Education Grrrrl

...a teacher on the edge....

[education-grrrrl-blog]

Stunned and speechless....

....and what if a teacher gets exactly what she wants? I have an opportunity to go to a little private school, where the students run to class and don't ever want to leave. A true passionate calling, because it's more of a community than a school. And I would dedicate myself to this new school, forever turning my back of public education? But somehow, there's a big hole inside me.....the hole that was filled with anger and a constant yearning for social justice, for people to step up and do the right thing. And now, if I take this other job, I'd be in a peaceful enclave, just influencing the lives of fewer, but more dedicated students---away from the front lines? Would I be able to turn off the noise from the education battles being waged around me? And just be happy in my own little DMZ? It's just what I've always wanted....to be able to teach and expend all my energies on being better and better as an educator---but I've had my defenses up so long---I don't even know how to proceed if I take this job. Would I have to tune out all my teacher friends and tell them I could no longer listen to their complaints? Would I move on to other friends? This could be a life changer. But I still don't know what to do....just call me "stunned and speechless"....for once.

[education-grrrrl-blog]

Depressed and reconsidering...

First of all, my partner in life, threw out my weird apple "experiment", bags of apple slices that refused to turn brown no matter how long I kept them. I was hoping they would rival Twinkies, although they tasted so bad from the beginning---I truly don't know how anyone could stand to eat them. Second of all, it's test season. As I stand in testing rooms and stare at the window, I wish I could run away. And I'll never get the top students, I'll always have the challenging ones and that could end my job here at any time, if the Standardized Test gods don't smile on me. And the dreariness of it all. Kids with infected piercings on their faces. Boys with their pants on the ground with their boy parts all hanging out. Kids texting all during class. Girls making out with each other to a hallway audience (think "Girls Gone Wild" the live version). And in those movies with the turnaround teacher who energizes the poor kids, there's never any "scratch and sniff" since some of these kids are homeless. They can't help it that they smell bad, but they do. And the kids that reek of pot, not only is it hopeless to teach them, but I don't like that smell much either. As I stare out the window in the ongoing soul-deadening testing rooms, I long for a nice clean work place, with people who discuss interesting things (not Tyler Perry's latest movie) and no one has pus oozing out of their face. I'm just depressed....and it makes me want to run away.

[education-grrrrl-blog]

Shotgun wedding

Through all the discussion of gay marriage and marriage equality....the idea that love rules keeps popping up. But according to Stephanie Coontz, that's not the way it always was. More about property and power v. actual love. And that's how I think we're going to look back at this crazy time in American education, as a shotgun wedding. You know, the kind where the bride is pregnant and the father takes a weapon to intimidate the groom into marriage? The kind of marriage that made up fodder for Henny Youngman and a ton of Borscht Belt comics ("Take my wife....please!") And the wives wound up with names like "Ball and Chain" as if marriage were a prison sentence and other nasty epithets. That's probably how our unwilling students feel. Instead of a volatile, unhappy marriage (with dishes flying through the air) we know have that same domestic violence in our classrooms with kids not wanting to be at school except to socialize. And the teachers get their backs pushed up against the wall, because they can see their expensive 4 year college degree being demolished by these kids (while the teachers still owe thousands of dollars in student debt.) Rick Santorum played right into this (but without the cleverness of Henny Youngman or Rodney Dangerfield) when he called college graduates "snobs" (with the attendant laughter of his audience). As President (shuddering a the thought) he would probably enable the students to do anything they liked in their classes---after all the teachers preparing them for a better life would be "snobs" and would get what is coming to them. But then again, without birth or gun control, the shotgun wedding might just make a come-back too.

[education-grrrrl-blog]

Custody fight

Feelin' that students and teachers these days are in the midst of one of the biggest custody fights ever. And no one seems to notice, because it all gets slathered over with aphorisms that have probably been manufactured by some marketing firm catering to the Billionaire Boys Club. Here in HISD, they tout "parent involvement", but that really means parents that agree with them. Especially since they can brand schools "exemplary" or "unacceptable" and have parents panic and stampede from one school to another. After all, it's far too complicated to figure out why this is a crazy concept, so they have the advantage on busy, stressed out working parents. Otherwise, HISD doesn't want to listen. Especially as HISD parentswho figure out that the HISD leadership is full of crap jet out the door for alternatives to public school. While worshipping NCLB and all the weird permutations of teacher eval, HISD super, Dr. G., would prefer to bulldoze all parents who get in his way. In fact, they would rather just be the only say-so in the students' lives, regardless of their ethnic background, religious beliefs or even basic family logistics (everyone in the family depends on that student to work and help out). Seems that if NCLB were to be completely successful, they would round up all children, place them in some kind of compound, feed them only "healthy" foods and have them recite NCLB goals endlessly until they completed their trajectory into a white collar cubicle. There doesn't seem to be any room for individual journeys, the quirkiness of life, the impossiblity of predicting the future---all for some kind of uniformity based on some Bill Gates and others who all want us to lead a "productive, healthy life". According to them. So, we have a custody fight on our hands. Let's call it what it really is.

[gritinthegap-blog]

So, in small group today,

a kid wiped his nose on his sleeve. There was a booger. We both made eye contact with that booger, and we made eye contact with each other. Rather than jump up to wipe it off, the kid looked at me, put his mouth around the booger and ate it.

I almost puked.

EDIT: The child is almost 13.

[education-grrrrl-blog]

And that NEVER gets mentioned. I have kids with face piercings that look infected and red and puffy. I can't make eye contact with them sometimes. I know if I sent them to the nurse they would go off on how I'm "criticising" them. And why, oh, why do teacher have to keep looking at boy's underwear? It's sickening and it makes for a horrible work place. I keep wondering if teachers could actually sue for improving their work place by not having to look at boy's bottoms. Overall, teaching takes a STRONG stomach.

[misseducation-blog]

Until we provide equal educational resources to students and teachers, we can’t say how well or poorly they’re performing.

YESS Preach, Mr. Johnson. I feel this way all the time.

[education-grrrrl-blog]

Finally, the payoff for all this NCLB crap....everything that was previously being swept under the rug is now in the New York TImes! Go get 'em Mr. Johnson!

[education-grrrrl-blog]

Charter schools...top ten reasons

............and our HISD school board doesn't know how irrelevant they are..... soon to be replaced by military...I mean *charter* schools as they have everything going for them...found this and it rings true... TOP 10 REASONS FOR 1%ers TO SUPPORT URBAN CHARTER SCHOOLS 1. Urban charter schools require minimal public investment in physical plants, library programs, the arts, science labs, athletics, personnel, and transportation infrastructure. 2. Urban charter schools are cheaper because they depend upon an endless stream of young beginning teachers with few benefits, no retirement payouts, and no collective bargaining. 3. Urban charter schools make it easy to segregate based on race, economics, gender, and disability. 4. Urban charter schools allow for the exclusion or dumping of problem students whose abilities, behaviors, or test performance that could damage to the charter brand. 5. Urban charter schools make it easier to hide the problems of the poor by pointing to testing success by those who survive the charter gauntlet. 6. Urban charter schools allow for the imposition of cultural and psychological control techniques in urban areas that are not subject to public scrutiny. 7. Urban charter schools put decision-making and control into the hands of unelected executives with no oversight beyond hand-picked board members. 8. Urban charter schools (not for profit CMOs) allow corporations and wealthy donors to reap huge tax benefits for their generosity to corporate charter schools. 9. Urban charter schools (for profit EMOs) expand business opportunities for the education industry & testing-industrial complex. 10. Urban charter schools make it possible to take the state tax dollars saved from the forced choice of urban charters and use that money to enrich suburban public schools without raising taxes. Posted by Jim Horn at 9:36 AM 0 comments

[education-grrrrl-blog]

Get a life, Davis Guggenheim!

Re: Daisy, in "Waiting for Superman" Yes, let's use a cute, wide-eyed Latina girl. A cute, compliant Latina girl who has 2 parents at home. Let's not show rough Latino boys with tats, because it would make Guggenheim's audience want to triple lock their doors at night. Everyday teachers have seen the very students swept away by the gangster culture that is Hot, Thrilling and Welcoming---much better than school. We have kids who tattoo their faces and do piercings all over their bodies to the point that someone adult needs to step in and say "STOP, you are NOT getting a white collar job with tats all over your face." In which case, the kid will probably say "Fuck you" and get up and leave class to go be with his "homies". And the teacher gets screwed because that kids test scores will suck and there goes her career. With all the student debt these days, Mr. Guggenheim, you're advocating that recent grads go out and throw themselves on these societal grenades? And you're not even offering sainthood? It's not your problem, you get to go on working, while these people camp out with the Occupy Movement because they're unemployed. And when the gangsters take the college-educated kids down with them, who was smarter? Obviously, the gangsters as they still have a job in the ever-losing War on Drugs here in the US. Then again, you aren't gearing your movie at telling them to "better society" because none of the gangster types have enough attention span to sit through your sucky little movie. And most of them have been kicked out of charter schools. Get a life, Davis Guggenheim.

[education-grrrrl-blog]

How do you like them Apples? Part 2 (4 months old) Specs: -Yes, they have been refrigerated -Have never had apples stay this color even if dipped in lemon juice -Maybe the Healthy Food movement wants to give our kids radioactive foods and turn them into Superheroes???

[education-grrrrl-blog]

Mike Lunceford, our Mitt!

With our Houston ISD school board, the Gang that Couldn't Think Straight, they got into a tiff over who should be the Board President. We had a bored housewise version of Sarah Palin, Anna Eastman, v. a philanderer thinner version of Newt Gingrich, Greg Myers. Of course, they went with the Mitt Romney-esque, Mike Lunceford. It's the battle of the White People. Battling over a school district that is increasing Latino. Kind of like the U.S. right now. The problem is, being on the school board is like having an expensive hobby. You can only afford to do that if you have a rich husband (Eastman) or can score side deals with local businesses (Myers). Or if you're just an established rich guy like Lunceford. The Latinos are still up and coming, so it's much harder for them to have an expensive hobby like being on a school board. But when they come to power, the White People will probably wish that they had been nicer to them. Or at least, that they spoke Spanish. Es muy importante para hablar espanol en Texas! True that.

[education-grrrrl-blog]

Stockholm syndrome, pt. 2

Time to 'fess up. I went to town on teachers who get swept up in all the sex talk/sex acts in the rooms/halls of our schools. I even touted my Holier than Them cred that I was turned off by all this, instead of falling in the Rabbit Hole and joining in. Then I went up to a good friend and said..... "What's up, my nigga?" Yep, I said it. And I'm white, Anglo, actually kinda peach-colored. And so was my friend. My friend stared at me. But my kids say it every day. Along with calling me (affectionately or sometimes not so affectionately, a "fucking bitch.") Once upon a time, I got upset at the N-word. Once upon a time, I got upset over women being called bitches. But now it's just part of my auditory landscape. I hear it everyday and I repeated it. Luckily, it was friend who heard me say it, because I might have been crucified, courtesy of Houston ISD as a racist teacher. But my kids can say it every day, and I would be laughed out of the Assistant Principal's office if I wrote them up. In addition, I would be screwed as it's testing season. And every day they're gone is one less day to cram their heads full of test trivia and just sets me up to be listed as a "bad teacher" due to their test scores. In which case, HISD will be glad to crucify me on my test scores. All in all, I fall right into hostage mode and Stockholm syndrome, here I come.

[education-grrrrl-blog]

Stockholm syndrome

Long ignored, collateral damage is occurring with the "Blame the Teacher" movement. Teachers are now hostages to their students. Our careers depend on whether they "feel" like taking a standardized test or even if they "feel" like learning. It's all up to us. As I've said in earlier blogs, this sets up an "anything goes" atmosphere, where the kids are free to say or do whatever they "feel" like. While Central Office HISD doles out how we should run our classes, they haven't been in the classroom long enough in their careers to know the real scoop. 'Cause if we let the kids to their own devices, either class work or group activities, we are likely to get the following: -A comparison of mouth shapes (as in which are best for oral sex) -A comparison of which flavor Koolaid works best as an oral sex aid -Constant patrolling the room to be sure no one is feeling up someone or even taking that opportunity for oral sex There's nothing that can be done. I had one girl that came in wearing an "I Like C*ck" sign taped to her shirt. I asked her not to do that. The next day, she wrote it in Sharpie on her face. And no one did/said anything. Here's where Stockholm syndrome comes in. We had a teacher here in Houston, HISD who was arrested for sending pornographic texts to an elected representative? This seems insane for a teacher to do, except that we are awash in a milieu where there are no boundaries, no civilized rules. And it seems like it's totally possible to lose a moral compass at that point, become part of the kidnappers, our students---part of their world, instead of making them part of ours. Except for me, it has the opposite effect. I have a terrible time with my partner and feeling romantic after hearing gross kid things all day. And I will probably be the one fired for running through a mall, losing my mind, after seeing yet another boy's underwear. I'm sick of it....and if some right wing group came through and said "NO sex talk at all, even sex ed in schools." I'd probably go along with it. I'm tired of seeing boys underwear (to the point of thinking of calling 911 and reporting indecent exposure, especially when I see the FRONT of their underwear)...I'm tired of seeing girls low cut shirts with stretch marks (already)....tired of seeing piercings everywhere, with half of them looking infected. It's to the point that I think a strong stomach is needed for teaching public school. Either that or just giving in....and the result? Stockholm syndrome.

[education-grrrrl-blog]

How do you like Them Apples?

I've just about had ENOUGH of this "healthy food" initiative. Maybe it should be called "Hell-thy Food" initiative. Here in HISD, they hand out bags of cut "apples". These not only don't taste anything like real apples, the aftertaste is enough to make anyone gag. I gave some to a non-school friend and after taking a bite (then spitting it out in the trash) she said "What is WRONG with those apples?" And I am now keeping them in my fridge. After one month, they absolutely look the same. I think they could take on Twinkies as to preserved food that looks/tastes the same years down the road. And future generations will dig all these apples up, see that they look "fresh" and feel sorry for us once they take a bite, thinking "Is this what these people had to endure for food?" Would love to see Michelle Obama serve these for Christmas Day dinner to all her guests. That might get them all to reflect on what's being inflicted on poor school children. Season's greetings, ya'll!

[education-grrrrl-blog]

AAAAAAAAAAAARRGH!!! Between a sleazy rock and poser hard place...

We have 2 people who are running for school board president: Greg Meyers, who ditched his wife and family and is helping himself to as much payola as he can handle taking from HISD's partnership with University of St. Thomas. Anna Eastman, who stood by while good veteran teachers were terrorized by Suzy Walker the Principal of Travis Elementary (full disclosure: many of those teachers are good, good friends as well as amazing educators). In addition, the financial problems at Travis Elementary have been rampant and Anna Eastman, being involved with the school had to know this. She is the Great White Hope of all upper income parents that they can send their children to HISD. She is there to be sure they all get what they want and "forget" all the low income, black and Latino kids. And it seems that she has even taken in Mike Cronin of the Texas Watchdog, who seems to be leaning her way. But Mike is new to town and doesn't remember the days of YES Prep scamming with Barbic and Kamrani and Anna E. is their BFF. Don't know which is worse, Greg Myers, the sleaze we know, or Anna Eastman, who is one of the biggest posers around. I go anyone but these two. Someone, anyone step up and save HISD's teachers!!

[education-grrrrl-blog]

Abstinence would make my heart go fonder....

*Because I wouldn't have 2 girls making out like "Girls Gone Wild" right outside my door *Because I wouldn't have to get my freshman boys to STOP watching the girls *Because the freshmen boys are soooo excited by the girl make-out that they literally can't sit down in their seats *Because I sometimes see boys sneak kisses with other boys (which makes me worry for their safety) *Because I've seen a teacher lock his door, trying to keep a couple apart, trying to prevent a teenage pregnancy by talking to the girl, while the boy circles around outside *Because eventually the teacher had to open his door, then...too late! *Because the teen make-out scenes of any kind make me go home and not feel sexy whatsoever *Because I had no idea that mouth shape was important in oral sex (as they compared shapes one day) *Because I told them to stop talking about it and they switched to talking about what flavor sugared Koolaid powder they liked for oral sex *Because we can never really talk about higher level things, they all stay at such a lower level on the Maslow hierarchy (sex and survival always on their minds) *Because I wish the looney tunes who discuss sex ed in HISD could come walk around in my shoes for a week or two *Because they allow COACHES to teach the Abstinence/Sex Ed courses; REALLY? Coaches? Many of them don't want to talk about it and would rather switch topics, plus how qualified are they to give true, important medical information *Because of all the discussion about sex ed/abstinence doesn't really matter, because if they truly cared, they would have medical professionals come in and give the real scoop

[education-grrrrl-blog]

I was going to have a life this year....

....but then the Education Waltz started. I don't know how to sit back and coast. It's always such an amazing journey inside the minds of kids. And it's like getting to observe people close up and personal every minute of the day...what makes them tick, what makes them learn. But maybe it could be considered a wrestling match for their brains--trying to wrangle something out of classes who have education as one of their lowest priorities. Kind of like having a room full of Fox News devotees. I swear anyone who manages to stay on top of the game with a room full of teens who would rather be somewhere else, could probably conquer the world, if that person wasn't completely exhausted. Maybe it should be called full throttle teaching...up and about, always moving. Never sitting still or else I lose, they win and they know it. And it's a never-ending puzzle. There's always something to figure out. And yes, yesterday, I wanted to kill myself. Today I'm enchanted with teaching again. Must be bipolar. Or just a teacher. Or I just need a hobby.

[education-grrrrl-blog]

It's that time o' year again...

When I just want to kill myself. (Not really, not like poor Rigoberto Ruelas---men just don't talk, they just do it. Poor guy, I know how he felt, wished he hadn't gone through with it). But I go through the spasms of why, why, why did I ever get involved in education? If I could Zen-out and go all meditative on myself, I might be able to appreciate the spiritual rewards of what I do. But this time of year, I get slammed in the face with all the relatives who went into corporate ladder-land, only to wind up in economic nirvana....and cruising to the end of the year with no financial worries. And it's those people who are the corporate money-shakers who think they can yank around everyone who is on down the food chain....which makes me always wonder when who's next amongst the Teacher Friends to get screwed. But it's better than a friend of mine, a sub teacher who was slammed into the pavement last year at Lanier MS by a student. Without so much as a "we're sorry" or "can we help you up?" Apparently, there is something worse than being a regular teacher....there's being a substitute teacher.