Sorry that I’m AWOL (though you may not be). During the semester, it’s difficult for me to carve out time to write. I really need to become independenty wealthy so that I can write full time! But in the meantime, it’s catch as catch can.
Having trick or treaters made me think of all those Halloweens abroad, missing the fun and the costumes.
Enjoy it wherever you are, and stay safe!
Teachers. For the most part I have nothing but the highest regard for my fellow teachers. It is a demanding profession; we get little respect and far too little pay for our efforts; we work with a population that while delightful some of the time, can be little terrors at others. And yes, I include college students in that population. Ever have to deal with a surly (and smelly) hung over young man who doesn’t want to be in class and get his work criticized? We do. But over the years, I have found that there are three types of people who go into teaching in America: the true believers, the ones who like the summers off and the short day, and the ones who landed there because they flunked out of their first major and needed something to major in fast so that they could graduate on time.
I don’t want to talk about the true believers here, who believe that theirs is a sacred duty or at the very least a vocation. They are the teachers who have often unofficially taught peers since childhood, but have often struggled with the desire for a different career. They could easily be in a more lucrative career, but something always calls them back to teaching. They almost inevitably do a great job, and sacrifice and go above and beyond the call of duty each and every day of their careers. We’ve all had a teacher like that, and if we’re lucky, we’ve had more than one.
But let me cast a glance at the other two groups.
The teachers who are in the field for the hours are a mixed group. Many are women who want to have more time for motherhood and planned on a career to accommodate that long before a baby became a reality. They usually enjoy children and take their development seriously. On the whole, these are good teachers. Sometimes, though, this group can include people who want to have a totally different career, usually in the arts, so they teach as the “day job” until they attain success in their other field. For some, that happens and they leave the field. But if that never happens, this group can turn nasty and bitter, but on the whole they can be competent.
But then comes that last group—and they can be scary. I knew a lot of people who followed this path into teaching. By this point in time, I’ve taught many of them, as well. Some of them openly hate children, yet teach or will teach elementary school. I can understand the necessity of finding a major for graduation, but it scares me that some majors are stricter than others. If someone is not competent to be a nurse or a physical therapist or an accountant, why should we let them teach? One could argue that a teacher’s mistake won’t kill you or cause you problems with the IRS, but that’s a myopic view of reality. Poor teachers create students with weak skills. To use a hoary chestnut, teachers shape the future.
You do see where I’m going with this.
All of us with children have stories to tell about poor teachers. Many of us have bad childhood memories as well. To be fair to the profession, we all have stories to tell of idiot doctors, lawyers, car mechanics and insurance people as well, but idiots in those professions usually only damage one person at a time. A bad teacher can inflict long term damage on a whole classroom of kids in one academic year. And unless a teacher is grossly incompetent or oversteps the boundaries of propriety, there’s not much one can do about the situation.
Of course, we can always raise standards for teachers. Most states now have tests for teachers. One of my former students, a very bright young man who belongs in the first group, just took his state exams and found them shockingly easy. I’ve heard from other students that they were far too difficult. They only passed by luck and a prayer. One student even asked me why the need for the difficult exams? She was planning on teaching sixth grade. Why did she have to know this stuff? I hear things like this, and I am disheartened.
Frankly, I have no easy answers or quick fixes. One major thing that must be done to fix American education is to change American attitudes toward education. I’ve written about this before, but as long as this county pays lip service to respecting teachers while treating teachers like second rate professionals, it will continue to get far too many second rate professionals in the field.
Americans point to Japanese students, Chinese students, Indian students and ask, “Why can’t our students be as good? Why can’t our schools be as successful?” I answer, “Look at how these societies treat their teachers.” There is a clear and direct correlation between teacher quality and student quality. Great teachers bring out the best in students. We see this in our own schools, so why can’t people make the next step in the logic? Better teachers means better students.
It’s actually a very small number of teachers in this country who are ill equipped to be in the field, but sadly, it is a larger number than in other professions.
Unfortunately, I’m not done with teachers, and so more on them in the next installment of my views on American education tomorrow.
One thing that has bothered me about American culture for years is its obsession with bodies. We attack celebrities for being too heavy or too thin. Who is just right?
Since I’ve come back, I swear it’s gotten worse.
Women’s magazines inevitably have a diet featured on the front cover. Just looking at some magazines in my room I see: “Lose up to 14 pounds!” and “Have a Bikini-Ready Body by June!” and “Better than Gastric Bypass! Lose 9 lbs a Week”.
But those same magazines also have stories on easy treats–Boston Cream Cupcakes, chocolate chip cookies and “fun party cakes”.
And one magazines that published recipes for an everyday meal totaling 1065 calories and 55 grams of fat, also carries ads for Hydroxycut, Super Dieter’s Hunger Control Slim Mix, Apatrim and Xenadrine RFA-1. In fact, there are only three other ads in the magazine, so that’s a pretty overwhelming message to readers: You’re too fat!
And we are. According to the Centers for Disease Control, over 66% of Americans over 20 are considered either overweight or obese and 24% of them are obese. That’s a frightening trend.
In an earlier blog entry, I mentioned that when I returned to America, the shapes of some Americans frightened me so much that I lost weight. Luckily, that trend has continued. I’ve lost 40 pounds since I’ve been back. That’s not an amazing amount over two years, but at least I buck the national trend of gaining weight every year!
By no stretch of the imagination could I ever be considered not overweight, but there are days when I’m riding the subway in NYC, especially when I’m not in Manhattan, and I look around and think: “I’ve got the smallest butt in this car!” That breaks my heart! Seriously, it does. When I see young people, male and female, severely overweight, it frightens me. Once in the grocery store, I heard a little girl, no more than 10 years old, talking about her high cholesterol with her mother!
What’s going on? Part of the problem is the complete and utter junk that passes for food in the country. There is also the portion distortion that we hear about in the news. In an effort to lure in customers in these financially lean times, fast food restaurants are offering more and more grease and carbs for your money.
Even nicer places are doing the same. My family went to a seafood restaurant, and my sister and I took home so much of our dinners that we each got two more lunches!
One thing I do find worrisome is how weight is such an accurate class marker, especially here in New York City. Riding the subway in the Bronx, I can feel pretty good about myself. Once I cross over into Manhattan, people are radically smaller and healthier looking. It’s no surprise that more money means better nutrition as well as better education. But being able to eat healthily should not be a privilege of wealth and education. That’s just a national shame.
I have no solutions. It’s just a scary trend I see now that I’m back in the States. And since I have so much to say about so many things, I thought I’d start with some scary observations just to get them off my chest.
Not being able to write here has been weighing heavily on my heart, but not as heavily as the thoughts I’ve been having. It’s now almost two full years since I moved back to America. It’s good to be back, really it is. But so much has changed, and sadly, much of that change is not for the better.
Over the next few weeks I shall be venting, I’m afraid, but not a pure vent. I will be adding some thoughts that have been on my mind. Health care, education, national character, all topics that have intrigued me.
When I first returned, I wrote a series of quick observations gleaned in the airport and on my bus trip from Tennessee to New York. Tomorrow’s dip back into writing will be a similar entry, short snippets of observations made over the past two years.
Until then, thanks for your patience! The Broad is, once again, back!
An accident and some carpal tunnel syndrome have slowed me down, and then there’s my teaching schedule. But I will be back soon.
Being an uninsured American after coming from a place with national health, well, my eyes have been opened. What a strange place this country can be. I have much to say, so soon.
“Love, Love, Love” the Beatles sang all those years ago. An appropriate sentiment for the day, but it’s a topic I’ve had on my mind for a while now. Today seems the most appropriate day to post it here.
Once upon a time, years ago, a writer friend of mine, Mark Goldblatt, wrote a newspaper column on the simple words “I love you.” I’m relying on my memory here, but I’m pretty sure I’m paraphrasing him correctly. He said he didn’t really say the words because they are overused. People love potato chips and TV shows and Jimmy Choos, so the meaning of the word love has been cheapened. He had a point.
Whenever I find myself using the word love a lot, I think of Mark and wonder, am I overusing it? Cheapening it? I love my family and friends. I love my students. I love most individuals. Too much with the word?
No, and I think I know why. I don’t love things. I enjoy them. I like them, but I don’t love them. I love people–individuals and groups, but I love living beings. (Okay, and I love animals, too, but again, living beings.) And frankly, I don’t think we can tell people we love them enough.
My problem is, I’m not comfortable saying the words, really. So I have to try to let my actions speak for me. But that’s all on one-to-one basis. I try to use Love as my prime motivator, but how can Love be all we need?
I think what I mean by this was underscored in the Inaugural address this year. I mentioned how I cried when President Obama quoted 1 Corinthians 13. But this term I also taught the inaugural poem “Praise Song for the Day” in class, and what Elizabeth Alexander wrote there sums up what I feel.
Towards the end of the poem, she writes these words:
Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?
Brilliant lines, really. First she looks at the basic operating guidelines of some major groups–Christians, humanists and pagans and Communists and Socialists. But really, how different are those creeds? They all can co-exist quite easily. And then she asks the perfect question: “What if the mightiest word is love?”
She follows up with the specifics on what she means:
Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.
Love beyond what we usually have here on earth. Love that casts a widening pool of light–what an image! Can’t you just see the light of love widening from each person, enveloping one another in that healing, caring light–the light that drives out darkness? As Dr. Martin Luther King tells us, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that; hate cannot drive out hatred, only love can do that.“
Love is the defining word of my life. It’s been used by all the people I consider heroes and it’s the one guiding principle of my life. And as silly as it sounds, the Beatles played a large part in making me think of living a life of love. I have said over and over that growing up listening to hippie songs warped my view of life, and there’s some seriousness under the joking. One of the most powerful musical lines in the soundtrack that is my life comes courtesy of George Harrison: “With our love – We could save the world”. I definitely believe that, and I think that’s what Alexander was talking about.
She ends the poem with these words:
In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,
praise song for walking forward in that light.
How beautiful! If we, as a people, as a country, walk forward into the light of love instead of into the destructive dark of hatred, what a world we could have! And while my brand of love tends to be Christianized, who can’t find some reason to love?
On many levels, I’m not saying anything too different from what my country has believed from its start. As a nation, we were founded on precepts of Christian or Humanist brotherly love. And we don’t have to be Christians to agree that the definition of Love found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 is a pretty useful one:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
If we could pull this off as individuals, as a country, that would be amazing. And using this definition, all we really do need is love. With this love, we could change the world.
I wish you love. I wish my country love and my whole world love. In the spirit of my pop music gurus, especially George Harrison, John Lennon, and Donovan, and with Elizabeth Alexander, I wish we all walk forward to the light of love and change our world.
End Note: Since I hear “All You Need is Love” while reading this, let me paste some of the lyrics here:
There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game.
It’s easy.Nothing you can make that can’t be made.
No one you can save that can’t be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time.
It’s easy.
Tuesdays events were historic, but today’s were almost as important. President Obama signed executive orders to close Guantanamo Bay prison camp and to stop waterboarding along with other tortures. God bless the man!
America was a great country and will be great again, but for too many years now we’ve been behaving in a morally reprehensible manner. Because this is my country and I love it fiercely, I hold it to a higher standard. And if we say we are fighting the good fight, we have to behave properly. Breaking the Geneva Conventions is wrong. Torture is wrong.
I have no sympathy for terrorists. As long as the spirits and accomplishments of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. live, no one on earth can convince me of the need for terrorism. Over the years, in many arguments, people have tried to tell me that oppressed people have no other choice. That is just wrong. Yes, I know that there are millions of politically wronged people on this earth, but I will never condone terrorism. So contrary to my more radically conservative relatives’ claims, I’m not a “bleeding heart liberal”. Really, I’m not. I’m not against torture because it’s bad for the tortured. I’m against it because it’s bad for the torturer. When someone tortures a prisoner in the name of the United States, it weakens my country.
Finally, we have a president who understands that.
I know that torture works. I’m quite aware of that fact, and knowing me, if I thought I could save a family member by torturing someone, I’d do it in a heart beat. But I know I would dehumanize myself in the process. Something in me would die, and I would be in the wrong. Expedient, but wrong.
But I am an individual. My actions are between me and my God. The United States is a different case. We can’t tell other countries not to torture, tell them to give prisoners due process of the law, and then turn around and break the same rules ourselves.
According to today’s story in CNN, “The president said he was issuing the order to close the facility in order to ‘restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great even in the midst of war, even in dealing with terrorism.’”
About the order banning torture, Obama said, “This is me following through … on an understanding that dates back to our founding fathers, that we are willing to observe core standards of conduct not just when it’s easy but also when it’s hard.”
This is a hard decision, but it’s a great one. Thank you, Mr. President.
“History was made” is a phrase that appears all too frequently in newscasts. But today, history was well and truly made when Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America.
Thanks to a car accident over the weekend, at noon today I sat in a rental car, listening to the swearing in and the inaugural speech. I was happy when I arrived at my destination as I was crying and afraid to drive. I dashed into the body shop hoping the TV was on, and it was. There I sat in the waiting room of a car repair shop, watching the end of the speech.
Tears were rolling down my cheeks, and while I was embarrassed (I hate to be seen crying), I let it rip. I had actually planned on being in Washington for the inauguration, just so I could say I was there, but the car accident changed all plans. At the end of the speech, I just looked at the men in the room–it was me and some men–and said, “I’m a girl; I can get away with this.”
President Obama–finally we can say that! I feel such pride. And, dare I say it? I feel hope. The last inauguration that I watched was President Clinton’s in ‘92. It was the last time I was in the US for one, and really, it was the last time I cared. I was full of hope then, too, after 12 long years of Republican rule by presidents I could barely tolerate. The “greed is good” 80s were an anathema to my view of life and wealth. It didn’t take long for me to be disillusioned by the Clinton administration. They were better than what went before, true, but “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the miserable failure of the Clinton health plan soured the hope for me.
But today, listening to the speech, I felt hope again. I love words. I love stirring rhetoric, and today’s speech was a good one. It had echoes of Presidents Washington (not a man known for stirring rhetoric, of course), FDR and JFK.
The first section of speech that hit my heart was this:
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
I actually had to pull off the street because I was crying too hard to drive. It’s a quote from one of my favorite verses of Scripture: 1 Cor 13:11. It comes after the famous definition of Love, but there is the hint that in the spirit of Love, we must go forth as a nation. And because of that, we are all equal, all free, all deserving. I cried because I believe that wholeheartedly, but also because for so many, especially so many of my students, that equality seems so far.
Then came this paragraph:
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted – for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.
I could drive during this part. In fact, I snorted. Too many of us in this country have become lazy, looking for short cuts and the easy way. No one knows this better than teachers.
After coming back from 12 years abroad, I have noticed a sense of entitlement that shocks me. When I give C grades to students–by definition an average grade–students get angry at me and often demand an A grade, meaning excellent. I often think the C is inflated, but there it is. They actually handed something in, so it must be excellent.
Fox News reported on a study to that end last November, “Many Teens Overconfident; Have “Wildly” Unrealistic Expectations” which didn’t shock me in the least. And of course, their parents are to blame, and that’s my generation. I see too much laziness and corner cutting in my own generation as well.
So this is what scares me about the challenges America faces. I’ve mentioned many times that President Obama and I are the same age. Michelle Obama is three years younger than me. I’m well educated, I admit, but compared to the Obamas, I’m a regular slacker. I can tell myself that being a teacher is a noble profession, that I’ve touched the lives of thousands of kids. Yeah, but I also tell myself that thousands of them don’t remember me at all, or if they do it’s with mild annoyance.
Am I ready and willing to pick up the challenge? Frankly, I’m tired. I feel like I’ve been fighting the good fight for the past 12 years. I was fighting it before that as well. I’ve never given up the dream of my 60s youth.
When I heard these words today:
What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
the tears began anew. I believe these words with all of my heart.
Hopefully, the tired and ragged idealists among us will feel refreshed and be ready to soldier on. And those who never really thought of the responsibility part of being an American will wake up and see the light.
I have hope. One of my all time favorite pieces of advice to my students is this quote by Edith Hamilton: “When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.” May we learn a hard lesson from history.
And at this junction, I can’t help but think of the Kennedy brothers: the hope they still engender. My hero Bobby gives me a fitting ending for this essay:
“Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”
I would add say a prayer for our new president and his family. Because we live in a savage world, he needs our prayers
Been a tad busy this term with too much teaching, too many students and a too interesting election. I had to write about the elections, which ate time I just didn’t have, so I had to take a time out till the semester ended. My Taiwan semester has about a week left, but I’ll back soon!
Just finished watching the VP debate, and I must say, I am impressed. It was livelier than the presidential debate, and I actually felt like the candidates were engaging with one another and with the moderator. Once in a while.
And it needs must be said. Sarah Palin impressed me. She barely flubbed a line. She spoke in full sentences. She gave good soundbites. She was obviously coached, but she’s one quick study, I give her that. She mostly looked poised and confident, and there were times when she looked downright relaxed.
From what I’ve been reading and seeing about Palin for the past five weeks, she’s good at touching people where they are easily touched. Just today in class, discussing this evening’s planned debates, we discussed the aspects of rhetoric: ethos, pathos and logos. We knew going in that Palin was strong on pathos–the ability to sway an audience’s emotions. And she was. She also knows how to use her on-camera experience as a sports reporter to excellent advantage. She looked straight into that camera and spoke to Mr. and Mrs. and Ms America. At one point she even referred to “Joe Six Pack,” a term I learned in journalism class.
What struck me as odd, though, was that I was taught that Joe Six Pack is the slightly condescending term we use for the people who were going to read our stories–the average American who just wants to go home after work, drink that six pack and watch some news, maybe read a paper. Palin managed to sound like she was including herself in the Joe Six Pack stereotype. But that nuance is probably not going to be picked up by the people she was addressing. She knew going in that people like me were already dismissing her.
There were times I found myself agreeing with her, which is not too strange, as I’m not a strict party member. I’m a Democrat by default, but I am more Libertarian in my views than anything else, and in some ways I think Palin is of more of an independent mind than many Republicans. How many times did she call herself a maverick tonight?
But I don’t think she won. I thought Biden was very good, as well, and indeed, his experience showed. He must have read the pundits’ advice that he not call her Sarah, but Governor Palin lest he appear sexist and condescending. She asked to call him Joe and did so. He called McCain “John,” Obama “Barack,” but spent the evening calling her “Governor Palin”. As she was calling him Joe, the continual “Governor Palin” did come across as a little stiff, but that filter between his brain and his mouth was firmly in place. There was no embarrassing sound bite that will haunt him in years to come. There was a perfect catch in his voice when he was discussing the loss of his wife and daughter and the terrible injuries suffered by his sons, which rang true and felt unscripted. Every parent in the listening audience empathized with him at that moment.
He touched more emotional notes in his brilliant closing statement. (You can find the transcript of the entire debate here.) He used pathos to great effect in his closing and left all of us listening in my house with lumps in our throats. He roused us to action and to change by reminding us of what we’re capable of doing as a nation.
Palin hit some good notes in her answers, as well. Although I thought she horribly overworked the energy angle, her shout outs to teachers were very much appreciated by the three teachers in my house. Sometimes I do feel like I will get my reward in heaven, ’cause I sure ain’t getting it here, at least not a monetary one. And when she spoke of parents at their kids’ soccer games, of people sitting at their kitchen tables, worrying, she was painting images that millions could see themselves in. She wasn’t always answering the question, but she was certainly catching people’s attention.
Her closing statement was disappointing. I expected better rhetoric. The one part of the debate that could be totally scripted, and she didn’t blow me away. Oh, she trotted out the words I expected to hear–freedom, fighting, change–but the delivery was stiff and stilted, probably because it was the one part of the debate that had been totally scripted.
Overall, though, I never got bored by this debate as I did with the presidential debate. Perhaps because it’s the first time I’ve really listened to either candidate, it was less old hat than the presidential debate. I very much enjoyed watching these two spar, and I think they enjoyed it on some level as well. They seemed to like each other, or at least respect one another. Both do have records of being able to cross party lines to get things done, and I think they are sincere in their desire to put America first.
Too bad there’s only one vice presidential debate. But let’s hope that the next presidential debate will prove as lively as this did. This wasn’t a perfect debate, but at least I felt like the two debaters were actually in the same room together this time.
 | sandrar on Bag lady |
 | Snigel on An interesting thought |
 | maestroeducator on Teachers in America |
 | slgreatsuccess on Helicopter Parents and Hothous… |
 | Anita on If a Job’s Worth Do… |
|
Maggie C’s RSSfeedPowered by WordPress.com
