to be athletic beasts or entertainers, or find it very difficult to move into power-making positions as professional adults, (i.e. not promoted thinkers...not equals, unless it's a "you govern your kind" type of mentality to reference my remark about moving into power-making positions).
American public schools are in such disarray, with some districts still being segregated (i.e. urban schools fenced in, heavily policed and under funded, while suburban schools are more like college campuses with resources abounding and extra-curricular activities flourishing). Racial segregation is still a sore spot playing out in modern-day society (i.e. Trayvon Martin, the fall of famed Southern chef Paula Deen and the American Prison Systems, where African American males outnumber white males 5 to 1 because of the perception that Black males are more violent than white, see "White on White Crime More Prevalent than Black on Black"). All of this present-day strife brings to mind Langston Hughes' poem, "Let America Be America Again." I specifically want to call to mind these stanzas:
O, let my land be a land where Liberty / Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, / But opportunity is real, and life is free, / Equality is in the air we breathe. / (There's never been equality for me, / Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
What's stinging my mind this morning is the part "where liberty is crowned with no false patriotic wreath." Today, I feel that as cities across the nation, if not the world, celebrate the actions and causes of MLK's dream that it's just ceremonial. He and countless invisible others fought for equality, action, empathy, thought and unity. Yet, where the hell is it visible? Sure, I could acute specific instances to suffice that concern, but nation-wide, have we answered the call, consistently? I think we've become lackadaisical. And for that, Dr. King would roll-over in his grave, asking where he might of gone astray in his plight.
But it's not him that's astray, it's us. When the light of his torch was extinguished, we've yet to pick it up with the vigor and conviction that he and others demonstrated. Sure, laws were passed and tensions have relaxed some between races, but honestly, have we, as America, done much since? We're still celebrating firsts: First Black President, First Hispanic Woman on the Supreme Court, First Openly Female Lesbian Mayor of a major metropolis. And those are all FANTASTIC accomplishments and much needed.
Yet, what the truth is, is that majority of Fortune 500 hundred companies have white men at the helm, as well as white men over the colleges and universities, superintendents of school districts, collegiate athletic directors, owners of professional sports teams and littered all over Congress as "representatives of their constituents." Ha, ha! While Blacks, Hispanics, Middle Easterners and Asians are still accomplishing the "First Ever" titles because they lack the "pale-pigmented privilege." Is that opportunity real? Is it free? Is it equality in the air we breathe? Better still, is it the dream of a King?
No, it's a stalemate. And, frankly my dear, I'm tired of that ceremonial limitation.
Why would I say so? After teaching for 13 years in the public education system, I still see the blatant slapping in the face of Brown vs. the Board of Education. I still see white faces in power-making positions, while minorities struggle for funding for their education (public and private) and are bred to be athletic beasts or entertainers, or find it very difficult to move into power-making positions as professional adults, (i.e. not promoted thinkers...not equals, unless it's a "you govern your kind" type of mentality to reference my remark about moving into power-making positions).
American public schools are in such disarray, with some districts still being segregated (i.e. urban schools fenced in, heavily policed and under funded, while suburban schools are more like college campuses with resources abounding and extra-curricular activities flourishing). Racial segregation is still a sore spot playing out in modern-day society (i.e. Trayvon Martin, the fall of famed Southern chef Paula Deen and the American Prison Systems, where African American males outnumber white males 5 to 1 because of the perception that Black males are more violent than white, see "White on White Crime More Prevalent than Black on Black"). All of this present-day strife brings to mind Langston Hughes' poem, "Let America Be America Again." I specifically want to call to mind these stanzas:
O, let my land be a land where Liberty / Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, / But opportunity is real, and life is free, / Equality is in the air we breathe. / (There's never been equality for me, / Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
What's stinging my mind this morning is the part "where liberty is crowned with no false patriotic wreath." Today, I feel that as cities across the nation, if not the world, celebrate the actions and causes of MLK's dream that it's just ceremonial. He and countless invisible others fought for equality, action, empathy, thought and unity. Yet, where the hell is it visible? Sure, I could acute specific instances to suffice that concern, but nation-wide, have we answered the call, consistently? I think we've become lackadaisical. And for that, Dr. King would roll-over in his grave, asking where he might of gone astray in his plight.
But it's not him that's astray, it's us. When the light of his torch was extinguished, we've yet to pick it up with the vigor and conviction that he and others demonstrated. Sure, laws were passed and tensions have relaxed some between races, but honestly, have we, as America, done much since? We're still celebrating firsts: First Black President, First Hispanic Woman on the Supreme Court, First Openly Female Lesbian Mayor of a major metropolis. And those are all FANTASTIC accomplishments and much needed.
Yet, what the truth is, is that majority of Fortune 500 hundred companies have white men at the helm, as well as white men over the colleges and universities, superintendents of school districts, collegiate athletic directors, owners of professional sports teams and littered all over Congress as "representatives of their constituents." Ha, ha! While Blacks, Hispanics, Middle Easterners and Asians are still accomplishing the "First Ever" titles because they lack the "pale-pigmented privilege." Is that opportunity real? Is it free? Is it equality in the air we breathe? Better still, is it the dream of a King?
No, it's a stalemate. And, frankly my dear, I'm tired of that ceremonial limitation.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Education Reformation...for Educators have LOST their voice!
So, I've often thought that corporations and government agencies are, rather directly, debilitating our education system. Bureaucracy and idealized reform have trickled from the top down onto the shoulders of the educators, like the flushing of a commode. But I've never been able to articulate my thoughts in an "kosher" manner...until now!
Dr. Paul Thomas' post on Education Reform had me jumping out of my chair with conviction. See this screen shot of my post:
Here are some excerpts from his post, beginning with Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man:
“I am an invisible man,” announces the unnamed narrator of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, adding:
I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me….When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, of figments of their imaginations—indeed, everything and anything except me….That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact….you often doubt if you really exist….It’s when you feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump back. And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you exist in the real world, that you’re a part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it’s seldom successful.
From Dr. Thomas: "In effect, then, for a century, teachers have been invisible in their own field, except as both compliant workers implementing political and bureaucratic mandates and as often-silent scapegoats as that bureaucracy fails."
CC, charter schools, TFA, VAM, and merit pay plans are driven by advocates who refuse to see not only teachers but also the entire history and field of education, or as Arundhati Roy explains, “We know of course there’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”
and I will conclude with this last excerpt from Dr. Thomas...
Let’s allow for the first time in history educators the recognition they deserve to examine, evaluate, and reform their own field. Current reform that is top-down and driven by the same historical and bureaucratic methods that have brought us to where we now stand is destined to repeat the same patterns we have already experienced for over 100 years.
I cannot express enough, how insightful this article is to me. For those of you that follow, you know I've endured my own battle as a new librarian in an urban school (see this post). In fact it's still going on (the "entrapment" I feel at my current place of employment), but I'm hoping a new perspective, the motivation of only 5 months remaining on my contract, and/or the hope of some transformation miracle that will allow me a promotion from the aforementioned state of purgatory, will come to pass in this year! Though I'm unhappy, I've learned the importance of humility and adaptation.
Nevertheless, please read Dr. Thomas' article: "Education Reform: Our field, Our Voices Just Don't Matter." And for all my down-trodden educators, BE INSPIRED for change, a worthy change, is coming!
Dr. Paul Thomas' post on Education Reform had me jumping out of my chair with conviction. See this screen shot of my post:
Here are some excerpts from his post, beginning with Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man:
“I am an invisible man,” announces the unnamed narrator of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, adding:
I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me….When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, of figments of their imaginations—indeed, everything and anything except me….That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact….you often doubt if you really exist….It’s when you feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump back. And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you exist in the real world, that you’re a part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it’s seldom successful.
From Dr. Thomas: "In effect, then, for a century, teachers have been invisible in their own field, except as both compliant workers implementing political and bureaucratic mandates and as often-silent scapegoats as that bureaucracy fails."
CC, charter schools, TFA, VAM, and merit pay plans are driven by advocates who refuse to see not only teachers but also the entire history and field of education, or as Arundhati Roy explains, “We know of course there’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”
and I will conclude with this last excerpt from Dr. Thomas...
Let’s allow for the first time in history educators the recognition they deserve to examine, evaluate, and reform their own field. Current reform that is top-down and driven by the same historical and bureaucratic methods that have brought us to where we now stand is destined to repeat the same patterns we have already experienced for over 100 years.
I cannot express enough, how insightful this article is to me. For those of you that follow, you know I've endured my own battle as a new librarian in an urban school (see this post). In fact it's still going on (the "entrapment" I feel at my current place of employment), but I'm hoping a new perspective, the motivation of only 5 months remaining on my contract, and/or the hope of some transformation miracle that will allow me a promotion from the aforementioned state of purgatory, will come to pass in this year! Though I'm unhappy, I've learned the importance of humility and adaptation.
Nevertheless, please read Dr. Thomas' article: "Education Reform: Our field, Our Voices Just Don't Matter." And for all my down-trodden educators, BE INSPIRED for change, a worthy change, is coming!
Friday, December 20, 2013
Sunday, December 15, 2013
The Choke-hold: Why Urban Schools in Public Education Are Failing!
A Librarian’s Retort: Why I Despise Urban Public Education
I am torn. Part of me believes that hard working poor Americans want an education for their child. Not just an education but all the successes that come along with it. Then there’s the other half…cynic row, as I like to call it. This part believes no matter how much we try to move forward and progress the urban poor, they are stuck in their tortoise shell. Hoodies on, Jays (Jordans tennis shoes) clean and tracks hidden—the woven tracks of hair in her head, the dried tracks of sorrowful tears or the tracks from drug use, your choice—and that’s where the tear in me occurs. Not all the students in urban neighborhoods are downtrodden. A few are thirsting for a quality educator. As positive as I want to be daily, the "bad apples" drain the positiveness, the joy and the grit needed to endure an urban school setting.
At the moment, I’m questioning my career choice, my country and my life-goals. I had the obvious warnings signs that spoke loud and clear to me before I moved to an urban, poverty ridden school—unreturned phone calls, no functioning computers in proximity to my location on campus, kids that curse educators and a principal that hadn’t had a librarian in at least five years-- but because of my militant conviction that I can make anything succeed, I’m now burned out a week before Christmas break, thankful my kid has the flu and praying something miraculous to happen to prove to me that the last 5 months were all worth it in the end.
To bring you up to speed, I’m a former English Language Arts teacher, who has taught everything from high school English, English as a Second Language and Literary & Creative Writing. That right there ought to show you how complex and diverse of a teacher I am. As an additional additive, I’m a young Black woman that grew up in a white middle-class suburb and attended a private university. I’ve had privileges, but by no means exhibited the status of wealthy. As a babe, I ran before I walked and electrocuted myself at 5 because I wanted more super-powers like the vacuum cleaner. Regarding education, I always wanted my answers to be different from my classmates and took like a songbird to the arts: cellist, chef, and creative writer. I despised (and still do) any structured box others tried to place me in. Who wouldn’t fight a choke-hold grip on your natural creativity?
However, those attributes are for not. As a recent article published by Slate.com –Inside the Box: People don’t like creativity—remarked, the powers that be “don’t like creativity.” They prefer agreeable, inside the box thinkers. Get as close to the boundaries of the box as you want to…hell we’ll even make you a star for that because you’re edgy! But once you cross that line, “your ass is toast!”
So naturally, as an original thinker, my creative arse was in violation of that rule and labeled uncooperative and resistant to coaching! Go figure that! You mean I went to college, inherited tens of thousands of dollars of debt, and can only achieve wide-range success to pay off those debts if I align my brain along the rest of the “No waves, Dave!” mentalities?
So my next best option was to get out of the classroom (while my test scores were still admirable) and go back to school for a masters degree. Hmm…how about I become a librarian? I can read my assets off and still enjoy influencing the minds of the future. Plus, NO DAMN STANDARDIZED TESTS! Fate brought me a grant opportunity and I seized it. In the mean time, I needed to exit suburbia hell and go to where I was needed.
Therefore, off to urban school! There, the need was great for creative and ambitious minds! I can inspire and assist the economically challenged but aspiring youth. Furthermore, I could be of great use. Leech from me as much knowledge as you can! But, what I found was oppression in its modern form. I jumped from one misery into the lair of hell. All I can tell you is read the article “Four Reasons Why Teachers Avoid or Leave High Poverty Urban Public Schools.” It is a bright light into the new hell I find myself in.
So after months of listening to students being cursed out by professional colleagues—“because that’s the only shit they respond to”—and covering classes for sick, depressed or newbie teachers—“because you’re a librarian, you don’t have a class right now and you’re such a strong teacher”—I’m hiding out in my home-office, nursing a flu-ridden son, hoping he stays ill for the remaining two days of this week so that I don’t have to return to Satan’s liar! Did I just wish for a SLOW recovery for my own child? Wth? And, by the way, all those quotes are literal remarks from co-workers! Again, wth?
So what’s the point? The point is this: corporations and districts alike want to blame educators for the flaws in public education, when the accountability is with one group, the American family…all of us. Corporations that lobby for standardized tests and refuse to raise minimum wage that keeps the rich rich and the poor struggling. Teachers, who learn several pedagogies, just to toss them all out the window in order to survive with urban hellions. Parents, who didn’t take advantage of an education when they had one, so now they work multiple jobs just to make ends meet and don’t have the proper time to bond and raise their children! Lawmakers, who forget those that elected them because the corporation’s lobbyist sweetened a sway in their favor, and school districts that cater to the laws established by agencies that are made up of non-educators or educators that have been out of the classroom for so long they don’t know the first thing about it. Voters that BLINDLY put these buffoons into office. And, the rich, who have enough money to remove their children from public education and let the “scavengers fight amongst themselves… where up here!”
Hell if I’m honest, I believe every decision maker, in the realm of education, should as part of their contract serve one paid week in an inner-city urban public school twice a year. They must be in the classroom and can have no assistance with lessons, classroom management and/or technology. Then, and only then will those haughty wanna-be intellects know the plight of my kind. Plus, it’d give those white-collar twits a bonafide reality check!
We all have accountabilities in public education. However, the only resolution I can come to grips with right now is to leave public education. Or, some kind of way, find an authentic version of the MIB (“Men in Black” movie) memory eraser and make everyone stare at the light. And, start the public education system all over again.
Nevertheless, I need to find some career that supports my desire to be around kids, as well as home-school my own. No buckets of cash over here! No money-bags husband! No faith in public education…at least not at the campus I work, presently. Perhaps, I will open my own private school one distant day. However, unless I win the lottery, I will still have to deal with opinionated investors, who want it done their way or the highway. Now, my arse is right back to those haughty wanna-be intellects! What a vicious circle!
P.S. It’s safe to say that these ideas are all my own, in case the powers that be connect the dots and fire me for having an honest refelection.
I am torn. Part of me believes that hard working poor Americans want an education for their child. Not just an education but all the successes that come along with it. Then there’s the other half…cynic row, as I like to call it. This part believes no matter how much we try to move forward and progress the urban poor, they are stuck in their tortoise shell. Hoodies on, Jays (Jordans tennis shoes) clean and tracks hidden—the woven tracks of hair in her head, the dried tracks of sorrowful tears or the tracks from drug use, your choice—and that’s where the tear in me occurs. Not all the students in urban neighborhoods are downtrodden. A few are thirsting for a quality educator. As positive as I want to be daily, the "bad apples" drain the positiveness, the joy and the grit needed to endure an urban school setting.
At the moment, I’m questioning my career choice, my country and my life-goals. I had the obvious warnings signs that spoke loud and clear to me before I moved to an urban, poverty ridden school—unreturned phone calls, no functioning computers in proximity to my location on campus, kids that curse educators and a principal that hadn’t had a librarian in at least five years-- but because of my militant conviction that I can make anything succeed, I’m now burned out a week before Christmas break, thankful my kid has the flu and praying something miraculous to happen to prove to me that the last 5 months were all worth it in the end.
To bring you up to speed, I’m a former English Language Arts teacher, who has taught everything from high school English, English as a Second Language and Literary & Creative Writing. That right there ought to show you how complex and diverse of a teacher I am. As an additional additive, I’m a young Black woman that grew up in a white middle-class suburb and attended a private university. I’ve had privileges, but by no means exhibited the status of wealthy. As a babe, I ran before I walked and electrocuted myself at 5 because I wanted more super-powers like the vacuum cleaner. Regarding education, I always wanted my answers to be different from my classmates and took like a songbird to the arts: cellist, chef, and creative writer. I despised (and still do) any structured box others tried to place me in. Who wouldn’t fight a choke-hold grip on your natural creativity?
However, those attributes are for not. As a recent article published by Slate.com –Inside the Box: People don’t like creativity—remarked, the powers that be “don’t like creativity.” They prefer agreeable, inside the box thinkers. Get as close to the boundaries of the box as you want to…hell we’ll even make you a star for that because you’re edgy! But once you cross that line, “your ass is toast!”
So naturally, as an original thinker, my creative arse was in violation of that rule and labeled uncooperative and resistant to coaching! Go figure that! You mean I went to college, inherited tens of thousands of dollars of debt, and can only achieve wide-range success to pay off those debts if I align my brain along the rest of the “No waves, Dave!” mentalities?
So my next best option was to get out of the classroom (while my test scores were still admirable) and go back to school for a masters degree. Hmm…how about I become a librarian? I can read my assets off and still enjoy influencing the minds of the future. Plus, NO DAMN STANDARDIZED TESTS! Fate brought me a grant opportunity and I seized it. In the mean time, I needed to exit suburbia hell and go to where I was needed.
Therefore, off to urban school! There, the need was great for creative and ambitious minds! I can inspire and assist the economically challenged but aspiring youth. Furthermore, I could be of great use. Leech from me as much knowledge as you can! But, what I found was oppression in its modern form. I jumped from one misery into the lair of hell. All I can tell you is read the article “Four Reasons Why Teachers Avoid or Leave High Poverty Urban Public Schools.” It is a bright light into the new hell I find myself in.
So after months of listening to students being cursed out by professional colleagues—“because that’s the only shit they respond to”—and covering classes for sick, depressed or newbie teachers—“because you’re a librarian, you don’t have a class right now and you’re such a strong teacher”—I’m hiding out in my home-office, nursing a flu-ridden son, hoping he stays ill for the remaining two days of this week so that I don’t have to return to Satan’s liar! Did I just wish for a SLOW recovery for my own child? Wth? And, by the way, all those quotes are literal remarks from co-workers! Again, wth?
So what’s the point? The point is this: corporations and districts alike want to blame educators for the flaws in public education, when the accountability is with one group, the American family…all of us. Corporations that lobby for standardized tests and refuse to raise minimum wage that keeps the rich rich and the poor struggling. Teachers, who learn several pedagogies, just to toss them all out the window in order to survive with urban hellions. Parents, who didn’t take advantage of an education when they had one, so now they work multiple jobs just to make ends meet and don’t have the proper time to bond and raise their children! Lawmakers, who forget those that elected them because the corporation’s lobbyist sweetened a sway in their favor, and school districts that cater to the laws established by agencies that are made up of non-educators or educators that have been out of the classroom for so long they don’t know the first thing about it. Voters that BLINDLY put these buffoons into office. And, the rich, who have enough money to remove their children from public education and let the “scavengers fight amongst themselves… where up here!”
Hell if I’m honest, I believe every decision maker, in the realm of education, should as part of their contract serve one paid week in an inner-city urban public school twice a year. They must be in the classroom and can have no assistance with lessons, classroom management and/or technology. Then, and only then will those haughty wanna-be intellects know the plight of my kind. Plus, it’d give those white-collar twits a bonafide reality check!
We all have accountabilities in public education. However, the only resolution I can come to grips with right now is to leave public education. Or, some kind of way, find an authentic version of the MIB (“Men in Black” movie) memory eraser and make everyone stare at the light. And, start the public education system all over again.
Nevertheless, I need to find some career that supports my desire to be around kids, as well as home-school my own. No buckets of cash over here! No money-bags husband! No faith in public education…at least not at the campus I work, presently. Perhaps, I will open my own private school one distant day. However, unless I win the lottery, I will still have to deal with opinionated investors, who want it done their way or the highway. Now, my arse is right back to those haughty wanna-be intellects! What a vicious circle!
P.S. It’s safe to say that these ideas are all my own, in case the powers that be connect the dots and fire me for having an honest refelection.
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