I've decided to record something here, but it's not what i had intended. Not originally, anyway.
I tried writing a blog. It failed.
I was a fool, and it was a foolish escapade. Not the kind of foolish escapade with spinning rims and televisions mounted in the steering wheel, but the kind that occupies your actual time and effort instead of your garage. Still, both stroke the ego, both parallel the self-definition as trite examples of one’s fallible decision-making.
As a teacher, I see fools daily. They are just as much the parents, students, teachers, and politicians that I work with as they are the reflections of myself I catch in a hundred mirrors and mirrored eyes.
I wanted to write a political blog, but realized that there are enough mild moderates like me to not care about my point of view as there were frothing conservatives there were to passionately attack my betters.
I wanted to write a blog about teaching, but that was a bust because nobody cares about teachers until they have a budget to cut. Wisconsin is as foolish as I am, perhaps more. Education is by definition a fickle and risky pursuit, the first to receive blame and the last to earn praise, though for most individuals a serious and influential part of their childhood. I’m used to that. As I said, I’m a fool. But after that, I decided I was a fool worth reading to those other fools in my same place.
I started writing every week. It died, not because I ran out of time or memory or topics, but because of burnout. My wife got sick. And the tutoring job I took over the summer turned into a full-blown portfolio project in order to get a student his diploma despite the best efforts of the state test to keep him from graduating. And my classes got harder – a lot harder – to deal with. AP, state test workshop/remediation, a terrible creative writing class filled with students who had no desire to write, a severely special needs student who was unable to speak without the aid of a headpointer and Vanguard II language processor, a student who had only been speaking English for a couple years, NHS advisorship for a failing chapter, and so on. It makes for a hard year, moreso when all of this is new and all of the new-ness hits at once.
The real reason, though, was a workshop I attended. Workshops have a tendency to be tedious, but this was actually terrible. It was a plan based on decades-old research that most of us were already using better versions of. When you spend fifteen minutes listening to someone painstakingly describe the difference between Bloom’s Taxonomy and Bloom’s Taxonomy revised (hint: switch the last two levels, change the verb form; I just did a better job than she did, and in far less time) you know you’re not exactly in a quality program. I tried to write about it, I tried to churn through it. And it didn’t work. It was terrible, but it was so lovecraft-ly terrible that it burned out my ability to accurately describe its terribleness.
So it fried my brain, and I still had to take care of a sick wife, and I still had to teach, and I still had to keep going with everything else I had to do. I had a bit of a reprieve with progress in a hobby of mine, but this only added to the time i wasn't getting other work done, which caught up to me quickly. It took me the entirety of the summer to get back in mindspace enough to face school. I worked in the laundry room of a hotel with possibly the socially-dumbest guy I’ve ever met in my life, and had a good time not being burned out.
Now, I’m a glutton for punishment. I want nothing to do with that mindspace again. But I kept AP, NHS, and the title of “that guy who does portfolios that pass” and this year hasn’t been all wine and truffles. But not being new, all those pressures have been effectively less even if they really haven't lessened. Plus, i was volunteered for a visiting accreditation team, and the chairmanship of a committee for our own school's accreditation process. And my car died.
I'm not special, it's not that my pressures are greater than someone else's but that they are mine to deal with and mine to shoulder that makes them seem worse.
It’s all too easy to worry about things, and here – where none of my family or coworkers or probably anyone else in the blogosphere will see this, I can be a little more frank about all the worries of a personal nature, as well as the bigger picture worries that would terrify the average person – also lovecraftian, also awarded within our own minds the titles of “that which must not be named” and described as sanity-eating. We all have them, they’re part of the modern experience.
When I was a kid, I was terrified of nuclear war, which later I can detail for you in perfect clarity. That experience has shaped me as a person, partially because I know what it’s like to feel powerless in the dark while dark dreams and portents of future doom roost on the eaves of the headboard. We all feel anxieties, we are all deep down terrified we’ll pull a Loman and dead-end in madness or uselessness or loss. The reason why people tend to think “it’ll never happen to me,” I think, is because we already HAVE imagined far worse happening to us, and none of THAT actually happened, so we must be safe!
We’re all safe, I suppose, until we aren’t. The measure of the foolish seems to be to draw that line where it doesn’t apply, or sometimes to draw that line at all.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
twinkle twinkle...
Blogs are foolish.
They are the egocentric creation of a generation of perfect little snowflakes who believe that uniqueness needs a million voices to be heard.
That being said, I am a perfect little snowflake. Hello world.
They are the egocentric creation of a generation of perfect little snowflakes who believe that uniqueness needs a million voices to be heard.
That being said, I am a perfect little snowflake. Hello world.
Monday, August 17, 2009
The Rich and the Poor
I once had a roommate who did not understand money. Truth be told, with how many ended up owing me for back bills, you would think I would say that in plural. But one stands out.
She was actually a roommate’s girlfriend. She was a Jersey girl, who grew up in a wealthy town. Her parents were both doctors. They put her through Smith, her sister through up to grad school, and her brother through a specialized high school, all out-of-pocket, and according to her “we don’t have any money, we’re straight up middle class.”
When she had to support herself, working a night-shift job making only a little more than minimum wage, she balked at the spending restrictions. Her boyfriend treated her to things, because she demanded him to. She would splurge on higher-end groceries from Whole Foods, then claim that our other roommate was cheating her at bills.
What’s sad is that this lack of understanding is common. Credit card debt rates at the moment are less than fair judges of that due to unemployment, with living by any means while there is hope to get back up is a common trope. Prior to this economic crash, though, the rates were not as far off.
See, money is something we get, we are worth, we hold or view as symbols on an atm screen, but we do not feel. When you have none, money comes with anxiety and desperation, the “how am I going to hold on to this as long as possible?” With only a little, it comes with a blind optimism that tells of all the things denied. With more than needed, it comes with entitlement, the “I deserve more than you” reaction. The actual value of a dollar is replaced at our fear, anxiety, hope, dreaming, demanding as its value. Look at the average arrogant jackass who wants to look more important -- it isn’t the emulation of taste that gives that impression, it is the emulation of the entitlement.
In a week and a half I go back to teaching. My students, on average, will have grown up comparable or in more dire straits to me, economically -- my father was a teacher as well, and my mother a homemaker until we were old enough to go to school, in the interest that someone would always be around for us. Many of them will be on government subsidy. Many of them will have no healthcare, no homes of any stability, no hope for college (but some wearing hundred-dollar shoes or using cellphones or ipods regardless of these at-home facts). Every year, I doubt my chosen career for numerous reasons, the most vocal in my head being that I would like to provide for my family – that if I were making what I could in another field, we could be buying a house and my wife could finish her degree and we could look toward children. Then I teach other people’s children, about a third conceived outside of marriage or the means of supporting them.
The very people who suffer at the hands of big business, at capitalism unchecked, are the people without enough monetary power or education to do anything about it. The very people who benefit most when the government feels responsible for its people and not its businesses, but instead due to misinformation or poor education or religious influences are more inclined to fear and hate that which would help them and vote for those without their best interests at heart.
To do what I can for these children’s best interests, I have to give up the things I want. Not because I am on a mission, not because I have a martyr complex, but because I love my job when the jackasses don’t ruin it for me, and because I know I can make it work eventually. That I am, year nine, making less than many of my contemporaries with comparable degrees started at (by five digits, for some), implies that there are benefits, or expected sacrifices in this job. That we are expected to go on less because we are such great people.
No wonder it is so hard to keep first year teachers. Either we burn out fast, trying to do the things we feel are expected, we are treated with such disrespect that the money-ideas start weighing on us, or we read the fine print and realize that we cannot make these sacrifices. Or, we just don’t understand money, in which case we end up in far worse places than the rest.
She was actually a roommate’s girlfriend. She was a Jersey girl, who grew up in a wealthy town. Her parents were both doctors. They put her through Smith, her sister through up to grad school, and her brother through a specialized high school, all out-of-pocket, and according to her “we don’t have any money, we’re straight up middle class.”
When she had to support herself, working a night-shift job making only a little more than minimum wage, she balked at the spending restrictions. Her boyfriend treated her to things, because she demanded him to. She would splurge on higher-end groceries from Whole Foods, then claim that our other roommate was cheating her at bills.
What’s sad is that this lack of understanding is common. Credit card debt rates at the moment are less than fair judges of that due to unemployment, with living by any means while there is hope to get back up is a common trope. Prior to this economic crash, though, the rates were not as far off.
See, money is something we get, we are worth, we hold or view as symbols on an atm screen, but we do not feel. When you have none, money comes with anxiety and desperation, the “how am I going to hold on to this as long as possible?” With only a little, it comes with a blind optimism that tells of all the things denied. With more than needed, it comes with entitlement, the “I deserve more than you” reaction. The actual value of a dollar is replaced at our fear, anxiety, hope, dreaming, demanding as its value. Look at the average arrogant jackass who wants to look more important -- it isn’t the emulation of taste that gives that impression, it is the emulation of the entitlement.
In a week and a half I go back to teaching. My students, on average, will have grown up comparable or in more dire straits to me, economically -- my father was a teacher as well, and my mother a homemaker until we were old enough to go to school, in the interest that someone would always be around for us. Many of them will be on government subsidy. Many of them will have no healthcare, no homes of any stability, no hope for college (but some wearing hundred-dollar shoes or using cellphones or ipods regardless of these at-home facts). Every year, I doubt my chosen career for numerous reasons, the most vocal in my head being that I would like to provide for my family – that if I were making what I could in another field, we could be buying a house and my wife could finish her degree and we could look toward children. Then I teach other people’s children, about a third conceived outside of marriage or the means of supporting them.
The very people who suffer at the hands of big business, at capitalism unchecked, are the people without enough monetary power or education to do anything about it. The very people who benefit most when the government feels responsible for its people and not its businesses, but instead due to misinformation or poor education or religious influences are more inclined to fear and hate that which would help them and vote for those without their best interests at heart.
To do what I can for these children’s best interests, I have to give up the things I want. Not because I am on a mission, not because I have a martyr complex, but because I love my job when the jackasses don’t ruin it for me, and because I know I can make it work eventually. That I am, year nine, making less than many of my contemporaries with comparable degrees started at (by five digits, for some), implies that there are benefits, or expected sacrifices in this job. That we are expected to go on less because we are such great people.
No wonder it is so hard to keep first year teachers. Either we burn out fast, trying to do the things we feel are expected, we are treated with such disrespect that the money-ideas start weighing on us, or we read the fine print and realize that we cannot make these sacrifices. Or, we just don’t understand money, in which case we end up in far worse places than the rest.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Sensibility
Sensibility
One of the last lessons of vocabulary for this school year.
Other than a vague recollection of being forced to read Austen, the word is not so much used as avoided in fear of seeming too snobbish. Perhaps due to our defiant roots as a rebellious British colony and in rejection of a European dominance, the pride in the individual hardworking pioneer as opposed to the refined well-educated specialist is a common American preference.
There is culture, too, in the United States. There are movements in art and literature and dance and music unrivalled anywhere else. We certainly know how to play, to entertain ourselves and others. There is, too, a fear that the average person feels of seeming to be a snob. The banter of the term “elitist” in this current political election has been great thought-fuel for those who have a higher education.
I want a President who has this kind of sensitivity. Not in a touchy-feeley tell me about your feelings sort of way, but an intellectual streak, one who can understand the lives of different people instead of just making a show of being like them – the president first mentioned as “the kind of guy you could sit down and have a beer with” (despite his former alcoholism, yale education, old money, trust fund, and complete lack of real sympathy or understanding for the avereage american) made a reputation for himself of being a poorly-spoken idiot, the kind of person who you wouldn’t want owning a gun nevermind commanding an army. I want a president who I actually think is smarter than me, who can make better choices than I can not because of connections but because of understanding.
Our system is supposed to work on well-informed choices, not sensationalism and sentiment. Our system is much more about people who do not have the ability to make the choices they need to make being given an incredibly powerful tool for world change, and these lucky individuals dismissively turning it into garnering for self-interest or allowing others to do so for them. Most predominantly, we have become convinced (to paraphrase Vonnegut) that anyone can become president, regardless of income, social standing, family power, allegiances, or intelligence. That last bit is perhaps the biggest difficulty -- our current president is not as dumb as he pretends to be, and yet few would have voted in his favor if he sounded like the rest of the Ivy Leaguers.
Obama is a published author, and the mythology states that he writes his own speeches. He has a great deal of personal charisma. Like Bush, he has an Ivy League degree, but we get the sense that he would feel embarrassment over even one C instead of bragging about it. Our biggest criticism of him, if the media did in fact speak for every American instead of being that nettling buzz in our ears, is that he is too smart, too intellectual.
Every time I hear that, I hang my head for us as a country. Why do we not want someone smart for that job? Because we. who would have no chance of either attaining that job or at doing it well without the connections and power necessary, would then have to admit that we cannot do everything we set our mind to? I for one know that I will never be qualified for such a job.
What are the actual qualifications, though? Personally, I would rather a philosopher in control of a sizeable portion of the world’s deadliest weapons than a class clown, a cowboy, a routine soldier, or a businessman. Military ethics, business ethics, and jackassery all have different standards than conventional morality. One who is already used to thinking of matters in those regards would have no dilemma doing what we as average people would shudder at – hostile takeovers are routine for both, but would be traumatic and destructive if they happened to me personally. I would rather an idealist, unbroken by time and disappointment, still able to hold on to his beliefs, to be an economic and military leader than a businessman or a soldier.
Sensibility. The ability to sense, I am counting on seeing at least once on this week’s vocabulary quizzes. Woe is the English language. Sensibility in science is just that, though – the capacity to in some way pick up on external stimuli. In the arts, it is a necessity to understand what the artist is doing. This takes study, practice, and effort. In the life of a citizen, it is manifested in the act of simply paying attention, and making well-informed judgment calls.
When half of my students cannot even remember ten vocab words over the span of a week, or even get half of them remotely right, it makes me wonder how attainable that goal of a sensible – in both senses of the word – constituency or citizenry actually is.
One of the last lessons of vocabulary for this school year.
Other than a vague recollection of being forced to read Austen, the word is not so much used as avoided in fear of seeming too snobbish. Perhaps due to our defiant roots as a rebellious British colony and in rejection of a European dominance, the pride in the individual hardworking pioneer as opposed to the refined well-educated specialist is a common American preference.
There is culture, too, in the United States. There are movements in art and literature and dance and music unrivalled anywhere else. We certainly know how to play, to entertain ourselves and others. There is, too, a fear that the average person feels of seeming to be a snob. The banter of the term “elitist” in this current political election has been great thought-fuel for those who have a higher education.
I want a President who has this kind of sensitivity. Not in a touchy-feeley tell me about your feelings sort of way, but an intellectual streak, one who can understand the lives of different people instead of just making a show of being like them – the president first mentioned as “the kind of guy you could sit down and have a beer with” (despite his former alcoholism, yale education, old money, trust fund, and complete lack of real sympathy or understanding for the avereage american) made a reputation for himself of being a poorly-spoken idiot, the kind of person who you wouldn’t want owning a gun nevermind commanding an army. I want a president who I actually think is smarter than me, who can make better choices than I can not because of connections but because of understanding.
Our system is supposed to work on well-informed choices, not sensationalism and sentiment. Our system is much more about people who do not have the ability to make the choices they need to make being given an incredibly powerful tool for world change, and these lucky individuals dismissively turning it into garnering for self-interest or allowing others to do so for them. Most predominantly, we have become convinced (to paraphrase Vonnegut) that anyone can become president, regardless of income, social standing, family power, allegiances, or intelligence. That last bit is perhaps the biggest difficulty -- our current president is not as dumb as he pretends to be, and yet few would have voted in his favor if he sounded like the rest of the Ivy Leaguers.
Obama is a published author, and the mythology states that he writes his own speeches. He has a great deal of personal charisma. Like Bush, he has an Ivy League degree, but we get the sense that he would feel embarrassment over even one C instead of bragging about it. Our biggest criticism of him, if the media did in fact speak for every American instead of being that nettling buzz in our ears, is that he is too smart, too intellectual.
Every time I hear that, I hang my head for us as a country. Why do we not want someone smart for that job? Because we. who would have no chance of either attaining that job or at doing it well without the connections and power necessary, would then have to admit that we cannot do everything we set our mind to? I for one know that I will never be qualified for such a job.
What are the actual qualifications, though? Personally, I would rather a philosopher in control of a sizeable portion of the world’s deadliest weapons than a class clown, a cowboy, a routine soldier, or a businessman. Military ethics, business ethics, and jackassery all have different standards than conventional morality. One who is already used to thinking of matters in those regards would have no dilemma doing what we as average people would shudder at – hostile takeovers are routine for both, but would be traumatic and destructive if they happened to me personally. I would rather an idealist, unbroken by time and disappointment, still able to hold on to his beliefs, to be an economic and military leader than a businessman or a soldier.
Sensibility. The ability to sense, I am counting on seeing at least once on this week’s vocabulary quizzes. Woe is the English language. Sensibility in science is just that, though – the capacity to in some way pick up on external stimuli. In the arts, it is a necessity to understand what the artist is doing. This takes study, practice, and effort. In the life of a citizen, it is manifested in the act of simply paying attention, and making well-informed judgment calls.
When half of my students cannot even remember ten vocab words over the span of a week, or even get half of them remotely right, it makes me wonder how attainable that goal of a sensible – in both senses of the word – constituency or citizenry actually is.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Education
No Democracy works without an educated populace.
No system of government that focuses on the opinion of the people can function if the people's opinions are built on sensationalism, hearsay, and dubious reporting. Logic is not the sole savior, nor is decency, nor is philosophy – the salvation of the individual is the individual's business, but can only be found through study.
I say “study.” Not lecture, not one person's interpretation of events, not a charismatic leader's words, but the long-sought searching and deciding on a path based on all one can learn of morality and understanding of that which is beyond the self.
How can someone make a correct decision without understanding the full ramifications of their actions?
How can someone make a large choice without research?
We sit in one of the most interesting election years in history. The sheer amount of data available is staggering. Speeches are recorded and reported immediately after delivery. If an individual missed Wright's influential and inflammatory remarks, Youtube can set you up. The Wikipedia page about the Dems' delegates and their status is updated as soon as information is released. The average American can look up McCain's voting history to see where his support has been given in order to help that average person make a judgment.
One of my coworkers claimed that she didn't think Obama would make a good candidate, since America is not ready for a Muslim President. All this possible knowledge up for grabs, and she makes a snap-judgment on religion based on our current president's continuous use of his middle name.
Bradbury's prediction of politics in Fahrenheit 451 was scary – choice of a candidate based on name, appearance, or party name. The Outs lost every time, and their short, stuttering candidate could not hold up in an election to President Winston Noble. Though this is an exaggeration, the average voter might not necessarily know how to search for information on the candidate that is best for the job. Though the internet makes for excellent potential for information exchange, what kind of tool is it when the primary uses of such a great tool are porn and gaming?
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