Blame the Teachers: My Version

 I recently read a post on Facebook entitled, “Blame the Teachers.” Its title made me want to read the article. It was not what I was expecting.  Here is my version of the article.

Maxine Moore, 2nd grade. She was my teacher when my father’s plane went down in Vietnam. She, and the guidance counselor, comforted a very sad, very lost, very confused little girl. They allowed her to come to school early, help pass out morning work and sharpen pencils. They loved her and comforted her, and gave her the time and space to adjust to her loss.  Let’s blame them….

Larry Fletcher. High school English. He allowed us to write book reports on any book we chose. I chose, “Helter Skelter,” because it intrigued me. What would cause someone to carry out such heinous crimes? What made Charles Manson tick? I shocked the class (and probably Mr. Fletcher!)  

He allowed us to play “Password,” boys against girls (because that was okay in the ‘70s). What he, and the boys, didn’t know at the time, was that I had learned sign language and taught it to all my girlfriends. We would just spell the work out under the desk and win every single time!  They boys were ticked!

He and his wife, along with some of our other teachers, went snow skiing with us every Spring Break. They were out at our house after every football and basketball game, bringing snacks and playing guitars.

When my longtime boyfriend and I broke up my senior year, Mr. Fletcher came out to our farm to make sure I was okay.

Let’s blame him…..

Diane Knutson. High school band. "Mrs. K" stretched us, musically, beyond what we thought we could do. When I was in high school, we had an amazing music department! Whenever we went to contest, other schools wold cringe. We would fill auditoriums with other schools coming in just to hear our jazz band. She pushed us hard and expected nothing less than our best. We all grew as musicians because of her!

Let's blame her....

Colleen (Norvell Sipich). High school choir, The kindest, most gentle soul I know! I took private voice lessons from her, in addition to what we did in school. She gave me an appreciation for vocal music. I love to sing! She is the reason I chose choir every semester of college. It was my "happy place." She is also the reason I chose to minor in music in college.

Let's blame her, too...

Fran Connealy. High school government. Let’s blame her! She made us bring in newspaper clippings each week to discuss current events. She made us read Time magazine! The nerve! She asked us to write a final paper, minimum of 10 pages, complete with a bibliography, about an event in the United States Government that changed history. Mine was about Watergate. I stayed up past midnight the night before it was due, typing and editing it.  Yes, let’s blame her for making us care about our country and what was happening and showing us what it would be like to write a term paper when we got to college. Let’s blame her….

Dr. Petersen. College Anthropology. I failed his first test. His teaching assistant wrote the test. Apparently, what I thought was important was way different than what his TA thought was important! I scheduled a meeting with Dr. Petersen. I was scared! He was a big man, tall, with a long beard. Intimidating. Turns out he was anything but. He quizzed me over the information he had taught and I nailed every question. That semester, if I didn’t do well on a test or quiz, he would have me come to his office to discuss the material. I ended up with a B in that class.  Let’s blame him….

Lori Beadell. College choir. I only needed two Fine Arts credits. I took her choir class every semester but my first one.  She said, “You know you don’t need more credits.”  I told her that music was my escape with everything else going on around me, it was my calm in the storm.” She made me her music secretary, cataloging and pulling music for her.  Let’s blame her….

Paul Cowell. Masters Instructor. We were used to working in small groups, having time for discussion. Paul believed in lecturing, the.whole.time. You could barely ask a question during his class. I needed a silver lining.  Here’s one thing he said that sticks with me to this day: “Involve families early, and in a positive manner.” This is my mantra now! I try my hardest to do this through Family Meetings before school starts and other methods throughout the school year. To date, I have had 100% attendance at Parent-Teacher conferences for 18 years, running.  Let’s blame him….

Jim Sporleder. Trauma-Informed Consultant. Former principal. Where to even start? When I heard Jim speak for the first time, I literally wept! He is the one who gave a name to what I believe teaching should be. We need to meet the physical and emotional needs of our students before we can ever expect them to learn! I am honored to have met him, have him mentor me, and call him my friend. Let’s blame him….

Teachers.

 Let’s blame them. 

Let’s blame them for caring, even when their workload is heavy.

Let’s blame them for taking time, even if it takes time away from their own families.

Let’s blame them for creating the ability to learn something new.

Let’s blame them for finding a way, and continuing to teach through the damn-demic.

Let’s blame them for our own ability to have a job.

Let’s blame them for the noble job they are doing when no one appreciates them.

Let’s blame them…..

How Do You Say Good-Bye?

    As I write this, tomorrow will mark three months since Chuck’s spirit left us for heaven. I have mulled over how to put his loss into words for quite a while. I probably still won’t get it right, because his loss is ever-evolving, I hope that this can give some insight.

     Chuck was born, prematurely. He had multiple surgeries before the age of three. That didn’t stop him from being a four-year, four-sport letterman throughout his high school career, though. Whenever he would have his sports physical, doctors would always say, “He’s got some kind of murmmur. We’ll keep an eye on it.”  

     Fast forward to when he was thirty-four, married, with three children. He contracted strep and it settled in the fluid around his heart. In the middle of finding this medical problem, doctors found an aneurysm between the two upper chambers of his heart and a hole under that aneurysm (Remember? He’s got a murmur??) He had open heart surgery to repair that. It was around this time that I began to realize that my days with him were numbered. This led to a lifetime of problems with afib. He had multiple procedures to try and correct it, but nothing really seemed to do the trick. In 2015, he had a pacemaker/defibrillator implanted.

     Before Chuck got sick this winter, he was in the best shape of his life. His weight was down, he was active. We were remodeling an 1873 limestone schoolhouse. Then he got sick. He just couldn’t shake it, like he had done in the past. Then his pacemaker started sending out an alarm. He called his cardiologist. They told him the lifespan of his pacemaker had run its course and it needed to be replaced, so that’s what we did.  Never once did it occur to me that he wouldn’t rally. He always had before.

     But that was not to be the case this time. His heart was simply too sick  For the life of me, I still don’t understand how someone with such a huge heart couldn’t rally, but it was not to be.

    How do I say good-bye to someone I’ve shared more than half my life with–the good, the bad, and the ugly?  We share three beautiful children that I know he would be immensely proud of every single day of their lives, the chosen spouses of our children, again, who are amazing humans. And those grandchildren?? Those children would light up his face every time he was around them!

     As for me? There’s just a big hole.I’ve lost my confidante and best friend. He was my biggest supporter, and while we may not have seen eye-to-eye on everything, he would still be there to listen. We had a comfortable life, working on the house and spending time with kids and grandkids. Now everything is in turmoil and I’m just trying to make sense of it and make choices that are right for me, in my new reality, and make him proud.

      I know he’s watching down on all of us, holding his grandbabies that went before him, playing with the dogs that went before him, and sharing laughs with his family members.

#OneWord2025: Rise

      As I was pondering my new word, and writing down options that I thought might apply, this one just jumped out at me!

     My favorite song, "You Raise Me Up, by Josh Groban was the catalyst:

         "When I am down, and oh, , my soul so weary.

          When troubles come and my heart burdeded by

          Then I am still and wait here in the silence

          Until You come and sit awhile with me.

          You raise me up so I can stand on mountains

          You raise me up to walk on stormy seas

          I am strong when I am on Your shoulders

          You raise me up to more than I can be."

Then, as I was praying, my favorite scripture came to me, and I knew I had chosen the right word!

Isaiah 40:31 says "Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not be weary, they will walk and not faint."

     There are a couple of reasons I feel strongly about this word, one personal and one professional.

Personally, I have had one knee replacement surgery and am looking at another the beginning of the summer. "Grueling" doesn't begin to cover the physical therapy, but it's going to be so worth it! I've got young grandchildren to chase around and a house that still needs lots of remodeling work done.

Professionally, I will continue to fight for my students, even when it feel like I am standing alone. There are many, many times that I feel like others are saying "Well, we don't have those services for PreK." or "That doesn't apply to PreK."  PreK is foundational for all future educational successess, but that is a blog for another time. For the purpose of this blog, let's just say that I will rise up and work tirelessly to get my students the support they need to be successful.

Rise!

I AM JUST SO DAMNED PISSED!

      Another school shooting.....

      Two teachers...dead

      Two students...dead. Many more injured.

      When will it stop? 

      When will all of the lawmakers do the right thing and take the necessary steps to help alleviate these kinds of tragedies from continuing?

     I know, I know.....

     There's all kinds of blame to go around and we've heard it all:

• It's the parent's fault for not locking up their guns.
• It's the classmates' fault for not noticing something was "off" with another classmate
• It's the school's fault for not addressing the mental health needs of the students

    And the list goes on and on and on....

Bottom line? Until our lawmakers step up to the plate and make this the national problem that it truly is, and allocate the funding to address ALL of it, nothing is going to change. NOT ONE DAMN THING!  We're just going to keep losing teachers who were only trying to protect their children, along with innocent children. While we all just stand back and wring our hands. It's time to #DOSOMETHING

Join me. This is the link to a foundation set up by THE Matthew McConaughey and his wife, Camila, in the aftermath of the Uvalde, TX school shooting.  https://www.greenlightsgrantinitiative.org/   Share it with every school administrator you know, far and wide. Let's start a movement!! For our children and our teachers!

Safety and Protection

      In light of last week's assassination attempt, I'm curious, political affiliations aside, is this going to do anything to change our gun control laws, nationally?  I'm guessing not. I'm guessing that lawmakers will treat it as an isolated incident or the colossal screw up of one law enforcement agency or another.

     This is why it concerns me: If highly trained Secret Service and law enforcement officers are unable to protect a former, running President, what makes ANYONE believe that teachers are capable of protecting a classroom of children?

     In my classroom situation, alone, I have a door that leads directly from my classroom to the parking lot, which borders a busy street. That door is all glass. On the opposite side of my classroom are three, floor-to-ceiling windows. Also all glass. If a shooter wanted to get into my classroom, it would be no problem and it would be over before anyone could respond.

     I'm not saying that this is a building problem. It is a district problem. The district is charged with making sure our buildings are safe for our students. The buck stops at the district office.They have the money.  Can you really put a price tag on the safety of the students?

     It's also a gun control problem. Why does Joe Shmoe, on the street, need an AR-style gun? He doesn't. The only people who need those types of guns are law enforcement and our military. Changes need to be made and they have been needed for quite some time. I hope that this latest assassination attempt opens the eyes of some of the  naysayers.

Do Better!

      As I was driving home from school on Thursday, along a busy street, with no shoulders, I noticed a little girl off to the side of the road. She looked to be about the same age as the preschoolers I teach. Across the road was a small park.  I could just see her trying to dart across the traffic to get to the swings! I slowed down, just in case, and kind of took in the setting. There was no adult to be seen.  The little girl was spinning around the speed limit sign (40 mph, which no one was obeying)

     In this day and age, I was afraid to pull over and take her back to her house, so I called the police. I could just see her getting hit or taken. After giving the dispatcher all of the information, he said they would send someone out "as soon as they could."  I decided to turn around and watch.  Do you know how long it took the police to respond to an unaccompanied child next to a busy street in Topeka, Kansas?  THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES!! Unacceptable!

     By the time they got there, the little girl was off running around her little neighborhood. Even though the police had her description, they merely cruised right past her and kept going. Who knows how far from her actual home she was?  Do better!

#OneWord: 2024-"Engage"

     For the past several years, rather than make a New Year's resolution, that I'm never going to keep, I have chosen one word to be my focus for the ensuing year. I started doing this after reading the book by Jon Gordon and friends, when I learned about the book on a Twitter post.

     Honestly, my word for each year just "comes to me," like an "aha" moment and this year was no different. I started thinking about possibilities for my word, and then, like a bolt of lightning, it hit me: "ENGAGE!"  How had I not seen this before?

     You see, I have spoken at conferences about Family Engagement for awhile now. I wrote the book: Teamwork Makes the DreamWork, about the importance of engage families. It's something I am passionate about in my career. I am the primary-level Family Engagement Coordinator for our elementary building, along with an intermediate Family Engagement Coordinator. PreK-5th grade, we have a student body population of around 570 students.

     Engage my students. Make them want to come to school. Help them to be excited about learning! Heaven knows we don't want them to feel like coming to school is a chore, or boring. Let them play! Children learn best by playing! (That's a whole different blog post!!)

     Engage their families! Invite them in! Let them be a part of our learning experiences! I have a monthly Family Engagement Friday, where the families of our students are invited in for a morning of learning with their children! It's a win-win situation! 

     We also send home monthly learning packets, with instructions, so that families can help their children learn. I believe that many times our families want to help their children learn, they just don't know how. This year, over half my class is non-English speaking, so I send EVERYTHING home in Spanish, as well. I want to be all-inclusive! 

     The response has been amazing! It even led to my classroom being awarded a grant for our Family Engagement Fridays! In December, three members of the Topeka Public Schools Foundation even joined us for our Family Engagement Friday!

     My motto for this school year, which also just came to me during a conversation with our principal, is: "If not us, then who?"  If we don't do, then who will? Who will engage these students? Who will engage these families to help these students, entrusted to our care, become successful humans? It's up to us! IF NOT US, THEN WHO?