Puerto Ricans ARE Americans!!
Flag of the United States – Wikipedia
There have been nearly 2 million views of the June 14th video showing a white man, described as intoxicated, harassing a woman who chose to wear a Puerto Rican flag shirt in a Chicago Forrest Preserve on the Far Northwest Side. In the video, the man tells the woman that she should not be wearing “that shirt.” The shirt looked like a Puerto Rican flag and had the words “Puerto Rico” on it. According to him, she should “not be wearing that in the United States of America.” He repeatedly walked up to her and, at times, got directly in her face, pointing at her. He asked her insulting questions like, “Are you educated?” and “Are you a citizen?”
What right did he have to ask her about her status as a U.S. citizen? Puerto Rico has been a territory of the U.S. since 1898 and, since the Jones-Shafroth Act passed in 1917, anyone born there is an American citizen. Puerto Ricans can maintain dual citizenship and can come and go from the island to the mainland just like any other citizen. But because Puerto Rico is not a state, they can’t vote in Presidential elections. So what does all that matter to this white, 62-year-old man? What makes him think that it was within his right to approach this woman and question her at all?
One possible answer is white privilege. The best description of what white privilege is might be something like, “the unearned advantages white people have just because they are white.” Or another way to think about it might be, “being able to go almost anywhere, do almost anything, almost whenever one wants without being questioned.” One of the best articles I’ve seen recently, that includes a short video, discussing the concept of white privilege is here.
This white man in the viral video decided that what the young woman was wearing was “unAmerican.” In effect, he is defining being “American” as being “like him” and not “like her.” He was “being defensive” of what he believed it meant to “be American” and she was “being offensive” by “disrespecting” his internalized definition of “being American”.
What was it in his mind that made her different from him? Was it the color of her skin? I don’t know. What I do know is that he saw Puerto Rico on her shirt and defined her as being UnAmerican. What I do know is that he had no qualms about walking up to her, questioning her and insulting her. Please don’t excuse his behavior with “because he was drunk”. I won’t buy that. Being drunk may have been the oil that loosened his tongue, but the alcohol didn’t create the mean, ugly, racist thoughts he expressed that came from inside of his head.
I haven’t always recognized or understood the privilege I have as a white woman. In fact, I’m still learning to recognize instances when I’m blind to my bias as a white person. After all, I’ve been bathed (conditioned) to think that being white is the equivalent to being “normal” and to think that my experiences are the same as everyone else’s. But, they aren’t. When I walk into a store, no one follows me. If I cross the street, no one fears me. It never crosses my mind that when I call a landlord about an apartment listing that I might be judged and maybe even turned down based on the sound of my voice.
I’m an educator. As a part of my professional development work in my school district, I have been involved in workshops and discussions that help me learn about race and privilege. These workshops have not been short, one- or two-hour, sit-and-listen affairs. They have been intense, involved and deep learning experiences. I have listened to People of Color (POC) tell about their life experiences and I have been saddened, shocked, angered and ultimately humbled by listening deeply to their stories. I have often felt guilty that people like me have created these realities for them.
Feeling guilty won’t help to change these realities. That’s been hard for me to learn and accept because feeling guilty comes very naturally for me. What I’ve come to realize is that I have a responsibility as a white person to continue to educate myself and to speak up about what I know. I have a responsibility to be on the lookout for situations like the one the young woman in the video experienced and speak out about them. Speaking out is just the beginning of what I have to do as a white person.
Conversations about race aren’t comfortable. Talking about white privilege is hard, especially for us white people. But it’s not as hard as the daily lived experiences of people like the innocent young woman in the Forrest Preserve pavilion who just wanted to celebrate her birthday while wearing her Puerto Rico flag shirt.
UPDATE: The aggressor in the story above has since been charged with a hate crime.
And the Forrest Preserve officer, who ignored the woman’s pleas for help, resigned.
Flag of Puerto Rico.svg – Wikipedia
I’ve Been Away for a While…
I dropped out of the writing scene for quite a long time. I had barely gotten started, really. I had some personal and professional challenges sap my energies and dominate my time. But I’ve missed writing and think I’m ready to revisit my blog and explore some interests and share some experiences. I also want to use this blog as a way to explore my thinking on various topics. After all, isn’t that how one figures out what they truly think or how they truly feel, by writing it out, until conclusions come bursting forth? I’ll be testing out that theory.
When I started this blog it was as a response to being oppressed and abused by the very people I was trying to collaborate with in order to fight back against the corporate takeover of public schools. My own COLLEAGUES in the teaching profession!! I was HOT! I was P.O.ed! And I was passionate and frustrated! That was a LOT of pent-up energy with nowhere to go! Now that I’ve had some time away, I’ve had time to let the dust settle, get back in my writer’s chair and dust off my blog. I hope that means that I’ve gained some perspective on matters from the past and can make a go of moving forward with purpose and productivity! That’s my goal.
I’ve had some professional development experiences within the last year that have filled me with a new energy and renewed passion. Most of this work has been about understanding institutional racism and fighting for equity, particularly racial equity. I plan to share some of the things I’ve learned and continue to educate myself as a White woman.
I hope to find folks, especially fellow White folks, who are willing to put down their defenses and dig deep with me into the history of racism in this country and see where this “conversation” can take us. It is my hope that it helps us to move our country in a more equitable, fair and compassionate direction. In my personal opinion, creating the world we want to live in starts locally, but grows globally as our conversations with others expand into other circles. I look forward to this journey.
Will you join me?
Katy, Texas, School Board Votes to Eliminate High-Stakes Tests
Katy, Texas, School Board Votes to Eliminate High-Stakes Tests.
We are on a roll. Today I hear that Randi Weingarten has put into writing her support of opting children out of taking standardized testing like PARCC. Even though I think it has taken this union leader way too long to back efforts that support real teaching and learning and are meant to protect not just teachers, but the children and the profession as a public good, at least she has finally said it.
Let’s continue to find and share this good news and work to create more of it daily!
Dr. Jesse Turner: I Love Public Education
Dr. Jesse “The Walking Man” Turner:
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“I am a man on a mission to bring the joy of learning to the classroom. An advocate and activist for children, parents, and teachers.”
I’m am pleased to share with readers the writing of Dr. Jesse Turner. This piece of writing, in particular, is being shared far and wide because it is touching so many hearts. At a time when the field of education, the practice of teaching, teachers and public schools are under attack, these words strike a chord in those of us who understand the forces at work against us and the price being paid by everyone, especially our children, until we take back the reigns of control from the heartless, monied interests.
I Love Public EducationI cried the first time my Mother left me at your door,
I would learn to love you with every morning cookie and container of milk,
I would love you more with every song we sang within your hallowed walls,
I found your love in every teacher’s smile in your halls
I loved the reverence and respect you showed our flag every morning.
When the evil darkness of assassination
took the life of President Kennedy ~ you were there,
You calmed us, and helped us understand that although things could never be the same ~ our nation would be mended,
You kept us warm during the winters from 9:00 to 3:00 ~ when there was no heat in our old cold-water flat,
You were there when they murdered our heroes Martin and Bobby, to help us wipe away our tears,
You ensured that although they were taken from our world ~ these men would remain in our hearts forever,
You gave us hope through the riots and the protests,
You gave us color when there were no crayons in our homes,
You gave us poetry to ease our pain,
You gave us poetry to celebrate our lives,
You gave us history to give us roots,
You gave us geography, the stars and the moon landing ~ just to let us know we had no boundaries,
You taught us mathematics and science,
But most of all you gave us literature,
You gave us a love of books,
You handed us a little more of our dreams every single day,
You were there, year after year, as we spent our summer vacations under the cooling spray of fire hydrants ~ dancing in the streets,
As every summer ended we longed for another school year to begin,
You were beaming with pride at every graduation,
My loves still grows
I am confused by:
A nation’s leaders ~ who bash public schools at every opportunity,
An American media ~ that ignores 150 years of noble service to our nation’s children,
I find myself distraught ~ by the titans of industry, who blame you for every social ill, while they drink from the cup of plenty, time and time again,
I am troubled by their mantra of testing will save us,
I am saddened by their infatuation with fictional heroes like Superman, and homage to those with no real classroom experience,
I am bewildered by leaders who say teachers are the essential ingredients to success, and then in their next breath say our teachers are not good enough.
All I am I owe to you,
I can’t remember one single standardized test,
I do remember teacher after teacher telling us those tests were no measure of who we really are,
I remembered loving Mr. Bass’s reminders that poor boys and girls could be anything they dreamed,
His boys and girls were more than test scores,
We were his endless possibilities,
Yes, I love public education,
I love public education enough to fight for it,
I love public education enough to stand up for it,
I love public education enough to take it back from the
The billionaires club,
The politicians,
The policy makers,
The ones who only see test scores,
The ones who count numbers not tears,
The ones who refer to America’s children as “Data”
Yes, I love public education; enough to walk to Washington DC again in 2015.
Forever in your debt,
Jesse Turner
Follow him Twitter: @readdoctorDr. Turner will start his walk at Central State University on June 11th and it will end in Washington, D.C. He will walk about 400 miles in 40 days. Check out his event page at: https://www.facebook.com/events/297723840427078/
Cover Up Good Teaching Because PARCC Says So???
Pinterest photo
Anchor Chart = An instructional tool created by the teacher with students to support a lesson being taught. It can be used to remind students of routines or what is important about the content of a lesson. It is created as the lesson is being taught or during a class discussion. It is a routine part of the life in the modern classroom and often becomes a permanent or semi-permanent part of the classroom environment. Anchor charts and other teacher-made or store-bought posters that support student learning are plastered all over classrooms in the United States. In my school, they are on bulletin boards, chalk boards, white boards, doors, on the sides of bookshelves, on cabinet doors and drawers, filing cabinets and even taped to windows or clothes pinned to the blinds of windows. THAT is how important they are in supporting students’ learning.
However, during the PARCC tests coming up twice before the end of this school year, those charts and other posters are on the “FORBIDDEN LIST” when it comes to preparing the classroom environment for testing what kids know and can do with what they know. So rather than being another learning tool in their repertoire of learning tools to be referenced, these have become objects to be memorized and taken down or covered up during the test. In my mind, it’s kind of like having to memorize the dictionary rather than referring to it when a key word needs to be clarified before going on in reading a story or article.
Let’s see . . . does a lawyer have to memorize the contents of his or her books in the law library? Do doctors have to write up the contents of the articles from memory about the dangers of diabetes for each patient who becomes diagnosed? Do mechanics have to memorize the correct tire size or wiper blade size for each make and model of car, domestic or foreign made?
What is the point of these hyper austerity measures being imposed on children today? How do these expectations resemble the real world and how do they prove that children are learning or not learning? Which colleges and careers require that children deny using reference materials to do their work or to do their jobs? COME ON??? WHAT IS THE POINT???? I’M SERIOUS!!!!
In my state, on the previous state standardized tests that we have given for years and years, the only things we had to cover up or remove were name plates on desks that included things like multiplication charts as well as posters that included step-by-step directions on how to write an essay. All other anchor charts or posters were allowed to remain visible in the classroom, just like any other day in the life of learners.
As a matter of fact, this whole concept that I value immensely (and so should we all) of “keeping it real” for students reminds me of a book I’ve been reading. More on that in a future post! But for now, chalk this post up to one more reason we need to:
PERMANENTLY PARK THE PARCC!!!
LET’S WORK TOGETHER TO STOP THIS MADNESS!!!
If my child is going to sit for 500 minutes to take a test there better be a good reason.
It is critical that we all understand that everything about the PARCC test is a sharp departure from the previous kinds of standardized testing that has ever been done. The standards upon which they are based were agreed to before they were even written. They were backwards designed from college all the way down to kindergarten. There were few people who are experts in the field of education and zero early childhood educators to help create them. The few who were knowledgeable in their fields have since come out against the standards. The standards are copyrighted and therefore OWNED by this one group and cannot be changed, except by them. And now these tests are going to take longer than those that adults who wish to become lawyers or doctors must take. There is something significantly wrong with this whole process. It has been highly secretive, left out important stakeholders in a democratic society, and has not been proven to accomplish what it claims to do: assure to prepare kids to be college and career ready. Yet they are being forced upon us, regardless of the legitimate concerns expressed, full speed (and a FAST ONE AT THAT) ahead! This speeding train needs to be stopped. Children are on board. Their safety (mental and physical) is at stake! We need to have our kids refuse to take these unfair, unproven tests that will be used to close our schools and continue to unjustly justify opening up more non-community, privately owned and operated charter schools that hand-pick which kids they want to serve. Save your communities by saving your public schools! Say no to PARCC testing and to the Common Core non-State $tandards they rode in on!
If my child is going to sit for 500 minutes to take a test there better be a good reason. To date, I have not heard of any.
What we know:
-The results are given in 6 months.
-We can never see the test.
-We are told every answer is “plausible”.
-We are told the text is above grade level.
-Only15% of ELA standards are tested. Writing, listening & speaking are left out.
-Field test questions are on the test.
-Prepping for this test has taken a month (or more) out of our children’s education and fractured a love of learning.
-There is no proof that this is a measure of college/career readiness.
-We are not preparing them to become “good” test takers, because this is the only 500 minute test they will ever take (regardless of college/career).
-We love…
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How I Came to Be a Teacher Despite the “Standardized Test”
Introduction
Some teachers always knew they wanted to become a teacher when they grew up. But, I wasn’t one of them. I didn’t really think much about what “I wanted to be” when I grew up. It was too far away to matter to me then. No, I spent my days at play, mostly outside, around the neighborhood. It was made up of only boys, so you can probably imagine what that meant. We rode our bikes up and down the sidewalk of our block. We set up our armies of little plastic soldiers and played war. We shot baskets at the hoop on their garage. We played with the bazillion toys they had in their garage or what they would bring up from down in their basement. We played tennis across the street at the junior high tennis courts. Dreaming about becoming a teacher wasn’t in the cards right from the beginning for me. I was having way too much fun making up games with the boys or negotiating my place in those games. I was busy, busy, busy from the time the sun came up until dusk and the street lights came on. Then it was time to go home for dinner.
The Elementary School Years
I was a pretty quiet kid in elementary school. I did okay with math, but didn’t really enjoy it. My passion was reading. I remember how much I loved to spend time in the library whenever I had the chance. The library was in the center of the school. To me, it was huge! There were two key spots that were my favorites. One was being able to climb up to the top of a wooden structure that reminded me of a treehouse where we could hang out and read books. The other was sitting in an old-fashioned bathtub with the four feet. It was filled with comfortable pillows and was only big enough for one person, so that was the one I tried for first. I would get lost in the Little House on the Prairie series and sometimes forget to go back to my classroom on time. But I don’t ever remember getting in any serious trouble because of it.
I remember being given some opportunities to work with younger kids, like a tutor. I think I was in fifth or sixth grade because my school was grades 1-6, with kindergarten being at an off-site annex a short drive from the school. I liked teaching the younger kids things although I don’t remember what I was teaching them, but it was very enjoyable. I think that was my first taste of “teaching” when I was young.
At the end of the school year, teachers often gave away leftover worksheets and other piles of papers to anyone who wanted to take them home. I remember there were a group of us girls who would swoop in and gather up all that we could carry and take them home. One year, one girl had a small playhouse that her dad had built in their backyard. She decided to start a club. It wasn’t long before our club evolved into many afternoons of “playing school.” We would pass out papers and go through the motions of what we thought it meant to be students and teachers. Of course, we took turns being the teacher. But I also think it was the experience of being a student in that playhouse that convinced me that I didn’t really want to be a teacher when I grew up.
I loved animals. In the summer, I would go to southern Iowa where my parents grew up and where many of my relatives lived. I would stay with my grandparents and sometimes my aunt and uncle, as well. I got to ride horses, play with cats and dogs. I watched chores being done with cattle and sheep. I was pretty sure that with my love of animals being so strong that one day I would grow up to become a veterinarian. That only lasted until I found out that I would have to go to college for about 8 years and take a lot of science classes. Back to the drawing board.
Junior High School Years
In junior high, sports became a focus of much of my time. I played tennis and volleyball all three years (6th, 7th and 8th grades). I played basketball only one year. It wasn’t for me. Academically, I was given a chance to chose some electives. This was a time for me to be able to explore areas of interest. So I remember taking home economics, typing, accounting and French. I’m sure there were others, but those are the ones that stick with me. I did like the accounting. A lot. But when it got into the higher levels, my mind started to wander. I knew it wasn’t for me. French, on the other hand, was fascinating because I was learning how to speak and write in a language that not everyone knew. A friend of mine and I loved writing letters back and forth to each other. It gave new meaning to “passing notes.” I stuck with French through 7th and 8th grades and liked it enough that I knew that I would continue with it into high school. Besides, we were always told that knowing another language would be “helpful” one day and make it easier for us to get a job.
High School Years
In high school, my interest in playing sports continued. At some point, I ended up choosing volleyball over tennis because both sports happened during the same season. I continued with French and my interest in it grew because we learned not only the language but about the French culture as well. My French teacher had a major influence on me. She was like a second mother. She talked to us about life and about our futures. She was the first teacher who really got me thinking seriously about my life beyond high school. As she taught us, she spoke to us as if we WOULD, not SHOULD, but WOULD be traveling to France and taught us as if preparing for that eventuality. She introduced us to a student exchange program and my family hosted two girls from France to come live with us. Each one came for a month. The exchange program told my family that since we had hosted two students that they would allow me to go on the same program to stay with the families of each of these same two girls, even though I wouldn’t be doing it until a year AFTER I had already graduated from high school. But I had a goal. It was the first of many goals to come.
After High School / Before Starting College
During my last year in high school I had gotten a part-time job. I worked at the Dairy Queen. It was a chance to get my feet wet in the world of work and earn a little money. Some of my friends were doing it, why not me? But my grades suffered and I started getting a D in at least one class. So, I quit. I got a lecture from the DQ owners the night I told them I had to quit due to my poor grades. They assured me that if I quit that I would always be a quitter. They said that anytime anything were ever to get too hard that I would just quit and that I would never turn out “to be anything.” As if their lecture wasn’t bad enough, I was even MORE TERRIFIED of what my labor-union-president-father would say. I was SURE that he would be furious with me for being a “quitter.” But, I was wrong. He was actually glad that I was no longer being taken advantage of by being given randomly changeable hours and often working until midnight on a school night. With the blessing of my dad to spur me on, I promised myself right then and there that I would PROVE those Dairy Queen owners WRONG. I would NOT be a quitter and I WOULD be SOMETHING.
By late spring of my senior year, my dad helped me get a job at a YMCA as a janitor for the women’s locker room. During the summer, they promoted me to working behind the front desk: selling memberships, making racquetball court reservations and handing out towels. I was now earning money and working toward that goal of going on the exchange program to France. As luck would have it, a full-time job starting in the fall was opening up. I was asked if I wanted it. My mother was opposed because she wanted me to start college classes at the local community college. But I wanted to go to France. In order to go, I needed more time to earn enough money. I was convinced that I could not only earn enough money to travel on the program to France, but also begin saving money for college. Mom was sure that as soon as I started earning money that I wouldn’t want to stop and wouldn’t GO to college at all. But I wouldn’t back down. Just like when the DQ owners told me what my future would be, I was now determined to prove my mother wrong, too.
So, I worked full-time for the year after high school. I saved my money. When the year was up, I quit the full-time job and went to France on the student exchange program. That experience changed my life forever. My whole world expanded. It was like I had entered a time machine that put me into a different world. To experience a language and a culture from the inside changes you. It just does. I had to learn what was expected of me in different social settings, in different families and in different regions of France. I stayed with one family in an area just outside of Paris for two weeks. I was taken all over the city of Paris for one week and then went on vacation for the second week with my family in the Normandy region near the English Channel. Then I was driven to the airport and flown to the south of France to stay in a town near Marseilles for two more weeks. This family drove with me down the French Rivera. I got to visit Monaco/Monte Carlo and see the Palace of Prince Rainier and learn about Princess Grace, the former American actress, and her untimely death. I got to swim (float buoyantly) in the salty Mediterranean Sea and sunbathe privately on the rocky ledge. I got to shop daily at the outdoor markets for food that the family prepared each day. I got to drink wine and eat cheese and feel very grown up.
College Years
Just like I promised my mother I would do, I enrolled at the local community college. I had no idea about what I wanted to study, but I knew that I needed to take certain kinds of basic classes that could transfer to a four-year school. So my first year, that is what I did. I took a full load of classes, worked part-time at the YMCA and continued to live at home….for a while. But eventually, I needed to spread my wings, so when an opportunity to rent a room in a house that belonged to someone I knew, I convinced my parents that not only could I learn to be responsible for myself, but I could also gain financial independence from them so that I could qualify for more financial aid. So I moved out.
While at the community college, I met many international students. We became friends. I helped them with learning English. They often asked me the meaning of words or to look over the papers they had written to give them pointers on their grammar and word choice. At the end of the first year, I had also been searching for a direction for myself. I found out about a two-year program called International Trade. It was a business program that would help me understand the ins and outs of import and export. After completing the program, I could either get a job in the field or I could go on to a four-year college and continue studying business. So I entered this program which took me two more years to complete, thereby spending three years at a two-year school. I enjoyed most of the classes and was excited about the possibility of being able to travel, use my French (although I knew it wasn’t good enough to do much yet) and one day make a comfortable living. But then, I took marketing and economics. It was mostly marketing’s fault that I didn’t pursue business. That class basically taught me that I would have to lie to be successful in the business world. NOT FOR ME!!!
So when I transferred to a small, private, liberal arts college the next fall (because of great financial aid), I was starting over again to figure out my direction. The one thing that kept coming back to me was my experience helping international students learn English. I kept remembering how they complimented me, telling me that I would make a great teacher someday. So I decided that I would figure out how to become an E.S.L. (English as a Second Language) teacher.
Initially, when I told my adviser about wanting to become an E.S.L. teacher, he, being an English professor, apparently didn’t know what that was. He counseled me to sign up for an English literature class that really wasn’t my “cup of soup.” I read the material and did the work, but I didn’t understand how this was going to prepare me to teacher English to those just learning it.
Ironically, at the very same time, I was a work-study student in the Education Department of this college. I was complaining to the secretary in the department one day about my English class, telling her how crazy it seemed for what it was I really wanted to do. She asked me some questions, like what age students did I want to teach. To teach college level students, I would need a master’s degree, she said. So then, thinking back to my previous experiences of working with kids, I said that I thought I’d like teaching elementary aged children. She told me I should become an elementary education major and that the professor I was working for in the Education Department should be my adviser! Sure enough, I spoke with him and made the switch.
From that point on, I was taking classes that made sense. I took Schooling in American Society. I took Philosophy of Education. I took methods classes and many others that I saw as directly related to preparing me for the kind of work I expected to do in the classroom. I also went on a program called “Urban Education.” This program was held in the city of Chicago. It provided me with the coursework I needed in order to learn what I needed to know to teach English learners. Upon completion of the coursework, I earned the endorsement needed for teaching.
In the fall of my senior year, I was ready to do my student teaching. As luck would have it, I returned to Chicago to do it. I was placed in a public school in Evanston. I was able to do a split student teaching experience during the time I was there. So I spent part of the day in a fourth grade classroom and part of the day in an E.S.L pull-out classroom. I had two fabulous cooperating teachers. The E.S.L. teacher in particular was invaluable in helping me develop the kind of confidence I needed for this work. I watched how she worked with her students. I watched how she created materials for them to learn. I learned from her work with the school’s drama teacher how to involve the students in using English in a non-threatening way. The work I did in the regular classroom setting was much harder for me. The personalities of those students were much more challenging. They tested me in ways that the E.S.L. students didn’t. I did my best and learned to reflect on the successes and the failures of my lessons and on my interactions with students.
I returned to my campus for the spring term to finish my senior year. While everyone else was creating resumes, going to job fairs and filling out employment applications, I was doing homework. I was not given good advice and had no idea that I should have been engaged in all of those activities as well. I was hardly aware that those things were even being done. But, I did keep in touch with the E.S.L. teacher with whom I had done my student teaching. She asked me if I would be interested in teaching summer school in her district. She also said that if that worked out that she and another teacher would provide me with a place to stay. I would house sit for the traveling teacher and I would exchange housekeeping duties for my room and board with her. So I taught summer school with her and another teacher in Evanston. I learned even more about collaborative planning and we had a wonderful time working with those children.
The Job Finds Me
Then, as luck would have it, this same E.S.L. teacher told me that she had flipped a coin and decided to switch schools for the following year. That meant that her position was now open in the same school, in the same classroom where I had done my student teaching! So I immediately applied for the job. But the answer didn’t come for quite some time. By law, they had to advertise the job. In the meantime, the E.S.L. teacher also told me that she had heard about another job opening and she gave me the number of a man who used to work in the Evanston district, but who was, at that time, a principal in Elmwood Park. Just based on the recommendation of my E.S.L. teacher, he told me that he would recommend me for the job in Elmwood Park, if I wanted it. He also told me that he understood that the job in Evanston was my first choice. So I told him that if Evanston turned me down, I would definitely go to work in his district. Luckily, with this other district ready and willing to sign me up and enough time having gone by, I was able to convince Evanston to make a hiring decision and they agreed to give me the job.
And that is how I came to be a lifelong teacher of English learners, in the same school, in the SAME classroom where I did my student teaching. I think it is apparent based on the many twists and turns in my history of becoming a teacher that it truly was my destiny. I used to giggle when the E.S.L. cooperating teacher used to tell me that I was “born with chalk in my fists.” But, I never forgot what she said. I have been told by many teaching colleagues, principals, parents and students that I am a wonderful teacher. Many even say that I have “a gift.”
Standardized Tests Proved Nothing About Teacher Quality For Me
But what I do know is this. I didn’t become a teacher by receiving high test scores. In fact, I was one of those students who typically didn’t do well on standardized tests. In fact, one year in high school, I purposely didn’t even try. I just filled in the bubbles. I was tired of taking those kinds of tests by that time. I just didn’t care. I HATED those tests. I HATED the way the test questions were worded and how the answer choices made my head spin. I never saw the results (what I missed) from them, so they mattered not one bit to me. I also had to take the ACT test. I did. I tried my best on that one, but when I got my score back, I knew it wouldn’t get me into college. Yet, I knew that I was a good student who got good grades in school based on classroom work, papers written and teacher-created assessments. So, I got into college with my grades by attending a community college, proving myself and getting excellent grades all through college. Was I ready for college? Why, yes. Yes, I was. And I have been a very effective teacher for 25 years based on seeing the results of my daily work with children as well as the successful, happy people so many of them have become as adults.
For the sake of our children, and for the future of our society, I hope many more wonderful teachers find their way into this necessary, marvelous profession. I plan to work hard to preserve it and to improve it from the INSIDE OUT!
GUEST POST: Denny Taylor, Garn Press
It’s time to recognize basic human needs and it’s time to recognize how corporations are leading us all over the cliff!
GUEST POST: Denny Taylor, Garn Press
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I am writing to urgently request your help. If you find the political circumstance and the research base for the four propositions that I have outlined in this letter are compelling, and you support the course of action suggested here please send this letter to friends and colleagues. Use your websites, Facebook, and any other means to get the message out. Given that I rarely enter the public sphere my friends will know that the situation of which I write is pressing. Time is of the essence, I fear.
Some of you will have read books I have written based on forty years of longitudinal research in family, community, and schools settings with children, families, and teachers who live and work in challenging social and physical environments. Except for my doctoral dissertation, all my research has taken place in sites…
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Schneider: What Bill Gates Told the Washington Post About Common Core
So, let’s end the argument about how “voluntary” these inappropriate standards are or even WHY they are inappropriate. They ARE inappropriate because they don’t represent the will of THE PEOPLE. They are a corporate-driven, Gates-led, anti-democratic bunch of controlling words written primarily by non-educators who don’t really “give a sh!t” (David Coleman’s words, not mine) about what kids think or feel. And all of it is based on the lie that our schools are in crisis based on international test scores.
Our schools are only in crisis insofar as poverty is on the rampage and privatizers are being allowed to target those schools, many of which are also filled with mostly students of color, so they can justify closing them and handing them over to the profiteers who will show everyone how to make a fortune while bamboozling (VAMboozling, if you are a teacher) the American public and laughing all the way to their off-shore banks.
Where are all the fair-paying jobs that will help families alleviate their poverty-stricken circumstances that suppress their ability to focus, concentrate and learn? Oh, that’s right. The priority hasn’t BEEN jobs. It has been budget-cutting austerity measures that we’ve been told are necessary. Those cuts have crippled our schools making them desperate for additional funding any way they can get it. It was no coincidence that Race to the Top grant competition came along at the same time as the corporations and banks crashed our economy in 2008, further crippling our schools. It was also not clear the average American citizen that the Common Core $tate [sic] $tandards weren’t even finished being written when states who wanted to compete for the limited (not enough for everyone) funding required them to agree to adopt the standards, sight-unseen, regardless of winning the grant competition or not. THAT is how 46 states initially got misled into signing on the dotted line.
So enough of the madness. It’s time to slay this dragon and promote sanity by giving our schools back to the communities they belong to, led by the teachers who know how to teach.
Read all about what Gates did/said here:
Schneider: What Bill Gates Told the Washington Post About Common Core.
REBLOG of Dear Teacher: Shut Up or I’ll Starve Your Children
REBLOG of Dear Teacher: Shut Up or I’ll Starve Your Children
I have a friend.
She was a great teacher.
She taught in an inner city high school in Indianapolis, Indiana.
She had been teaching there for 8 years.
Her students worked hard.
She helped them excel.
Then she lost her job.
Why? What could possibly have led to this decision? Well, you’ve heard Rahm Emanuel use “decreased enrollment” as his catch-all phrase/reason for closing Chicago public schools down, right? Well, have you every heard of “decreased enrollment” in ONE CLASS? Me neither.
These kinds of things shouldn’t happen, but they do. They are becoming more and more commonplace. Our public schools ARE under attack.
Read on and see how it happened to THIS teacher. Find out what happens to good teachers, not just the so-called “bad” ones in the current political climate we, teachers, find ourselves in.
Then, join us in the fight of our lives — to save American public schools from being closed down and/or turned around, and made into Common Core factories that push out standardized workers for the future corporate workforce.
Don’t let the corporate money mongers suck the life blood out of our schools AND bleed our taxpayer pocketbooks dry!
Factionista Files 