I Am Not a Teacher/I Am a Person Who Teaches

This is an important step. I must move away from being a "Teacher" as an identity. For too long I have put my job before my health, my sanity, my talents and even my family. This is the way the system is set up. It used to be that there was a clear division between one's work life and home life. Education, as practiced today, isn't like that anymore.

Oh sure, you'll have those trolls who chortle "but you have summers off." Define "off." In the past five summers I have attended five AP Summer Institutes, written curriculum twice, attended twenty "trade days"(which are a special torture I will explain later...), taken repetitive and often meaningless professional development (Bring your best lesson plan ad infinitum) which all are spaced just far enough apart to make taking a college course, a vacation or even getting my house clean an impossibility. I don't know of a single teacher who thinks of summer as "off" time. It's catch up on cleaning, fix the bathroom, paint the baby's room or even mow the lawn time. It's time when we get to do or have to do all the things normal people do on weekends during the school year while we're frantically grading into the wee hours hoping to make the gradebook deadline.

I have to learn to be a Person first. I can't just keep being a Teacher Creature who exists on test data, IEP's and has so little time to be an individual that I have no hobbies and few friends. This has to end. I cannot continue on this path. Please don't get me wrong, it's not that I dislike teaching, but like some sort of aggressive mold, teaching has taken over my life sucking out any time from reading or painting or drawing or just taking a walk in the park. I have stories that make me smile. Like the girl who showed up today from U of Arkansas who told me that she was a Graphic Design major. We laughed because she was a mess when she was in my painting class. I celebrate that there are kids out there, some that I may never know about, who chose art and design as a career. But for every story like that there are so many others with kids who don't care, parents who live to crush the spirit of teachers and administrators far more interested in data than people.

I don't know how anyone does this for thirty years. I honestly don't know how I have done it for seventeen years. I didn't plan on staying so long. And unfortunately because of my age, I find I have to stay a few more years just to have some sort of money rolling in during what is laughably called retirement. I've seen retirement. Oh sure there are those who travel to exotic lands, sampling life by the wine glass. But far more often, especially with teachers pensions, I've seen the type of retirement where 80 year old retirees feel compelled to sub three days a week. I don't want to be doing that at 80 or 70 or even 65. I'll work as a Walmart Greeter before I do that.

It would be nice to think that teaching was some sort of shadowy modern version of "Good Bye Mr. Chips", but instead it seems to be a world that is trapped in meaningless trends hinging on test scores and special populations. In the workroom, we older teachers spend some time worrying about the future. We also discuss the past. I have watered down my lessons three different times. As more special populations are parachuted into general education classes, the regular students suffer from neglect and I fear the backlash will be horrible to behold. I look at my five year old grandson, so eager to read and do math and then I look at the tortuous methods they've concocted to teach these concepts which I fear will mess him up as New Math did me fifty years ago. What are we doing? When did teaching become facilitation rather than caring? When did scripting replace common sense? When did administrators become so wobbly that they fear even the most idiotic demands from parents?

This can't end well. But it will end. Education is a very trend conscious endeavor. I've lived through New Math, Open Classroom, Self Contained, Departmentalized, Whole Language and more fashion statements all with their own little zippy promises of higher test scores. In reality, like it or not, some things are better learned by rote.  The alphabet, the multiplication tables, the names of states and such can be learned by heart and probably should be. But the current trend is that rote learning is bad and that it is better for a student to stumble through a hundred other possible solutions before finding an answer. I've never liked estimates. I never believed them. Any contractor who gave me an estimate always ended up costing twice as much. Between this unstable method of answering questions and the electronic distractions of tablets and phones, I fear the next generation will grow up illiterate. And where will that leave us?

I suppose that's why I still teach. Someone has to care about things like deadlines and absolutes and quality. I don't like the philosophy that complete is good enough. I hate it that people, including adults, think all limits and deadlines are more like suggestions than requirements. Sometimes you have to do what you're told to do when you're told to do it. That we currently have a nation where that's not the case for everyone explains why schools are in such disarray. And that is why I must become a person who teaches instead of a teacher.

This Article Confirms Everything I've Said About Education for the Last 5 Years.

Fortune Magazine published this story and it doesn't strike me as surprising. Over the last five years, since the imposition and increase of technology by our administration and by the country at large, I have seen a reduction in work ethic, retention, writing and reading abilities. We no longer teach cursive so there is no motor memory of writing. The assumption by the powers that be is there will always be a calculator or a computer accessible to do the mundane tasks of basic math or spelling. This erosion of basic skills is resonating through the workforce. Parents who pushed computers at early ages over reading kids bedtime stories are now faced with young adults who do not read for pleasure or enrichment and possibly cannot read on a literate level at all.

Yet what is the drumbeat we hear? TECHnology TECHnology TECHnology....how many vocational programs were gutted to buy into the rarified coursework of Animation or Graphic Design? How many kids fully capable of hands on skills in a variety of trades such as electrical repair, plumbing, auto repair, cosmetology, cabinetry and more have found themselves instead in classes they do not need and do not want? The myth that every kid is going to college is a fallacy. Every kid doesn't belong in college. Many kids go to college only to fail and end up in dead end jobs with a large student loan in tow. This is no way to improve an economy.

I guarantee that in China or Japan or Korea or India or Russia they are not teaching their children to do math using computers. I promise you that these nations also celebrate their complex language structure by requiring students learn to write and communicate. These are skills that are vanishing from a large part of the population. Ironically we are removing the very exercises that would instill deeper retention. Cursive writing is used to help dyslexic students internalize the shapes of letters. Rote memorization of multiplication tables affects a different part of the brain than using a calculator and allows for deeper understanding of the PROCESS of multiplication.

As I have said before, technology is a good servant, but a bad master. Every sci fi movie alludes to this fear of technology actually countermanding the desires of humans. Perhaps we are on the threshold of that becoming reality. When you go to the doctor, the younger ones often spend more time looking at the computer than the patient. For that reason Johns Hopkins has medical students taking art history classes to teach them to OBSERVE THE PATIENT. How many medical mistakes have occurred because of the failure to note the reaction of the patient over the steps of protocol?
We have young mothers sitting at playgrounds enthralled with Angry Birds while their children are out of control. We have students watching movies during class. What is more the overlay of social media on a population that has not been taught basic social skills has led to most of the angst we've witnesses in society over the last few years. Can you name one incident-political, social, legal or economic-that wasn't in some way by social media?

It's time to stop this nonsense. I'm not saying to forbid media, but it's time to stop just giving in to trends. Frankly I think Apple and Google and Facebook and all the other manufacturers and websites share the blame for the sick dissolution of social discourse. And make no mistake, for all you liberals out there, none of these companies do it for any other reason beyond making a buck. So while hipsters walk around talking on IPhones about how high their student loans are and complaining about how they don't have any money, step back and think about all the things we have now that are branded and promoted and therefore deemed popular. Is Starbucks really better than a cup of coffee you make yourself? 

Such weakminded behavior leads to some of the mob/gang/group atrocities we've witnessed online. How are the SAE's any different than wilding mobs attacking innocent people at a midwestern fair? How desperate are these kids to find some magic pill that can insure their success the way Mommy and Daddy did when they were in public school? While both are vile and nasty and racist and violent, this doesn't spring full born from their own heads. Have you listened to the lyrics of popular music? I ban those songs in my classroom and yet I have had heated discussions with students who think the n-word is allowed simply because they themselves are black. I think bad, rude, insensitive language goes across the boards. You cannot permit some people to use the words with impunity and then get outraged when someone uses them. NOBODY SHOULD BE USING THESE WORDS. Stop trying to be hip and cool by joining into activities that are mean, dangerous and simply unnecessary. And the kids on the bus using the n-word in Oklahoma are every much as vile as the gangs who assault innocent people on the street for the sake of "fun." 

By the way, lest you think I am out of touch, much of this is fueled by things my own kids-ranging from 25 to 30-have told me about their peers. Every week it's a new complaint about coworkers that are hunted down by bill collectors or people who run up credit card bills at restaurants leaving friends to cover the bill. These dime a day millionaires have bought into the Oprahization of America believing that their mere existence qualifies them for the best of everything. Nobody deserves the best of everything, especially if they can't pay for it. 

Here's the column and link. Read it. Share it. This is important.

Millenial Fail

Surprised? So were the researchers who tested and compared workers in 23 countries.

We hear about the superior tech savvy of people born after 1980 so often that we tend to assume it must be true. But is it?

Researchers at Princeton-based Educational Testing Service (ETS) expected it to be when they administered a test called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). Sponsored by the OECD, the test was designed to measure the job skills of adults, aged 16 to 65, in 23 countries.

When the results were analyzed by age group and nationality, ETS got a shock. It turns out, says a newreport, that Millennials in the U.S. fall short when it comes to the skills employers want most: literacy (including the ability to follow simple instructions), practical math, and — hold on to your hat — a category called “problem-solving in technology-rich environments.”

Not only do Gen Y Americans lag far behind their overseas peers by every measure, but they even score lower than other age groups of Americans.

Take literacy, for instance. American Millennials scored lower than their counterparts in every country that participated except Spain and Italy. (Japan is No. 1.) In numeracy, meaning the ability to apply basic math to everyday situations, Gen Yers in the U.S. ranked dead last.

Okay, but what about making smart use of technology, where Millennials are said to shine? Again, America scored at the bottom of the heap, in a four-way tie for last place with the Slovak Republic, Ireland, and Poland.

Even the best-educated Millennials stateside couldn’t compete with their counterparts in Japan, Finland, South Korea, Belgium, Sweden, or elsewhere. With a master’s degree, for example, Americans scored higher in numeracy than peers in just three countries: Ireland, Poland, and Spain. Altogether, the top U.S. Gen Yers, in the 90thpercentile, “scored lower than their counterparts in 15 countries,” the report notes, “and only scored higher than their peers in Spain.”

“We really thought [U.S.] Millennials would do better than the general adult population, either compared to older coworkers in the U.S. or to the same age group in other countries,” says Madeline Goodman, an ETS researcher who worked on the study. “But they didn’t. In fact, their scores were abysmal.”

What does that mean for U.S. employers hiring people born since 1980? Goodman notes that hiring managers shouldn’t overestimate the practical value of a four-year degree. True, U.S. Millennials with college credentials did score higher on the PIAAC than Americans with only a high school diploma (albeit less well than college grads in most other countries).

“But a degree may not be enough,” Goodman says, to prove that someone is adept with basic English, can do what she calls “workaday math,” or has the ability to use technology in a job. Curious about how the PIAAC measures those skills, or how you’d score yourself? Check out a few sample math questions, or take the whole test.

Our Disposable Society

Today in my email at work, I got a message from a coworker. Attached was the photo of two adorable Golden Retriever mixes. It seems that three weeks ago, someone left them in a park and never returned. A woman who lived near the park noticed them, noted that they stayed in the same area as if waiting. Finally she took them in to foster. But she has pets of her own. These are two housebroken, leash trained dogs, yet nobody claims them. Someone simply left them to fend on their own-to become feral strays or to get hit by a car. I guess now we don't have to commit to caring for an animal when it becomes too inconvenient. I guess pets are just disposable.

But it's worse than that. As I have said before, I teach high school. I teach in the most diverse school in the district, with kids that are scions of pro athletes alongside kids who live in trailers. But there is no significant difference in the role of negligence and absolute loneliness. We have kids who are in poverty who literally raise themselves. Sometimes it's because parents are working more than one job and must leave kids on their own. But just as often it is parents who have abdicated their responsibility to raise, nuture and protect their children. It is often just as common to have wealthy parents shove cars and money at children instead of spending time with them. I've been to many a school concert for choir, band and orchestra. There may be over 100 students on the stage, yet the audience is strangely missing. It is one thing to be unable to come, it is quite another to be unwilling to come. As a parent, I cannot imagine not being there for my children. Sadly, with far too many parents, that is not the case. I guess kids are just disposable.

Perhaps this comes from the sexual revolution. Remember when they said The Pill-Big Letters-would "liberate" women. If that's the case, then why was Roe v. Wade ever put into law? If that's the case then why are increasing numbers of poor children born to single parent households? Why is it that we have young women who seem willing to allow dangerous males into their lives and the lives of their children? Once upon a time, it was love and marriage that proceeded the baby carriage. Now it seems that in desperation some young women pursue the idea of a baby as a magnet to hold a man, but in too many cases, these children barely know the names of their fathers, much less have a relationship with him. And as these children see their mothers and fathers flit aimlessly from partner to partner, they don't see love in terms of trust demonstrated, all they see is love in terms of lust. So I guess relationships are disposable, too.

I may sound old-fashioned, but it didn't used to be this way. It used to be that even poor families had a mother and father. Maybe they didn't have the latest fashions or toys, but they had the constancy of family to rely upon. Our shiny new disposable culture seems fueled by acquisition of goods rather than appreciation for the finer things. Reading is seen as unnecessary, listening has become a lost art. And writing, well it exists only in small pockets with people who still believe the written word has power. I do not claim to know the answers, but I know that something has to change. Perhaps I am enough of an optimist to think that life isn't linear and that the problems our sloppy self-indulgence has wrought can be resolved by people caring enough to reinvoke the claims family, faith, constancy and reject the shallow TMZ world of style over substance. Our lives, our childrens' lives, are too important to allow them to be disposable.