Cancer and COVID-19

 Coming soon. 

On the Teaching Profession in the U.S.

I just finished up my 2018-19 year as a teacher. This year, I taught eighth-grade English Language Arts. I am still in deep reflection over this year. It was filled incredible stress, long hours, sleepless nights, early mornings, kids who cussed me out, parents who threatened my job, and some less than supportive administrators. There were high points too, and I learned an incredible amount about myself and about what it means to be a good teacher.

Teaching is, as almost every teacher will tell you, really tough the first year in the classroom. Don't get me wrong; I knew before I ever stepped into the classroom I would be putting in hours far beyond an eight-hour day; I knew teaching was fraught with challenges; but I did underestimate the nature, number, and frequency of the challenges I would face.

To be sure, there were moments of joy, immense satisfaction, discovery, and belly-busting laughter. However, I am going to claim that the incredible stress of teaching today, at this point in time, makes blissful teaching moments fewer than they used to be for teachers in the past.

My parents were both educators. My mother was a teacher for 30 years. She is gentle, loyal, fastidious, and steadfast in her commitments. Still, sometimes the very attributes that made her a great teacher often caused her a great deal of stress. She had regular anxiety about missing some detail or fretting that something wasn't "just so." She was always concerned about not letting anyone down, although none of those things ever were the case.

Her dedication was recognized, and she was very well-respected. She became a mentor and academic coach to other teachers, and both students and staff loved her. However, growing up with her as my mother, I knew the anxiety her teaching responsibilities caused her, especially when she felt torn between those and her role as a mother. It often left her exhausted.

My father, also an educator, started out as a teacher. He quickly moved into administration. He was a principal for over a decade and then moved into a district position overseeing the elementary schools. After five years in that role, he found he missed the daily interaction with teachers and students, and he took up a principalship at a newly opened school.

My parents always extolled the virtues of the job. They tried ardently, many times, to convince me to become a teacher. True, they would say, you won't get rich teaching, but there are other kinds of riches to be had from the profession. Stability, camaraderie, life-long impacts on students, the satisfaction of making a difference, and a chance to flex your creativity. They especially emphasized the good retirement pension. Not really wanting to "only be a teacher," I took a business career path after college.

I made my way up into positions where I made a big six-figure income, but I became rather unhappy in the corporate grind, especially after my kids were born. So, I got my teaching certification with the intention of changing careers. By the time I was certified in 2010, my parents had been retired from teaching for almost twenty years—they retired in 1991. Policies and theories on education fluctuate constantly, so in those twenty years, things certainly changed, particularly after the passage of NCLB* in 2001.

When I describe the expectations, responsibilities, procedures, and issues I have witnessed and experienced as a teacher, they are not only dismayed but also greatly saddened by the turn education has taken. My kind and dedicated mother would never have made it as a teacher today. She would have been driven to physical and emotional collapse. Lost then, would have been the mentorship, empathy, and experience that she shared with the teachers she guided. Her students never would have experienced her compassion and understanding or benefitted from the learning atmosphere she created for them. She made a difference to so many students and teachers, but her talents and dedication would have been lost on the world of teaching today.

I don't want to imply that teachers today are unable to be compassionate, creative educators or mentors. But, it is getting harder and harder to do that in too many schools in our system of public education. I am a member of a number of social media teacher groups, some with over 5,000 members. Teachers are actively contributing their thoughts and experiences in these closed spaces and sharing the most significant issues they deal with as teachers today. What I have seen are very clear and consistent issues that are common across the nation as the sources of significant problems in education today. The top three issues I regularly see are problems with (1) accountability and inconsistency in schools' expectations and consequences, (2) an extreme lack of social-emotional development in students of all ages, (3) learned helplessness (more about this phenomenon in a future post) in part due to an extreme emphasis on standardized testing and Common Core. Of course, complaints about standardized testing has been around for many years now.

In a series of upcoming posts, I intend to discuss these issues. I hope to present some empirical information, explore the truths or misconceptions of these problems, and I also plan to share real anecdotal stories as to how these issues impact the classroom in the United States today.

But, this is this is what remainswhat remains of my teaching career.

*No Child Left Behind

Nostalgia for America: Why "Make America Great Again" has sinister connotations under Trump

This is not a blashing of President Trump, or Republicans, or conservatives, but it does some express concerns that seem to be driven by a hostile ideology. This festering ideology seems to hold to some nostalgic ideas, such as America's divine authority to lead the world, a notion fueled by the concept of American exceptionalism, fueled in part by the shining "city on a hill" rhetoric borrowed from Puritan John Winthrop's sermon "A Model of Christian Charity" (1630). However, the slogan "Make America Great Again," which originated in a speech made by President Ronald Reagan, has taken on a tone of darkness that contrasts noticeably with Reagan's cheerful, friendly tone. Under Trump, "Make America Great Again" has become more of an authoritative mandate than an optimistic aspiration. It instead seems to express a callousness and disdain for other nations, even our traditional allies, and it is an attitude that has developed more deeply in American culture over the last two decades. It is a sentiment that is reinforced by the positions of the current leadership in the Trump administration through the proposals and resolutions that seem to extend the simmering cultural hostility that many Americans hold for the rest of the world. The agendas and rhetoric Trump tends to promote and use is generally exclusionary in its tone and cynical in its ideology. He seems to desire a nostalgic return to the world order that existed in the past, a fantasy of America that used to be "great." America really is great in a lot of ways, but it was never the perfect utopian society the Puritans sought to establish when they came to the American continent. It is a unique, imperfect nation, a great mad, wonderful experiment, but a return to some vague, mystical, dreamy vision of the past will not magically conjure up "greatness." The answers about "greatness" may indeed be shaped by examining the past to understand where we've been, how things have changed, and where course-corrections might improve a forwarding-looking future with fresh perspectives to make the nation "great." The cowboy frontier narrative is grandiose mythology; the jingoistic propaganda of the Cold War 1950s, post-WWII lifestyle has sunset along with the Cold War order, and the world has changed drastically since then. It's time to move into the 21st century. I wish things were as simple as they seemed "back in the day," but they weren't simple, and they never were. Not unless unless you're referening the dominate, European white male class of "Don Draper" types that could got away with whatever they wanted. As a woman and a single mother, things are naturally harder, and I never expected it to be simple. I can deal with that. But even as a highly educated woman with lots of job experience and technical skills, I still struggle to get by in today's America. I worry about what's going to happen to me. I haven't been able get permanent, full-time employment since the Great Recession, and so I piece together a living by working several jobs. That means I have pathetic health insurance for myself (an aging person), and for my children. I have a 20-year old son who is lost about what to do with his future and is floundering and making many mistakes—a lot of it spawned by general cultural anxiety. I have a daughter getting ready to graduate from high school, and I don't know what to tell her to expect anymore. But going back to some fantasy of the good ol' days is the not answer. Dismantling the provisions in place to help struggling people like me is not the answer. I'm not dumb, nor am I lazy, but I am scared. I'm scared of the huge student loan debt that crushes my options for the future in many ways. I'm scared of being crushed by the corporate greed that grows ever larger and mows little people down and grinds them up. I'm scared of not fitting in "the box," and I'm scared for all the children that don't fit in these boxes of "success," particularly the oppressive standardized expectations written into America's educational system from pre-K to higher education. I'm scared of the penalties, financial and physical, that await the misfits of younger generations if they don't seem to measure up to the STEM-centric world. I'm scared of the selfishness judgments that drive these cultural attitudes. It is the same kind of selfishness seen in the ultra-conservative agenda, the selfish agenda the president has set before the nation, and the agendas that distance us from global alliances instead of fostering them. No one is successful alone in a vacuum, and that is true of nations, too. Success is not about being selfish. You don't "grow" by isolating yourself from people or, in America's case, holding yourself above the rest of the world. I am scared because there are many people in this country who don't seem to understand this fear. We are going to have to become more selfless and more open if we are going to survive this globalization shift, because it's not going to go away. This president's message seems to be "Let's be selfish Americans, let's be ONLY about #1"--I can't get behind that idea, and I can't support it. I was not a HRC fan either for reasons that don't matter here, but the ham-handed posturing and rudeness of this man only increases my fear and makes me even more scared for the future—more than I ever anticipated it would. I knew when he won things might get bad, but I didn't expect them to get this frightening so quickly, and I didn't expect him to act so frightfully on the world stage, either. It's all very depressing and unmotivating. I'm desperate for change--but not change back to the past. I want to move forward. I want to feel hopeful—but I become more sad every day. It was probably not a good idea for me to watch the Comey hearings yesterday because it only reminded me what a real leader looks like: a person who speaks with passion about his country and his fellow citizens, a man who thinks of how his actions affect others and not just himself, a man with integrity, intelligence, and principles, and yes, a man who is man enough to acknowledge his weaknesses—all things this nation needs desperately to guide us through the global miasma. Yet, these are all things that are demonstrably absent in the leader and the leadership in charge of the country today. I live day to day—in worry about what the future will bring. My best hope right now is to hope that I keep a roof over my head and food on the table, and that I and my children stay healthy. I don't expect the government take care of me or fix all my problems, but I never thought that in the United States of America I would have to worry about my government being the one of the reasons I worry about my livelihood or the world that my children will face in the future.

Who Vouches for the Inbetween?

So, here's the age old conundrum in American education, and here's why school vouchers won't work. Look at the graphic below. Graphic #1 shows a school with 56% of the population being Black and 33% White, but the White students test at 75% in mathematics, while Black students at the SAME SCHOOL, in the SAME SUBJECT, test at 17% pass rate.*

The factors are many, I'm sure, but I have to lean toward the explanation that the Black students at this school do not have the same academic resources OUTSIDE of the school as the White students. However, the second graphic shows that only 16% of the students are considered "economically disadvantaged," so what does this mean? I believe that the definition of "economically disadvantaged" must have something to do with this. Yet, check this out: 59% of the students are considered "not economically disadvantaged." That means that 44% of the students are supposed not class disadvantaged, but they are ALSO NOT considered "*not* economically disadvantaged." 

Thus, I have to believe that the students who are not poor enough to receive additional academic support from the school or district (tutoring, counseling, learning disability testing, nutritional aid, etc.) are from families who still cannot afford to pay extra to OUTSIDE professionals for tutoring, counseling, learning disability testing, yet NOT POOR ENOUGH to receive additional support from the school. What happens to these students? This is why school vouchers are bogus. A "good school" is a "good school" because of the additional support wealthy and upper middle class families can afford to provide their children and perhaps generous PTSAs (to provide color paper and bountiful teacher supplies) at that particular school. Vouchers will NOT solve the problem of other academic support issues. Cuts to funding in public schools does nothing to help already struggling students who will not be able to AFFORD TRANSPORTATION to other schools that are "better" yet far from the students' district areas.

*[The graphics above are pulled off greatschools.net and are numbers from a high school in Atlanta City Schools.) Since the data are from a non-academic source (yet they do link to empirical sources), these are not necessarily peer-reviewed numbers, but they are indicative of a lot of scholarly studies elsewhere.] 

There and Back Again: When Will We Really Learn from the Past?

History is full of parallels, and too often we seem to forget previous lessons learned. Consider the following quote, and I will explain the source and its urgency afterward. But, notice how appropriate it is to today's issues, especially starting where I marked asterisks:

"...the whole world has been going through the fires of Hell…[and there are] signs that the peoples themselves are beginning to once again crave something more than…toils and toys of the mass-production age. *They are beginning to realize that because a man is born with a particular knack for gathering in vast aggregates of money and power for himself, he may not on that account be the wisest leader to follow nor the best fitted to propound a sane philosophy of life. We have a long and arduous road to travel if we are to realize our American dream in the life of our nation*" (416).

The quote is from historian James Truslow Adams's 1931 book, The Epic of America, a popular, best-selling book that year. As some of you know, I've been doing research for my M.A. in American Studies, which is how I came across it. At the time the book was published, the U.S. in was in the early years of the Great Depression. We now know from history, the Depression came about in part due to corrupt banking practices and excesses of the Roaring Twenties (sounding familiar yet?). Additionally, 1920s-1930s saw the alarming rise of extreme nationalist rhetoric in European countries, or jingoism, chauvinism, and nativism in other nationalistic movements (Britain, France, and the U.S. etc.) Does Brexit rhetoric and "Trumpery" seem far too similar now? Times and technologies are different today, but the danger is the same. Know history; read the signs. Let's not repeat the tragedies of the past. Think about it.

Wrestling with the World: Are We Really 'Winning' When We Win?

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my 19-year old son, who has been very much engaged in a personal wrestling match with the world lately. One of the things he really struggles with is being open to listening to and processing information that goes against what he has determined is "true." He fiercely wants to "win" every prospective point, and anyone who takes exception to the whole of his view is one of the "sheeple." I'm not talking about politics, I'm talking about everything from table manners and driving habits to science and medicine to breaking the law. 

Sometimes I'm not even sure he believes what he is saying; he just wants to win the argument. In the past, I have felt that as his mother I needed to fight to set him right about his misguided beliefs, but I have painfully learned to patiently hear him out, calmly state my disagreement, and then walk away, regardless of what he throws out at me after that. He wins because he thinks he's had the last word; I win because I don't allow him to make me angry and upset. Furthermore, I also know that if I'm truly right, another chance will come again when he may be more receptive—or he will have learned in the roundabout the thing I was trying to save him from learning the hard way. Much of his argumentativeness comes from anger—not just anger, but also deep frustration, pain, and fear—all things that I could not hear when I was too focused on trying to correct his misguided arguments.

The social and political issues we are struggling with now come about most often when we act like adolescents, driven to adamantly "win" a point at the cost of more long-term conciliatory gains. Many people have become more like my son, in that they want you to accept what they believe wholesale and anything less renders you an idiot. We all have our beliefs and values, but the ability to remain open to listening to other perspectives is deeply important. Maybe much of what they say is misguided, but when you listen, you may hear something else—their pain, frustrations, and fear—and that is when opportunities arise to comfort and guide each other lead to understanding and greater unity.

When we don't listen, that's when the truth gets lost, 'alternate facts' are desperately thrown in any attempt to convince others their truth is THE undisputed Truth. There is then no negotiation of understanding, no resolution of cognitive dissonance, and no navigation toward compromise because the so-called truth gets butchered in the emotionally desperate process of reducing any opposing view into mincemeat. We must choose our arguments wisely and make more effort to listen, foster empathy, and to educate at the right moments—otherwise no one wins, and we remain locked in our personal wrestling matches with each other and the world.

The Demise of a Tree

I'm chopping down the apple tree in my front yard this weekend. It's become overwhelmed by Fire Blight, despite the fact that I've treated the tree and tried to stave off the its slow decline for about a decade now. I finally lost hope that it can be cured. Even though almost every year this tree produces a bumper crop of apples, this year they all ended up rotten and diseased before harvest time.

I guess you could say the same thing has happened to my personal hopes over the years since I last posted on this blog. I am still discouraged about why or how I might have done things differently in order to remedy the ailments that have struck my life over the last few years and have spoiled the goals I had hoped would come to fruition. After all, I worked really hard when I went back to get a second B.A.  in English Education. I graduated with a 4.0 GPA. I spent endless hours writing English papers and then planning, writing, preparing, and executing lesson plans. Student teaching was nothing short of stressful itself, but I learned a great deal about teaching and myself with that crazy experience, and I reflected on how and what I might do better. I was hopeful that there would be "many apples in my orchard." But that didn't come to pass.

Six years after I graduated and became certified to teach, I still have not been able to find a permanent teaching position.

There are many reasons why that happened. First, I got certified in early 2010, just in time for the economy to be the worst it had been since the Great Depression. Recently hired teachers were laid-off in droves, and those who kept their jobs were furloughed and had salaries slashed. Second, I am certified to teach Language Arts and Literature. When I entered my teaching program in 2007, the field of English was considered a "High Priority Teacher Shortage" in my state. However, that quickly changed after the recession. Today more than ever, English and Humanities fields have become marginalized areas because of the frantic urgency of pushing the STEM curriculum (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). English classes are, of course, still required for high-school student across four years, but it's not a "critical needs" area like Physics or Mathematics. I didn't even bother to apply for jobs directly after graduating because I knew I probably had a less than five percent chance of finding a position ("five percent" is a random figure—the chances were likely even lower than that in my area). Finally, I also encountered some significant personal challenges and disappointments shortly after graduation, including family concerns and family health issues.

My solution was to continue on to graduate school. The rationale was that while  I waited for the economy and job prospects to rebound, I would go ahead and get my Master's degree—but not in Education. At the time, my university's M.Ed program required students to be current teachers anyway,  but to be honest, I felt the Education program was weak. Thus I ambitiously enrolled in not one but two graduate programs: Professional Writing and American Studies. Without getting into all the gory details in this particular post (I'll save some of that maybe for future posts), it suffices to say that many things did not go as planned as I moved forward, and they continued to get worse over the next few years. I couldn't have made-up a sequence of events more disheartening that what followed in reality. Most of the things that transpired were out of my control, despite the fact I tried to control them. What happened could be described using a quote from Star Wars: Episode IV.  Princess Leia says to General Tarkin: "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers," except' "star systems" weren't slipping through my fingers. What was slipping through my fingers was a galaxy of other little things that slowly overwhelmed me: students loans, car problems, house problems, money issues, and my son (that too is a story for another time.) Then, finally, the worst thing struck: I could no longer write. Writing  was something I had loved to do and prided myself on doing well, but it suddenly seemed to abandon me. And with that, my confidence evaporated.  You might say that it was as if I felt there were suddenly no more "Apples in the Orchard." That orchard that once had so much potential for producing great yields slowly withered away, and it took all my energy and hope with it. I floundered and lost my way in a very dark forest instead.

I still haven't completed either Master's degree, although I'm projected to finally finish my M.A. in American Studies this Spring semester. My inability to write really did a number on my being able to write a thesis paper, even though my head was bursting with ideas. But most disconcertingly, I still haven't found anyplace that feels like I belong, and I'm not getting any younger, either.

Some days I can pick my way through  the spoiled fruit that litters the ground around me; other days I  look around and all I see is rotten and barren terrain.

So, back to that apple tree in my yard.

In it's demise, I see something more symbolic in that for my life, too. Something lost, something very sad, certainly, but maybe there is a deeper meaning here. I want to think  there is something greater in its demise, and maybe I can figure it out fairly soon. Maybe there big obstacles in my own life I need to cut down. Maybe it's time to take a slice out of a different apple.  Or maybe it represents a need to make a clean break from something else altogether. I don't know. But I'm going to chew on that for a while and see what grows.