My Heart So Low

Listen first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1DKJEk-EkE

Christmas.

Such a hard time for so many.  Women.  Men.

Where there should be joy there is sadness and pain and loss.

Wish I could help. You.  Me.

But my heart is low, my heart is so low.

I wish for you joy.  I wish for you peace.

Watch the women who make the music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3nLjGQpUOU

Merry Christmas!

To each of you who read this digital epistle I wish you a very Merry Christmas!

I believe the most precious Christmas gift arrived 2,000 years ago to two poor, working class people. I believe the love behind that gift should be the model for the way we treat each other. I believe the most precious gift I can give to anyone is my friendship, my caring, my love. I believe the most precious gift I can receive is your friendship, you caring and your love. I am blessed by those who both give and receive these gifts. Thank you.

I wish for you faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.  May today and the coming year be all that you want it to be.

Eileen Good

My Christmas Wish

Dear Santa,

This is all I want for Christmas:

I wish I could be a conservative. I wish I could think like conservatives think. I wish I could vote Republican like everyone else around here. I wish my deep religious beliefs did not so influence my political and philosophical beliefs. I wish all I know about economics I was able to put aside and vote conservative. I wish all I know about the moneyed special interest groups I could put aside and vote conservative. I wish all I know about establishing aristocracies at the expense of the working class would simply exit my brain. I wish I were dumber. I wish I could passionately support what I hear on one-sided media and believe it to be true. I wish I were less rational and thoughtful and more emotional. I wish I was not so much a person of conscience. I wish I did not care about those with less than I have, I wish I did not care about equity, I wish I did not care about civil rights, I wish I did not care about democracy and public schools and public welfare, etc., etc. I wish I did not believe that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. I wish I didn't know you can't take it with you.  I wish that I could ignore the reason for this season, the ultimate gift to an undeserving humanity, and think like conservatives think. Then perhaps I would not always feel like I am swimming upstream. Perhaps then I could be happy. Perhaps then I could really be me.

Not gonna happen.

But thanks for listening, Santa.

(Free toys for boys and girls world-wide? Sleighs me. Santa, you must be a liberal too!)

Shooting Children

I am not at the grieving stage yet, I am angry. Very angry. How dare someone walk into a school and shoot and kill children and shoot and kill the adults who work with those children? How dare him!


Schools are to be sanctuaries for learning. Kids are to be safe there. Now some idiot will suggest that if Kindergartners were carrying firearms this would not have been as bad. Or, that if all the teachers were armed. Or, if we just had metal detectors and razor wire fences and double entry doors so we can check ID’s before anyone gets inside. In other words, let’s make schools prisons designed to keep folks out and leave the folks within armed and ready.

And somewhere is a fleet of superintendents getting calls from local papers and TV stations wanting to know what they are doing to keep kids safe and what they might do in the future. So sad.

I have been watching this phenomenon closely since Columbine and I have reached the following conclusions:

1. No one ever got shot at a school when the perpetrator did not have a gun.

2. No safety measure creates safety. It creates the illusion of safety to pacify the panicked.

3. The problem lies in the community, not the school. This is not school violence; this is violence that walked into a school. The solution must lie in the community.

So, what would I do? Make owning a handgun extremely difficult if not impossible. Make owning an assault rifle impossible. Spend more money on community services instead of cutting them. If any of the now infamous perpetrators of this brand of violence had a readily available professional counselor we would see much less of this. And, lest we not forget, Virginia Tech and Columbine were violent acts committed by students there. We need more money for more teachers so teachers can develop good relationships with their children so we will get a “heads up” if one of them plans to start shooting.

As long as disturbed and sick people have ready access to firearms we will continue to have this. We will continue to see people shooting children.

So sad.

Gotta Love a Little Joy in the Midst of Anger

Susan Rice is withdrawing her candidacy as Secretary of State.  She is a brilliant woman.  And she is being attacked prior to ever getting the nomination.

Diane Ravitch said it best:  The same people who thought Sarah Palin was qualified to be Vice President are attacking Susan Rice.

LMAO!

(I'm not supposed to know what that means, but it seems appropriate.)

Thanksgiving Eve

As I prepare for tomorrow, a day now associated with a national full-fledged endorsement of gluttony and the eve of a commercial extravaganza known as Black Friday, I am amazed we celebrate this day at all. Where are the voices waging war against childhood obesity? Where are the voices warning us about diabetes? Where are the voices warning us about high cholesterol? Where are the voices warning us about heart disease? I suspect they have all gathered at a table somewhere and are pigging out.


And, you have to admit, it is kind of funny that this whole notion began because a group of illegal immigrants received welfare from the local government. In 1621 Europeans were illegal immigrants, and the previous illegal immigrants were now the native population. Without the help of the native population, the entire expedition might have failed and the new wave of illegal immigrants might have died.

Enjoy your gluttony and celebrate the 17th Century equivalent of food stamps!

What a wonderful, liberal holiday!

If and Why

I am heart sick at the conflict, the war, the death on our planet carried out in the name of religious belief. Warring people who deeply believe in a god that sends them to do harm to others who do not believe the same way they do. Are we so petty that if you do not believe what I believe you must be evil? Why do we do this in the name of faith, any faith? It is, of course, faith as there is no scientific evidence of a God, of a heaven or a hell. Are our wars data driven, selfish driven, or faith driven? And if faith driven, what are we to ultimately believe?


If there is no God, what is blasphemy? Is it OK to point out to others that there is no God? Why are cartoons of prophets so sacred? If there is no after life, this is all we get, then why should we do what is right, what is moral, what is good? If we do it out of fear of punishment or pursuing reward are the behaviorists ultimately right? Is it the better man who does what is right because it is right, rather than out of fear?

If there is a heaven and a hell, where are they? Is there a supernatural plane that we cannot perceive? Is there a human spirit we cannot measure? Are there GPS coordinates for such places? Is there really a parallel universe where the spirits of “good” folks dwell forever in joy and without want, and another place where the spirits of evil folks are punished forever? Would an almighty God actually allow such a place to exist? Is he so petty that he cannot forgive the evil? Why does he allow evil?

Why are all the “holy” books written by men but treated as divine? Why not assume Shakespeare was inspired by God, or Huxley, or Hemmingway, or whomever? Why these passages and why so holy? Does God dictate narrative? If so, why not send each of us a memo?

Why do those who claim the deepest faith seem to have license to do the most harm? If God is on my side and I claim to love him, shall I now have free reign to persecute others? Why don’t the strongest zealots of each faith recognize that they have more in common with each other than differences as they experience the same intense belief? Why do they lead the charge against the infidels and each other? Why do they insist that their values, their beliefs become the law of the land?

If I do not go to the church picnic this afternoon am I going to hell? Why?

Just wondering.

To the Other 1067

I am dancing in secret and silence. I am clapping my hands with mittens on. In robe and slippers I dip and swoop and soft shoe the floor with a wiggle (gently) of my old hips. The only song I hear in my head is “Happy Days are Here Again”, a song from my childhood. A song for Franklin.


There is joy in the East and joy in the West, but my state went 57% Romney. My county went 78% Romney. There is gloom and despair outside my door as though it was just announced that Obama has banned the wearing of blue jeans and boots in public and all pick-up trucks are being recalled. In my little county, 21% of us voted for Obama. That is 1,068 souls who touched the screen by his name.

I just want to say thanks to the other 1,067. (We need a secret handshake to know each other.)

Be careful out there. Some folks are sore losers.

But I am dancing in secret and silence!

School Reform and Evolution

I may be an old widow woman celebrating life well into my 80’s, but I have always loved science and the wonderful gizmos that have resulted from the advancement of technology. I remember ice being delivered to our house via mule drawn wagon. I remember sitting around as a family listening to the radio long before there was television. Now, I totally take advantage of all the technology science has provided. I use a smart phone, I text, I tweet, I use a computer, I have an iPad, I blog, I have a microwave, a refrigerator, central heat and air, television, and yes, a minivan with a built in navigation system and a radio. If you are reading my blogs you too must enjoy all these scientific consumer gifts as well. We do not worry about the water coming out of our faucets, or that the electricity will cease to flow through our wires, or that the food we buy in the store is impure. We trust in science and the fruits of our efforts.


I do not know anyone who says, “I do not believe in television,” or “I do not believe in cell phones.” I know people who do not like or use television, or cell phones or computers. But it is a choice of palette, not a belief statement. Clearly if we could go back in time even 100 years with these gizmos we would be perceived as magicians. But, we know better. We have evidence that the gizmos work, a latent sense of the science behind their operation, and we use them all the time. When a computer crashes, we do not question our beliefs about computers, we question the operation of the technology itself.

And at the same time, I know people who hold firmly to deep beliefs that are contrary to what science tells us. I remain amazed at the mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance that must occur for a belief to take precedence over reality. We have historically seen this, of course. Ask Galileo.

Forgive a few pedantic sentences, please, but it is necessary for us to speak a common language before I proceed. A hypothesis is an educated guess, a guess that can be disproven by observation and testing, but not proven. A scientific theory, however, summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing. A theory is valid as long as there is no evidence to dispute it. Therefore, theories can be disproven.

So, evolution is a scientific theory. We have hypothesized about it, tested, measured, observed and every time we confirm the theory of evolution. There have been no disproving measures. It is a theory around which repeated measures have confirmed the operation of the theory. To say “I do not believe in evolution” is tantamount to saying, “I do not believe in radio waves. I can’t see them and they are not mentioned in the Bible so they must not exist.” If that is where you are, then you have joined the ranks of those who persecuted Galileo for stating that planet earth was not the center of the solar system or the universe.

How about the current school reform movement? (By school reform movement I mean school choice, charter schools, vouchers, competition, accountability via high stakes testing, etc., etc.) What is it? A fact, a theory, a hypothesis? It is a belief system not grounded in any of the above, and therein lies the problem. If our hypothesis is school reform will improve educational outcomes for kids, then how many examples would you have to see to disprove that hypothesis? One. If one claims this a theory, meaning every time we have attempted school choice interventions they were all successful, how many examples would you have to see to disprove the theory? One. The very fact that politicos continue to divert money from public schools to optional schools, increase accountability, etc., etc. in the face of an array of dismal failures for these interventions to work plus the harm imposed on public schools implies to me we are dealing with folks who would have persecuted Galileo. It is a belief system, not a hypothesis or a theory. Both have been disproven hundreds of times. Therefore, it is a belief system.

Sadly, one cannot argue with someone who has a fallacious belief because the only arguments are facts and observation and those elements have little influence on those whose minds are made up. Hence, that is why we see the continued effort to dismantle public schools using formulas proven to not work. I could almost respect those who support such notions if they also argued that earth is the center of the solar system, the sun orbits around us, there are not radio waves, and computers are a tool of the devil because they are not mentioned in the Bible. At least their kookiness would be revealed to all.

Please vote Tuesday if you have not already. The forces of ignorance are strong and wealthy and organized. We must move forward, not entrench. Our beliefs are always important. It is our science that advances our society and it is our belief system that should morally judge our efforts.

Myopia Utopia

Perhaps you are surprised that I have not posted regarding the forthcoming election, perhaps not. I have remained above the fray, resisted the wallow in the political mud, and even person-cotted the debates. I know for whom I will vote and why, and have seen little reason to succumb to the daily punditorial rhetoric regarding who’s gaff is damaging, who’s presence is most Presidential, and who’s statement fails to pass Fact Check. The details of those minutia matter not to me. What matters to me is that we are engaging in such discourse prior to an election with significant long term implications for our nation. What matters greatly to me is the current model of American political decision making. If we are to have a democracy where decisions are made of the people, by the people and for the people then it is critical to delve into who is deciding what and how. My current thoughts on this leave me with concern.

If you are undecided or consider yourself a political independent I have little tolerance for you and am mystified that you would take any pride in such a position. If you believe that you will vote for the “man” then I have good news and bad news: both candidates are men, they are both flawed and precious, they both view the world through their own particular lens and they are both willing to spin any topic to a perspective that best suits their agenda. They are human. You will never know either man, you will not attend church with them, be their neighbor, see them when they are down, know what lurks in their hearts nor understand their secret fears or motives or dreams or foibles. You cannot know them. They are characters on a large political stage. Deciding for whom to vote on the notion that you want to pick “the man” is ludicrous. You cannot know them. (I disdain from even addressing those who may pick a candidate based on race, ethnicity, religious preference, etc. That is so far below our ideals that it merits no comment save “shame on you”.) Sadly, as a voting bloc, you have become the center of attention. Candidates pander to the undecided. From my point of view, that is focusing on the least thoughtful, least democratic voters among us and it has forever shaped our decision making.

I do not like reality TV. The underlying message of such shows is that anyone can pick a winner regardless of expertise and call a phone number to influence the competitive outcome. I reject such notions. We are not all qualified to pick the best singers or the best dancers. We are living in a time where everyone perceives themselves to be an expert, and we are not. Friday night football games are stocked with coaches in bleachers, and they are not qualified. The Congress, state legislatures and school boards make important decisions regarding education and they are not qualified to do so. If we do not honor expertise then there is no reason to gain such. If any fool can sway the outcome of reality TV or public schools than there is no reason to get an education and learn and practice and grow in wisdom and experience in your given field. The Presidential debates are reality TV and I loathe them. Quick public opinion polls after the debates determine who won and who lost and it doesn’t matter. But reality TV has sadly shaped our electoral decision making and promoted the notion of the political independent; that is, I have to see the contestants before I know who I will vote for. Poppycock and balderdash.

Political candidates run for office by political party. Each of the parties has a platform, those planks in which they believe, those policies they would enact, those ideals on which they stand. Obama stands at the head of the Democratic Party and Romney at the head of the Republican Party. If elected, they will follow through with the ideals espoused in their party platforms. The personal characteristics of the candidate matters little. What matters greatly is their own belief system, those values and policies and practices for which they have chosen to stand for and seek to enact. A vote for either candidate is a vote for the philosophy of the party they represent. We somehow get that with 3rd party candidates, those folks who throw their hat in the ring, are little known, and seek only to accomplish their own set of beliefs. Why do we miss that on the larger stage?

There is a huge difference in the party platforms on virtually every issue we face. Yes, they are written in ways to sound appealing to all, but the underlying belief systems remain apparent. Republicans believe that the government that governs least governs best and would shrink our government and the service offered. Democrats believe that the government should serve the people, solve problems, ensure equity and fairness and provide a safety net for citizens in need. Republicans believe that the best way to improve the economy is a top down or trickle down approach and place their faith in free enterprise. They promote reducing regulations on producers, promoting profit, increasing the wealth of the producers so that the “workers” benefit by being employed and working for the producers. They promote reduced taxes on the wealthy. Democrats believe that left to its own free enterprise will run amuck in the pursuit of profit, workers may be treated unfairly and paid poorly, working conditions need to be monitored, limits need to be imposed on practices that benefit producers and harm labor, that the unemployed should not starve or go without health care. Democrats believe in trickle up, not down. Corporations and wealthy persons should pay their proportionally fair share of taxes not merit additional breaks. Democrats do not perceive that promoting producers at the expense of workers or the unemployed is fair and equitable. Republicans promote a large military, Democrats believe the military must be equipped and ready, but expenditure should be situational. Republicans oppose government supported programs like food stamps, interstate highways, Medicare, social security, public education, monitoring the safety of food, water, drugs, etc. Democrats believe the government should support those with less and ensure the safety of all that we consume. Republicans support the wealthy producers, Democrats support the have-nots. Republicans would enact law to support their social values; Democrats would enact laws to protect belief systems and separate church and state. Republicans will enact policies to restrict those who can vote, Democrats will not. Etc., etc., etc.

Whichever candidate wins in November, and whichever candidates win across Congressional, gubernatorial and state legislative elections will shape how we will address the issues confronting us.

As I talk with my fellow citizens I get a clear message. What they want is to reduce taxes and have more services. They want the debt to go away. If they are fundamentalists they want their religious believes to be the required thinking of the land. They want great services at no expense. They have been lobbied to believe that is the Republican Party platform. They are myopic. They dream of utopia that cannot be. More services cost more money. Costing more means raising taxes, especially on those best equipped to pay more.

Clearly, I am a Democrat. I do not support every single plank in the platform, but I deeply support the philosophy. I remain amazed that people who are not wealthy, people who are Latino or Black, people who receive government subsidies for food, education, and health care would vote Republican. I remain amazed that our memory of 2008 is so short lived. (We had 8 years of Republican philosophy and it about did us in.) I remain amazed that Americans would want their version of social values to become public law. There is only one way I can explain it.

Myopia Utopia.

Dogs and Turtles and Porcupines

Many are the pets I have had, mostly dogs. I have had dogs and cats and turtles and snakes and fish and hamsters. Never had a porcupine, and know of no one who has. The animal companions I like the most are dogs.

Many are the people I have known and learned from and taught with and cared for and avoided. I deeply believe that all humans are precious and flawed. I believe we should honor the preciousness and forgive the flaws. With some folks, that is more difficult. And I grow weary of dividing folks into dichotomies, black or white, good or bad, sinner or saint, giver or taker, Mars or Venus. Hence, a metaphorical trichotomy: dogs and turtles and porcupines.

The dogs I have known and loved are without guile. If you are lucky enough to be chosen by a dog as a member of his or her pack, then you will receive great blessings. No matter what you do or say, the dog will forgive you. In fact, if you grow angry at your dog, he or she will approach you, wagging tail, licking face, doing tricks to get you to like him or her again. Dogs can be stubborn and obstinate and set in their ways. Your loving obedient dog will take off as demon possessed should they see a cat or a squirrel or your new pair of shoes, forgetting you entirely in pursuit of their own instincts. But if they love you and you return that love they will be man or woman’s best friend. They will protect you, they will come to you when you hurt, they seek your approval always, forgive you no matter what you do and seek your forgiveness no matter what they do. I have sat alone and cried only to be aroused from my stuporous pout by the wet nose, wagging tail and long wet tongue of my dog, seeking to make me better.

Turtles are really weird creatures, all hard shall, leathery exterior and very soft insides. I had a couple of pet box turtles, found in the yard when I was a youngster. Their hawkish face, beady eyes and silly little tails always warmed my heart. But, I expected less and received less from a turtle. Turtles come equipped for defensive posture. They take care of themselves first. When threatened they retreat into a shell, depriving us of even a hint of their interior. I could not turn to my turtle for solace. I could thump its shell and watch it retreat. My turtles were unforgiving because they are designed for self defense and have only their own survival in mind. I know there are species of turtles that are aggressive, but your basic box turtle stumbles along seeking to gratify its own needs, and quickly withdraws allowing its incredibly hard exterior to protect it from all things without. I grew quickly bored with my pet turtles. They have great, hard boundaries. No matter how much I cared for them or held them or talked to them, they always sought their own gratification and retreated from me when I wanted to interact. If you want a companion, turtles are not a good choice.

I really know very little about porcupines, and that is OK. What I do know is that to even pet one is extremely painful. Their bodies covered in bristly quills speak volumes: stay away, do not touch, do not approach or I will hurt you. I cannot imagine a cuddly porcupine. They must mate, but I expect there is little foreplay. I see them as solitary mammals, rooting in the dirt, living a lonely bristly life. I wonder if they feel lonely or hurt, but that is just an anthropomorphism.

I am sure you are well ahead of my keyboard. You and I know people who tend to be more like dogs or turtles or porcupines. Dogs like other dogs and run in packs. Dogs like humans too. However, if a dog and a turtle become friends, the dog will eventually feel rejected and try harder to win over the turtle, while the turtle will retreat further and further into its shell. No one is friends with a porcupine, those folks who bristle at the first approach, who always seem angry and avoid affection and friendship at all costs. Two turtles could get along, but always apart. Turtles and porcupines make an interesting couple, the porcupine always bristling and turtle always in his or her shell. I know couples like that.

I see people as a combination of these animals, capable of the behavior of each, but with a tendency toward one. I guess we are all dogurtlepines. I think I am more dog-like. My dearest friends are dog-like as well. I have good friends who are more turtle-like. I avoid folks who are more porcupine-like. When I am threatened in a relationship I wag my tail, do tricks, and beg. That works with other dogs, not always with people. At first my defenses are down, my boundaries are shot and I have no turtle-like self-protective shell. Eventually I grow weary of the offer of affection, the lack of response, and the rejection and become turtle-like withdrawing while resisting the urge to become a porcupine.

I think porcupine people may need dog people in their lives the most, but will not allow it to happen. I think turtle people want to be close to dog people, but are afraid of what that means so they remain covered and protected unwilling to stick their necks out. We dog-people just keep running around, wagging our tails and hoping someone will pet us in return for our devotion.

Woof, woof!

Transformers

I liked the Transformers movies. I liked the toys and the cartoons. They remind me of a history of great mythology around changelings, all of which is fascinating to me. Wouldn’t it be fun to simply change to something else, or become someone else, or whatever? I know I’m a great grandma, but I can imagine a few people I would like to be able to change into if I had the Allspark. Not so sure I would want to become a car or a truck or a tank, but becoming Jennifer Aniston whenever I wanted could be really cool – unless she really is pregnant!

We hear a lot of talk today about school transformation and frankly, regardless of the camp, I am not impressed. Everyone is looking for the Allspark for public education. No one seems to be thinking outside the box. All the visions, plans, strategies, etc. are grounded in the current organization of schools by grade levels in little boxes with an adult per group of kids using the old industrial model and funded in the same old ways. Here are just a few out-of-the-box suggestions that I believe could radically alter public schools:

1. Churches and their ilk are all tax exempt. And yet, we know preachers preach politics. No telling how many Tea Party members get their political leanings from the preaching of the gospel of conservatism. Public schools are tax exempt and forbidden from lobbying. Isn’t that interesting? Why not do the same for churches? If a preacher takes a political position from the pulpit or in the Sunday school class, then he or she has violated the notion of the separation of church and state and that church begins to pay taxes. Revenue for schools goes way up, or preachers return to philosophical and theological discussions rather than political ones.

2. Implement a state income tax in Texas. Foolish that we do not have one. It could even be a flat tax, though I totally support the notion of a graduated tax. We would all save a ton of money on our federal income taxes if we paid state income tax.

3. Eliminate compulsory attendance. All the nonsense we hear about schools of choice, vouchers, etc. disappear if kids do not have to come to school. For the first time, public education would have the same choices regarding kids that charter schools and private schools have. If you do not study and do the work and behave we will send you home. We could eliminate charter schools totally as every school now becomes a school of choice. And, with the drop in enrollment, schools and taxpayers will save money. Public education will increase in value, still available to all, but not required of all. Professional educators will increase in status as they will have the ability to refuse service to anyone who does not value the gift of free education. To really make this work, all government subsidy programs to the poor would be contingent on whether the children of the recipient were enrolled in school if they are under the age of 18. If your child is removed from the public school then you lose your subsidy. Simple.

4. Change teaching to a year round profession and operate schools year round. Ideally, teachers would teach about half a day and plan and learn the other half. The additional expense would be funded by all the additional revenue and cost savings in numbers 1, 2 and 3 above. Teachers would be better prepared and outcomes, however we measure such, would improve. Teachers would be paid much more money, commensurate with their professional status. If we implement number 3, we will need fewer teachers for fewer students.

5. Stop playing I’ve got a secret with standardized tests and stop using the durn things for high stakes accountability. If teachers are in any way held accountable for what is on the test then they should see the test. Can you imagine teaching drivers’ education and the state does not let you see what your students will be asked to answer on the test? Ludicrous. I have ranted enough about why these tests should not be used for accountability and will not repeat it here.

OK, that’s my quick 2¢ on transforming public education. I may even have a nickels worth of additional thought on each of the above and other ideas to change the system from within. I believe these five simple ideas, however, would get the ball rolling and would radically transform public education. All schools could focus on preparing students to be successful adults and live in our democracy.

Sadly, all teachers cannot be Jennifer Aniston.

Well, that’s probably a good thing.

I Love You,

and a good rare beef fillet, my dog, and a nice Pinot Noir. Amazing that we use the same word to describe how we feel about a variety of people, pets and things. As a dowdy octogenarian you might think I am not interested in love, but I am! I love and have loved many people in many ways and recently have engaged in dialog here at the home regarding what love means. (Admittedly, this conversation was triggered by those among us who first turn to the obituaries and sadly read of another lost friend. With heavy sighs I hear, “I really loved that guy.”) I have a very young friend, (that means around 30 something), who refuses to use the “L” word because I think she thinks it carries commitment. So sad. Many of us here perceive we are beyond the possibility of romance and that may qualify us as experienced and objective observers of the various loves we have all had in our rich lifetimes. The following are the fruits of our love talk.

I was blessed to have a father who was a Greek scholar. I remember many discussions around the dinner table as he would pontificate on New Testament interpretations based on the original Greek. Sadly, English has but one word for love. The Greeks had at least 4. (Wow. A culture that gave us Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, democracy and Zeus, plus a richer understanding of the word “love”! Wish I liked the food more.) Each of those 4 had very special meanings and it is difficult in our culture today to use our one measly word for a variety of complex and important emotional feelings and relationships. I will not do my father justice or the ancients, but I will share my sense of those various words and how I currently use them. This is to help all the little old men here relax and stop worrying that I am looking for husband number 5, or is it 6?. (Though, I might be! Time and gravity may have caught up with my externals, but inside I believe we all remain 21.)

Eros is the romantic, lustful love of those couples in the first stages of love. It is the love that quickens the heart and pulse; the infatuation, the “I can’t keep my hands off” love. It is passionate, it can be obsessive, and it triggers swoons and flushed cheeks. It is the Hollywood love, the romance novel love, the “there is only one love for me” fairy tale love. But while in the throes of it, Eros is wonderful! I "Erosed" all my spouses at first.

Philia is brotherly and familial love. It is a dispassionate virtuous love. It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality and familiarity. In ancient texts, philia denoted a general type of love, used for love between family, between friends, a desire or enjoyment of an activity. I Philia a steak dinner with friends. I Philia my friends.

Agape is the most commonly used word for love in the Bible. It means general affection, it means holding someone in high regard. It is the word Jesus used to describe his love for his disciples. It is the word that was used by Paul when writing to the factious church in Corinth. In fact, the famous verses in I Corinthians 13 about love were not at all addressed to a newly wed couple. They were addressed to members of a church with internal conflict, to men and women at odds: Agape is patient, agape is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Agape does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. This is the love of deep friendships. There is no Eros in agape, just deep general affection.

Storge means natural affection, affection between parents and children, between siblings, among family members. By definition I "Storge" those people, my son and daughter, their spouses, my grand kids, etc. It is a different kind of love, a love inherited by blood, kith and kin.

I felt Eros and agape for every spouse I ever had. I feel Philia for my community, service organizations, my church, and the friends with whom I meet for red meat and wine. I deeply celebrate all the agape I have felt for co-workers, neighbors, friends and partners. I have a friend named David for whom I feel a great deal of agape. We can go months without talking, and then pick right up where we were. There are no secrets, no hidden agendas. He wants the best for me and I want the same for him. We do not compete and not only does no one feel jealous of this love, his wonderful spouse celebrates our friendship. He is the one I call if I have had a little too much to drink, if I am in pain, if I am feeling unloved. I love David. No Eros.

And as to my young friend who will not use the “L” word? I agape her too, I just can’t tell her for fear she will not understand. She’s stuck with that one measly English word.

This posting was triggered by another dear friend who sent me a digital poster today that said, “I believe in the separation of Church and Hate.” I could not agree more. In this world we do not need more hate or more Eros. We need more Agape. When you receive some, return it and pass it on. Never pass on it.

Love to you all.

The C&I Dog

I started teaching in the second half of the last century. Teaching was different then. We had to share overhead projectors as they had yet to finish the total 30 year transition from bowling alleys to classrooms. To duplicate materials we used purple ditto masters and cranked machines from which the duplicating fluid either made you high or sick. Xerox was around, but only in the principal’s office and only one copy at a time. Chalk boards and text books were the staple of the day and I went home each afternoon with a headache from the duplicating fluid and fingers covered in chalk dust, transparency pen ink and purple ditto ink. There was no standardized testing, there was no accountability for dropout rates, there was no state description of what should be taught, there was no state required system of teacher evaluation, and there was no universal state system of holding teachers, schools and districts accountable. There was no real curriculum. The curriculum was what the teacher said it was, period. Grades were what the teacher said they were, period.

I reported for work at the ripe old age of 23, was given a text book, teacher edition of same, and keys to my room. The principal wished me good luck. I discovered later that I was being evaluated by a check list that included how many kids I sent to the office, whether I called in sick too much, and whether I faithfully fulfilled the duties of turning in lesson plans and potty patrol. Women had to wear dresses and stockings, and men had to wear ties.

Ah, were these the good old days of public education? Kids who misbehaved were simply encouraged to drop out because dropping out was not a problem, it was a solution. Kids with needs and disabilities beyond what we were equipped to serve were sent home. Kids who chose their parents poorly and arrived at our door with the wrong amount of skin pigment were sent elsewhere. And there was absolutely no provision for the kids who arrived at the door not able to speak English. They sank or swam.

I digress.

I was fortunate to work in a district where some of the folks read professional books and journals. There was this growing notion about aligning curriculum, stating an objective, teaching to that objective and measuring whether your kids successfully mastered such an objective. Emphasis was on decoding the curriculum to identify the key learnings inherent in each discrete body of knowledge now known as the core subjects. Additional emphasis was placed on both planning lessons to meet and achieve those objectives and on developing assessments that in fact measured what one taught. In other words, I was very lucky to participate in staff development on the topic of curriculum and instruction.

I remember a large committee composed of parents, members of the community, principals, teachers and central office “experts” who convened to review my particular curriculum. The goal was to write our curriculum. We read authors about curriculum writing. We scoured research on our particular area, and we looked at the text book. As our curriculum took shape it became clear to all of us that the book did not cover all that we wanted, and the sequence of chapters did not match our own intuitive design. The book became a resource in my classroom. The curriculum became my guide.

But there were others who had years of files and folders to supplement the book and they had not participated in the process of writing the curriculum. I had ownership because I did. Others did not and simply wanted to be left alone. The blessing for me was that I now had some knowledge beyond writing the objectives I was required to write for lesson plans. I understood scope and sequence. I understood scanning research to identify the essential components of teaching this subject. I was thrilled with the new curriculum, locally developed and implemented, for the most part. I was just beginning to read books on instructional strategies and planning instructional episodes to maximize student success when after 10 years in the classroom I was bumped into administration.

Years and degrees later, I was hired as an assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. Oh boy, I thought. Now I can get back to the classroom and instruction that I have always loved. The month before taking the job I read recent authors and former authors on curriculum and instruction, assuming if I were to serve as an assistant supe for C&I I ought to know the best thinking about C&I. I read Glatthorn, De Vore, Taba, Erickson, Levy, Wiggins, Costa, Jacobs, Marzano and Vygotsky. When I showed up for work I was ready. I was a C&I guru. I quickly discovered such expertise was not needed.

The state had assumed all the expertise for curriculum and instruction. Committees of folks in Austin had written Essential Elements (EE’s) of all the subjects taught in Texas. Step 1 in the curriculum development process. The state was mandating a standardized test to measure whether those essential elements were taught. Step 3 in the process. What the state had not mandated was the instructional episodes (step 2) to fulfill the goal of teaching the EE’s. The state also had developed systems to hold teachers, schools and districts accountable based on these tests, and accountable for dropout rates, and accountable for special needs kids and non-English speaking kids. The wisdom necessary to write such documents had clearly shifted from classroom and district to Austin. We now had a standardized curriculum and standardized testing to assess our kids and schools. I could be dumber now, because they state had gotten so smart.

We know the state is not so smart. We know that curriculum decisions in Texas are not made based on expertise, collaborative input and best practice. They are made for political reasons. The State Board approves our curriculum, now called TEKS (I pronounce that acronym TEX, though some, with a lack of English background I suspect, call it TEEKS). The State Board engages in huge political uproar over the TEKS, especially in science where we dare teach evolution and not creative design (yes, when we know truth we continue to subjugate truth to belief. Galileo would be right at home. Next, we’ll teach that thunder is caused by gods bowling – using an overhead projector to keep score.) In economics and government we must stress free enterprise for all the good that has done us, and the conservative interpretation that less government is best. There are level heads at the state level, but when those good people identify themselves they tend to be solidly defeated by those who have a given perspective and cannot tolerate anyone else thinking another way. God Lord, that would be democratic.

After what appears to be constant revision of the TEKS we revise our standardized test that measures these itty-bitty curriculum bites. Pearson is thrilled because they are making a fortune revising, field-testing, administering and publishing the results of such tests. The content frequently changes and the test follows suit. Not only are C&I folks aiming at a moving target, they do so unarmed because the state plays “I’ve got a secret” with the test and no one knows what the questions will look like. A far cry from good instructional practice wherein teachers know what they want the kids to know, tell the kids, teach the kids, and then administer an assessment aligned with all of that so that no one is surprised.

The other really new component for C&I folks is private vendors. Yes, the free enterprise system wants to cash in on tax dollars aimed at public schools. (Wonder if they have really thought that through, however. If we continue to cut budgets we will have to cut vendors. One would think those who produce for and sell to the education market would be staunch supporters of increasing public ed. dollars. Nope, they vote and contribute to the group who wants less money and more accountability.) C&I people now have become software vendor evaluators and trainers. This company can teach your kids if your teachers cannot. This company can organize your curriculum if you cannot. This company can provide sample lessons if your teachers cannot. This company has a strategy that will improve test scores, etc., etc. I am amazed that newly hired C&I folks spend most of their early days on the job learning software, not C&I and not what goes on in the classrooms. That has become irrelevant. Though the issue should be instructional coaching, C&I people are more in the business of assessment and vendor product implementation. If you want to stump a C&I person when they make their next report at a board meeting, raise your hand and ask if they think the TEKS are philosophically more attuned to Glatthorn or Levy. If they know of these two fine researchers I would be amazed. One might also ask if we need C&I anymore given that all those functions are driven by the state. We need an assessment coordinator, we need a compliance coordinator, we need a federal programs coordinator, but what the heck does C&I do anymore? One person clearly cannot become the instructional coach for all subjects K-12.

All of this has led to the dummy down effect on teachers and C&I folks. If the state knows best what we should teach, and how we should teach, and how we should measure what we should teach, then where are my professional credentials and what are they worth? Teachers no longer engage in an analysis of their own content and struggle to write scope and sequences. They get trained in the state requirements. And since C&I folks have lost the real expertise implied in their positions they spend more time learning the state requirements than critiquing and standing up and saying this is poppycock and balderdash.

For political reasons the state has become head of C&I in Texas. It is the dog that leads us around. We blindly follow the C&I Dog.

Sadly, that dog don’t hunt.

Oxy and Other Morons

Consider the following fictional headlines:

“Jane Fonda named Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff”

“Sierra Club gains major share of American timber companies.”

“Greenpeace President named CEO of BP”

“Michael Williams named Commissioner of Education in Texas”

Oops.

The last headline is real. If you want to know why Texas educators are angry about Governor Perry’s pick for commissioner, perhaps the fictional headlines will help. Mr. Williams is not pro public education. He is in favor of vouchers, charters, reduction in funding, and higher accountability. Mr. Williams is philosophically diametrically opposed to the notion of public education. Naming him as commissioner is a huge slap in the face to the hundreds of thousands of public school educators in this state, and sadly, some of them, some of the good folks who show up every day to do all that they can to educate all kids, will support Governor Perry and his ilk.

Under the banners of “transparency”, “accountability” and “choice” those forces hostile to the notion of collecting taxes from everyone to promote the education of everyone have been in control in Texas for some time now. Each of the above banners sound great, sound reasonable, sound supportable. However, each of them is a buzz word for the slow process of making public schools look bad, finding ways to shift tax dollars to options other than public schools, and promoting the notion that public schools are too expensive to support as they currently exist. Frankly my dears, it is poppycock and balderdash.

We already know Mr. Williams’ ethical structure. If I were asked by Shell Oil to serve as head of their petroleum engineer division, I would decline. I am not qualified for such a position. If I were asked by NASA to begin training as an astronaut for the first human trip to Mars (notice I did not say “manned”) I would decline. I am not qualified nor will I likely live long enough to see it happen. (Besides, there are those who already accuse me of simply taking up space.) If I were asked to serve as interim superintendent in a neighboring district I would likely accept. I am qualified, I have such experience. Anyone who accepts a position for which they are not qualified and are hostile to the nature of the organization lacks ethical fortitude.

So, what should we (professional educators past and present and parents and communities who support public education) do about this philosophy and the kind of crazy policies and practices that we are seeing out of state government? How do we reveal to the general public what is really going on? I have a few suggestions and it is my hope that members of Texas media find an opportunity to ask such questions and print the answers:

“Mr. Williams: Once named Commissioner of Education let’s assume you do a stint as a high school building principal. Given state and federal funding formulas and accountability requirements, what would you start doing that has not been done, and what would you stop doing that is being done?’

“Mr. Williams: Same question, but this time you are a school superintendent?”

“Mr. Williams: It appears that you support charter schools, vouchers, school choice, etc. Those strategies only make sense in the context of compulsory attendance, the law that requires kids to go to school. If choice is so important to you, would you promote giving public schools the same choice that charters and private schools have by eliminating the compulsory attendance law?”

Three simple questions. He will not know the answer to the first two because he does not want to know and because he is not interested in public schools being successful. The most telling question for me will be the third. That will reveal what he really thinks and believes.

And, of course, we should vote in November.

Yes, Jane Fonda, Sierra Club, Greenpeace and Michael Williams. All oxymoronic appointments, only one is real. Please help us save public education from the oxy and other morons.

First Day of School

It is the eve of the first day of school in Texas, I go to bed early, and then I awake thinking that the Republican Convention is postponed tomorrow due to Isaac, but many of that state’s surrounding public schools are open. I think that is telling. I think that is symbolic. The Republican Party is delayed a day, their platform is delayed by a century, and the schools go on.

So, let this be the first day of school, the first day of learning. Thunder is caused by lightning which super heats air. As the air contracts it creates a partial vacuum filled with expanding air that creates a resonant crack or a rumble. It is not caused by anybody up there bowling. Got it? Perhaps not. The point is that we have advanced our knowledge through all the sciences (and I include sociology, psychology, archeology, etc.) to the extent that we really, really know a lot. Each day I am amazed that people hold ideas that are not grounded in truth, not grounded in knowledge, not grounded in fact. One of the truly remarkable attributes of our species of life is to believe something so strongly that reality has no chance. The only chance reality has is an education. So, let’s go to school tomorrow and hope everyone on the Gulf Coast escapes the storm unharmed.

We might learn that life on this 4.5 billion year old planet emerged about 3 billion years ago in single cell simple forms and gradually escalated and grew more sophisticated, (yes, Victoria, I’m talking evolution,) to become one of several species of humans about 2.5 million years ago. By about 500,000 years ago we were down to only a couple of species of humans, and 200,000 years ago those species apparently merged to become modern humans. The earth is not 6,000 years old. Humans did not spring overnight from dust in the hands of a supernatural being. We emerged and evolved.

There are a host of human holy books including the Torah, the Bible, the Qur’an, the Tipitaka, the Rig Veda, and the Kojiki. None of these books were written by deities. They were all written by human hands. Our knowledge has exploded since each of these books were written, though there are those who continue to believe in literal statements in each one of them rather than learning the true tenants of the belief. The central message in each is believe in the supernatural, love your neighbor, forgive your neighbor, and go forth and do good works.

Where were we? Oh yes, what we know vs. believe. We know trickle down economics, supply side economics, has never worked. Never.  It did not work for Reagan, or either Bush both of whom incurred massive debt.  We have seen what Europe has gone through with its austerity budgets.  That did not work either.  Supply side/trickle down/balanced budgets are Medieval, proposed by lords who want peasants to fend for themselves.  It is proposed by people who have something to trickle down and do not want to. They missed the point of all the books listed above. We know that the grand story of humanity is the spread of liberal thinking vs. the defensiveness of those who would conserve things as they are now or were in the past. Forever, governments were formed based on birth right, a truly scary notion, or by the physical defeat of one king at the hands of a stronger king, an even scarier notion. Then somewhere around the mid 1700’s some philosophers who were so out in left field in their day they were persecuted, proposed that perhaps the government could be of the people, by the people, for the people. These were extreme left-wingers! They had to fight to have their chance to set up such a government. They won. Welcome to America, home of liberal thought on planet earth.

We have always been a nation of immigrants. The people we call Native Americans immigrated here. The founding fathers immigrated here. Welcome to the land of immigrants.

We have been struggling for 200 years to expand the notion of civil liberties, that is the rights of all humans, not just a select few. At first, it only belonged to white male property owners. Lincoln, a Republican, gave rights to Black Americans to be declared people not property, and black males got to vote in the USA before white women. Finally in the early 1900’s women were given the right to vote. There are groups who would prefer to return to some day where people are declared illegal immigrants so they cannot vote, sorta like Native Americans and our Founding Fathers who entered the country without documentation. I know a few husbands who would prefer their wives not vote and are scared to death their daughters will. I know men who believe women should not have decision making authority over their own reproductive systems because they find a line in one of the holy books mentioned above that seems to make conception a miracle. Sexual reproduction on this planet existed millions of years before humans appeared. Process is pretty simple if you ask any kid in FFA. The female bears the young. If, in fact, there is a deity that created all the life on this planet then surely we should refer to the deity as feminine, so as not to insult Her Holiness.

It is also very interesting to me that those who learned great truths (Galileo, Newton, etc.) were punished, and persecuted by those who were belief-based. That trend continues today.

So, simple truths: learn economics, learn biology, learn anthropology, learn chemistry, learn math, learn astronomy, and absolutely learn the language to learn those areas listed above, and you will become educated. You will have great potential based on knowledge, not belief.

Wonder why on the first day of school there is a political party hell bent on keeping the masses from learning truth in the public schools, would like to see it dismantled, would like to see it face less funding, would like to see it become an institution of faith based learning, would like to shift funds from public schools to private and/or competitive schools. Wonder why?

God bless all the children going to school tomorrow to learn the truth.

Amen.

The American Idol Model of Professional Evaluation

Have you ever wanted to evaluate teachers or principals or superintendents? Want to know what it takes to do so? Here’s what you need to qualify by state law in Texas.

To evaluate a teacher, you must first be one. That means completing a college degree. To become an elementary teacher you will major in elementary education. To become a secondary teacher you will have to major in a teachable subject like math, history, biology or the like. After you complete your subject area major you must take education courses and complete student teaching. It takes almost a full year longer to become an elementary or secondary teacher than it does any other major. Once you have finished college you must pass two state competency standardized tests to become certified to teach. Once you are certified to teach you get a job. (I have ranted before on the idiocy of the state requirements to become a teacher, and shall not vent on that topic again here. Might want to check an earlier post entitled “Certification”)

After you have taught for five years you can get a masters degree in either administration or supervision. (Some folks work on this while they are in their first few years of teaching, but those are very demanding years, so many wait until much later. I waited 10 years.) While you are at it, you must also get another certificate as an administrator. So yes, a master’s degree in education requires more course work than other masters. Once you complete your masters you must pass another state competency standardized test to become certified to be an administrator. Once you have done that, you must take training in the state process of evaluating teachers and pass the test at the end, and you must take training in instructional leadership and pass the test at the end. At that point, you are certified and trained to evaluate teachers. And only then. Most administrators will tell you that even once you have your master’s degree and are trained and certified it takes several years of actually doing teacher evaluations to get good at it.

OK, so to evaluate teachers legally in Texas you must be degreed and certified to teach, must have taught, must get a masters degree, must become certified to be an administrator and must get training in teacher evaluation and instructional leadership. The qualifications, education, time and money invested in higher education and educational training to legally evaluate teachers is pretty steep. Bill Gates is not qualified. Nor is the legislature (who made these rules in the first place), nor are governors, nor are parents, mayors, good ole boys, or school board members. But once you have all those credentials and have a job and have several years experience working with teachers on a daily basis, you are qualified and can legally say this teacher is a keeper and this teacher is not.

Evaluating teachers is tough work. Some teachers teach disabled kids for whom learning how to use a spoon or go the bathroom is a major accomplishment. Some teachers teach poor kids who come from a home environment that is actually hostile to learning. Some teachers teach the really bright kids of Tiger Moms or Bear Moms and compete to get great grades. Almost all teachers show up and do the best job they can each day. They take roll, enforce dress codes, do duties, stand in the hallway, write lesson plans, master Xerox machines, iPads, grading software, attendance software, and interact with a 100 kids or more each day and are expected to teach. Teachers are held accountable for all those things. No untrained person could. No untrained person can evaluate them. Surely, there is no way to use a questionable standardized test score administered once a year to measure them. That’s like applying the mortality rate to oncologists and plastic surgeons. And surely, no lay person can assess them.

Want to evaluate administrators? First, you have to do all the above to get to the point you can evaluate teachers. Then it is back to school to get post masters hours. Then you must pass another state test to get a superintendent's certificate. Then you must get trained in one of several administrator assessment models. I am trained in three and am certified to be a trainer for all three. I have done all the above and am certified to evaluate teachers and administrators. Thank God I'm retired!  If you have not done all this, it is illegal for you evaluate administrators.

Administrators not only run herd on kids, they run herd on teachers and paraprofessionals. They are responsible for custodians and cafeterias and budgets and accountability and PTO and keeping the supe happy and out of the frying pan. They are responsible for so much more than just the instruction in their buildings and none of them would ever want to protect an incompetent teacher. It is just not worth it given all the damage that can be done. They will also go to the wall for teachers to protect them from some lay person's perceived malfeasance. That’s what good administrators do, support teaching.

Don’t get me started on superintendents. They are all crazy. The worst of them are manipulative, ambitious, political animals more prone to pander to American Idol than good instruction. The best of them are grounded in ethics, kids, teaching and support. Funny that we allow only school boards to evaluate these folks and those board members are really not required to have much training at all. Many board members have no education beyond high school.  School boards cannot legally evaluate teachers or administrators, but are legally required to evaluate superintendents. Hence the frequent clash between boards and supes, and hence the annual average tenure rate of 2.5 years for superintendents in Texas

I recognize that teachers and administrators are evaluated all over town in coffee shops, barber shops, church and back yards. I also know that the kind of perception held by parents and others is always defensive for their loved ones enrolled in school. I have always found it amazing that many of the teachers with the highest expectations and highest standards for their kids are the ones least popular with the public. Sometimes the teachers kids like the most are teaching the least. Sometimes it is the other way around. Teaching is a venture in changing the future and one never really knows how powerful a teacher is for years yet to come. (I am still getting emails from kids I taught 30 years ago thanking me for the influence in their lives. Geeze, I thought they hated my class.)

Teaching and administrating are professions practiced by professionals and evaluated by professionals. If you do not have the credentials you are not qualified to judge. We should never approve contracts or move teachers or administrators around based on the phone calls from the lay public or a school board perception. If you are not a pro, get out of the business of passing judgment or evaluating teachers or administrators. This is public education delivered and evaluated by pros.

This is not American Idol.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

I miss you, Fred. Educator, Presbyterian minister, song-writer, producer and easy-going, temperate sweater-wearer, you constructed a calm, thoughtful sanctuary each day safe for kids, safe for me. I loved your neighborhood where everyone was welcome, everyone was safe, everyone was accepted, everyone learned. Yes, you were boring. And yes, it always kind of bothered me that you began each show with a slow mini-strip tease using a hanger as a prop and supported by your own music, then headed into, not out of, the closet. But that’s just me and I see things from a perspective not oft shared and perhaps warped. Keep your sweater on and I will be your neighbor.

And that’s not right! How dare I establish pre-requisites for neighbors? Do I really do that? Perhaps. Am I the Good Samaritan, or do I pick and choose whom I shall claim as neighbor, as friend. Should it not be that I approach each person as my neighbor regardless of their wardrobe or body art or hair style or skin pigmentation or country of origin? If I have contact with you, I shall call you neighbor. If you have need, I shall provide succor.

Yes, I wrestle with the large, the big picture, the last page of Zoom. Why is there air and why does ice float? And in doing so I may miss small opportunities to care for those close, those small, those in need. I have a neighbor who lives nowhere near me who taught me that. I am particularly bad about that when I am in need, when I hurt, when I feel waylaid on the side of the road.

I want to be more like Fred. I want to promote the success of all I know, help them grow, do better, succeed, and heal them when they hurt. I want to do that even if they strike out at me, disagree with me, leave me. I want to be a better person. I want to be a good neighbor.

It is, once again, Father’s Day weekend and I miss my Dad. He was a good neighbor to all. I am a sentimental old gal and shall try to do better in that department. Thanks, Dad. Thanks, Fred.

I will be your neighbor. Won’t you be my neighbor? I’ll keep my sweater on.

How to Destroy Public Schools

I love public schools and deeply believe they are the basis of a continual functioning democracy. If we are unable to educate every child in this nation we should simply abandon democracy and turn the country over to the plutocrats, forsake all notions of equity and equality, and simply announce that by birthright or luck if you end up making more than say $300,000 per year you get to rule. The rest of us are ignorant peasants. (Though I wonder if the plutocrats have really thought through what life would be like without a quality workforce, open economy and functioning middle class around them, but that is fodder for future posts.) It is not our army or navy that keep us free, it is our knowledge, our wisdom, and our equity that keep us free. If we were uneducated, we would not go to war unless we were attacked, and even then we would lose to more advanced technologies because we were uneducated. To put it simply, if you want to be a red-blooded American patriot then know that the roots of a sustainable democracy lie deep in the halls and classrooms of public education.


Hence, plotting to undermine, destroy, hamper or diminish our public school system should be, in my not so humble opinion, treated as tantamount to terrorist plotting. Given that assumption, I find myself surrounded by terrorists and I am not quite sure what to do about it. Many of these terrorists are held in high esteem by their fellow citizens: Rhee, Duncan, Perry, Gates, Koch, Broad, entire state legislatures, etc. Do not be fooled by their public stature. They seek to undermine American public education. These cells are interconnected and are now operating out in the open. Worse, they are winning a war of attrition. Their tactics vary, but they share one common goal. If you want to destroy public education it must be subtly attacked from the inside, not the outside, and the attack must be focused on one of the core features of a public school. Safety. Freedom from fear. Security.

Unless they have absolutely no means, parents will not send their children to a school they perceive to be dangerous. We can debate the merits of the accountability metrics all day and whether the results mean anything in terms of learning or not, but a parent will first and foremost demand that their child feel safe at school. The anti-bullying outcry in this country has touched that nerve. We will not tolerate bullies in our schools. We will not tolerate weapons in our schools. We will not tolerate drugs in our schools. We will not tolerate gang-related activities in our schools. We first and foremost must keep our children safe. Once safe, they can learn. When a tornado threatens, or a jet flies into a building in New York City, parents rush to the school during the day to get their kids to keep them safe. When the standardized test scores come out, no such emergency-like withdrawal by parents occurs. “Oh my! My child failed to achieve mastery on the state math test! I need to leave work and head to school to make sure he is OK.” Not gonna happen.

OK, so if I want to destroy public schools, undermine them, shake loose their supporters and diminish the financial support, how can I strike fear in the very institutions designed first and foremost to be safe? I cannot threaten children. That most likely will reveal my true motives and somehow cast me as an evil person, a Scrooge, a terrorist, a monster. I cannot afford that role. What I can do is structure the political environment so that the adults in the school, the very ones who are charged with providing a safe and secure place for children, do not feel safe and secure themselves. I can scare the bejezuz out of teachers, principals and superintendents. I can bully them! If the adults are scared, they will be severely handicapped when tasked with providing a nurturing, caring learning environment for kids. In fact, the adult fear may be contagious. We can scare kids out of school and scare their parents out of supporting the school by scaring the employees of the school! So cool! And, we can do it under the guise of seeking to improve the school. More measures, more high stakes tests, more adult employment tied to high stakes tests. Oh wait, this is way too good. We can claim to help the school while sowing the seeds of its demise! What a plot! What a plan! We shall succeed!

And these evil doers are succeeding. They are converting one of our most sacred institutions into high stress, high fear, high pressure zones. A third grade classroom on state standardized test day feels the same as the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, just much quieter.

Teachers are stressed and scared. Principals are stressed and scared. Superintendents have always been stressed and scared, but now they are close to psychotic. Some have even gone over to the dark side and joined a terrorist cell themselves, clear evidence the terrorists are slowly winning. The metrics we use to judge schools and judge teachers advocated by those who would undo public schools have created one of the scariest places on earth: a building wherein 10 year-olds determine the fate of professional adults using #2 pencils and bubble sheets.

I’m old. I have led a full life. I loved my years in public education, devoted to children, keeping them safe, teaching them what they need to know. The current generation of educators does not know what such a profession feels like. They do not know what it means to drive to work, not even thinking about job security  or test scores, but thinking about their kids and how to help and what to plan and what to do. When you are frightened and stressed, to whom do you turn? Someone calm, wise, secure and caring. Children now can find few of these attributes in the adults around them at school. We are driving such people out of public schools and we must, we absolutely must, stop.

Want a safe school? Keep the adults therein safe from political bullying.

Govern Ants

A hot, humid morning and I slowly traverse the damp space between back door and garden, still in robe and slippers, coffee cup in hand, to check my tomatoes. Ah, there is one, low on the vine, just turning. If I pluck it quickly the mocking birds will not get it. I set my cup down, stoop, one hand on mulch one reaching in for the ripe fruit, when a sudden stinging draws a gasp and jerk. My support hand is covered in fire ants, biting, stinging, swarming. I frantically swipe the fierce little insects off my hand, but not without multiple wounds, now on both hands. I retreat. The birds may have this tomato and I will add something stronger to my coffee to relieve the pain.


I have a good friend who is a superintendent. He has had a rough spring and may be on the verge of hanging it up for good. The issue for him, as it almost always is with others of his position, is governance. When practicing superintendents are asked why they are leaving a school system for another or finally retiring, they typically say it is governance issues. Read that as the supe’s relationship with the board of trustees. My friend is being swarmed by govern ants.

Via a complicated mix of variables kids go to school dragging their family background, culture, abilities, gifts, interests, expectations and values with them to sit at the feet of degreed certified teachers who drag their family background, culture, abilities, gifts, interests, expectations, values and training with them, who work in a building governed by a principal who drags his or her family background, culture, abilities, gifts, interests, expectations, values, training and experience with them while they report to a superintendent who drags his or her family background, culture, abilities, gifts, interests, expectations, values, training and experience with them, who reports to an elected school board who drag their families’ backgrounds, cultures, abilities, gifts, interests, expectations, perceptions and values with them all for the purpose of educating the kids who showed up in the first line of this long sentence. This all happens in a context of politics and funding and mandates and local priorities and perceptions. Amazing anything gets done in this highly complex human environment!

If it were possible to send a memo telling everyone to do better and be successful then we would be done. That does not work with humans. It works with computers and robots, but not with humans. Humans must be cajoled, convinced, lobbied, trained, informed and believe in the possibility of something better before they jump into a change. Change is scary, and change is seen as unreasonable if one feels successful already, or has a great excuse grounded in some external factor for current failure. Sometimes local boards want change and are frustrated that it does not happen quickly enough. Sometimes local boards want the status quo and are frustrated that change is inevitable. Regardless, boards can get frustrated. They really only have one person to receive the focus of their frustration – the supe.

School boards are really interesting governing bodies. The only requirement to run for the Board is to be a registered voter and live in the district. These are elected officials who oversee a highly complex operation that in Texas alone costs billions of dollars, employ hundreds of thousands of degreed, licensed professionals, and serve millions of children. The mandates from state and federal legislative bodies are highly complex. The curriculum is highly evolved. The assessments are highly challenging. The financial and educational accountability is so vast that few understand all the complexities. Running a public school requires knowledge and expertise of such scope and breadth that few master all of the nuances. Add to that the attributes of a highly complex human institution described in the third paragraph above and it is apparent that leading a school system is very demanding. School board members enter office with no background, no training, and no experience in any of the facets of public education. They are not required to have a college degree and most do not. They are not required to have studied the parameters and variables of professional practice prior to approving contracts. They are not required to have mastered the school finance system prior to approving the budget and setting the tax rate. They are not required to understand the sociological and psychological leadership dynamics in motivating a labor intensive group of professionals to change their behavior. There are few quantitative measures to judge the quality of the performance of school systems despite decades of legislative attempts to create such metrics. The event horizon for successful schooling is decades away, not months when the scantron sheet results arrive. Board members are good people, arriving on the job to serve their communities and possibly to accomplish some personal agenda relative to an individual employee or program. But, they are people, both precious and flawed, and they are not educators, not professional, and they swarm over superintendents as though they know more about schools than the hired CEO. The governance issue is one of govern ants, and it is the supe that gets stung.

This is much more common in small systems. Texas has over 1,000 school systems, but the median sized district is just under 900 kids. That means most school systems in Texas are small. In small towns everyone knows school board members and school board members know everyone. This dynamic alone is like bait for govern ants. A father mad at the football coach does not talk to the football coach; he talks to his childhood friend the school board member. A mother mad that she cannot take a cupcake to her elementary daughter’s classroom during the day does not talk to the principal; she talks to her neighbor, the school board member. A set of parents exasperated and embarrassed that they cannot help their 6th grader with math homework does not talk to the teacher or the principal; they call a school board member. Board members form opinions regarding staff and programs from informal feedback that occurs outside the professional evaluation loop. Sometimes, the professionals are ignorant of the opinions being formed, sometimes not. Once formed, however, it is almost impossible to change.

(This informal, unprofessional evaluation system also happens in larger systems, but usually as the result of some negative media coverage. Let an employee do something stupid and it will be on the 6:00 news and everyone wants to know what the school system is going to do about it. Again, that falls typically on the supe. I find it interesting, however, that boards in large systems do not intervene in personnel nearly to the degree they do in small systems. Most large systems have delegated personnel decisions to the supe and remain out of it. If a system has 70,000 kids and 9,000 teachers, the 7 member board is not likely involved in individual professional evaluations and surely does not know all the teachers. In a system with1400 kids and 120 teachers with a board the same size as the large system, all 7 members of the board are likely to know the teachers. They know the principals even better.)

So let us say that a highly successful teacher is perceived by the board as incompetent. That perception is formed by informal parental complaints fed to board members by parents of the students in the class. The teacher is too hard. She expects too much. She cannot explain the material as is evidenced by the fact that the child does not understand. Her sense of rigor, standards, expectations are too high and she has the gall to award grades of less than an “A” to students of parents of stature. Board members hear this over and over, but do not share it with the supe nor encourage the parent to meet with the teacher. Rather, the board members assure the parents they will take care of the problem; after all, they are a member of the board. The supe and principal and teacher, however, continue to celebrate and support the outcomes achieved in the classroom. Clearly this teacher is outstanding. Not just from standardized test results, but by the level of work, the level of success, and the ongoing measures of continual student progress all indicate students in her class are learning and learning very well. This teacher is perceived as a leader, a star, by many parents, peers and students. When graduates are asked who best prepared them for a post high school future, this teacher is consistently named. She is a keeper, and the principal and supe know if their own children were in the building this is the teacher they would want.

The principal recommends to the supe who recommends to the board that this teacher’s contract should be renewed and extended. The board votes no. Chaos ensues. The chaos is a governance issue. Who should evaluate professional staff? Who should decide who continues in employment or not? Who manages the districts personnel? These are governance issues. And they are intense in small towns. Sometimes this intensity is generated over a teacher, sometimes over a principal, sometimes over a coach. Regardless, when a board and a supe are on different pages and hold different attitudes regarding personnel the system wobbles. Principals need to know that not only will the supe back them, but that the supe will have the backing of the board. Teachers need to know that not only will the principal back them, but that the supe will back the principal. When there is evidence that this is not the case, folks tremble and begin to evacuate.  The evacuation can begin to resemble a tsunami.

The evacuation can start for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is the parent loop regarding staff. Sometimes it is the staff loop regarding administrators. Sometimes it is parents and staff regarding a coach. Regardless, when the feedback loop does not follow prescribed legal channels and the response is not a professional response, chaos ensues and evacuation happens.

When the evacuation begins, typically the board will turn to the supe to stop the flow of staff out of the district. Via an amazing set of cognitive dissonance, the board holds the supe accountable for staff while being willing to overrule the supe on staff, and then blame the supe for the consequences of doing so. Go figure.

Ultimately, the supe will leave as part of the evacuation. Having been swarmed by the govern ants he or she will be stung so deeply survival is not possible. Ultimately the board will be blamed and citizens will elect another board to stabilize the district via a new supe who hires new principals who hire new teachers. Each school system appears obligated to go through this confirmation of chaos theory every so many years – districts that are stable will move to chaos, districts that are in chaos will move to stability. The new board will be determined to support the new supe and will follow his or her recommendations because it is in the board’s best interest to make the new supe successful and stabilize the system. Once that board rotates off, an incoming board will want to flex their political power and hold the new supe more accountable and a new ant hill is formed full of govern ants with issues.

How do we stop the govern ants from swarming the system? There are policies and procedures in place that could or should stop it, but they tend not to be followed. Such policies say that only the supe can oversee professional evaluations and only the supe can make contractual recommendations to the board. There are policies that say when board members receive complaints they are to refer the complainant to the appropriate administrator and notify the supe. There are policies that require the supe and the board to annually work together as a Team of 8 to ensure that they are following the above. In systems moving from stability to chaos these are not followed.

There are some other remedies I think we should consider. If you want to seek election as a judge you better be an attorney. If you want to serve on a board that oversees the management of a system designed by law to create college-ready students, you should have a college degree. If you want to hold office as a judge, you are required to recuse yourself if someone you know or do business with shows up in your court to avoid conflict of interest. If you want to serve as a board member, you should recuse yourself on any issues that impact your own children or family members in the system. A board member with a son in athletics should be recused from all decisions relative to athletics. Seems reasonable to me, but in fact it is the opposite that happens. Folks get on the board because they have kids in the systems, programs they want to influence and employees they want to get rid of. It is the opposite of objectivity and clearly a conflict of interest, but it is local school politics. Other remedies could include placing all personnel decisions, (hiring, firing, contractual), in the hands of the supe and requiring the board to simply evaluate the supe and his or her ability to move the system toward board approved goals.

The above could help, but it is not likely to happen. Other remedies get kicked around like appointed boards, which makes little sense to me considering the question of who would appoint the boards. The system will be even more politicized. Perhaps the superintendent should be elected. Makes less sense to me than appointing boards as the possible conflict between boards and supes will escalate and the system will be even more politicized. Perhaps supes should be appointed by an outside agency. Maybe we should move from the Baptist model of hiring superintendents where each system hires their own, to the Methodist model where an educational bishop, i.e. commissioner, assigns a supe to serve a district. I kind of like that idea, but given how political it has become at the state level that carries worries of its own as well.

Regardless, in an age of high stakes accountability a supe must be even more professionally prepared than ever. In this same context where decision making at the local level has been removed to the state and federal level, boards have little to do except drift into the professional decision making arena. School systems are not designed to be efficient or effective while being held accountable to be both.

Schools are intensively human endeavors. Humans take their children and their tax dollars very seriously so there will always be passion around schools. Who will lead the system and make the decisions will always be a source of strife. In the best of scenarios, it will be open and collaborative, a lay board listening to a professional supe and a professional supe remaining attuned to the perceptions of the lay board. When that open and honest communication fails, chaos ensues, the earth moves, a tsunami arises and folks evacuate. After the wave, the first to return will be insects.

Govern ants.

The birds can have my tomatoes. At least until I find a way to eliminate the ants and not destroy the fruit of my garden.

Primates

Primary season is open in Texas and the primates are clearly out and about. The rhetoric is historic, simplified, polarized. Though I have seen and heard some campaigns that capture the larger picture, most appear to me to be focused on sloganized and polarized philosophical sound bites that imply a philosophical stance toward our government. Adoption of a snap shot implies adherence to the larger picture, and I fear we are losing the ability to grasp the 3-D IMAX surround sound version of governmental philosophy after being bombarded by I-reporter-like cell phone photos.


My father died in September in the year after I graduated from college. I attended college via a combination of scholarships, loans and the income from part-time jobs whilst a full-time student. I graduated with student loan debt, paid off over 10 years. My youngest brother had just entered college when Dad died. His education was supported by Social Security, and his medical school costs were supported by Social Security. Now, an affluent MD he votes in ways that would shrink Social Security benefits while protecting his income. He does not like Medicare or Medicaid because of the paperwork and the reduced possible income from paying customers with private insurance. He is opposed to the Affordable Health Care Act because it might limit his income. He argues with me via email while he travels to China, Russia, Europe and the Caribbean on self-funded vacations while contractors renovate and improve his home. He is where he is now because tax payers supported programs from which he benefited and later became wealthy. There is something self-serving and cognitively dissonant with his position and he cannot see it.

Local business men and representatives of larger corporations bemoan the tax dollars they spend on schools, roads, hospitals, police and fire protection. And yet, each of these enterprises not only demand these services, they are incapable of functioning without a skilled workforce, roads to deliver their product, and the support of a clean source of water and efficient sewer system. They produce effectively and efficiently now because tax payers support programs and services from which they benefit and make profit. There is something self-serving and cognitively dissonant with their position and they cannot see it.

I am a trustee at our local protestant church, elected by my fellow church members. We struggle to maintain and improve our facilities to offer the services and support we offer to both members and non-members. We must watch every penny; we must prioritize what we do as there is never enough to do it all. I serve my church because I am a member and a believer. I am neither Muslim nor atheist. My mission is not to dismantle the church and reduce tithing. I do not feel I could serve in this role if that were my mission. I struggle deeply with the primates who run for office on a platform of dismantling the institution they seek to lead. I am more deeply bothered by the numbers of my fellow Americans who apparently subscribe to an anti-American government philosophy of government. I see it as self-serving and cognitively dissonant but they cannot see it.

I love our country. I am a patriot. I am proud. I tear up at the playing of the national anthem and at Veterans Day programs and when the Wounded Warriors come through town. I rare up when I hear a fellow American attack our government, demand that it be dismantled, demand that we spend less to provide the services from which we all benefit, and blame those who disagree with them for the current economic debt. And yet, I celebrate a nation where we can all express the thoughts we believe without consequence. I simply wish more of us were not so self-serving and cognitively dissonant. We need thoughtful folks running this country and this state. We do not need primates.

Mother's Day

Have you seen the cover of the new Time Magazine? (May 21, 2012.) I find it disturbing, but I am of a different generation: children were to be seen not heard, waited for their parents to sit at the table, couples had children to help the family in the fields and kitchens, children learned to be autonomous, independent adults by learning from the hard knocks of life in an environment where they knew they were loved, but knew they lived their own lives. Those sentiments appear to be gone. Today’s moms and dads place the child at the center of their universe and work hard to ensure that their child never experiences pain, disappointment, rejection, angst or unrequited desire. Dr. Spock would say turn from the cry, Dr. Sears would say rush to the cry. I’m a Spock mom.


(Grandparents are worse. How many screen savers have you seen with scrolling pics of second generation infants, toddlers, youngsters? Really? I turn on my computer for functionality, for purpose, for communication, for information. It is a tool. I am as likely to scroll a picture of grandchildren on my screen as I am to laminate the same on my hammer. The same is true of my cell phone. I will call multiple generations, but not have their pictures staring at me from the screen.)

I’ve postured before on the difference between Tiger Moms and Bear Moms, and this is another verse in the same song. I am not talking to the teenage moms whose children are born out of wedlock, or to the welfare moms who lack the skill and education to raise their own kids, or to the number of unwanted children in adoption homes and on church steps. I am talking to all of you who have kids and the means to provide for them.

If your child is the center of your life you should not celebrate Mother’s Day. First, your children will not understand why they should honor you if you spend all your time honoring them. If you have sacrificed your life so that they will be happy, they will not get it that they should give you anything for the choice you made. Secondly, in the midst of celebrating Mother’s Day they will likely whine and complain as they have learned to be the center of your universe (and via the transitive property do not understand when they are not the center of everyone’s), and are dumbfounded when the focus shifts. If you are that kind of mom, you will succumb, as you always have, to the whine and attend to their needs re-ordering their universe as they have come to expect. If every day is children’s day then mother’s day has no meaning. If you had children because you need to be unconditionally loved by someone, I suggest that looking to any mortal, much less young, small dependent ones, is a mistake. The real aim of parenting is to help small dependent humans become large, strong independent and interdependent adults with an iron core of values that will not melt in times of economic need or worldly temptation.

The grand secret, of course, is that no matter what your children do, you will love them; and no matter what you do, they will love you. The second not so grand secret is that your children are and will be a direct reflection of the kind of person you are. Know what you believe in and stand for and teach that to your kids. Be a parent. Don’t be subtle. Say “no” and mean it.

As my daughter pulls out of the driveway and waves, tugging at my heart and filling me with the pride and joy of knowing I have raised independent, caring adults who know how to think for themselves, know what they stand for, contribute to our society and who care deeply for others, I can celebrate Mother’s Day knowing my early work is done. Hope you feel the same. Then we can honestly say Happy Mother’s Day to me and to you. We earned it.

Working Women

OK, so I’m an old lady, but I am still a lady. And, I lean left of center. Guess you know that. So the hurrah today about women and working and the response leaves me a little confused. A Democratic strategist said Ann Romney has not worked a day in her life and everybody blew up.  Of course in my day, a working gal carried a totally different connotation.  But perhaps you can help me with the confusion I am experiencing today.

True, being a mom and a homemaker is a challenge; it is hard work, etc., etc. But it is not “working” in that you do not report somewhere to some boss to do things you are told to do and get paid for it. Much of my time as a mom was out of my control too, dirty diapers, hungry kids, dirty clothes, etc., but no one was standing there telling me what to do. If you work in the daycare industry, you know what work is and you know what being a mom is. So, to tell Ms. Romney she has not worked a day in her life is not quite accurate. She may never have been on a payroll a day in her life. That is different. But come on ladies; let’s not get huffy about that. Being a mom is hard work. Being a working mom is even harder work. Never having been on a payroll before means you have never worked for a living before. Period.

There is a term for people who are not employed and yet have the money to eat, pay rent, or whatever. It is called welfare recipients. Welfare means you are living off the earnings of someone else. I do not have a problem with welfare. I would rather people receive some of my tax dollars than starve. But, I also think of Ms. Romney as a welfare mom. She did not earn the money she spends. So that is my first area of real confusion: why does she oppose welfare when she receives it?

My second concern is the obvious one everyone is talking about: why would you take advice on our economy and unemployment from someone who has neither studied nor experienced it? Spooky. That would be like NASA asking me for advice just because I take up space.

My real source of confusion is the conservative stand on women. Perhaps better said, why would you be a conservative and a woman? If you are a conservative woman you can still decide not to have an abortion, you can still decide to marry a rich man and become a welfare mom; you can still decide to be employed for less money than a male counterpart. No one is interfering with your right to make stupid decisions. On the other hand, if you are working hard to be sure that no woman gets to make her own decisions in the area of birth control, unwanted pregnancies, fair employment opportunities, and fair leadership opportunities, why aren’t you embarrassed to not allow your sisters the same rights of choice that you have? I don’t get it, unless you are independently wealthy and you do not want to pay any taxes.

I also do not get this “I am a conservative and I do not want government telling me what do, unless it is the government telling women what to do or not do.” Really? Please explain that to me!

Is it that as a conservative woman you do not think for yourself and some man told you to think this way? Is it that you are a Romney welfare mom and the price of living off someone else is to think like they tell you? If so, sister, call me quick! I get that some men do not want women to have equal rights, but that is their shortcoming and their insecurity and it should not be contagious and it should not be legislated.

Women have some different biology than men, we have some different organs than men. We are more alike than we are different, even though I celebrate the differences! The brain, however, is a common organ in both genders. I pray that women learn to use theirs.

OK, I pray men learn to use their brains too.  I probably pray for that more often.