We are raising a nation of illiterates.....

This story.
I appalled by how unaware my high school students are about our own culture. They can show you how to take a selfie and post it on Snapchat, but they don't know how to formulate a basic letter. They run rampant watching all nature of things some of which are definitely beyond what someone under the age of 18 should be consuming. I have to assume parents don't care that most of these kids have all kinds of violent, provocative images on their cell phones. I have to believe that these parents are aware of the dangerous nature of online predators when they daughters post topless selfies and their sons post photos of someone's "junk." After all, for the most part parents pay for these phones, they see the overages for texting and apps, and yet I have parents who call their students while they are in class. Do these parents not know their kids are in school or is this just some weird demonstrating of parenting in the 2010's?

Using Children for Extortion

The story unfolding along the southern border of the United States is not new to those of us who live there. For years there has been a steady stream of undocumented workers who are here illegally. The popular chant is that they only come to work. That should explain the erosion of wages that are occurring under the Obama regime. Oh sure, they talk a good game about "living wages" that are unsustainable for most small businesses, but continue to ignore journeymen plumbers, electricians, machinists and carpenters that are simply priced out of the market by a surge of unchecked workers who may or may not be qualified to build your home. (As an aside, in the chichi upper class environs of McKinney TX a few years back, a custom builder was found to have used uncertified workers -most likely illegals-to wire houses. Only later when houses started having fires were the houses discovered to have been not up to code. This was hushed up with out of court settlements)

So those problems along with identity theft, spikes in uncompensated claims for emergency,fire, police, water, energy and housing have added to the economic burden of the region.

Even the most liberal among us were beginning to say enough is enough.

Then they sent children.

Americans are decent people. Unlike many other cultures we don't demand our children quit school and start working at an early age.  Most people seek to help children as witnessed by campaigns like Feed the Children, Toys for Tots and other independent programs that do not exist anywhere else in the world. Our tenderness is our Achilles heel. Cartels-which incidentally indulge in many other crimes beyond drugs such as human trafficking, smuggling, brand encroachment as well as bringing people here illegally. So someone (I'm still reserving judgement as to whether this was precipitated  to stampede Congress to make a snap decision on immigration) started and effectively spread a rumor regarding amnesty-something that our president was slow to refute. We have facilities full. If a hurricane, tornado or other disaster hits the region, Texas, Oklahoma and surrounding states will have few options for housing the survivors.

My final thoughts are these: What loving parent places their toddler in the arms of a coyote? It makes no sense. It's just too pat a story. What other criminals and even terrorists have managed to elude our grasp because the Border Patrol was changing diapers? Our softness is setting us up for failure.

Through The Cracks

A friend of mine's husband teaches fifth grade math in an urban school. He got this note last week:
"Dear Mr.-----
My step-daughter is repeating fifth grade this year. She started school in Mexico and for two years just basically had play time. Since then, she has been in eleven schools. Her mother can't help much because she doesn't speak English. I have six kids to care for so I don't have time to help. What I want to know is what you are going to do to make sure she doesn't fall through the cracks?

Signed (Concerned Step-Father)"

This kid has the deck stacked against her, but I don't see that it's the fault of the school. Her own mother hasn't bothered in at least nine years to try to learn English. She has moved her daughter to eleven different schools in three years meaning that the child has changed textbooks, teachers, classmates and procedures around every three months. The step-father is too busy, too unconcerned, too overworked to do anything,
YET
It's the problem that the schools must solve.

Does anyone else get the idea that there is something wrong with this picture?
I could speculate that this child has parents who skip out on leases and buy and drop cell phone numbers by the month. They probably rely on the schools for meals, for health referrals, for daycare, for ESL, for early childhood education and countless other costly measures that the schools have been legally mandated to provide. And for the most part, the schools will try to fulfill these goals. But every night this child will go home to the same family that sees the schools as the Big Nanny that will keep the kid busy while the parents do whatever it is that they do during the day. Bad grades won't matter. Bad test scores that can impact entire faculties, won't matter. Because all many people see when they send their kid to school is something they get for free-something other people pay for-soemthing that many other nations only provide for the wealthy.

The Movie Juno is NOT Reality.

Many people applauded the movie "Juno" for what they saw as a positive affirmation of life. I teach high school and I am angered by the messages the mainstream media sends to our kids. As teens we heard "if it feels good,do it" the result being that we had a generation that spent far too much time feeling their way through life without doing much. Two generations later, we have some segments of our community were 70% of the children are born to single parents. Sure, there are success stories. Their are young mothers who move on, who get educated and who raise their children responsibly. But there are also those young women who see messages such as are put out there by Hollywood and TV networks and other such purveyors of what is seen as the "enlightened message" that say women can do it all. Teenage girls are not women. They are children. And these children are having babies. For every girl who is successful, there are ten who are not. These girls drop out of school, they invite a parade of questionable men into their lives and those of their children. Their kids are more likely to be poor, to suffer from disabilities, to be hungry, to be abused and to die at the hands of those who claim to want them. Not a week goes by that we hear about another "mommy's boyfriend" or even "mommy" who thinks it's okay to simply take a child's life. And the courts and criminal justice system don't help when murdering a child gets far less punishment that killing an adult. I am not alone in this sentiment, but if you think this is just a conservative view, here's a column from Slate-a far more liberal online mag-and they share the same views with details.
Excerpt:
...I get letters all the time that describe the turbulence that results from deciding marriage is archaic. Sometimes the writers start with a conflicted sense of hope. "My ex is rather immature and irresponsible. I had a recent fling with him that resulted in pregnancy. I am overjoyed with the impending arrival of my baby, but I fear that no one else in my life will feel the same way." This is followed by more conflicted and less hopeful letters when the kids are small. "My boyfriend and I have a child who is almost 2. He also has a daughter and I have two other children. We bought a home together, but a week before we were about to move in, he left me. Now it's four months later, and he's bought me an engagement ring, but I found out he had a girlfriend during the time we were split." "I have two children with my ex-boyfriend. We broke up because last year a paternity test he was ordered to have came back positive. Even though we are not together, I still want my kids to have a father in their life. I also know he is ignoring his new son because he wants nothing to do with the mom, but that little boy also deserves to have a male figure who cares."

Having unmarried parents can be devastating for children who start out with no cushion in life. In 1999 congressional testimony, Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution said that the increase in single-parent families—mostly due to unwed motherhood in the past few decades—"can account for virtually all of the increase in child poverty since 1970." A recent study found that the stress of early childhood poverty can literally damage developing brains.

Slate article

Whatever Happened to Class?

Class
" Velma: Whatever happened to fair dealing?
And pure ethics?
And nice manners?
Why is it everyone now is a pain in the a**?
Whatever happened to class?"
You must listen to the lyrics to get the irony of the song. Here are two women of dubious integrity, bemoaning the fate of manners and breeding. I see this type of whining every day. We hear about stars that are upset that their lack of circumspection in regard to their personal behavior is displayed by the paparazzi for all the world to see. And these two situations are very similar. It used to be thought that using foul language, innuendo or "cuss words" were an example of low class behavior. Yet words that would have gotten a movie banned even fifteen years ago are common every day fare for some parts of our culture. When I was a child, my parents told me that cussing was an example of someone who was too ignorant to express themselves in any other way. It was declasse. I am aware that kids cuss, and there was a period in my life when I thought I was cool by doing so because I found out that such words had the power to excite someone to action. But I outgrew that, as I like to think that most people do.

Well, sadly, most people these days don't. My kids all work in the retail and service sector. They are well mannered, they are intelligent and they understand the scope of their jobs. So why then do grown up people, thirty,forty and fifty year olds, think that it's appropriate to cuss out a kid or anyone else for a relatively minor complaint? In one case, an order was wrong, but before my son could change it, the person threw all the food at him and started cussing him out. This order included drinks that were thrown. Likewise, when a sale coupon could not be honored for a purchase in a department store, the lady in question not only cussed the staff out, but cut up her card and threw the scissors at one of the girls working. To my mind, that's assault and the police should be called. Is this rational behavior? Is this acceptable? Is this what passes for normal these days?

I ask this because I think we have all become navel gazers to a certain degree. It's all about serving "me". "Me" is the most important person in the room, the hotel, the store the hospital. "Me"s needs supersede everyone else's. Like the guy at DFW, who would not wait two minutes for my sister in law to get in the open door of the car so he could park (terminal C last night by the way)and then blocked our egress with his open door. While I could understand his wanting to get the space, was it really necessary to be so rude? We would have gladly held the space for him.

I guess I just don't get it. But then I also don't understand why please and thank you have become an issue for some folks. I hold doors open and help people when they are in need, but some segments of our society barely register appreciation as if their mere presence should entitle them to special services from any stranger who passes. Can we all grow up a little and use some common sense and common courtesy? And by the way, can some of you parents start demanding of your kids as well? Part of the reason my kids weren't allowed to watch The Simpsons until middle school is that I found his rhetoric appalling. Yet I see kids as young as kindergarten spouting off such Bart-isms to the seeming rapture of their doting parents. What may appear cute, but isn't, at five or six, can become a serious attitude issue at 14 or 15. Chew on that a minute. See the future. Take action now.

Our "Exceptional" Society

ex·cep·tion·al - ɪkˈsɛpʃənl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ik-sep-shuh-nl] –adjective

1.	forming an exception or rare instance; unusual; extraordinary: The warm weather was exceptional for January.

2.	unusually excellent; superior: an exceptional violinist.

3.	Education. (of a child) a. being intellectually gifted. b. being physically or esp. mentally handicapped to an extent that special schooling is required.

Once upon a time, being exceptional was not the norm. It meant you did incredibly better than your peers. You were to be admired and respected. Such was the past of exceptionality.

Fast forward to today and now EVERYONE is exceptional. But today it doesn't mean that you are necessarily good at anything. Or perhaps you are good at one thing. And that would be avoiding the rules, restrictions and laws that control everyone else. These days it isn't a rare occurence for a schoolday fight to be countered with the excuse "but he's on the.....team" or for a drinking binge to be excused by the comment "but she's a cheerleader." What follows is amazing and will probably result in the child's destruction somewhere down the road. Because what follows is the parental expectation that the oh so strict rules they desire in place will be applied to every child but their own. Our courts, our school yards, our dormitories and our offices are filling up with a generation that thinks they can do no wrong and that their very words are golden. Every sniffle, every small milestone is puffed up into an event status. And those true rights of passage events like prom and graduation take on the trappings of a coronation. It is frightening to see seventh graders arrive for their first day of school in a limo. It is equally terrifying to overhear supposedly concerned moms talk about providing "safe places to drink" for after prom. What happened to the rules?

If you listen to the media, there's public outcry and demand for harder rules and strict and swift punishment. But what actually happens is that when an incident occurs-whether as simple as a kid getting a zero for not working or as serious as drug use or weapons on campus, there's always a parent there with a ready excuse. Sometimes these excuses go so far as to exemplify the young person as a "wronged" individual. Something like this happened in a city north of Dallas, where a fourteen year old shoved a teachers' aide, breaking her arm. She was sent to court and offered probation if her mother would supervise her better and make sure she got counseling. The mother refused. And the girl ended up in juvenile custody for over a year. But the story doesn't stop there. The student is African American. Since she is a minor, her record is sealed-but while her mother claims the girls was an innocent victim, others in the community cite the girl as a problem child. The mother gets a local hiphop station to protest. The girl is ultimately released, but only because of overcrowding. Now I ask you, what would you do with a student, and this girl isn't a petite thing, who shoves and breaks the arm of a school employee? Do you look the other way? And what of the mother? Why would she rather her daughter spend time in juvey than accept probation and serve it out? Doesn't that smack of dependent neglect?

This is just a small example of what our society is becoming. And if doesn't end there. As these big babies move into employment, the seem to think they can jet off from work with impunity. Imagine their shock when they get fired. And it happens over and over again. Have sex, make a baby, oops too much stress, run away. That's the pattern. Someone is always there to make the excuse. You can almost hear the parents chanting "he's too pressured, she's too stressed, he's an athlete, AEP will ruin her life, she's a cheerleader, he's on student council....." How long do they keep up the chant? I know of students who in college got pregnant. Now in most stories this would cause them to mature and take their lives into control. But not these kids. Nope, their parents pay for a luxury apartment, with a washer and dryer and cable and all the amenities. The pay for their car and car insurance. And the reason is "we want them to finish school ." Well, what was once four years has morphed into seven. The kids still count on that check from mom and dad every month. And as their parents retirement accounts dwindle and their parents keep working into their mid 60's and 70's-at some point the parents will either become too old to work or drop dead trying to support these Big Babies and their insatiable, intolerable narcissism. And the parents support these activities.

Please understand, I am a parent. There are times you support your kids. But there are also times you allow them to learn that they can support themselves. To constantly run interference for every bad decision insulates kids from the consequences. If they don't learn when they are nine or ten that bad decision sometimes created bad results, then we end up with adults who don't understand that they can't cook the books, or steal the profits or insider trade. While much is made of the ravages of street crime and white collar crime, not very much is said about the situations that create criminals. Most experienced teachers can tell you who the scam artists are. They know which kids have parents who offer structure and accountability, because those kids are usually well behaved, responsible and independent. Only those that have serious developmental or disability issues will have parents going to bat. Teachers can also tell which kids have parents too busy trying to be friends rather than enforcing rules. They come to school dressed as a gangster or a thug, or wearing peekaboo blouses and slashed jeans. When parents are called about any violation, the parent either doesn't show up, or starts demanding for teachers to be fired. Kids learn early on how to play people. And when the adult in their lives takes on the people who are demanding accountability, then they learn that rules can be broken and that they can get away with doing so by pouting, appearing remorseful or simply lying through their teeth. And that is just with small things. Locally we have had numerous incidents with cheerleaders drinking and performing aerial stunts, baseball players using steroids and wrestlers charged with hazing and sexual abuse. At what point do these activities stop being "high school hijinks" and become serious repetitive criminal behavior. Are we raising a generation of sociopaths?

Ultimately this creates an Ethic Vacuum where the kid assumes ANY behavior is excuseable. We had this demonstrated locally by the son of a locally placed DA. At age 16, the son was charged with shooting at girls at a local playground with a pellet gun. The result was a case tied up in court for over two years. At age 17, the same boy shot a shotgun at his fence, scaring workers nextdoor half to death. Once again, a case held up in court. Finally, at age 18, he tried to buy beer with a fake ID and when the clerk tried to stop him, the boy punched him and stole a case of beer. NOW he's in jail. But if his issues with authority and behavior had been addressed earlier, he wouldn't have an adult record. Now it becomes a permanent part of his history, one that employers and others can refer to when they need to make decisions about personnel. I do not think our society can endure with an entire generation of self-serving quasi-criminals. At some point someone is going to have to step in and say "enough". Right now these kids are young adults-I shudder to think what havoc they will generate as they age. And I wonder what further exploits the good kids of this generation are going to have to pay for via higher taxes, more laws and further invasion of privacy.

It's No Fun Anymore

Okay, I admit it, I was one of those starry eyed student teachers who loved school so much that I decided to stay in school for life. I loved the reading, the writing and even the arithmetic. I enjoyed the flow of days from Autumn through Spring. I enjoyed new pencils and tablets of paper and the smell of new crayons. And up until now, with a few small glitches, I still enjoyed the turn of the wheel. I am not sure I feel that way anymore. Not after today.

See, I am one of these teachers who likes to bring students into the program and tries to find some way, any way, that they can work. But I can't fight a gossip campaign, especially when it comes from inside the school. For some reason this year, our freshman class has been particularly and some would even say, deliberately, immature. There are some great kids, but there is a prevailing character of disrespect, destruction and chaos that makes it difficult for the good kids to get the education they deserve. This isn't the kind of inner city urban issue that one associates with a mass exodus of teachers, but it does give one pause. I seldom write referrals, and this year I have written more in one class than I have in the entire previous year. Students are often defiant, refusing to do work, and their parents support this behavior. They justify this by claims of teacher retaliation backed up by reports from the student in the class. What is worse, we have a good number of students whose parents work in the school. The athletic director's wife works in an office, the basketball coaches wife is an aide and so on. So if one of these parent-educators decides they don't like you or your class, then they begin a whispering campaign. And since they live in the neighborhood with most of the kids, what begins as a whisper can become a roar.

I had a conference today. It seems that in comparing a student to one of my favorite students from the past, I have inadvertently labeled the student. I am not sure how comparing a student to another good student is bad, but for some reason it is in the eyes of this parent. Because of this, her student has done little or no work, barely passed the exam (which was a scantron test, but somehow it's my fault the student nearly failed...) and according to the views of this parent, his lack of work is justified. I am not really sure how much of this is the student making excuses and how much of it is the parent taking things way out of context, but if it weren't making my life so depressing and stressful I would have to laugh. This kid plays a sport. A highly competitive sport. I wasn't an athlete, but my dad was a coach. I have been around coaches and they don't mince words when it comes to making corrections on the field or court. So I have to believe that our coaches must go up and whisper corrections to our athletes, because according to this parent, the child has never been told to sit down to be quiet or to not throw paper in class. I know in the vast scheme of things, this is small potatoes. But when you see and hear and have to deal with these sometimes irrational and demanding parents, it wears you down. It makes teachers who care and who work hard figure that it just isn't worth the time and effort. And as they teachers wear out or burn out, they either simply stop teaching or they quit.

I have this recurring nightmare where I have a heart attack while in class. And as I lie on the floor, the students throw things at me and taunt me. It's a scary dream. And I would like to think that such a thing wouldn't happen because I know there are some good students out there. But then again, how much longer can this nation last if we continue to feel that we must extend parenting to the point of suffocation. We aren't allowing our kids to suffer the consequences of bad choices. Too many kids are rescued at the lower levels of mischief which allows them to think they can do anything they want. That ends when they turn 18, but I still hear of parents bailing out kids who have gotten on drugs, or are in jail, or pregnant or any of a million other circumstances. Fifty years ago, at 18, many parents would tell a kid that they were on their own and have a nice life. Now we encourage kids to live at home until they are thirty. Such constant attention destroys a kid's self-confidence. And it erodes the sense of responsibility. How can we expect these people as adults to make good choices, when we never allow them to fail until their parents die or retire?

Education and Stunted Emotional Growth

<span >It isn't often that I find myself at a loss for words. But this is one of those times. I have been teaching for awhile now off and on. And while the burden of education sometimes gets to me, overall it's been a good experience. In short, I can handle the stress. So imagine my surprise when I return to school after a two day planned absence, and find frantic emails from a parent because I moved her son away from his best friend. I could understand if I was abusive or even mildly sarcastic, but I wasn't even in the room. I choose to periodically move students for two reasons, it breaks up cliques and it helps kids learn to accept others outside their comfort zone. I find that if I leave the same kids together for the entire term, their work suffers. In this kids case, he's a typical freshman. Goofy, inattentive, male-normal behavior includes talking, flirting, throwing stuff and generally playing around rather than working. To avoid the plummeting of his grade, I moved him from the back of the room to the front of the room. Immediately his mother emails me frantic to know WHY OH WHY did I move her son? WHY OH WHY didn't I contact her first? First of all, I have the absolute right to place kids where they need to be. This may mean at the front, in a desk rather than a table or even out in the hall if they are disruptive. But instead of accepting that her kid was throwing paper airplanes and generally doing everything but work, she wants a full blown meeting with counselors and principals and the like. I suppose I could understand if the kid was failing, or even if he had been sent to the office, but neither of these events have occurred. So instead of taking care of work during my planning period Monday, I will be spending time listening to some overwrought mother whine because little Boopsie isn't seated next to his friends. I wish I could simply say "tough sh*t" but my professionalism prevents it. I don't know where in the Constitution it says that this generation is supposed to be protected not only from harm, but from disappointment, but it seems as if there are two groups of parents working in the system today: Those that don't care, and those that care to the point of impairing their own childrens' growth. I swear that if they could the former would ship kids to camp for 18 years and the latter would put them in a box surrounded by cotton batting and bubble wrap. If you don't let your child learn to make decisions, and make the child live with the consequences of those decisions, then you end up with college students that do stupid, self-destructive things like binge drinking and running up thousands of dollars in debt on credit cards. Those parents who make every step a safe one and every negative situation a happy ending are setting their children up for a life filled with disappointment. In the real world, bad things happen. It's unfortunate and sad, but if you spend your time dwelling on the negative, you never grow up and make it to the positive aspect of this thing we call life. Parents, allow your kids to grow up. And teachers, don't let parents bully you into making school work, homework or tests any easier than they should be.

But What About the Cheerleaders????

Alright, it was a cheesy lead in, but once again our glorious state has been subjected to some unflattering shades of limelight due to yet another in a series of Bad Afternoon Drama Cheerleading Incidents. I am frankly, as a Texan, a mother, a teacher and a person sick and tired of hearing about aimless cheerleaders getting themselves into trouble due to the misconception that they are infallible and immune to rules and /or laws. Yes, I know this may come as a shock, but cheerleaders, just like football players are HUMAN. And that means they have to honor every single law on the books including gravity. Let's review some of the more stellar moments in Texas Cheerleading History, some of which were publicized and others which I observed as a parent.
1. The Mom who tried to Kill a girl that beat her daughter out for a spot on the squad. (I think this may be a reality series of some sort now...)
2. The two PREGNANT cheerleaders that sued an East Texas school to be allowed on the team. (What were their parents thinking, I mean, REALLY THINKING? That around the third trimester their little darlings were going to defy gravity by doing aerial stunts while sporting a belly out to there???)
3. The Cheerleaders Who Drank While Performing at the Game. (This became a national story at the time. I was actually AT the game-it was my own kids' school. A JV cheerleader was selling programs in the stands and staggering up and down. A security guard saw her nearly fall and stopped her. When he stated "You're drunk." She replied "well the Varisty squad has vodka in their waterbottles." I want you to imagine and soak up the scene-full stadium, close game, the superintendent on the field watching since it was a district rivalry and cheerleaders being hauled off by police from the sidelines. Ah yes, memories......)
4. The McKinney "Fab Five" (Could anything be more pathetic. They run off five sponsors in three years and NOBODY THINKS THERE IS A PROBLEM??? The sponsor tries to get action and is stonewalled. She goes to the media. The girls post suggestive photos in uniform on MySpace site. And the parents STILL want them to be on the squad. I am sure there is more to the story, but I don't like soap operas.)
5. This is one I knew about-my daughter's junior year two cheerleaders, girls who had been catty and nasty and horrible to most of their peers, but managed through fear and loathing to remain at the top of the Food Chain, ambushed a girl who was dating one of their former boyfriends. The guy (who incidentally got off scot free) dropped the girl off at a house where they girls beat her with a baseball bat. She got a skull fracture and the girls should have been arrested, but one of them had an attorney for a father. Instead of the alterantive school and jail time punishment they deserved, their punishment was (drumroll......wait for it)to be kicked off the squad. Oh the humanity.....
6. One girl, who was in a class I had, was beautiful talented and had the most abrasive, self-centered attitude of any person I have yet to meet that wasn't in political office. She disrupted every class and due to the favors she blessed upon select elite jocks, was powered into Homecoming Queen in a very disputed race in which several suspicious ballots turned up. She's gone now and I am glad to not have to deal with her anymore. Her parents supported her nasty attitude. She's at OU now. I hope they enjoy her up there....

Finally-a comment
Not all cheerleaders are the sleazy models that the NFL, Maxim and news stories would have you believe. I have known some wonderful kids that were excellent gymnasts who took their position as cheerleader very seriously. The two things that influence a student organization are the parents and the sponsors. If you have parents who condone, support and provide spaces for bad behavior such as drinking and sex, then it is difficult to reel the kids back into normal behavior at school. Also, when you have a sponsor who is out of control or delusional, as we did one year at our school, the squad can get into a bad place very quickly. And finally, I think this generation of parents has been far too overprotective of their children in regard to failure. While I don't necessarily like the competition for such things as athletics, cheerleading or drill team, I also don't like the situations where "everybody wins." In real life, that just doesn't happen. Everybody doesn't win every time. Sometimes you lose. You lose due to lack of preparation, lack of skills, bias or any of a number of causes. This generation's parents want an insured "win" for every situation. So they argue for grades, for placement and for leniency. There comes a point when kids need to learn how to handle defeat gracefully. And when they learn how to do that, they will also be able to more aptly handle the perq's that come with success. Along with this obsessive overprotective attitude, there is also a strangely distant interest in how children are really doing on a daily basis. I have kids that show up in my class just to talk. Some of my children's friends do the same. These kids, these six foot tall children, are desperately lonesome. And without a family that gives a damn, they turn to sex or drugs or alcohol or gangs to fill the void. I don't think it's a far cry from a group of out of control cheerleaders to a gang? The mentality of invincibility and lack of respect is already in place. People always seem so shocked that cheerleaders would do something bad, but I am here to tell you that just because kids appear to be functioning socially and academically doesn't mean that the kids are alright.