Hugs. Reycina hugs me, and anyone, like it's the last hug she'll ever give. Just one of those per day this last week has been a worthwhile gift from God.
Teachers. There's been a huge amount of talk online and within the media about our "failing" schools. I even had a student this week who wrote down, "our schools are failing" on a graphic organizer designed to help them brainstorm problems in their communities. There's a movie coming out soon called "Waiting for Superman," whose conceit is to prove that our schools are failing by showing the lives of several different parent's on their quest to find the right education for their child outside the public school system. I'm dying to see it and give my own opinions. As an educator, I feel that we need to realize the trends and pulse of what the public perceives about our profession. It does teachers no good to hide and cry foul. Go watch it. Connect. Talk and share.
I know the movie features the work of Geoffery Canada, founder of the Harlem Children's Zone. His story was shared on CNN's "Black in America," and I found his story riveting and what he was doing with education a step in the right direction.
I read an article on HuffPost about how to fix our schools. Much of the article feels like an attempt to dartboard the issue without really saying how or what changes should take affect. Part of this stems from a seemingly political attempt to discredit teachers' unions and tenured teachers in particular. Any union right now gets lumped in with lazy workers, high pensions and ineffectiveness. By letting the unions speak for us, we sound like blamers and avoiders. If unions do end up being broken over the next several years, what then? I feel as if the public wants us to be more qualified, work more and give their child the necessary tools to pass a test. It's also almost an American right to complain about anything and everything, especially in regards to education, from homework to teachers. I believe that alot of the funding issues that plague schools, are part induced by inefficient building managers (most teachers have no say-so on what gets purchased in a building, nor are they privy to their respective schools' budget). There's millions coming down in the way of grants, and taxes, so why do we still have buildings without computer labs? Why are we continually going back to operating levies and higher taxes, when we cut teachers and bloat the size of the classrooms, thereby eliminating the quality of a teacher by having to manage 30 bodies instead of 22/23?
Schedules and sports and daughters. This past week saw the end of my son's baseball season. It's been fun, and I didn't lose sleep on having some daddy-ball meltdown on the field or from mentoring-gone-bad moments by chewing out some poor kid. I did learn that baseball is just as beautiful as a sunrise and sometimes more frustrating than what i'll give it credit for. Lisa's volleyball season is ending very soon. She's playing softball this weekend. We used to tell her that she didn't have an option of not playing because it was better than what some of her friends were doing at the time. Now as we near the end, we're exhausted and frustrated. Burned slightly. Egos deflated. If colleges spend more time looking for character and realized the type of girls they were asking to represent their schools, perhaps they'd think otherwise. Lisa has put alot of time into her sports, I too as a parent have sacrificed quite alot of time. Your human side wants a payoff, some recognition, but in the end it's hard to realize it isn't about you, it's about her. What a kid. God brought us Lisa to teach us a few things. I'm looking forward to enjoying her company in the upcoming months, regardless of what softball may or may not bring. No one gives awards for love.
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