Tag Archives: social issues

Make the Nation Better Again

I’m definitely not the most patriotic person in this country. It’s not a matter of disliking it as much as it is disliking the lies the country is built upon and what it has become since Reagan.

The idealized “American Dream” is only truly attainable by folks born on third base. The rest of us have been brainwashed into thinking we can get there, but in reality, we can’t. The odds are stacked against us by the wealthy oligarchs who run things. Sure, some people may be able to save enough to retire after a few decades of work; however, many of them end up trying to find work just to make ends meet after retirement.

We are one of the few countries where healthcare and mental healthcare is not universally available.

We still have rampant poverty and racism and sexism along with xenophobia and homophobia.

Our education system has broken in so many ways that it’s actually scary. I say this as a teacher who sees this firsthand as students receive 50s on their grade reports in many districts, regardless of whether they do the work or even show up for class.

We idolize the wealthy at our own expense as we buy from corporate owned businesses and pass the locally owned businesses and artists complaining that they cost too much. In reality, if we supported these locally owned businesses and artists, then we’d actually have quality items purchased and lasting longer than the cheap stuff bought at the big box stores.

We accept planned obsolescence in our big ticket items rather than demanding quality items that last, unlike our forebears who demanded quality over cost.

We place each other into boxes rather than talking and finding common ground. This goes beyond political beliefs and permeates all levels of society from religion to politics to national borders and boundaries.

We allow the people we elect, regardless of party, to govern without our input into what they are doing and so many of us fall for their rhetorical gymnastics rather than question them. Part of this is how we allow media to manipulate the news. This is thanks, in part, to Reagan allowing the fairness doctrine in news to dissolve which gave rise to opinion based news and not the reporting of facts without commentary.

We have lost civility, respect, and compassion for our fellow human beings. Sure, it occasionally surfaces in times of natural disasters or if the cause is hyped enough by the aforementioned news commentators. But the everyday civility and manners that once were common are now becoming increasingly rare.

I could continue, but won’t.

If you have the ability to peacefully protest today, please do so and do so safely. It’s not against the country, but against what this country has become and is heading towards.

Two More Things about Teaching

Two More Things about Teaching

 

There are two more things that I think need said about teaching as we arrive at the middle of the 2020s. The first centers around the subject I teach, English, but more specifically reading skills. The second is student achievement, not just in English, but in academics in general. These come from observations, both from myself and others who teach and others who teach English.

Student achievement in reading, and in writing as it follows closely with reading, is declining at a rapid pace. I started noticing it just before I left teaching for a few years back in 2013 and saw what I have now concluded as the continuing trend in reading when I returned to the classroom in 2023. Students are not reading as well in the classroom, but also outside of the classroom. It is rare that students read anything aside from social media posts on a voluntary basis outside of the classroom. Our classroom curriculum has done almost nothing to remedy this either as most schools no longer issue textbooks nor have classroom sets of good novels to use. Aside from when I taught Advanced Placement English and International Baccalaureate English, most reading done by students consists of short stories, at best, and very short articles at the least. These are usually available in easier formats where students are not pushed to learn higher levels of vocabulary or handle sentence complexity as what was once taught. Students are mainly required to answer multiple-choice questions or short answers of no more than a couple of sentences when using these texts.

Worse yet, their ability to read is measured by computerized programs that allegedly test students reading skills to place them into remedial reading classes called RTI interventions. The focus is not on whether a student can read, understand, and grapple with a text with any complexity, but rather on data from these programs that supposedly show whether a student has progressed with building the skills necessary to read. The reading passages in these programs are supposed to be high interest to students, yet most students find them boring or even condescending. Three times per year, students are subjected to having to complete a reading diagnostic using these computer based programs that consists of multiple choice questions and short answer questions involving no higher level thinking skills and that lack the ability for a student to bring in their prior knowledge of what is being read.

The teachers, as well as their students, are then subjected to being evaluated on the data from these programs. The data is more important than the learning that is supposed to be occurring in our classrooms. The data is flawed from the start though. The data does not measure the true ability of the student to interact with a text. Student interaction with a text is more than the ability to answer multiple choice questions or write one to two sentences to respond to a question. Students should be challenged to engage with a text and formulate their own answers which they can defend and which utilize higher level thinking skills.

In short, these programs are only helping to exacerbate the problem and continue to perpetuate students not wanting to read either within or outside of the classroom. Their concern with data has replaced actual thought. Let me say that again in a different way. Data collection has replaced actual thought when it comes to what is important in schools and that is dumbing down our students and, in turn, our society.

The remedy is simple, tried, and true. Students must be imbued with the desire to read at a young age. They must be encouraged to read even before they have the skills to read. How?

First is that they need to be read to by caregivers, parents, grandparents, guardians, teachers, other adults, and yes, over conservative types, drag queens. Students must see adults reading quality literature, popular fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, nonfiction, and whatever good reading there is to be read. Ideally in the form of published, paper-based books, but even e-readers will suffice. Children will want to read first because they see others reading.

Once they have developed some reading skills, then read along with them. That reading along can be another person or, if necessary, an audiobook of the same one they hold in their hands and read. Hearing the words while seeing them helps to develop reading skills. Children can learn pronunciations and even some context clue skills when they hear as well as read a text.

Yet, this cannot be done in isolation. There must be someone, parent or teacher, to be there to discuss what is being read with our students. Not necessarily to tell them what something they read means, but to talk with them about what they read, asking them questions about what they read, and helping them build a connection with what they read based on their experiences, observations, or thoughts. This builds understanding of a text on an intimate level and that leads to the reader not only seeing words on a page but also being able to recall and connect with a text and make meaning from what they have read.

None of this can be measured through a computer-based reading program. It must be measured on a student-by-student, text-by-text basis with human interactions. It is not teaching for performance on a test nor even always for an essay being written, but for the gaining of knowledge in some way from the reading of a text. That is a foundational core for education. Reading for understanding and being able to articulate and inculcate that understanding long after the reading is done.

That brings me to my next point, that of academic achievement. One of the primary reasons why students, particularly students in the United States, are falling behind students in other nations is that education is not valued here in the United States like it is in other countries nor like it once was valued here in the United States. It has less to do with curriculum than it does with how parents and our society views education. We talk a good game about wanting to increase student achievement, but then we fall back on data centered, mandatory, standardized testing thinking that will actually measure student achievement. It doesn’t measure anything except how well a student can take a test or how well our schools have done in preparing students on how to take a test.

Yet even that doesn’t matter when the students don’t come to school or don’t come prepared to learn. A recent article in NEA Today (May 2025) shows that the rate of chronic absenteeism in schools went from 16.2% in 2018-2019 to 28% in 2022-2023 (NEA Today 15). The article concludes by saying that the “majority of schools still had a chronic absence rate of 20 percent or higher” (NEA Today 15).

 These are not pandemic numbers. These are pre-pandemic and post-pandemic numbers. We cannot expect our students to improve their achievement levels if they don’t show up for school. Chronic absenteeism is when a student misses at least “10 percent or more school days over a school year—or about 18 days” (NEA Today 15). Yes, students get sick and should be kept away from school if they are contagious. However, chronic absenteeism usually goes beyond student illnesses. Parent(s) or guardian(s) who don’t care if their child goes to school are the problem here. Much like as adults we need to go to work to earn a living, students need to go to school to earn knowledge. They cannot learn, even in this age of technology, if they are not there and if they do not make up the work they miss when they are not there.

But I will take this a step further. Students who come to school must also be prepared to learn when they are there. So many students come to school without paper, pencils, pens, and other school supplies necessary for them to learn. While sometimes schools can afford to supply these or even teachers have them in their rooms, that supply is not guaranteed nor should it be expected that schools or teachers supply students with these things. And additionally, students must come with an attitude for learning. While school has a social component to it, students must be taught by their parent(s)/guardian(s) that their primary job while at school is to learn. That means no phone out during class, not having their school supplied computers logged into video games and not leaving class unnecessarily. That means not disrupting class or interrupting a lesson or discussion. It means treating school like a job, a job to gain as much knowledge as possible in order to do whatever it is that they aspire to do once they graduate. Just as adults have to focus on their jobs while at work, students must focus on their learning while at school during those times when they are in class. Showing up means showing up prepared and focused on learning, not just being a warm body sitting at a desk.

Improving reading skills and overall student achievement is easy. It just seems to be the implementation of what is needed is lacking.

 

Works Cited

“Chronic Absenteeism Is Still Too High”. NEA Today. May 2025, pp. 15.

Education Reform Again

Recently the read comments on a post about the cuts to education that will and have occurred since the beginning of this new administration. The number of people who have no problem with cutting out food programs and mental health services in our schools is appalling. These same individuals who also see no problem with cutting other services to our schools, including having teacher assistants who help with the most challenging students, the students who range from having simple learning disabilities to ones who have serious ones.

They’ve obviously never taught or only taught in a selective, cloistered private school that hand picks only the best students who have few if any disabilities or social disadvantages.

They’ve obviously never been a teacher like my sister and even myself who has purchased everything from school supplies to food to clothing for our students because our students had none or only had the bare minimum to exist, let alone survive and thrive.

They say our curriculum is dumbed down, but can’t see that’s occurred primarily because of Republicans who have shoved standardized testing down the throats of educators while cutting funding for education. Got money to test, but not for books.

Want to reform education? Then, fix the underlying societal problems.

Create jobs that pay a living wage.

Create and maintain affordable healthcare, including mental healthcare.

Create affordable, quality daycare for parents who must work.

Build affordable, safe housing.

Create/build grocery stores or other healthy food stores that are affordable within inner cities.

Fund education from pre-k through at least the first two years of college and provide scholarships and grants for students who want to continue their education. Include in this funding for special education programs in all schools and access to technology for all schools.

Create programs to teach new parents how to parent and manage their lives.

This is not an exhaustive list, but it’s a start. Everything must start somewhere.

Why Can’t We Just Be?

Why can’t we just be?

When I was a teenager, I wanted to do one thing most teens do, date. Now, with dating, particularly in high school with all the cliques and such, it’s always difficult. In the 80s in a small Midwestern town, it was even more challenging.

First, there was the covert prejudice between Protestants and Catholics, or as was commonly said, “Christians and Catholics.” I went through that issue for three years, but that’s a different issue.

Next, there was the issue of race, particularly with parents as old as mine. Now, my mother used to tell me race didn’t matter. She’d add how everyone deserved to be treated with respect and dignity. She also used an old line how people were different colours because “God left some people in the oven longer than others.” (How horrible that image is on so many levels, but I honestly believe she never meant anything bad about it).

As it would have it, I really came to like a girl at school who I wanted to ask out for a date. That’s where this issue came into play because she happened to be Black. I already had a hard enough time trying to ask a girl out and I just had this feeling my parents would have a problem with it. I asked my mom about it. Unfortunately, my father heard and commented that no N- would ever be welcomed in his house, let alone have his kid date one.

I saw this girl as my friend. She was funny, smart, and pretty. Sure, she was Black, but that didn’t matter to me. I liked her and wanted to get to know her, spend time with her. Yet, I couldn’t because of my parents. I often wondered if Black kids got the same thing from their parents if they wanted to date White kids. Would her parents have reacted the same way? Obviously, I’ll never know. What I did learn was the hypocrisy of my parents and that I’d not be that way when I grew up.

Even in my adult life, I’ve had acquaintances comment negatively if I said I found a non-Caucasian person attractive. I just don’t understand it. If I find someone attractive, why should skin colour even matter? If I want to be friends with someone who is a different skin colour or religion or whatever, why should it matter?

Seriously, why can’t we just be?

NYE 2020

Wearied. Worried. Worn.

Three words most of us feel as 2020 comes to a close. Here in the States, it feels like it’s been an additional 4 years of turmoil and tragedy on top of the 4 years of chaos under the current administration.

We are weary of the deceit and evil of the current administration.

All the racial issues re-ignited.

All of the lies told.

All of the double dealing and hate.

The internal destruction of our society brought upon us by an individual and a party who care only for power. That will come to an end in a couple of weeks.

We are worried about a virus that has killed over 350,000 of our friends, family members, and neighbours. A virus that is even mutating into one that may spread faster. Finally, we have a vaccine, yet will it get to enough people in time? We hope. So far, it’s been successfully given to a few. Unfortunately, there are many who refuse to be vaccinated due to ignorance and possibly arrogance. Hopefully, most people will choose the path of science and wisdom and get vaccinated as soon as they are able.

We, as a whole, are worn.

We are tired of precautions.

We are tired of wearing masks and social distancing.

We are tired of people who refuse to wear a mask or social distance.

We are tired of people who deny science, especially at the cost of other people’s lives.

We are tired of not being able to be with those we love.

We are tired of the racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and hate.

We are tired of politicians who serve their donors and corporations instead of us.

We are tired of not having access to affordable quality healthcare for everyone.

We are tired of our educational system being inadequate and poorly funded.

We are tired of many other things.

Yet, we cannot give up.

We cannot lose hope.

We cannot let the powers and individuals who continue to try to divide us, degrade us, place us into boxes, or defile us ever be able to win.

We must band and bond together in ways we are capable of as humankind yet have failed to do as a whole.

We need to see colour, but only as pigmentation like the colours of a rainbow.

We need to accept religious beliefs as equal in value for we are all on our own journey through life and our beliefs or lack thereof are our guide.

We need to see women and men as equals and even gender as fluid.

We need a newfound respect for education and science.

We need to see love between two people regardless of whether they share the same birth gender.

We need to see our diversity as strength and not weakness.

We are embarking on a new year. Another 365 1/4 days around our sun. It’s time for a new Age of Enlightenment, a new Renaissance. It’s time to look outside our comfort zones, outside our communities, and outside our countries to see the value of all humankind.

A new year with new choices and a new hope.

Happy 2021

Yes, the incoming First Lady is Dr. Jill Biden

All of the idiotic brewhaha over Dr. Jill Biden using the title “Dr.” has me rather upset and retrospective feeling. I admire anyone who spent the time and money to earn a PhD. You deserve to use the title “Dr.” as you’ve earned it.

A PhD was once a goal of mine. I’d been fortunate in my young childhood to meet a college professor, Dr. Lillabelle Holt, who made a great impression on me. She was one of my sister’s college professors. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay in contact with her through my high school years. I admired her wisdom, wit, and passion for teaching. I wanted to be like her. Yet, life often has other plans.

I did manage to earn a BA and 2 MA degrees; however, I’ll likely never earn the PhD that was my goal due to putting my own daughters through their undergraduate degrees and setting them off to conquer the world. (Worth it).

Besides, I’m 53 and there’s simply not a place for a 53-year old English PhD student nor a job to pay the mountain of debt I still owe or would accrue in my getting a PhD or EdD.

If you earned a PhD or EdD, use the title “Dr.” It’s been earned by you through the sacrifices you made to accomplish it. Certainly, do not allow anyone to diminish that, especially if you are a woman because you overcame a heck of a lot more crap to earn it than a man.

I’ve tried to instil upon my daughters the love of lifelong education and the chutzpah to be strong in the face of adversity and ignorance. If either one ever earns a PhD or EdD, I’ll sure as heck tell them to use the title “Dr.” and tell anyone who tries to say they can’t to shove their opinion deep into where the sun doesn’t shine.

Thank you for reading.

Peace-Salaam-Shalom-Namaste-Blessed Be

White privilege is not what whites think it is

White privilege doesn’t mean what some Whites think it means. They get stuck on the word privilege believing it to equate with wealth and comfort. However, that’s not it.

Privilege, as defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary, has two related definitions. The first is “a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favour”. The second is “to accord a higher value or superior position to”.

The social and political system of this country grants people who are white with certain privileges that are not given to people of colour which are based simply on the lack of melanin in their skin. It has nothing to do with wealth, but everything to do with living each day.

Whites can and do go about our lives not really worrying about being pulled over by law enforcement or being shadowed in stores by security/loss prevention personnel.

Whites can and do get jobs over people of colour based not on qualifications, but on skin pigmentation.

Whites do not get stereotyped as being savages or lazy anywhere near the amount people of colour do.

A white man walking along the street while wearing a hoodie doesn’t have to pull the hoodie off when people pass him out of fear of being thought of as potentially violent.

When a white person does get pulled over or stopped by law enforcement, they don’t automatically get approached by the officer having his/her hand on the butt of his/her service revolver.

The list can go on ad nauseam, but I won’t belabour it. These are facts. People of colour, particularly Black and Brown skinned people face discrimination every day practically from the moment they are born.

Black and Brown mothers and fathers train their sons on how to try to avoid suspicion from ignorant whites so that they can come home from something as simple as a trip to get candy at the corner store.

Black women see images society throws at them saying their beauty lies in straightening their hair.

Black and Brown people are constantly told to behave like whites behave if they want to achieve success and stay safe in this country.

Again, the list can go on ad nauseam.

Enough is enough though!

Blacks and other people of colour cannot fix the system that’s rigged against them by themselves. It’s up to whites to join with them, listen, and act with them to change the system from one of systemic racism to one of real equality.

Not Enough

Not Enough

Shirts are not enough.
Signs are not enough.
Painted streets are not enough.
Sentiment is not enough.
Letters and emails are not enough.
Voting is not enough.
Protests are not enough.

All of these actions, while necessary and good, are not enough to bring about meaningful and lasting change in this country. We need tangible and earnest change in the system to rid ourselves of the systemic racism that pervades our country.

While the above-mentioned list is a start, we need to elect officials at all levels of government who will listen and act in a manner that changes the system. We must move forward with the agenda for which people are shouting, protesting, dying, and being arrested. We must make the agenda into law.

No human should worry about being mistreated based solely on the colour of her or his skin.

No human should worry about being killed based solely on the colour of her or his skin.

No human should live in poverty based solely on the colour of her or his skin.

No human should worry about being able to get a job based solely on the colour of her or his skin.

No human should worry about not having healthcare based solely on the colour of her or his skin.

We must force our government to truly make this country one where equality is truly equality.

Equality across the imaginary concept of race.

Equality across all cultural differences.

Equality across all genders and sexual orientations.

Equality across all religious beliefs or non-belief.

The idea of equality for ALL PEOPLE truly should be equality for ALL PEOPLE!

Never Forget–Never Let It Happen Again

Today, January 27, 2017, is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This day was established on November 1, 2005, to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. It is also the day in 1945 when the Auschwitz-Birkenau death/concentration camp was liberated. Over 6 million Jewish, 2 million Romani, 250,000 mentally and physically disabled, and 9,000 homosexual men (Wikipedia) died as the result of the Holocaust.

Some of you may be saying, “Gee, thanks for the history lesson. What does this have to do with me here in the 21st Century?”

It has everything to do with you.

The common phrase associated with the Holocaust is Never Forget. That phrase is more than just some catchy advertising campaign. Never Forget is what those who survived the Holocaust tell us because they not only want us to never forget what happened to the millions of people under the savage reign of the Nazis, but they want us to make certain it never happens again. Unfortunately, it has in places like Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.

It happens when groups of people are set apart as being the cause of problems from loss of jobs to terrorism. We hear it today from the current incumbent of the White House who calls Mexican people “criminals” and “rapists” and “killers”. He blames violent crimes on Blacks and Hispanics. He’s called for a ban on Muslims. He’s signed executive orders to ban Muslims from immigrating and to build a wall to keep Mexicans out. He has also taken action that would be detrimental to the LGBTQIA community. His words are reflected in the actions of his supporters who go on the attack against these groups of people and some of whom, frighteningly enough, also fly the flag of the Nazis or engage in the salute of that same group.

Never Forget also means to never let it happen again. If we never let it happen again to the Jewish people or to any other group that is discriminated against, that honors the victims of the Holocaust. No group of people should face those horrors again.

The numbers of Holocaust survivors are dwindling as that population ages. Their call to us should never cease, even when the last survivor dies.

We must act against prejudice and violence against marginalized people!

We must STAND UP to those who bully, threaten, or attack marginalized people!

We must act against laws that discriminate against other people!

Now is not the time to simply Never Forget, but it is a time to ACT against future atrocities!

Even if it doesn’t personally affect you now, there’s nothing to say it will not affect you or someone you love in the future. Therefore, STAND UP and ACT UP against prejudice and violence wherever you encounter it. Whether it is contacting your elected officials or marching in the streets, it is up to US to Never Forget and NEVER let it happen again.

A little bit about me

I am choosing to share something on my blog that is unrelated to my usual subjects. Rather than talk about politics, religion, social issues, education, or something of a more global matter, I am going to allow you into a bit about me as a person. Maybe it will inspire you or make you otherwise feel better about life or yourself. Maybe it might cause you to make a change in your life for the better. All I ask is that you do not make derogatory commentary on what I have to say. Otherwise, I’ll simply delete your rude commentary and block you from my blog. (I know, big deal, right?) Well, here goes nothing.

372 pounds. Yes, you read that correctly. Three hundred seventy-two pounds. Not exactly healthy. My blood pressure was through the roof to the point where my new doctor refused to allow me to leave the office after my physical until it dropped closer to being simply a high reading. Pant size? An embarrassing size 52.

That is where I was in February 2013. We just moved from Florida to Canada with my wife’s three to five year, temporary assignment for her job. I, for the first time in over 20 years, found myself unemployed due to that job transfer. My wife deemed this to me my time to reinvent myself.

Now, allow me to digress and focus on that term. Reinvent. It’s a complicated word when it comes to anything, but especially a person’s life. I find it almost as complicated as the fundamentalist Christian phrase of born again, which is physically impossible let alone gross when you think of the birth process. Here I was at the age of 45, having spent the previous 12 years teaching high school English and obtaining two Master degrees, and now facing having to reinvent myself. Might as well ask me to chuck the whole last 29 years of my life and tell me to start from scratch again. Wait, that is what the process of reinventing oneself essentially means. It means taking everything you learned and placing it on a shelf while you figure out what the hell to actually do with that store of knowledge when you cannot do that which you have been doing with it in your recent past.

Well, I have started to reinvent myself, in the case of this particular piece, reinventing my physical self. Shortly after that traumatic trip to the doctor’s, I joined Weight Watchers near my home. Talk about a trip into the unknown. I walked into the meeting site, held ironically on the second floor of a grocery where the smells of the deli and bakery waft up and fill the floor with their aromas, and into a room filled with middle to older aged women. There were only two men in the room, me and one other gentleman. He was easily 10 to 15 years my senior. (I being 45 at the time). It’s one thing to have your weight known by a doctor, but by a receptionist and a leader, both women, was another thing. I wondered if I would be judged much like I used to be judged by my doctor when I was a youth. Back then, he used to walk into the room and announce to me that I was fat. As I grew older, he continued to do this making me want to simply tell him something like, “No shit, asshole. I’ve been this way for a number of years now and all you ever do is tell me I’m fat, yet offer no advice as to how I might fix that!” Between my own doctor’s degrading comments and those of a vast majority of my classmates, teachers, and friends, I developed a great amount of low self esteem when it came to my physical attributes.

Wonderfully enough, the leader, receptionist, and other members of the group never saw me that way. They viewed me as a fellow human being on a journey to trying to be healthier along with them. Many became, and I hope they do not mind my saying this, my foster moms and grandmothers as they encourage me to keep with the program.

Sorry, I digressed again. This is not a commercial for Weight Watchers. They’d likely be upset if it were since I do not have a contract to promote their products.

As of about 4 weeks ago, I have embarked on another major step in my journey to better health and taken up running. Yes, you read that correctly, running. A person who weighed in at 372 pounds with a size 52 pant a little over a year ago is now under 250 and wearing a size 38 pant and I’ve taken up running. It is more than that, however, as I am training to run my first 5K race in September and what I hope will be my first 10K race in October. I never imagined that I would be a runner, yet I find myself enjoying it immensely as I run 3 days a week using a training regimen that allows me to work up to the 5K through a series of intervals of running and walking.

I write all of this in my blog today just to say that it is possible for anyone to do what they have a mind to do if they work at it. I may post more about my journey as I get closer to my first 5K, my second 5K, and my 10K. Other than that, most of my postings will continue to be in my usual realm of politics, social issues, education, religion, and such. Take care.