Why the Jeff Bliss story makes me want to quit

I am sure that by the time I am writing this, you have read about, heard about, or seen the viral video featuring Texas high school student Jeff Bliss going off on his teacher about having to complete another packet.  The video is roughly a minute and a half, was recorded “undercover” by a classmate using a cell phone, and is largely out of context, although if other sources are to believed, her request for him to “quit bitching” and subsequently throwing him out of the room prompted his tirade.  Her dismissive attitude comes off as a combination of her not caring about her students and her not trying to get flustered and overreact to his ranting (although maybe I’m assuming too much with the latter–I have been in situations where students are yelling at me and one of the few ways I keep myself from yelling back is to act casual).

No matter what the teacher did or what her behavior was before, during, and after the confrontation, two things are certain:  she’s been placed on administrative leave and Jeff Bliss has become a folk hero.  A smattering of praise via a quick check of the internet …

• “aaronburr,” commenter on the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet:  ”Way to go, Jeff! You’re a true American hero.”
• HumanWazHere, WaPo commenter:  ”GO JEFF GO!!! We need more people like this in the USA!! I Support YOU!”
• Zak Malamed, Student Voice:  ”Hey, buddy! You are quite an inspiration & great representative of the work [Student Voice] is doing.”
• Lisa Nielsen:  ”I commend Jeff Bliss for standing up for himself and all the other students who deserve a beyond-the-packet education … Our children are not our future. They are the voices we need TODAY. Our job is to listen and support them. When they say they can’t learn the way we are teaching (or not teaching in this case) we must hear them and do what we can to ensure they receive the education they deserve. When we do that we will have citizens who are not just good at sitting down and filling in packets but standing up and filling our world with those who are empowered with embrace their right to change the world.”

Now, there are many more tweets, posts, and comments that are similar.  Many are quite different, ranging from John Spencer’s post about how we don’t have the whole story and therefore shouldn’t rush to judgment to Teaching Underground’s post about how all this really does is perpetuate the “bad teacher” narrative to more caustic comments about how Bliss was being disrespectful (although I’d say petulant is more accurate a term).  

This is why.

MEMORANDUM

 

To:  The youth of America

From:  A teacher in his mid-30s

CC:  The Internet

Date:  11/10/2012

Re:  Social media

So as you probably have heard, President Barack Obama recently won reelection.  Moreover, the youth vote was just as significant this time around in 2012 as it was in 2008.  This surprised some “experts” because voter enthusiasm was supposedly low this year and that often translates to a low turnout, especially among youth, because of a belief that if you don’t believe in it or like it you won’t do it.  You’ll find out as you go through life that “experts,” especially if they are pundits, are quite often wrong (statisticians, on the other hand?  Surprisingly right).  Good job on keeping things going and if this was your first time voting, I have to say you’re lucky to have voted in such an important election.  My first presidential election was 1996 via absentee ballot.  Not exactly the excitement of pulling the lever in person.

I watched election returns on Tuesday night and went to bed at about 1:00 a.m. after Mitt Romney finally conceded.  I didn’t fall asleep until 1:30 or 2:00 because I was so hyped from the Obama victory.  The next day I was a zombie through most of my classes, but I did have a great conversation with a few students in my study hall, a couple of whom voted and a couple of whom were too young to do so.  We talked about the Electoral College and how that worked (and how fortunate they were to see it work in a year that they–seniors–were taking government), and why there was such a focus on Ohio and not on, say, Texas or California, which had more electoral votes.  It was the type of intelligent conversation I don’t hear enough among adults when it comes to politics and I think I closed it with some advice: “Keep following the news, and if you get frustrated, that’s okay.  Politics is frustrating and makes you want to bang your head against the wall, but you should stay informed.”  I have been reminded time and again by “experts” in my field that I do not have a monopoly on knowledge and am not a sage, but I’m pretty sure I was in the position to offer said advice.

But as bolstered as I was in my face-to-face conversations with those students, I have to say that I was both disappointed and disgusted by what many said over social media.  On Wednesday morning, Buzzfeed posted screen captures of various tweets, mainly from teenagers that expressed outrage at the president’s reelection and had prolific use of the “n” word.  Yesterday, Jezebel called out quite a number of those tweeters (twits?) in their piece, “Racist Teens Forced to Answer for Tweets About ‘N—–’ President” (they’ll put the word in the headline; sorry, I won’t).  Go through the article and you’ll see some reprehensible language as well as a running excuse, “My account was probably hacked.”

The comments on the piece are pretty interesting as well.  Several people actually seem to come to the defense of the tweeters (twits?) because of several reasons: “you wouldn’t have posted this if Romney had won,” “well, black people call each other n—– all the time,” “you’re shaming them publicly and that’s going to mess up their lives,” “blah blah blah First Amendment,” and my favorite, “they’re just kids (often followed with, ‘they don’t really know what they’re saying’).”  Most of the other commenters fall on the opposite side of that argument, saying that, no, it’s a good thing that racism and hate speech like this was called on the carpet so publicly.

I fall in the latter camp.  It’s one thing to be upset that President Obama was reelected; a few of my friends posted how upset they were at the election results.  However, none of them used a racial slur because they all realize that you can be upset about a president who happens to be black winning an election without resorting to calling him that word.  Furthermore, I don’t buy the argument that this is a First Amendment issue, because Jezebel is letting these fine youths say what they’re saying, then is calling them out for it.  I also don’t buy the argument that they’re kids and they don’t really know better.  Because first of all, they’re teenagers and by that age, there is a certain amount of common sense that they should have.  Oh sure, I did stupid crap and said plenty of stupid crap when I was a teenager, but I was smart enough to know that I wasn’t going to say racist things or put them in print (because a) you just don’t do that and b) I’m not a racist).  I teach in a high school.  I get to hear people use the word “Jew” in the same pejorative fashion they use the word “fag,” and I have no qualms about calling them on the carpet right in front of their peers.

Here’s the thing.  I realize that as the youth of America, you are smarter than people give you credit for.  I go on #stuvoice chats every once in a while and I see some great stuff; plus, I know what it’s like to be underestimated by adults because I was a teenager at the height of the whole “Generation X is a bunch of slackers” thing in the early 1990s.  But not everyone sees things the way I do.  In fact, many people choose to focus on only the negative aspects of a particular group of people, usually because they don’t like those people in the first place.  Do you want to know why adults might see you as entitled or snot-nosed or disrespectful or bratty?  Furthermore, do you want to know why so many adults who are in charge of your schools still demonize social media? Well, this is why.

No, really.  This is why.  They don’t see the value in Twitter or Facebook or whatever innovative app is being pushed at us through articles and PD because all they can think of is the time when you were posting racist things or spewing insults about faculty and administrators or bullying other students.  The feeling of discomfort, disgust, or pain often resonates longer than that which is pleasurable or positive.  So what you do online–the words you choose, the actions you take, and even the excuses you give (“I really didn’t mean it,” “I was joking,” “Oh, we’re just having fun,” “It’s my personal tweet,” “My account was hacked,” “First Amendment”)–makes more of an impact than you realize.  You might have a short attention span and think that something you said a week ago is “old,” but your parents, your teachers, your guidance counselors, your principals, members of the community, college admissions officers, future employers … well, they may not.  Furthermore, what you say may, to one or more people, represent not you as an individual, but the entire group of teenagers in your community or the youth of America as a whole.

Like I said, this is why you’re arguing about Facebook, Twitter, cell phones, or whatever with your teachers and principals.  And this is why you’re not taken as seriously as you think you should.  I am sure you find my comments here disrespectful, but I only wish to point out the unfortunate truth of the actions of those who wind up representing you in the eyes of older generations.

Slut-shaming Helen of Troy

“She was a whore.”

He was referring to Helen of Troy.  We had been reading Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, “To Helen,” which may or may not be about the woman whose face launched a thousand ships–of course, the subject of poems rarely are that clear cut.  Here’s the text:

To Helen
By Edgar Allan Poe

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicéan barks of yore,
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-Land!

I was using the Helen of Troy reference in class to contrast his putting her, the “most beautiful woman in the world,” on a pedestal, with the woman described in Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130″ (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun …”), who, well, like Bill said, when she walks treads on the ground.  We read the poem, talked about what the narrator thinks of his subject, and then I brought up Helen and asked if the class knew the story of Helen of Troy.  They knew the gist of it–mainly, that she was taken to Troy and the Trojan War started as a result–but when I asked, “Do you know how or why she wound up there?”

“She was a whore,” said one student.

A week later, with my advanced class, we read the same poem and I asked the same question.

“She was a slut,” said a student.

There’s a place in the world for the Angry Young Man

First, a note: This is an edited re-post of a piece from my old blog, “Stop Trying to Inspire Me.” The blog is no longer up, but lately I have been thinking about re-posting some of my favorite old posts because some of them are still relevant, and I have an ego the size of a small country and want to show everyone how awesome I am. But mostly because of the relevance thing.

Oh, and a prelude …

On some level, I probably owe Erica Goldson some sort of apology.

After all, when her valedictory speech made the rounds a couple of years ago, I wrote an incredibly snarky retort that has gotten the third most hits of any post I have ever written.

Concurrently, I probably owe every student in the entire American educational system an apology because the most-viewed post I ever wrote was a snarky-at-times retort to their 20 things they want everyone to know about education from last year’s “Education Nation” forum.

Now, both of the posts were a bit nasty, especially the Goldson one, because I was definitely on a rant. Readers/commenters definitely thought that I was overly harsh. An anonymous commenter had this to say about the Goldson post:

Erica’s speech was much more respectful, insightful and honest than your sarcastic and overly defensive rebuttal. She most likely acquired those abilities from her parents and not from a teacher like yourself who relies upon anger and personal attacks when confronted with an uncomfortable truth about the game of high school.

And Dale Stephens, who apparently is some sort of super non-student/lecturer type, had this to say about the other:

If you believe you are a teacher—and that your job is to instill knowledge—you are in for a rude awakening over the next 10 years. “Teachers” no longer have a monopoly on knowledge. First came libraries, then came OCW. Now we have Google. If you want to have a job in the future I suggest you become a life coach.

Granted, I picked only a little out of both comments for the sake of length (and I have no further context to provide because the original posts were taken down), but the gist of them is that I’m mean and this is obviously a reflection of my overall personality and that I have an antiquated view that is part of the overall problem (I believe Laurie Couture even lumped me in with the rest of the child abusers at some point).

So this should be a mea culpa, an acknowledgement that perhaps my attitude was wrong and my opinions misguided.

Except it’s not.

I am a real Amurican!

Photo by ilovememphis. Used via cc license.

So this morning I’m doing my usual skimming of news, and I come across this letter in the Free-Lance Star:

Regarding the Aug. 18 Dennis Prager op-ed, “Welcome, young scholars, to American High”: This is a great message that should be communicated at every level throughout the land.

There has been so much political correctness with hyphenated identities and ethnic-religious esteem issues that we’ve almost forgotten who we are Americans!

We need more of this type of message in our media.

Now, part of me was like, “You know, you should just move on here.  It’s nothing worth reading.”  Another part of me was like, “Oh, you have to read it.  It’s probably hilarious.”

Based on the fact that you’re reading this blog post, it’s not too hard to figure out which side of me won that argument.

The op-ed, which was published a couple of weeks ago, is available to read here: “Welcome, young scholars, to American High” and contains gems such as:

This is an American public school, and American public schools were created to make better Americans. If you wish to affirm an ethnic, racial, or religious identity through school, you will have to go elsewhere. We will end all ethnicity-, race-, and non-American nationality-based celebrations. They undermine the motto of America, one of its three central values–e pluribus Unum, “from many, one.”

This school will be guided by America’s values. This includes all after-school clubs. I will not authorize clubs that divide students based on any identities. This includes race, language, religion, sexual orientation, or whatever else may become in vogue in a society divided by political correctness.

There’s more than that, but you get the idea.  The writer–a nationally syndicated conservative commentator (meaning that the FLS simply plucked something off the wire , probably knowing that the right-wing nutjobs who spend every waking hour salivating over the tripe printed on their editorial page would eat it up) — uses a typical conservative rhetorical trick, which is that of subtle bigotry.  This is done by more or less saying things that are outright racist or otherwise bigoted, but then lampshading it in the guise of “including the other side” or “calling out political correctness.”  That way when someone calls him out on what he’s doing he can say, “No!  I said something anti-Christian right here!” (or something like that).

I’m not going to spend much more on calling Dennis Prager an ignorant boob.  What I can’t wrap my head around, however, is how this sort of attitude is so pervasive in our society, to the point where when someone gets a platform and shares these views, people stand up and start shouting “Yeah!  You tell him! U-S-A! U-S-A!”  Furthermore, I think that if I taught at the fictitious high school that Prager gave his “speech” to via this op-ed, I’d be crafting a resignation letter pretty quickly so I could work in a place that was truly American and not “Amurican.”

Following up on AIDS, the president, and context

So I’ve written this week about AIDS education and President Obama’s “You didn’t build that” comment that the right wing has been hammering him on ever since he gave a speech.  In surfing around these past couple of days, I came across two pieces that serve as great follow-ups to what I was talking about.

First, there’s “AIDS Conference, New Documentary Raise Questions About Sex Ed.” from Education Week:

In Ms. Morris’ health education class in Greenville, Miss., a lesson on sexually transmitted diseases is almost comic.

And Ms. Morris seems to know it.

She can’t say the words condom or contraceptive to explain how the spread of an STD, including HIV/AIDS, might be prevented, much less to prevent pregnancy.

It’s a really good look at how off-kilter sex education has become in the United States (and it made me feel even more grateful for the education I did receive).

And on President Obama’s comments, we have The Daily Show, which is brilliant as always. (“Democalypse 2012–Do we look stupid, don’t answer that edition”)

“You didn’t build that”

Lately it seems like not a day goes by when I don’t see an image like the one at the right, usually posted by a friend or two of mine who has conservative political leanings.  Now, I have voted Democrat since I was 18 and will continue to do so, so none of what I see in this regard is going to change my mind at all.

I have, however, found it a little offensive.  But, I have to say, not offensive in the way that might be expected.  Making fun of the president is a national pastime for both political parties, and unless the ridicule crosses a line into something that’s bigoted (which this does not) there’s no real reason to find it offensive.  What is offensive, though, is that everyone who has harped on this doesn’t seem to realize that this isn’t what President Obama said.

Oh sure, he actually uttered the phrase “You didn’t build that,” but those who don’t like him are taking that one phrase completely out of context from these paragraphs of a larger speech:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back.  They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.  Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.  (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.  The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.  Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.  There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own.  I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service.  That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together.  That’s how we funded the GI Bill.  That’s how we created the middle class.  That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam.  That’s how we invented the Internet.  That’s how we sent a man to the moon.  We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President — because I still believe in that idea.  You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.

That sounds a heck of a lot different than “You didn’t build that!”, now doesn’t it?  In fact, that sounds like the spirit of collaboration I often hear discussed among my fellow educators.  I’ve said before that I value the efforts of the individual, but I definitely know that in order to succeed in whatever profession they choose, my students are going to need to know how to work well as part of a team.  It doesn’t matter what that chosen profession is–teachers, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, construction workers, video store clerks, baristas all at one point or another work with someone or perhaps for someone.  There is no vacuum for success and while there may be competition, even that isn’t done completely alone.

Does AIDS education need another look?

The cover of Time, August 12, 1985.

I first saw the word “AIDS” on the cover of Time from August 12, 1985.  I was eight years old and had no idea what AIDS was or what I was seeing in that cover photo, but it seemed important.  A few months later, I’d see a story about Rock Hudson dying of the disease on Entertainment Tonight; again, I still didn’t know what it was but since the program about movie stars was taking the time to report about it, it seemed important.  Three years later, I’d learn quite a bit more in my fifth grade class when my class took part in the first wave of AIDS education that was attached to the Family Life Curriculum that our district had introduced that year.

This Family Life Curriculum–which was basically a series of filmstrips featuring rather sterile-looking diagrams of human reproductive systems and dull narration about our growing bodies and how a baby is made punctuated by loud beeps that told us when to go to the next frame–was pretty controversial when it was introduced in my district, or at least that’s the impression I got in 1988.  There were at least a few meetings that the district held to introduce the curriculum to parents, and I remember that my sister’s friend was not allowed to go to school on those days because her mother–a born-again Christian–would not allow her to take part in sex ed.  To be honest, the sex stuff was pretty tame and the only reason it really had an impact on me was that I would wind up studying human reproduction every year for the next three years courtesy of Family Life, then science and health classes.

But the AIDS lesson had a little bit more of an impact.  By the time I was in the fifth grade, the disease had received much more media coverage and there was a solid push for AIDS awareness to help stem the public health crisis.  In fact, the education I received at the hands of my public school about AIDS was incredibly thorough–we even had an “AIDS Awareness Day” in school two years in a row.  That was  not without its share of drama (apparently one teacher decided to take 45 minutes to preach from the Bible and talk about the evils of homosexuals) or boredom (a presentation of pieces of the AIDS quilt is fascinating, but when it rolls on for more than an hour, you get a little restless), but I have to say that by the time I was a senior I had raised money for and participated in three LIAAC AIDS Walks, and really felt prepared for when I would start having sex (read: I bought the strongest condoms they made).

Master Teacher? Well, master something …

On The Huffington Post this morning, there’s this story about President Obama pledging up to $1b for what the headline of the story calls a “Master Teacher Corps” (article here):

Teachers selected for the Master Teacher Corps will be paid an additional $20,000 a year and must commit to participate multiple years. The goal is to create a multiplier effect in which expert educators share their knowledge and skills with other teachers, improving the quality of education for all students …

“I’m running to make sure that America has the best education system on earth, from pre-K all the way to post-graduate,” Obama said. “And that means hiring new teachers, especially in math and science.”

Sounds like an interesting idea, even though I am a little skeptical that it will actually work on the level it needs to because of the money involved (and btw, that’s a little painful for me to say because I’m still a staunch supporter of President Obama).  I mean, just look at this comment from the GOP side of the aisle:

An aide to Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, noted that the federal government already has more than 80 teacher quality programs and said it would be foolish to pump money into programs that may be duplicative or unproductive.

“Republicans share the president’s goal of getting better teachers in the classroom,” said Kline spokeswoman Alexandra Sollberger. “However, we also value transparency and efficient use of taxpayer resources.”

I have to say I actually laughed at the first sentence of Sollberger’s comment, especially since much of what I hear from Republicans is rhetoric about how teachers are overpaid union lackeys who don’t work enough, cannot be fired and are strangling the economy.

Throwing money at teachers to reward them for “mastery” isn’t the greatest idea, mind you–it kind of reminds me of the old joke about a boat being a hole in the water you throw money into–just like I think that a push for a merit pay system is faulty because school districts don’t turn profits and I don’t know if most people who love their merit pay rhetoric understand that if teachers are good at their jobs they will want raises and therefore will cost taxpayers more money (seriously, guys, accountability isn’t just about being able to fire people).

I wish that he or someone else would take a look at where the money is really going in education and take companies like Pearson to task.  Does the NEA even have teeth anymore?

Oh, and not that it matters to me anyway.  I don’t teach a STEM subject; therefore, I’m not important.

5 Days, 5 Things #2: Teachers Get Angry

So, it’s Teacher Appreciation Week and in lieu of both inspirational pap and unrelenting snark, I thought I’d share some “observations” or “truths” (or whatever you’d like to call them) about teachers.

I meant to post this yesterday, but as you’ll see, circumstances and events from last night made me delay writing.

One of the things often talked about yet not really talked about when I have discussions about education is politics. I don’t think you can talk about education without it. However, many of the politics that I wind up talking about with other educators are on the larger side. We talk about President Obama, Secretary of Education Duncan, NCLB, and other things that tend to affect education throughout the country. What we don’t talk about enough are the local politics that directly affect us.

Now, I can see why. If I’m talking to John Spencer, who is in Arizona (NAME DROPPING!); or my friend Chris, who is in New York, they are going to have a much different experience when it comes to state and local politics. In New York (or at least on Long Island) for instance, there is a direct election for a local school budget, but where I am in Virginia, the school divisions are county school divisions and their budgets are decided by both the boards of education and supervisors without a direct vote by the public.

It’s that budget process that brought me back to work last night. Our county board of supervisors had decided to short the school system a significant amount of money which would have more than likely forced terrible cuts to vital programs. This was decided at a closed-door meeting last week and once the news got out, the school district mobilized and called upon all the teachers and parents to show up at this meeting to show their support. In fact, there was so much of an immediate outpouring of support for the school system that hte board of supervisors changed the meeting time from 7:00 to 8:30 (dirty pool, right?).

What is amazing is that it really didn’t stop anybody. The meeting was a standing-room only affair in a room that seated roughly 800 people, and those 800 people were mostly present up to half an hour before it even started and from what I understand many were still there until about 1:00 a.m. when it was over. The people included members of the school board, central administration, teachers, parents, and students. And I have to say that it was one of those times when people getting together for a common cause actually worked.

I think that one of the only ways to describe the atmosphere last night was that it was electric. Those who organized and rallied everyone together for the evening did their best to make sure that it was a rally and not some sort of angry protest. Sure, there were plenty of snide remarks in the direction of the board of supervisors, but the crowd obviously did its best to stay respectful, which is hard when you’re all talking about something that people are so passionate about.

I arrived too late to get on the sign-up sheet to speak but heard my colleagues, my administrators, my students, and my students’ parents speak. Some made emotional appeals, while others came armed with facts and figures. And the students who had signed up to speak were thoughtful and well-spoken and honestly made me feel proud that I was involved in their education.
Of course, it all comes down to money, and everyone seemed to realize that one of the inherent problems with the way education is funded is that it’s done from the top down and when funding is cut both at the federal and state level, it’s left to localities to make up for it. The board had the money to pay but did not want to give it and that’s why we organized.

In the end, the board voted 4-1 to fully fund the school district. This morning, I sent an email to the teacher who had been one of the key organizers of the rally, thanking her for all of her hard work. I mean, we don’t have a union here to get people together. It was truly grass roots, and that is outstanding.

And it serves as a great reminder that while teachers, parents, and students may bicker (and trust me, we do bicker), when you get to the core of that bickering it’s because we all want to ensure a quality education. At that core is … well, there’s power.

And we’re not afraid to exercise that power.