It's past time for the *need* to read these, but here they are just for posterity and because YES, FOR PETE'S SAKE, YES:
The Case for Obama
The Case Against Romney
Why I am Voting for President Obama
-
On Election Day 2008, all I remember is that I had to go to bed before a winner was called. (I know I voted, but I don't really remember the specifics of how or when.) An hour or two later, I was woken up by shouts and cheers of ecstatic Brooklynites in the streets. At the time, I was teaching at First Charter School, where I was exhausted and miserable. I remember that our grade had held an assembly to talk about the election and someone showed the will.i.am music video. Our students--almost all African-American--were glued to it, and so emotional and thrilled about even the possibility of someone who looked like them being the leader of our country. There were tears of excitement and hope.
This time around, being on the West Coast and not working traditionally both meant that I could stay up as late as I wanted--the official call happened by 9pm, and though it took forever for the speeches to happen, that wasn't a problem. (I have to say that I kept remarking how boring it must have been for all those people in the Obama arena to stand around and wave flags/dance/etc for hours...)
My favorite part was being on social media for the night--I really enjoyed seeing what everyone was thinking and reading their reactions in real time, on facebook and twitter. I really felt like I was part of a big community of friends around the country (and around the world even!), and it was special. I don't know if it's silly, but I think that's a big part of what I want to take away from the election as a whole--people with common beliefs coming together. Happily, and probably not coincidentally, most people I know in real life and online have similar ideologies, at least at a basic level, to mine. I felt like we were all celebrating together.
I believe that with this win, more people's lives will improve, and more people will retain more rights (like gays, women, immigrants, people with pre-existing health conditions). I hope that the government can get its head out of its ass to get some freaking work done for the American people, rather than for extremist votes. The economy will continue to improve (which was projected to happen regardless of who is president), and maybe there will be some important reform (corporate, environmental) that will get us on a track to positively impacting our future generations.
My home state of Washington as well as three others passed laws for marriage equality. New Hampshire elected all female government representatives (governor, Senate, House). There are now a record twenty women in the US Senate. An AmeriCorps alum was elected to the Senate too! There is no doubt that there is a lot of work to do (there are some truly disgusting comments/tweets/posts flying around the interwebs--if I could, I would personally go visit each and every one of those vile people and slap some sense into them), but overall I'm proud of the election results and I'm hopeful that America is heading in the right direction.
Four More Years!
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Thursday, November 08, 2012
Tuesday, November 06, 2012
your future
Dear A and B,
Today is Election Day. You don't know what that is yet. (Really, you don't know what anything is yet. That's not your fault though.) You did sort of participate though--I completed my mail-in ballot last week. It's not as exciting as entering a voting booth and pulling a lever or completing and scanning a ballot, but it still counts!
Election Day is an important day for Americans to participate in our democracy and make our voices heard. Politicians are our representatives in the government, which makes choices about our country. They work for us, so it's very important for citizens to do their job and be part of the process.
You're being born American, white, and middle/upper-middle class. This means that without even trying or doing anything, you already have an amazing amount of privilege. This will follow you for the rest of your life, when you're in public, at school, and at work. It is vital that you understand this. Not everyone has the same privilege and it's one of our biggest jobs as parents to make sure that you don't ignore or take advantage of that, to raise you not to be entitled and self-absorbed. We want to help you develop into informed and thoughtful world (not just American) citizens. Don't ever think that your voice doesn't count, that all politicians are the same, and nothing's really going to change anyway.
We've all been going through this endless campaigning for President for two years now, and pretty much everyone is sick and tired of it all. Most of us feel pretty strongly about one candidate or the other. By the time you can read this, you'll probably know my/our political idealogies and who I voted for in 2012. The different candidates and their political parties have the very real abilities to change a lot of our collective lives and liberties. I'm never sure how elections will turn out--I don't want to count my politicians before they hatch, so to speak--but I really hope things end up the way I want them to. (Mostly because I'm always right, as you'll soon learn!) I believe it will help all of us, individually and collectively, have better lives and futures. And the future is what we're all here for and need to remember and work for. There are so, so many problems that we're facing right now--as a country and as a planet--that will only get worse for you as adults. I hope the political process isn't as ugly as it's gotten lately by the time you're able to vote. But regardless, you need to vote and make your voice and choice heard and be a part of your own future.
Your Daddy loves current events and especially politics. He has a lot of opinions and knowledge about various candidates and policies and histories. For the next presidential election, you'll still be very young, but I have an inkling that you'll be the most politically informed four-year-olds in your class at preschool. We won't be able to take you to the polling place with us (if we still live in Oregon), but we will certainly let you see us reading and talking about the issues together, and then completing and dropping off our ballots.
Rock your civic duty!
Love, Mommy
Today is Election Day. You don't know what that is yet. (Really, you don't know what anything is yet. That's not your fault though.) You did sort of participate though--I completed my mail-in ballot last week. It's not as exciting as entering a voting booth and pulling a lever or completing and scanning a ballot, but it still counts!
Election Day is an important day for Americans to participate in our democracy and make our voices heard. Politicians are our representatives in the government, which makes choices about our country. They work for us, so it's very important for citizens to do their job and be part of the process.
You're being born American, white, and middle/upper-middle class. This means that without even trying or doing anything, you already have an amazing amount of privilege. This will follow you for the rest of your life, when you're in public, at school, and at work. It is vital that you understand this. Not everyone has the same privilege and it's one of our biggest jobs as parents to make sure that you don't ignore or take advantage of that, to raise you not to be entitled and self-absorbed. We want to help you develop into informed and thoughtful world (not just American) citizens. Don't ever think that your voice doesn't count, that all politicians are the same, and nothing's really going to change anyway.
We've all been going through this endless campaigning for President for two years now, and pretty much everyone is sick and tired of it all. Most of us feel pretty strongly about one candidate or the other. By the time you can read this, you'll probably know my/our political idealogies and who I voted for in 2012. The different candidates and their political parties have the very real abilities to change a lot of our collective lives and liberties. I'm never sure how elections will turn out--I don't want to count my politicians before they hatch, so to speak--but I really hope things end up the way I want them to. (Mostly because I'm always right, as you'll soon learn!) I believe it will help all of us, individually and collectively, have better lives and futures. And the future is what we're all here for and need to remember and work for. There are so, so many problems that we're facing right now--as a country and as a planet--that will only get worse for you as adults. I hope the political process isn't as ugly as it's gotten lately by the time you're able to vote. But regardless, you need to vote and make your voice and choice heard and be a part of your own future.
Your Daddy loves current events and especially politics. He has a lot of opinions and knowledge about various candidates and policies and histories. For the next presidential election, you'll still be very young, but I have an inkling that you'll be the most politically informed four-year-olds in your class at preschool. We won't be able to take you to the polling place with us (if we still live in Oregon), but we will certainly let you see us reading and talking about the issues together, and then completing and dropping off our ballots.
Rock your civic duty!
Love, Mommy
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
apparently no sometimes doesn't mean no anymore
I dislike politics and news, because it upsets me and I feel there's nothing I can do about it. I dislike writing about it here because a) I'm not terribly articulate; I just get kind of outraged; b) everyone and their mom already does on Real Blogs; and c) sometimes current events seem too temporal for something like a blog. And really, d) no one cares what I think or say.
But this Todd Akin hullabaloo has gotten everyone in a twist, rightly so, and I've been stewing about it, and reading lots of great articles about it. So I figure just for the sake of posterity and keeping a record and trying to sort out my rage-y thoughts. Happily, others have pretty much nailed the things I want to say.
From some actual doctors. You know, with legitimate medical training.
More ACTUAL SCIENCE about the topic of female reproduction (I really don't understand how a major political party continues to speak about matters of health while being totally, completely, willingly IGNORANT about actual FACTS).
"It is not only normal to know multiple sexual assault survivors, it is normal in our culture for women to be afraid of rape and on the defensive around men for gigantic portions of their lives. And so, even for women who have never and will never be raped, it is a fear-inducing, triggering reminder that our safety is never fully in our own hands."
Also, HELLO, DUH:
My friend Moxie puts it all so well:
"As the Akin story unfolded, however, it became apparent that he does know medical facts. He's just using words to try to change them. "Legitimate" rape doesn't mean anything except that Todd Akin wants to decide for himself if you have the right to your own body, or if it's completely fine that someone raped you.
...
Make no mistake: This isn't about Todd Akin, or Paul Ryan, "misspeaking." This is about attempting to change the language so that he controls the dialogue and we are disenfranchised. We, all of us, women of all parties and religious thoughts and ways of speaking, our children, and the men who love us."
(What I wrote on facebook:) The only problem with this is
the a man like would never and will never try to imagine the horrors of
something like rape. He doesn't care. He must have some female
relatives that he cares about, but he wouldn't take a few minutes to
think
www.prochoiceamerica.org/
government-and-you/
who-decides/
But this Todd Akin hullabaloo has gotten everyone in a twist, rightly so, and I've been stewing about it, and reading lots of great articles about it. So I figure just for the sake of posterity and keeping a record and trying to sort out my rage-y thoughts. Happily, others have pretty much nailed the things I want to say.
From some actual doctors. You know, with legitimate medical training.
More ACTUAL SCIENCE about the topic of female reproduction (I really don't understand how a major political party continues to speak about matters of health while being totally, completely, willingly IGNORANT about actual FACTS).
"It is not only normal to know multiple sexual assault survivors, it is normal in our culture for women to be afraid of rape and on the defensive around men for gigantic portions of their lives. And so, even for women who have never and will never be raped, it is a fear-inducing, triggering reminder that our safety is never fully in our own hands."
Also, HELLO, DUH:
Just Think No
"“The biological facts are perhaps inconvenient, but whether the egg
meets the sperm is a matter of luck or prevention,” says Dr. Paul
Blumenthal, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology who directs the
Stanford Program for International Reproductive Education and Services.
“If wishing that ‘I won’t get pregnant right now’ made it so, we
wouldn’t need contraceptives.”
When you wish upon a rape."
"Yet Todd Akin is right. He shouldn’t have to get out of the United
States Senate race in Missouri simply for saying what he believes. He
reflects a severe stance on abortion that many in his party embrace,
including the new vice presidential candidate.
“I talk about one word, one sentence, one day out of place, and, all of a
sudden, the entire establishment turns on you,” Representative Akin
complained to the conservative radio talk-show host Dana Loesch on
Tuesday as he spurned pleas from Mitt Romney and other G.O.P. big shots
to abort his bid. He continued: “They just ran for cover at the first
sign of any gunfire, and I think we need to rush to the gunfire.”
He’s right again. Other Republicans are trying to cover up their true
identity to get elected. Even as party leaders attempted to lock the
crazy uncle in the attic in Missouri, they were doing their own crazy
thing down in Tampa, Fla., by reiterating language in their platform
calling for a no-exceptions Constitutional amendment outlawing abortion,
even in cases of rape, incest and threat to the life of the mother."
"As the Akin story unfolded, however, it became apparent that he does know medical facts. He's just using words to try to change them. "Legitimate" rape doesn't mean anything except that Todd Akin wants to decide for himself if you have the right to your own body, or if it's completely fine that someone raped you.
...
Make no mistake: This isn't about Todd Akin, or Paul Ryan, "misspeaking." This is about attempting to change the language so that he controls the dialogue and we are disenfranchised. We, all of us, women of all parties and religious thoughts and ways of speaking, our children, and the men who love us."
(What I wrote on facebook:) The only problem with this is
the a man like would never and will never try to imagine the horrors of
something like rape. He doesn't care. He must have some female
relatives that he cares about, but he wouldn't take a few minutes to
think
about it from their perspective, or
how he would want to protect them from a terrible experience like that,
or how he would want them to have freedom and control OVER THEIR OWN
BODIES. And by "he" I don't just mean this clown--I mean all the
conservative men that have been trying to legislate, define, restrict,
CONTROL what women do with their bodies (or have done to them by men).
This is only a glimpse into the reality of the conservative mindset
that's been at work for the past two years. Here's a list of current
reproductive laws: http://
www.prochoiceamerica.org/government-and-you/
who-decides/
More about that mindset:
"And, as his comments about “legitimate rape” demonstrate, Todd Akin has abandoned morality.
Here’s
how this works: Moralism seeks to blame all suffering on moral failure.
If you are suffering, then you must have done something to deserve such suffering."
And:
"I also want to thank him for revealing the contempt and mistrust that
lies at the heart of so much anti-choice rhetoric. The contempt for
women who have sex for pleasure and accidentally get pregnant. The
mistrust of women that feeds the belief that we lie about being raped so
we can get abortions, and the mistrust of women that justifies the idea
that we don’t know when we’ve been raped and that politicians get to
decide that for us.
I want to thank him for demonstrating the complete disregard for
women that is necessary for a person to want to ban abortion. Notice
that in his response, he mentioned the hypothetical rapist, and the
“child,” but he didn’t mention the woman. The woman who has been raped
and is now pregnant and will now be forced to give birth to her rapist’s
baby because the government says so. Because what she wants isn’t
relevant in this situation.
I want to thank Mr. Akin for highlighting the logical inconsistency of being anti-choice and anti-Affordable
Care Act. You’ll rail all day long about how Obamacare infringes on the
American citizen’s personal freedom to make healthcare decisions, but
you’re happy to infringe on an American woman’s personal freedom to make
reproductive healthcare decisions? How exactly do you hold both those
ideas in your head without your head exploding?"
There are Republican women who are just as disgusted as Democrat women:
Here’s how this works: Moralism seeks to blame all suffering on moral failure. If you are suffering, then you must have done something to deserve such suffering."
I want to thank him for demonstrating the complete disregard for women that is necessary for a person to want to ban abortion. Notice that in his response, he mentioned the hypothetical rapist, and the “child,” but he didn’t mention the woman. The woman who has been raped and is now pregnant and will now be forced to give birth to her rapist’s baby because the government says so. Because what she wants isn’t relevant in this situation.
I want to thank Mr. Akin for highlighting the logical inconsistency of being anti-choice and anti-Affordable Care Act. You’ll rail all day long about how Obamacare infringes on the American citizen’s personal freedom to make healthcare decisions, but you’re happy to infringe on an American woman’s personal freedom to make reproductive healthcare decisions? How exactly do you hold both those ideas in your head without your head exploding?"
"If you and your pals are so concerned with jobs and the economy then
how come there have been over 1100 pieces of anti-women legislation
brought up across the country in 2011 and over 900 pieces so far this
year and NOT ONE SINGLE TIME has a JOB bill been voted on in the U.S.
House! How many times has a vote against women and our right to autonomy
been voted on? Oh and by the way didn’t the U.S. House also vote 33
TIMES to repeal the Affordable Care Act?
You and your friends have now attacked every single group of people
in this country except the religious right. Do you seriously think that
the Republicans are going to be able to win in this country when you
marginalize and alienate voters who don’t think like you?"
Unfortunately, there are also Republican women who not only side with Akin, but believe the garbage he spouts also. I find this depressing and quite frankly gross. It's probably cliche to say that women are selling each other out, but truly, I don't understand how any woman could in good conscience support ideas (let alone laws! How about what Jan Brewer's Arizona is doing?! Good lord!) that hurt women and take away the freedom that generations of women before us have fought so very hard for!
You and your friends have now attacked every single group of people in this country except the religious right. Do you seriously think that the Republicans are going to be able to win in this country when you marginalize and alienate voters who don’t think like you?"
UGH.
As always, the Hairpin has fantastic comments:
"Little known medical fact: in the case of "legitmate rape" (ie all the
correct rape paperwork is filed, in triplicate) a tiny Gandalf appears
in the birth canal and waves his tiny wand and yells "YOU SHALL NOT
PAAAASSS" to the sperm or "Balrog" in this equation."
Finally, let's end with some more laughter so we stop the angry crying:
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Former President Clinton is pretty articulate and smart. (As opposed to the "candidate" Herman Cain.) Watch him on the Daily Show:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Bill Clinton Pt. 1 | ||||
| ||||
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Bill Clinton Pt. 2 | ||||
| ||||
Thursday, March 03, 2011
This gives me some hope for the government!
Have a listen to these awesome lady-senators fighting back against what they rightly call a war on women, children and families!
These two conservative Wyoming state reps are also fighting the good fight on their own terms:
Here's a brief written synopsis with more detail from the reps about the bills.
These two conservative Wyoming state reps are also fighting the good fight on their own terms:
Here's a brief written synopsis with more detail from the reps about the bills.
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
You can't be serious?
(edited to have the good stuff up top!)
Please read this brief article summing up American inequality:
"In this ridiculous country, it’s “class warfare” when working people would like a fair wage and health insurance, but it’s “Morning in America” when the top 1% have harvested nearly every dollar of financial gain in this country for the past 30 years. Corporate taxes have dropped as quickly as CEO salaries and bonuses have risen, and we’re all supposed to “take one for the team” while Wall Street criminals make up new ways to earn billion-dollar bonuses while you get to spend a couple of months arguing with your insurance company (if you’re “lucky enough” to have health care coverage) over whether your kid’s concussion or dad’s cancer is something that might be covered."
It's talking about this set of data showing exactly who has what in this country.
Jon Stewart put together an incredible segment on Monday's episode.
Part 1:
Those talking heads make me see red.
Part 2:
Last week I got into a very long facebook thread about unions...
Person 1: "That doesn't change the fact that public employees are paid less, as compared to their education level, than private employees. They are underpaid and yet the target of budget cuts. When we complain about America losing in science, medicine, education, etc. it is in no small part due to the fact that our teachers are underpaid, that they don't have the resources necessary to be successful, and that they are subject to ridiculous standardized testing that doesn't actually test what students know."
Person 2: "Whether or not teachers are underpaid is debatable. Some are much better compensated than others, and teacher pay in low-income communities certainly outstrips the average pay of taxpayers in the locale." ...
Me: I think everyone who understands what teachers actually DO (ie, a lot more than 9-3 or whatever) along with the importance of their work would say that teachers are vastly underpaid. think of doctors and lawyers, who are held in high regard... for doing good and necessary work, and have the salary to match. police and firefighters, who do public good, get overtime. if you paid teachers for all the time they were working, plus perhaps hazard pay for the noise, threats, lack of break time, etc, salaries would skyrocket (justifiably).
Administrators (good ones, at least!) do a lot of work, and get a lot more shit (from board/superintendent/etc, as well as from teachers, as well as from students/parents/community), so I'm okay with them getting paid more. it's relative though--should an admin make twice as much as a teacher? no way. a certain percentage more? sure.
Person 3: " Government employees (including teachers) are NOT underpaid relative to their peers in the private sector. At low and mid range positions, they are significantly overpaid. This is not opinion, but the conclusion of numerous studies conducted over the past 30 years." ...
Me:
Please read this brief article summing up American inequality:
"In this ridiculous country, it’s “class warfare” when working people would like a fair wage and health insurance, but it’s “Morning in America” when the top 1% have harvested nearly every dollar of financial gain in this country for the past 30 years. Corporate taxes have dropped as quickly as CEO salaries and bonuses have risen, and we’re all supposed to “take one for the team” while Wall Street criminals make up new ways to earn billion-dollar bonuses while you get to spend a couple of months arguing with your insurance company (if you’re “lucky enough” to have health care coverage) over whether your kid’s concussion or dad’s cancer is something that might be covered."
It's talking about this set of data showing exactly who has what in this country.
Jon Stewart put together an incredible segment on Monday's episode.
Part 1:
Those talking heads make me see red.
Part 2:
Last week I got into a very long facebook thread about unions...
Person 1: "That doesn't change the fact that public employees are paid less, as compared to their education level, than private employees. They are underpaid and yet the target of budget cuts. When we complain about America losing in science, medicine, education, etc. it is in no small part due to the fact that our teachers are underpaid, that they don't have the resources necessary to be successful, and that they are subject to ridiculous standardized testing that doesn't actually test what students know."
Person 2: "Whether or not teachers are underpaid is debatable. Some are much better compensated than others, and teacher pay in low-income communities certainly outstrips the average pay of taxpayers in the locale." ...
Me: I think everyone who understands what teachers actually DO (ie, a lot more than 9-3 or whatever) along with the importance of their work would say that teachers are vastly underpaid. think of doctors and lawyers, who are held in high regard... for doing good and necessary work, and have the salary to match. police and firefighters, who do public good, get overtime. if you paid teachers for all the time they were working, plus perhaps hazard pay for the noise, threats, lack of break time, etc, salaries would skyrocket (justifiably).
Administrators (good ones, at least!) do a lot of work, and get a lot more shit (from board/superintendent/etc, as well as from teachers, as well as from students/parents/community
Person 3: "
Me:
i'll go back to the teacher issue--there are some districts/states where teachers earn a decent STARTING salary (there are at least as many where the starting salary is just barely above a living wage), but the advancement does not match private sector salaries. i'm a perfect example: at 25, when i started teaching, the NYC starting teacher salary was $43,000 (now it's $49,000)[keeping in mind there are both state and city taxes, so the take-home is not nearly what you'd think]. after six years of teaching, at 30, i was making about $56,000, with a master's degree. my friend worked for the city for four years, without a master's degree, and got up to about $65k, and now after a little more than a year in the private sector she's making more than $80k. she's 28. if i continued teaching, i wouldn't earn $80k until i was 48.
for me to get to $100k, i'd have to teach for 22 more years *and* get 30 more credits (which of course cost money). i'd be 52. and freaking exhausted.
Can you think of any private sector professions whose employees can earn $100 before they're in their fifties? YES. Many without an advanced degree, even. My friend will earn $100k before she's 35.
Now, NYC pays its teachers "relatively" well. In many states, there's simply no way for a teacher to earn anywhere near $100k--EVER. *and* they're required to keep taking (ie, paying for) coursework and pay for certifications/tests.
(Do you have to pay for another year of college to earn your raise?)
So yes, teachers ARE underpaid relative to their private sector peers.
Unions have a tough job. Teachers' interests need to be protected, but then you get into bad teachers vs good and who needs to be protected "more." I don't have an answer or solution to that. I know that teachers work their asses off for not enough money and no recognition, and in fact get all kinds of shit from people who don't know better about getting summers off. Teachers deserve the teensy tiny raises that unions have managed to secure (many of which are now gone), and teachers don't deserve to lose their pensions that unions may have bargained away or that states frittered away. Teachers don't deserve to have huge classes because of budget cuts.
I also know that there are really bad teachers who don't do anything all day but still collect a paycheck. Does it make me angry that they still have jobs when there are many qualified, eager teachers who don't have jobs? Damn straight. (Do I also know that there are many, many idiots out there collecting paychecks for not doing anything in other fields? Yes indeedy.)
Anyway, the Wisconsin governor appears to believe that he can just invalidate unions or pretend they don't exist. Like them or not, you just can't do that.
Person 2:
"I don't agree that you are comparing peers. My wife is a teacher and we love it, but her "full-time" teaching job is only 0.7% full-time employment. Divide your pay by 0.7 and you would be making $70k per year if you worked the same schedule as the rest of us. Our state pay schedule is lower than yours, but the pattern of increase is basically the same. On the receiving end, I'd love higher teacher pay. On the accountability side, I'd like to see pay that wasn't based on how long you've been on the job."
Me:
your wife is a teacher and you still think her job is only quote-unquote full-time?
Same schedule as the rest of you? You can't be serious.
Hours spent in front of children are only part of the equation. Our friend S is at school for nearly twelve hours a day as a public school teacher, and I did the same as a charter school teacher for two years, which meant that I was with kids for eight hours a day instead of six.
Can you actually take a lunch break for more than 15 minutes? Can you come back from lunch and it doesn't really matter because there aren't thirty short people waiting for you in your cubicle? Can you go to the bathroom whenever you want? Does your boss require you to decorate your cubicle with certain amounts of meaningless paperwork every few weeks? Do the parents of your colleagues question your methods and motives? Do any of your colleagues or 'underlings' actively try to prevent you from doing your work, by yelling at other people, throwing things, disrupting everyone else? Are you required to submit all the work you're going to do for the next week, in detail, with the reasoning behind every piece, to your boss a week or more in advance? Are you allowed to have a personal life as a human being without worrying if it will be acceptable to the general public? Does your boss evaluate you (and can they fire you) after only seeing you work once a year, or never?
[More that I thought of later] If you manage others, do your employees talk back, refuse to do their work, call you and the other employees names or threaten you?
Does your office have a functioning air-conditioner?
Do you have a working copier??? Do you get to use it at will without knowing that within a few months, your entire office will run out of paper and can't afford to buy more?
Do you have a supply closet??!!!
Or do your colleagues break all of their and your writing utensils, pencil sharpeners, file holders, calculators, etc? And then refuse to work unless more magically appear, from money out of your own pocket?
There are a lot of difficult jobs out there. Almost none of them are as difficult as teaching.
Person 2:
"Wow. "Almost none of them as difficult as teaching" is a pretty bold statement. Yes, there are many kinds of challenges from all kinds of jobs. I think we can also agree that you cannot be fired due to one bad observation by your pri...ncipal. Due process requires much more than that. Nor, for that matter, can you be fired for churning out kids who've learned nothing during their time spent in your classroom. My father-in-law is the HR Director for another school district and has published a book on HR administration in education. I'm not anti-teacher, I'm against the holier-than-thou attitude of many educators who claim they work endless days when it simply is not true.
Twelve hour days are brutal. I know from often working them myself. I, and you, also know that it is far from the norm in teaching."
Me:
My statement above is indeed a bold one, and I stand by it.
Hearing about your wife's experience, I'm sure, then, that you understand that for most teachers, there's almost no time during the day to do the daily work of teaching--grading an...d preparing for the next day/lesson. That has to be done on one's own time, whether it's at home or at school. Some teachers leave school right away and work for hours at home. I never took work home, myself.
Regardless of the number of hours worked, the intensity of the time in-classroom is insane (you have to be "on" every second, with your eyes in every corner). The work that is done inside a classroom is almost unrivaled--a teacher is also a parent, a nurse, a psychologist, a mediator, a data analyst, a behavior therapist, a battle strategist (seating charts! line spots!), etc etc. Teachers have to teach kids how to be people, so to speak, not just how to multiply.
This is why teachers are underpaid compared to their peers.
Here in NYC, your supervisor gives you a rating at the end of the year, based on observations. In many schools, administrators are too busy or incompetent to do those or do them correctly (with pre- and post- meetings with individual teachers). In my fourth year of teaching, my principal never once set foot in my classroom. My AP, who was awesome, observed formally and informally a couple times.
If a teacher gets an unsatisfactory rating, that can be the start of the process to get them out. If you're in your first few years, a U could allow the admin to deny your tenure.
This is why unions have such a tricky job--some teachers really do deserve those U ratings and need to be fired. But because of union politics and bureaucracy, it's become almost impossible to get rid of a teacher. Other U-rated teachers are the victims of admin bullying and need union protection. Ratings can be really subjective or can be recorded without any actual evidence to back it up (see again busy or incompetent administrators).
Again, I don't have the answers for how to protect schools from bad teachers and teachers from bad administrators. But I do believe that unions have to exist (and hope to whatever-deity-you-want that somehow things improve) so that kids get the kind of teaching they need in order to--oh right--earn more money than teachers in professional jobs as adults.
Person 1:
"Mr. President, in the year 2007, the top 1 percent of all income earners in the United States made 23 1/2 percent of all income. The top 1 percent earned... 23 1/2 percent of all income--more than the entire bottom 50 percent. That is apparently not enough. The percentage of income going to the top 1 percent has nearly tripled since the 1970s. In the mid-1970s, the top 1 percent earned about 8 percent of all income. In the 1980s, that figure jumped to 14 percent. In the late 1990s, that 1 percent earned about 19 percent. And today, as the middle class collapses, the top 1 percent earns 23 1/2 percent of all income--more than the bottom 50 percent. Today, if you can believe it, the top one-tenth of 1 percent earns about 12 cents of every dollar earned in America."
Do the richest 1% pay 12% of the US tax revenue?
"If you can believe this, since between 1980 and 2005, 80 percent of all new income created in this country went to the top 1 percent--80 percent of all new income. That is why people are wondering and asking: What is going on in my life? How come I am working longer hours for lower wages? How come I am worrying about whether my kids will have as good a standard of living as I had? From 1980 until 2005, 80 percent of all income went to the top 1 percent."
In that period did the richest 1% pay 80% of the US tax revenue?
The answers, of course, are both "no." Because we all know, whether we'd like to admit it, that the tax burden in America is on the poor, not the wealthy. Who make their millions on the backs of those paying the lions share of the US tax revenue."
Person 3:
"The speech is nice, [Person 1], but his conclusion is flat wrong. And so is yours. The working poor hardly pay income taxes in this country. It's not trickery or loopholes that does this. It's the tax code.
The tax burden has steadily shifted over the last couple decades to being more heavily born by high earners, not the working poor. Don't trust political speeches to provide facts. Check it out for yourself at the source - the IRS."
Person 4:
"Lol. Of course the rich pay more in taxes in pure dollars. But they most definitely do not as a percentage of their income. Tax rates are currently at an all time low. But people still whine. For the wealthy they have never been lower. But ...maybe if we give them more then things will get better. Right? There's a reason Bush sr. called it voodoo economics.
The ultimate result of conservative fiscal policy is a feudal state with no middle class. It is wealth redistribution to the top. It has worked quite well with inflation adjusted income going nowhere in thirty years for most Americans. Meanwhile a fraction of the upper crust enjoys meteoric income growth.
This action in Wisconsin is just the next step on that road."
Person 3:
"[Person 5], the percentage is precisely the issue. The percentage is absolutely higher for high earners. Check the IRS stats. This is not a matter of opinion." ....
Me:
yes, of course the rate is higher, but does that mean that those wealthy people are actually paying those rates? perhaps a better way to look at is the effective amount they pay. there are so many ways that rich people (and corporations) get out of paying those taxes, since their income isn't all necessarily a paycheck that gets taxed a standard rate (inheritances, stock revenue, real estate, etc).
This is an old example, and seems to be cited often. but it's effective:
Person 6 then goes on to talk about why a flat tax is a good idea and that trickle-down economics is real...
Another person pointed out the flaw in flat tax but that it's not such a bad idea.
This thread had gotten really long and it finally petered out.
for me to get to $100k, i'd have to teach for 22 more years *and* get 30 more credits (which of course cost money). i'd be 52. and freaking exhausted.
Can you think of any private sector professions whose employees can earn $100 before they're in their fifties? YES. Many without an advanced degree, even. My friend will earn $100k before she's 35.
Now, NYC pays its teachers "relatively" well. In many states, there's simply no way for a teacher to earn anywhere near $100k--EVER. *and* they're required to keep taking (ie, paying for) coursework and pay for certifications/tests.
(Do you have to pay for another year of college to earn your raise?)
So yes, teachers ARE underpaid relative to their private sector peers.
Unions have a tough job. Teachers' interests need to be protected, but then you get into bad teachers vs good and who needs to be protected "more." I don't have an answer or solution to that. I know that teachers work their asses off for not enough money and no recognition, and in fact get all kinds of shit from people who don't know better about getting summers off. Teachers deserve the teensy tiny raises that unions have managed to secure (many of which are now gone), and teachers don't deserve to lose their pensions that unions may have bargained away or that states frittered away. Teachers don't deserve to have huge classes because of budget cuts.
I also know that there are really bad teachers who don't do anything all day but still collect a paycheck. Does it make me angry that they still have jobs when there are many qualified, eager teachers who don't have jobs? Damn straight. (Do I also know that there are many, many idiots out there collecting paychecks for not doing anything in other fields? Yes indeedy.)
Anyway, the Wisconsin governor appears to believe that he can just invalidate unions or pretend they don't exist. Like them or not, you just can't do that.
Person 2:
"I don't agree that you are comparing peers. My wife is a teacher and we love it, but her "full-time" teaching job is only 0.7% full-time employment. Divide your pay by 0.7 and you would be making $70k per year if you worked the same schedule as the rest of us. Our state pay schedule is lower than yours, but the pattern of increase is basically the same. On the receiving end, I'd love higher teacher pay. On the accountability side, I'd like to see pay that wasn't based on how long you've been on the job."
Me:
your wife is a teacher and you still think her job is only quote-unquote full-time?
Same schedule as the rest of you? You can't be serious.
Hours spent in front of children are only part of the equation. Our friend S is at school for nearly twelve hours a day as a public school teacher, and I did the same as a charter school teacher for two years, which meant that I was with kids for eight hours a day instead of six.
Can you actually take a lunch break for more than 15 minutes? Can you come back from lunch and it doesn't really matter because there aren't thirty short people waiting for you in your cubicle? Can you go to the bathroom whenever you want? Does your boss require you to decorate your cubicle with certain amounts of meaningless paperwork every few weeks? Do the parents of your colleagues question your methods and motives? Do any of your colleagues or 'underlings' actively try to prevent you from doing your work, by yelling at other people, throwing things, disrupting everyone else? Are you required to submit all the work you're going to do for the next week, in detail, with the reasoning behind every piece, to your boss a week or more in advance? Are you allowed to have a personal life as a human being without worrying if it will be acceptable to the general public? Does your boss evaluate you (and can they fire you) after only seeing you work once a year, or never?
[More that I thought of later] If you manage others, do your employees talk back, refuse to do their work, call you and the other employees names or threaten you?
Does your office have a functioning air-conditioner?
Do you have a working copier??? Do you get to use it at will without knowing that within a few months, your entire office will run out of paper and can't afford to buy more?
Do you have a supply closet??!!!
Or do your colleagues break all of their and your writing utensils, pencil sharpeners, file holders, calculators, etc? And then refuse to work unless more magically appear, from money out of your own pocket?
There are a lot of difficult jobs out there. Almost none of them are as difficult as teaching.
Person 2:
"Wow. "Almost none of them as difficult as teaching" is a pretty bold statement. Yes, there are many kinds of challenges from all kinds of jobs. I think we can also agree that you cannot be fired due to one bad observation by your pri...ncipal. Due process requires much more than that. Nor, for that matter, can you be fired for churning out kids who've learned nothing during their time spent in your classroom. My father-in-law is the HR Director for another school district and has published a book on HR administration in education. I'm not anti-teacher, I'm against the holier-than-thou attitude of many educators who claim they work endless days when it simply is not true.
Twelve hour days are brutal. I know from often working them myself. I, and you, also know that it is far from the norm in teaching."
Me:
My statement above is indeed a bold one, and I stand by it.
Hearing about your wife's experience, I'm sure, then, that you understand that for most teachers, there's almost no time during the day to do the daily work of teaching--grading an...d preparing for the next day/lesson. That has to be done on one's own time, whether it's at home or at school. Some teachers leave school right away and work for hours at home. I never took work home, myself.
Regardless of the number of hours worked, the intensity of the time in-classroom is insane (you have to be "on" every second, with your eyes in every corner). The work that is done inside a classroom is almost unrivaled--a teacher is also a parent, a nurse, a psychologist, a mediator, a data analyst, a behavior therapist, a battle strategist (seating charts! line spots!), etc etc. Teachers have to teach kids how to be people, so to speak, not just how to multiply.
This is why teachers are underpaid compared to their peers.
Here in NYC, your supervisor gives you a rating at the end of the year, based on observations. In many schools, administrators are too busy or incompetent to do those or do them correctly (with pre- and post- meetings with individual teachers). In my fourth year of teaching, my principal never once set foot in my classroom. My AP, who was awesome, observed formally and informally a couple times.
If a teacher gets an unsatisfactory rating, that can be the start of the process to get them out. If you're in your first few years, a U could allow the admin to deny your tenure.
This is why unions have such a tricky job--some teachers really do deserve those U ratings and need to be fired. But because of union politics and bureaucracy, it's become almost impossible to get rid of a teacher. Other U-rated teachers are the victims of admin bullying and need union protection. Ratings can be really subjective or can be recorded without any actual evidence to back it up (see again busy or incompetent administrators).
Again, I don't have the answers for how to protect schools from bad teachers and teachers from bad administrators. But I do believe that unions have to exist (and hope to whatever-deity-you-want that somehow things improve) so that kids get the kind of teaching they need in order to--oh right--earn more money than teachers in professional jobs as adults.
Person 1:
"Mr. President, in the year 2007, the top 1 percent of all income earners in the United States made 23 1/2 percent of all income. The top 1 percent earned... 23 1/2 percent of all income--more than the entire bottom 50 percent. That is apparently not enough. The percentage of income going to the top 1 percent has nearly tripled since the 1970s. In the mid-1970s, the top 1 percent earned about 8 percent of all income. In the 1980s, that figure jumped to 14 percent. In the late 1990s, that 1 percent earned about 19 percent. And today, as the middle class collapses, the top 1 percent earns 23 1/2 percent of all income--more than the bottom 50 percent. Today, if you can believe it, the top one-tenth of 1 percent earns about 12 cents of every dollar earned in America."
Do the richest 1% pay 12% of the US tax revenue?
"If you can believe this, since between 1980 and 2005, 80 percent of all new income created in this country went to the top 1 percent--80 percent of all new income. That is why people are wondering and asking: What is going on in my life? How come I am working longer hours for lower wages? How come I am worrying about whether my kids will have as good a standard of living as I had? From 1980 until 2005, 80 percent of all income went to the top 1 percent."
In that period did the richest 1% pay 80% of the US tax revenue?
The answers, of course, are both "no." Because we all know, whether we'd like to admit it, that the tax burden in America is on the poor, not the wealthy. Who make their millions on the backs of those paying the lions share of the US tax revenue."
Person 3:
"The speech is nice, [Person 1], but his conclusion is flat wrong. And so is yours. The working poor hardly pay income taxes in this country. It's not trickery or loopholes that does this. It's the tax code.
The tax burden has steadily shifted over the last couple decades to being more heavily born by high earners, not the working poor. Don't trust political speeches to provide facts. Check it out for yourself at the source - the IRS."
Person 4:
"Lol. Of course the rich pay more in taxes in pure dollars. But they most definitely do not as a percentage of their income. Tax rates are currently at an all time low. But people still whine. For the wealthy they have never been lower. But ...maybe if we give them more then things will get better. Right? There's a reason Bush sr. called it voodoo economics.
The ultimate result of conservative fiscal policy is a feudal state with no middle class. It is wealth redistribution to the top. It has worked quite well with inflation adjusted income going nowhere in thirty years for most Americans. Meanwhile a fraction of the upper crust enjoys meteoric income growth.
This action in Wisconsin is just the next step on that road."
Person 3:
"[Person 5], the percentage is precisely the issue. The percentage is absolutely higher for high earners. Check the IRS stats. This is not a matter of opinion." ....
Me:
yes, of course the rate is higher, but does that mean that those wealthy people are actually paying those rates? perhaps a better way to look at is the effective amount they pay. there are so many ways that rich people (and corporations) get out of paying those taxes, since their income isn't all necessarily a paycheck that gets taxed a standard rate (inheritances, stock revenue, real estate, etc).
This is an old example, and seems to be cited often. but it's effective:
"Buffett cited himself, the third-richest person in the world, as an example. Last year, Buffett said, he was taxed at 17.7 percent on his taxable income of more than ...$46 million. His receptionist was taxed at about 30 percent.
Buffett said that was despite the fact that he was not trying to avoid paying higher taxes. "I don't have a tax shelter," he said. And he challenged Congress and his audience to see what the people who "clean our offices" are taxed.
The rich can take advantage of tax loopholes, including one that allows those managers to pay the capital gains tax rate of 15 percent instead of the ordinary top income tax rate of 35 percent."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062700097.html
Buffett said that was despite the fact that he was not trying to avoid paying higher taxes. "I don't have a tax shelter," he said. And he challenged Congress and his audience to see what the people who "clean our offices" are taxed.
The rich can take advantage of tax loopholes, including one that allows those managers to pay the capital gains tax rate of 15 percent instead of the ordinary top income tax rate of 35 percent."
http://www.washingtonpost.
Person 6 then goes on to talk about why a flat tax is a good idea and that trickle-down economics is real...
Another person pointed out the flaw in flat tax but that it's not such a bad idea.
This thread had gotten really long and it finally petered out.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Choice Matters
I attended the rally in support of Planned Parenthood on Saturday. It was exciting and empowering! I believe that all women need to have the power to make their own decisions about their bodies and their lives, and having choices is a vital part of that power.
This comment on Jezebel's article about it perfectly captures everything I think about this issue and people who disagree or are anti-choice:
I'd be more than happy to help prevent abortions; it's the main reason I support Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood helps prevent abortions.
There are so many birth control methods available: the pill, DMPA, condoms, etc. All of these are ways to save the lives and quality of life for woman and girls around the world. By helping woman control family size, they also save the lives and quality of life of children around the world. Parents are better able to devote more time and resources to the children they have and raise the next generation in healthier and happier environments.
We need better sex-health education in the States. Yes, abstinence is one way to prevents pregnancies and STDs (To those who say it's the only method that's 100% effective, I think there's one notable exception.), but we need to discuss and explain the options available and then MAKE SURE THOSE OPTIONS ARE AVAILABLE.
If we're going to be serious about preventing abortions, then we need to be serious about birth control. If you don't like the idea of an IUD because it prevents a fertilized egg from finding purchase, then you can use a condom and there's no fertilization. Why not prevent the egg from even being released, as with many hormonal methods?
Heck, if you're really serious about preventing abortions, why not look at the reasons a pregnancy isn't wanted?
How about the health issues? Provide care for the mother when she needs it. You want a healthy baby? Prenatal care is vital and Planned Parenthood provides it.
Once the baby is born, how is the mother supposed to care for it? Programs like WIC handle some of that. If we're going to be serious about being pro-life, then let's take care of that life!
Is it a financial problem? Can the woman not afford to have the child? How much work will she miss while pregnant? Does her employer offer maternity leave or is she facing job-loss for that baby? If she loses her job, HOW IS SHE SUPPOSED TO CARE FOR THE CHILD?
No one joyfully has an abortion. It's a horrible, invasive, painful, traumatic, messy, embarrassing, heart-wrenching, and unnecessary thing. It's not a casual decision.
Unless everyone has access to safe and affordable birth control, unless everyone has access to prenatal care, unless everyone has pro-natal job protection, unless everyone has the financial stability to have and care for a child, unless everyone can guarantee health care for all children, unless all rapists wear condoms, unless there's no such thing as a "complication", unless the mother's life is never at risk, unless insurance will cover 100% of a birth, unless we can find homes for every child in the adoption system, unless there's a real effort to educate people, unless ALL OF THAT is true...
...Then we just aren't serious about preventing abortions.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Please
So the budget needs some major help. Yes, I understand. Some things will need to be cut or pared down. Definitely.
However! We, and by we I mean our representatives in Congress, who are supposed to represent the PEOPLE, not the industries and interests, need to think very carefully about how to pare down the budget, because of the way it affects our people.
I see on facebook that people are signing a petition to save PBS and NPR. And you know, I like those programs. They're educational and interesting.
The House Republicans want to eliminate those, but they also want to cut AmeriCorps.
AmeriCorps isn't as trendy or as well-known as NPR or PBS. But AmeriCorps is a (huge) family of programs that make people's lives better. AmeriCorps quite literally makes the country better, on an individual and an institutional level.
I've talked about AmeriCorps here before, so I hope I don't have to preach to you about how it affected me. Suffice it to say that without AmeriCorps, I wouldn't be here today, in New York, after directly affecting at least 500 children, as well as volunteering in cities around the country.
Here's a great article whose title really sums up the issue: Show Me a Program that Does as Much as AmeriCorps. You should read the entire thing, but I want to highlight the last few paragraphs, because he's just perfectly captured the key point:
As one of the oldest threads in our national fabric, service shouldn’t be partisan issue, especially in a recession. The loss of AmeriCorps would do the most harm to vulnerable families and communities already struggling to weather the recession.
AmeriCorps instills the ethic of service in members, places them in community organizations that are desperate for resources, and charges them with tasks that provide critical resources and support to struggling Americans.
Just over a year ago, Congress voted to expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 members, based on the program’s overwhelmingly positive impact in helping build a stronger America. Since then, our economy has suffered, millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and the poverty rate is growing dangerously. This is a moment when we should be looking to grow AmeriCorps to help keep the nation strong.
Last week I finally emailed my Representative (for the first time ever!) in support of keeping AmeriCorps. I believe that the House has already debated the budget, but I'm not sure if they've voted yet.
Are you a person? Do you support other people having the best life they can? AmeriCorps helps.
Please, please share the power of AmeriCorps with your friends and family. Please contact your representatives in Congress and urge them to keep AmeriCorps running and making America a better place for all of her citizens.
However! We, and by we I mean our representatives in Congress, who are supposed to represent the PEOPLE, not the industries and interests, need to think very carefully about how to pare down the budget, because of the way it affects our people.
I see on facebook that people are signing a petition to save PBS and NPR. And you know, I like those programs. They're educational and interesting.
The House Republicans want to eliminate those, but they also want to cut AmeriCorps.
AmeriCorps isn't as trendy or as well-known as NPR or PBS. But AmeriCorps is a (huge) family of programs that make people's lives better. AmeriCorps quite literally makes the country better, on an individual and an institutional level.
I've talked about AmeriCorps here before, so I hope I don't have to preach to you about how it affected me. Suffice it to say that without AmeriCorps, I wouldn't be here today, in New York, after directly affecting at least 500 children, as well as volunteering in cities around the country.
Here's a great article whose title really sums up the issue: Show Me a Program that Does as Much as AmeriCorps. You should read the entire thing, but I want to highlight the last few paragraphs, because he's just perfectly captured the key point:
As one of the oldest threads in our national fabric, service shouldn’t be partisan issue, especially in a recession. The loss of AmeriCorps would do the most harm to vulnerable families and communities already struggling to weather the recession.
AmeriCorps instills the ethic of service in members, places them in community organizations that are desperate for resources, and charges them with tasks that provide critical resources and support to struggling Americans.
Just over a year ago, Congress voted to expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 members, based on the program’s overwhelmingly positive impact in helping build a stronger America. Since then, our economy has suffered, millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and the poverty rate is growing dangerously. This is a moment when we should be looking to grow AmeriCorps to help keep the nation strong.
Last week I finally emailed my Representative (for the first time ever!) in support of keeping AmeriCorps. I believe that the House has already debated the budget, but I'm not sure if they've voted yet.
Are you a person? Do you support other people having the best life they can? AmeriCorps helps.
Please, please share the power of AmeriCorps with your friends and family. Please contact your representatives in Congress and urge them to keep AmeriCorps running and making America a better place for all of her citizens.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Like Christmas in November
We've been watching, waiting for months on end, eagerly anticipating. Will the day ever arrive?
It's the official eve. Votes were cast, numbers are coming in, map colors are filling in. The results go up and down. It's so early yet. I won't be staying up all night to see all the results, which means I will go to bed wondering anxiously what will occur tonight. Tomorrow morning will be the bright and shiny moment, a be-ribboned gift for us to tear into. The wait will FINALLY be over.
When I wake up, will the world be a different place? No. Will my life change? No, not really. I'm in a pretty good place, economically and socially.
But I will possibly feel good about my country, I might feel hope for the direction of my country, maybe I will publicly declare positive feelings about the future of my country.
I don't know what the news will be when I wake up. But at the very least, I'm excited about doing my part to make the future a gift for us and our children. Merry Christmas, America!
It's the official eve. Votes were cast, numbers are coming in, map colors are filling in. The results go up and down. It's so early yet. I won't be staying up all night to see all the results, which means I will go to bed wondering anxiously what will occur tonight. Tomorrow morning will be the bright and shiny moment, a be-ribboned gift for us to tear into. The wait will FINALLY be over.
When I wake up, will the world be a different place? No. Will my life change? No, not really. I'm in a pretty good place, economically and socially.
But I will possibly feel good about my country, I might feel hope for the direction of my country, maybe I will publicly declare positive feelings about the future of my country.
I don't know what the news will be when I wake up. But at the very least, I'm excited about doing my part to make the future a gift for us and our children. Merry Christmas, America!
Monday, June 02, 2008
Link love
Tell everyone (again) not to buy bottles of water, for pete's sake! (Passing on the link, thanks Nancy!)
-----
Not that I'm not guilty of tossing food gone bad--especially produce--but this line just grossed me out. That bold statement (emphasis mine) perfectly captures the selfish, small view of this country and the media.
“The fundamental thing that I’m fighting against is, ‘why should I care? I paid for it,’ ” Mr. Bloom said. “The rising prices are really an answer to that.”
And then you see dozens of ads per day about new snack foods, new prepared foods (cut up celery and carrots in a plastic dish! talk about unnecessary waste!), AND miracle diets. When are we finally going to get it already?
----
What does it mean to be an American?
from a very talented and articulate flickr contact.
-----
Not that I'm not guilty of tossing food gone bad--especially produce--but this line just grossed me out. That bold statement (emphasis mine) perfectly captures the selfish, small view of this country and the media.
“The fundamental thing that I’m fighting against is, ‘why should I care? I paid for it,’ ” Mr. Bloom said. “The rising prices are really an answer to that.”
And then you see dozens of ads per day about new snack foods, new prepared foods (cut up celery and carrots in a plastic dish! talk about unnecessary waste!), AND miracle diets. When are we finally going to get it already?
----
What does it mean to be an American?
from a very talented and articulate flickr contact.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Informing the Future Leaders
We are in day two of watching An Inconvenient Truth and doing some quick writing about it. There's at least one more section to watch, and then I hope to get into more discussion, question-raising, research, and purposeful writing.
So far I think it's going well, for the most part the students seem to paying attention. Although when I try to bring them together for a class discussion of what they saw, they seem clueless. For example, they didn't understand the significance of the graph showing the coinciding of birds and caterpillars hatching, and therefore the problem when the two events are no longer simultaneous. I had to pull them through that. I'm finding myself having to quickly teach them bits of information as they come up: who Al Gore is, what a documentary is, tectonic plates, canaries in coal mines, food chains, and the like.
They already knew the basics and keywords of global warming, though they couldn't do much explaining of what it all means. It's certainly my hope that they will understand the general issues and stories shared in the film and that we'll read in news articles. But I imagine I'll have to settle for them understanding general gists of things.
Today in my afternoon class I introduced 'coding the text', which is a standard lesson that all reading teachers should do at the beginning of the year. I modeled a little by reading them an editorial about China's willingness to talk about emission limits. When I got to a dense sentence, I showed them how I broke it down (I actually used the word "parse" because I am a nerd like that) into pieces that I (they) could understand. I *think* they got it. I then handed out a couple different articles, in sheet protectors and with dry-erase markers. They worked in partners to read and code their articles. We didn't get to have them finish, but I think it was a good start.
One thing that was a very unpleasant surprise was that their SCIENCE TEACHER apparently doesn't believe in global warming.
Read that again, and be enraged on their behalf.
He 'got to' one of my classes before I did, and now they are skeptics too. I am so angry.
See, I am a West-Coaster, and I am white. I'm also liberal. Those things intensify my different-ness at my school, and most of the time I can deal with that. I understand that I bring a bias to my classroom, and that the other teachers have very different biases.
But I don't care who you are, I believe that discounting global warming is a huge fallacy. And a teacher of SCIENCE being a naysayer to children who have already unknowningly seen the effects of a warmer planet? That is unforgivable.
Regardless of your opinion of the film itself (AIT), it brings to the masses vital information about the current and future situations on this planet. I was just reading in Newsweek that Canada now produces more cranberries and lobster than Maine, and more maple syrup than Vermont. Parts of Alaska can now grow wheat! Things are happening, things are changing right around us, it is real. Now that it's fashionable and the markets are betting on it, corporations are finally getting on the bandwagon. It's already trickling down to us regular folk.
It's rare that we get to do true inquiry in an English class, and while this isn't really hands-on inquiry right now, my point with this mini-unit-project is to get the kids thinking and questioning and reacting and forming their own opinions, beginning to form their future independent selves.
So far I think it's going well, for the most part the students seem to paying attention. Although when I try to bring them together for a class discussion of what they saw, they seem clueless. For example, they didn't understand the significance of the graph showing the coinciding of birds and caterpillars hatching, and therefore the problem when the two events are no longer simultaneous. I had to pull them through that. I'm finding myself having to quickly teach them bits of information as they come up: who Al Gore is, what a documentary is, tectonic plates, canaries in coal mines, food chains, and the like.
They already knew the basics and keywords of global warming, though they couldn't do much explaining of what it all means. It's certainly my hope that they will understand the general issues and stories shared in the film and that we'll read in news articles. But I imagine I'll have to settle for them understanding general gists of things.
Today in my afternoon class I introduced 'coding the text', which is a standard lesson that all reading teachers should do at the beginning of the year. I modeled a little by reading them an editorial about China's willingness to talk about emission limits. When I got to a dense sentence, I showed them how I broke it down (I actually used the word "parse" because I am a nerd like that) into pieces that I (they) could understand. I *think* they got it. I then handed out a couple different articles, in sheet protectors and with dry-erase markers. They worked in partners to read and code their articles. We didn't get to have them finish, but I think it was a good start.
One thing that was a very unpleasant surprise was that their SCIENCE TEACHER apparently doesn't believe in global warming.
Read that again, and be enraged on their behalf.
He 'got to' one of my classes before I did, and now they are skeptics too. I am so angry.
See, I am a West-Coaster, and I am white. I'm also liberal. Those things intensify my different-ness at my school, and most of the time I can deal with that. I understand that I bring a bias to my classroom, and that the other teachers have very different biases.
But I don't care who you are, I believe that discounting global warming is a huge fallacy. And a teacher of SCIENCE being a naysayer to children who have already unknowningly seen the effects of a warmer planet? That is unforgivable.
Regardless of your opinion of the film itself (AIT), it brings to the masses vital information about the current and future situations on this planet. I was just reading in Newsweek that Canada now produces more cranberries and lobster than Maine, and more maple syrup than Vermont. Parts of Alaska can now grow wheat! Things are happening, things are changing right around us, it is real. Now that it's fashionable and the markets are betting on it, corporations are finally getting on the bandwagon. It's already trickling down to us regular folk.
It's rare that we get to do true inquiry in an English class, and while this isn't really hands-on inquiry right now, my point with this mini-unit-project is to get the kids thinking and questioning and reacting and forming their own opinions, beginning to form their future independent selves.
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