Vacations

Summer’s here and lately I’ve been contemplating what it means to take a vacation. Most people would agree that it means taking a break from whatever you normally do, yet our ideas of a great vacation are as varied as we are ourselves.

For me, vacations require travel – vacating my home and work environs for an opportunity to see what else there is in the world. Not all travel is a vacation, but all my vacations include travel. Some folks may imagine that being able to stay at home is the perfect vacation. I can remember a time when I thought so, too. It’s a shame we have to work so long and hard to pay for a house that we have little time left to enjoy it. Yet, my idea of a vacation implies indulging one’s wanderlust.

When I was a child, vacation time was my dad’s only chance to visit his brothers who had moved out of state. If it weren’t for these trips, I guess I would have very little notion of my extended family. So I highly value trips made for reunion and visiting, but family visits are not vacations. In fact, they can become your normal routine. A vacation, by contrast, breaks the routine.

Some folks always use their vacation times on a quest for entertainment. I’m sure the resorts, cruise lines, and casinos appreciate that, but it’s not my idea of a vacation. A lady I worked with recently told me that every single one of her vacations was a trip to Branson, Missouri – for me, that would be torture. I’m looking for escape, not indulgence. I don’t want to be entertained or distracted – I want a chance to explore, to discover, to experience and learn something new.

It isn’t possible for me to rest or to restore my soul while immersed in a crowd being harvested by resourceful and determined capitalists. Take me far from rat race and set me in nature.

Now, I will confess that I love to visit an art museum, that I love to hear a symphony or see a play, and it’s nice to see historical sites. All of these fit in nicely with my idea of a vacation, so I guess I’m being hypocritical about entertainment. But I’d just as soon skip the music review, magic show, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, and the like. And I know kids love of zip lines, arcades, carnival rides, theme parks and water parks, but at this point in my life I’d just as soon wait outside.

If I’m visiting a city for the first time, I really enjoy one of those tours that employs local people with encyclopedic knowledge of their towns history, architecture, and attractions. I liked the double decker bus in New York City, the trolley in Boston, the trolley and water taxi in Baltimore. When we visited Savanna, the informative guides and the chance to rest and stay cool as they drove was most enjoyable.

As we age, vacations somehow become associated with bucket lists. What is that one prefect destination you have to see before you take the off ramp to the sky? European, Alaska, New Zealand? My dad always talked about wanting to see Alaska, but he kept putting it off. I signed him up to get the brochures from lots off cruise lines and travel agencies. My cousin finally talked him into taking the trip together, but before he could get embark he had a medical condition appear that destroyed his confidence in making the trip. It was all downhill from there.

I’m of the opinion that a vacation is a trip that I never feel able to afford to take, yet can’t afford not to. A proper vacation enriches your life. It is something to look forward to, something that makes it all worthwhile. Some of my favorite vacation experiences have been the spontaneous, the accidental experiences that happen when you have no reservations – when you don’t over plan.

One of the first times I got to ride in a plane it was in a C-130 Hercules. This is a cargo plane and there was only one tiny window, but I was invited into the cockpit where I could see very well. We were flying at 30,000 ft and I felt like I could almost see the curvature of the Earth. It was a profound moment to realize how large the Earth was and how small my little world was in comparison. Most people live there lives with seeing very much of it.

So if you get a chance to take a vacation, I hope you’ll take it. See the world.

Daily Drawing

Pretty sure this project is doomed from the start… but here goes.

Yeah. That’s my leg. I’m having to keep it elevated for weeks. Makes drawing even harder.

Inside the Walkout

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

Bob Dylan, 1964

West Virginia teachers inspired us when they declared a walkout in February. They were telling their state law makers that they had had enough of the austerity imposed by iconoclast deconstructionists. They were fed up with lowered educator qualifications and the elimination of seniority protections, demanding a livable wage and better healthcare benefits. After closing schools for nine days, they got a 5% pay raise.

Meanwhile, back in Brokelahoma, Alberto Morejon, a middle school teacher in Stillwater, provided the catalyst for the Oklahoma teacher walkout with his FaceBook page, Oklahoma Teacher Walkout – The Time Is Now. As usual, the OEA came to the party late with a take charge attitude, but did make it official in the minds of rank and file teachers, including me. The OEA plan asks for:

• $366 million for teacher pay increases
• $65 million for support professional pay increases
• $75 million to restore education funding cuts
• $71 million for state employee pay increases
• $235 million to restore core state service cuts

That link for the OEA plan, by the way, reminds me of a major complaint I have against local media, but especially KFOR: why do they continually quote the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs as if they were a news outlet? OCPA is a conservative think tank (propaganda mill) with ties to the Bradly Foundation and ALEC, on a mission to change the course of state governments with the principles of free enterprise (elimination of public services), limited government (privatization of public services), and individual initiative (profit driven legislation) — oh, and ruin the taste of candy.

I’m retiring from public education this year in May, after a career of thirty-eight years. My goal was to focus on enjoying all of aspects of teaching that I love and enjoy. Things like watching students explore new subjects and develop new skills, sharing tools and experience with other teachers, and witnessing the wonder of curiosity. This walkout provided me with another experience which I had forgotten – participating in something much bigger than myself. At the State Capitol, the multitude of teachers there reminded me that we are the front line standing for the greater good, calling out greed and destructive political agendas, standing (or walking) in the defense of our cause. We want our children to have a better future.

Back Story

The Oklahoma Teacher Walkout was a long time coming. Since State Question 640 was voted into law back in 1992 (perhaps as a knee-jerk reaction to HB1017 that had increased revenue for education), it’s necessary to have 75% of the legislature in agreement to pass a new tax or restore an old one. At the same time, only a simple majority 51%, is necessary to cut or eliminate taxes. Politicians base their campaigns on the rhetoric of tax cuts, while avoiding the reality that every tax cut forces an equal cut in public services. It sounds like good news that your car tag price drops from $300 to $85 until you realize that all the unprepared pot-holes are going to cause $800 in damages to your car. A reduction in state income tax sounds super until your kid’s school can’t buy textbooks and has to RIF teachers.

From 1992 until 2018, only one revenue bill (an increase on tobacco tax) has “cleared the hurdles of SQ 640 and become law.” State Auditor and Inspector, Gary Jones, who once chaired the Republican Party summed up the problem by saying, “We’re not running the state based on a plan and a strategy. We’re trying to operate it on a philosophy.” A growing number of tax-cut politicians are beginning to realize that they have gone too far. Ken Miller, State Treasurer, told lawmakers “It’s the revenue, stupid!“. Leslie Osborn lamented that the legislature “had gone too far and it was time to start investing again in Oklahoma and trying to right the ship.” Even Governor Mary Fallin, even she, said that state law makers “must work to make more recurring revenue available.” I wonder if she didn’t throw up a little bit in her mouth after uttering those words.

But tax cuts and revenue squeezing is only half the story: schools, teachers, and students have long been targets of other political agendas. Admittedly, public schools have their problems – some schools more than others. There are teachers who should find another line of work, some because they are miserable, some because they really don’t like kids anymore, and some because they’re just not very good at the job. Some blame tenure and others unions, but the reality is that a bad teacher can be removed if the administrators and supervisors do their jobs properly. Public education is in the crosshairs of corporations and libertarian policy advocates because of the potential to make profits. There is a fine line differentiating the efforts to reform education and the efforts to open the education market to private enterprise. We are in the midst of an ethical civil war between greed and the common good.

I have come to believe that the root cause of the systemic failure of core public services in Oklahoma can be found in the American Legislative Exchange Council. Their position on public education is to redirect funding from free public schools to for-profit charters, voucher funded privates, and free market competition. What the rhetoric doesn’t tell you is that diversion of funds from already crippled public schools will cut the knees out from under those left standing. They don’t mention research showing that charters and private schools don’t outperform public schools. That rural and poorer urban locals would not have any options or the ability to pay for them.

Rising Tide

Local school districts had to decide for themselves about how they would participate in the walkout. In my district of Konawa, the local board of education resolved that they would stand behind whatever decision that the Konawa teachers made. Just prior to the walkout we conducted an online poll and met to discuss the result that we would close school on Monday, April 2, and remain closed until the demands of Oklahoma teachers were met. I had gone into that meeting with the intention of being quiet, realizing that I’m headed out the door and younger, more energetic teachers needed to be in charge. Anyone who knows me would have seen the folly in this approach.

When the call for comments and opinions languished for a moment, I heard myself saying that not participating in the walkout was sending the message that we are just fine with the business as usual of cutting funding, reforming by destroying, and doing more with less year after year. I pointed out that we would never have another opportunity like this one: our Local Board of Education is behind us, other state employees have joined us, and public opinion is behind us. And in response to questions about what parents would do with their kids if we closed, about whether or not we would have to extend the school year, increase the length of the school day, or lose the Fridays off I pointed out that change requires sacrifice – it is always inconvenient.

I wrote to my state representative, Zack Taylor, and state senator, Greg McCortney:

The last thing that the teachers of Oklahoma want to do is walk out. We simply want to teach, to help kids, to do our job. Maybe that’s why we have been such an easy target for the last two decades. It’s nearly impossible to organize teachers behind a common cause – to get us to agree on anything. But, congratulations to the State of Oklahoma because you have done it.

The Oklahoma Constitution states: the Legislature shall establish and maintain a system of free public schools wherein all the children of the State may be educated. It’s not too late to do this job. It’s been made more difficult, but you can’t tax cut your way out of a deficit.

Please, get it done. Don’t force teachers to walk.

Surprising Strategy

Whether it was an earnest effort or a brilliant strategy, on March 29th the State House and Senate passed SB 1010xx which:

• increased teacher and support staff pay,
• provided public employee raises, and
• provided some additional education funding.

Miraculously, these spending measures were funded (in companion bills) by:

• increasing the gross production tax modestly,
• creating a five dollar motel/hotel tax (repealed by the Senate), and
• increasing taxes on fuel and cigarettes.

Called historic, this was only the second tax increase in a twenty-six year era of tax cutting. That term inspired some creative picket signs.

My initial reaction was, “Wait… what just happened?” as my chin hit my chest. I hadn’t been caught off guard this badly since November of 2016. At first glance, it seemed the State of Oklahoma had realize that the pendulum had swung completely through the side of the clock and lawmakers had reached out to pull it back in again. Sure, $45 million from the tourism tax was being removed, but they assured us the funds would be found elsewhere. Governor Mary Fallin “encouraged teachers preparing for a strike to visit the Capitol to say “thank you” before heading back to class.” And, locally, our school put out a parent notification stating that we’d be closed Monday, April 2, so teachers could go say “thanks” and we’d be back in class the next day.

Getting that super majority vote in the house was a big deal that probably wouldn’t happen again, so I called the OEA and basically asked if 1010xx was worthy of a compromise on the “asks” they had proposed to avoid a walkout. The reply seemed reasonable: we have members calling in with views from “let’s take it and run” all the way to “we won’t go back till they meet every item.” They reminded me that the Senate and Governor still had to approve the bill and any change would send it back to the House. It wasn’t a done deal yet and the funding to replace that $5 hotel/motel tax wasn’t there yet.

The Konawa faculty met again, polled with a rather convoluted set of questions on paper, and reached a compromise position that we would resume classes on Tuesday but send a delegation of teachers to the Capitol each day in support of the walkout and to lobby the lawmakers. Governor Mary Fallin signed the tax bill into law on Thursday, March 29th.

Lobbying Lawmakers: April 2, Walkout Day 1, 5.9 miles

Just as the politicians had anticipated (I suspect) – chaos ensued. We did indeed go to the Capitol on April 2. I don’t know how many Konawa teachers were present, but I counted over a dozen. This was the largest crowd at the State Capitol I had ever seen. Turns out that most of us weren’t saying “Thank you” after all. My goal that day was to lobby my representatives, so I met with Representative Taylor and Senator McCortney to discuss the need for restoring the funding cuts to education and other core state services that had been made over the last two decades. Both of them were gracious hosts and listened to our concerns, sharing ideas that they think would be possible in the current legislative session and explaining why other actions were either unlikely or impossible at this time.

While I may not agree with the Rep. Taylor or Sen. McCortney on views or solutions, I have to say that both of these gentlemen appear to be genuinely good people who are diligently trying to represent their electorate. My talking points were:

• I asked them to take actions that support public education.
• I mentioned ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Counsel) to each of them and asked that they resist the Sirens’ call of out-of-state billionaires.
• I reminded each of them that this walkout was about much more than teacher pay – it’s about undoing the cuts to core state services over the last two decades. And,
• I said “Thank you” for hearing our concerns and considering our point of view.

I’m glad we don’t live in a country where citizens who question authority wind up in prison or missing. All of us need to spend more time learning about the issues that our government is grappling with, having discussions with our peers about where we stand, writing letters, making phone calls, and making our concerns known. It’s easy to make excuses about not voting or participating and then complaining about what happens. Easy, but not smart.

Power to the People: April 3, Walkout Day 2, 6.3 miles

We arrived early on the second day of the Walkout and could have made our way into the Capitol very quickly. I encouraged the teachers who rode with me to go on in if they wished, but I decided to let others go in my place and lobby for the public education cause. I had some work to do outside.

The Capitol building quickly reached its safe occupancy level and a one-in, one-out rule was soon enforced by Capitol security. The lines were literally overlapping with people trying to get inside. My mission of the day was to talk to as many people as I could about the ALEC, so I walked around with my sign smiling at people as I went around these long lines of hopeful lobbyists and watched their expression. A few people read my sign and gave me a nod or a thumbs up – very few. If I saw that familiar puzzled look, I’d ask they had heard of ALEC. I’m going to estimate that 98% of the people I talked to said “No.” My next question was, “Do you mind if I take a moment to tell your about the American Legislative Exchange Council?” As near as I remember everyone I asked agreed.

So I explained that ALEC is America’s largest voluntary membership organization of state legislators dedicated to the principles of limited government and free markets. In other (more honest) words: ALEC provides ‘model bills’ to change our rights that often benefit the corporations’ bottom line at public expense. That it has been around for nearly fifty years, has been incredibly successful at promoting it’s agenda of privatization of public services, is financed and led by large corporations, promotes the goal of privatizing public education, holds closed door meetings with legislators, and that practically no one knows that they exist. I explained how they hand out template bills that our state legislators then “author” or “sponsor” by simply filling in the blanks. Thus the Koch brothers take control of the destiny of our state governments and the direction of our country while we go on blissfully unaware. Then I waited to see if they had any response or question.

I had a number of stories available if further discussion was warranted — about bills that seem crazy until you see the hidden ALEC agenda: The motivation behind the 10 Commandments Monument controversy, Tom Newell’s bill to restrict districts from deducting professional organization dues from teachers’ checks, and ALEC bills affecting Americans’ Rights to a Public Education. My main point for anyone who wanted to talk was that when you see a systemic failure (Oklahoma Core Services), you cannot just treat the symptoms. You have to identify and eliminate the root cause. I firmly believe that the root cause of the failure of funding for public education is ALEC.

Meanwhile, Gov. Fallin signs $2.9 billion appropriations bill for common education in 2019 (HB 3705).

Homework: April 4, Walk-In Day 1, Walkout Day 3, 2.1 miles

This civil disobedience stuff is hard work. So on Day 3, I was back at school. It turns out I didn’t find any rest there, because I decided to stage a Walk-In. I warned my building principals first, but before school and between classes I roamed the halls with my ALEC sign asking students and teachers if they knew about these billionaire influence buyers and the impact they have had on our lives.  I’ve made a point during my career to avoid off topic discussions in my classrooms such as politics. If I have a goal in this regard, it’s to encourage students to research and decide for themselves what position to take on moral and political issues. Some teachers preach their opinion as though it were scripture. I’ve never wanted to be like that, preferring to discuss the application of sines and cosines than to go off on a tangent. On this day, however, I did discuss the stealth and success of ALEC bills and encouraged my students to discover for themselves what is going in state government. We discussed the goals of the teacher walkout.

And I talked with my colleagues as time allowed about the efforts of the Walk Out. One of the goals (of our local decision to resume classes and send a delegation to the Capitol) was that we wanted as many teachers as possible to have an opportunity to participate. We didn’t want to send the same people everyday. Besides, we haven’t cancelled classes in Konawa and I had students that I wanted to see and new lessons to prepare. And, honestly, I’m old and needed a little rest.

Our advocates were stirred up and wanted to close the school again while others wanted to just get this year over. I empathized with both sides, especially since I’m retiring in a few weeks. I spent the day talking to as many teachers as I could to get a consensus of what they wanted to do. It’s a logistical nightmare to be in the middle of plotting a course for a large and diverse group of people in a few minutes between classes. What we came up with was a shared Google Sheet listing those from each building who would be on our delegation. We developed a plan where the teachers who wanted to go would contact their principal for approval (considering the ongoing state testing and class coverage) and then the secretaries would add names to the list.  I bought a new pair of shoes and signed up to go back to the Capitol the next day.

In the news on Day 3 was Representative Kevin Dugle earning his fifteen minutes of fame by ranting on FaceBook Live about the terrible behavior of teachers in the gallery and stating that he’s never going to vote for “another stinking’ measure on education funding”. He and Governor Fallin both complained about outside groups joining the protest at the the Capitol. Tulsa teachers begin the March for Education, walking from Webster High School to the Capitol. HB 1019xx on Amazon third-party sales passes in the House.

Adult Supervision: April 5, Walkout Day 4, 9.2 miles

On Day 4, I’m back at the Capitol with a new mission to lobby with the OEA (of which I’ve been a member since 1979). What will it take to end the walkout? There doesn’t seem to be any real conversation between the groups that represent teachers: the Oklahoma Education Association, the Professional Oklahoma Educators, the American Federation of Teachers. Additionally, no one is talking about the OPEA (Oklahoma Public Employees Association). They joined our walkout lending it considerable credibility and funding core state services was part of the OEA demands. I’ve seen and talked to a considerable number of state workers in the walkout, but their cause seems to be on a back burner.

In each of my conversations, what I wanted to know is

• Why aren’t the teacher organizations talking to each other and setting an endgame strategy?
• What, specifically are we asking for now?
• Which legislators are you bargaining with and are we willing to reach a compromise?
• Why aren’t we talking about OPEA?

What I heard from the officials was

• Yes, we should be talking but the other side won’t even look at me when I pass them in a room.
• We want the legislature to fill in the hole they created by repealing the hotel/motel tax.
• Our loudest members don’t want to compromise and the legislature is claiming that they have don’t all that they can do this year.
• State employees aren’t our focus, they are making their own case.

Just like my Representative and Senator, I’m sure these are all nice people and all, but I don’t really care for what I’m hearing. I’d be more hopeful if I saw signs of more preparation, more strategy, more effective communication, and more diplomacy. After talking to the legislators and my professional representatives, I think we need an adult in the room.

Back in the national news, Governor Fallin, who never seems to miss an opportunity to say something, well… stupid, compares teachers in the walkout to “a teenage kid that wants a better car.”

I don’t know how anyone estimates such things as the size of a crowd, but it seemed to me that participation in this walkout was growing with each passing day. The House and Senate galleries were packed, lines were formed at most legislator offices, the rotunda was crowded, and the picket line marching around the Capitol seemed to be growing each day.

The Home Front: April 6, Walkout Day 5, 2.5 miles

Letting other Konawa teachers have a turn at being on the delegation, I found that tensions back at school were high. I tried to be the facilitator by talking with as many teachers as I could and then moving the discussion to the administration. There was some confusion as to whether or not teachers who are out of school as a delegate will be charged for a personal day (they would not) and questions about when days missed would be made up (depends upon how many days are included) or whether parents would have time to make arrangements for the children’s care if we closed school on Monday (parents would have an easier time making arrangements for child care over the weekend ). So, we conducted another poll where question was simply is it time to reassess our position?

After making our best effort to see that everyone who wanted to had a chance to respond, the results showed a majority in favor of another poll. So that’s what we did, simply asking “should we close the school?” with the result of 17 “Yes” votes and 18 “No” votes. Admittedly, it was done in a hurry and under less than ideal circumstances, but the majority ruled and school remained open. In their wisdom, our administration recognized that there were many who felt compelled to be at the Capitol. They decided to let teachers go who wanted to go so long as we could conduct school and other activities safely with those who remained. Yes, it was a compromise — democracy in action. A potential lesson for our elected officials on how things are supposed to work.

The Amazon third-party sales tax bill (HB 1019xx) and the “ball and dice” bill (HB 3375) pass the Senate and they also repealed the tax on hotels and motels.

Laying Down the Law: April 9th, Walkout Day 6, 6.1 miles

Monday, April 9th, was to be a big day for the Oklahoma Teacher Walkout. We had heard that there would be significant legislation discussed: things like asking Gov. Fallin to veto the repeal of the hotel/motel tax, a repeal of the capital gains exemption, and news that about 200 Girl Attorneys (Women in Black) had made appointments with lawmakers and would be marching in from the Oklahoma Bar Association today. That last item was very inspiring. We needed something to inject some hope into the movement. Fumes of fatigue and despair were creeping from out of the cracks in our State Capitol. The idea of lawyers being on the side of the common good is just plain giddy.

The night before (Sunday evening), Linda hit me with an idea for a picket sign that I immediately felt was beyond my capabilities, but I took a deep breath and gave it my best shot. The result was our best picket sign of the campaign:

The crowd on Monday was the largest of the walkout. I didn’t go inside that day because it was packed, but as I made my laps and talked it up outside there was a greater enthusiasm and sense of unity than on any day before. About 1,500 teachers, parents, and students were marching in from Mid-Del.

Senators Brecheen and Dahm are talking up the elimination of tax credits on wind energy production as a way to “raise money” for education. Betsy DeVos said that Oklahoma teachers should “keep adult disagreements and disputes in a separate place.” I couldn’t agree more: that’s why we are at the Capitol.

Tulsa Arrives: April 10th, Walkout Day 7, 1.8 miles

Tuesday concluded the March for Education. Tulsa teachers who had walked the entire 110 mile journey down Route 66 to the Oklahoma Capitol arrived on Tuesday. Linda and some of our friends were there to greet them. I was back at school. Business as usual. Good grief.

Meanwhile, the House voted down ending the Capital Gains Exemption, Governor Fallin signed the “ball and dice”, the Amazon third-party tax bill,  and repealed the hotel/motel tax.

Field Trip: April 11th, Walkout Day 8, 8.5 miles

Two of my son’s friends stayed over the night before, making picket signs, so that they could leave at 6:00 am with me on a “Civics Field Trip” to the State Capitol. The three boys and I were joined by our band director, Ashley, for hands-on Problems of Democracy project.

We revisited Representative Taylor and Senator McCortney to ask them about current efforts of funding for common education. Both indicated that ending the capital gains exemption was a non-starter for this session and that the idea of a 3% hotel/motel tax could never muster the support to pass. The idea of cutting back the exemption on wind energy production had a better chance of being considered. We thanked them for their time. As mentioned previously, regardless of our differences in position, I like these guys.

It seems that all of the power required to fund education at this time rested in one man’s hands: Representative Charles McCall from Atoka, the Speaker of the House. Without his will, nothing was going to move. So we just marched ourselves over to his office on the fifth floor. That’s where we got the lesson that the serfs should never dare to seek audience with the Lord of the Realm. The attractive and somewhat polite secretarial corp are charged with buffering His Lordship from the commoners and are quite practiced at the task. In case of trouble, there’s Sargent At Arms and Capitol Security aplenty within earshot. I watch Lord McCall holding court with a Lady constituent and her progeny, posing for several portraits and dispensing pats upon the head, but as he approached our position across from His Lordship’s office door, we garnered nary a gaze – neither a wink or a nod fell to those insignificant personages behind the broad secretarial backs. Humbled, we cast ourselves back to the streets below, where the good people were.

The OEA hints at capitulation today, pointing out that 95 percent of its goal has been met. And in the basement of the Capitol, a record number of people begin filing to run for state offices. Several large school districts (including Bartlesville, McAlester, and Sand Springs) vote to resume classes on April 12.

Moore Public School Board announced that classes would resume on Thursday, April 12. Just in case, they called over 300 substitute teachers.

OEA Calls It A Win: April 12, Walkout Day 9, 6 miles

On Thursday, April 12, I went back to school because we had administrators scheduled to participate in the walkout. My wife, Linda, was attending again with some Konawa teachers and I felt like I needed to be at school. But when I arrived at school I discovered that our administrators were not going to go after all, so I did. A sense of great relief filled me as I made the long drive to Oklahoma City. I needed be there. It felt more than right, it felt like an honor to be with this group of educators, walking out to say that we’ve had enough of your austerity, your self-imposed economic catastrophe, your disparagement of public servants, your stalling and self-righteous excuse making. Enough.

And for this one day of the Walkout, I arrived late. I had neither snacks or sunblock, but I felt compelled to go more than on any other day. The walkout was beginning to falter, our goals were unclear, time was turning a page on our opportunity to make a change.

My wife and I sat on a corner of the sidewalks, southwest of the South Entrance. Our chairs were upon the Great State Seal, roped off from the pedestrian traffic, in the shade of an oak. A gust of wind caught a nearby canopy and whacked me on the head with it. No harm done. We made new friends, greeted acquaintances from the last two weeks, were graced with a visits by candidates and protestors, watch creative picket signs go by. We were thrilled by the arrival of Walkout rebels from Moore. It was a long line. I had hoped that the very last picket sign would say, “No Moore”, but alas, I was disappointed.

On the way home, Linda and I stopped to eat at Cracker Barrel. That has to be symbolic of something. While waiting for our meal, I got an alert on my phone that OEA had a announced a press conference. We watched live as Alicia Priest called the walkout. She said it was time to face the reality that inspite of tens of thousands of teachers walking out and lobbying relentlessly for nine days, the legislature wasn’t going budge. She cited the poll I took, saying that 77% of the membership of OEA doubted a continuation of the walkout would result in more funding. And she reviewed the $400 million in new spending and teacher pay (approved before the walkout), and $50 million from two other funding measures, calling the walkout a win. I agreed and frankly, I was relieved.

Meanwhile, Tom Coburn, the tax cut king, has a petition referendum to reverse legislation that funded teacher raises. Devon Energy announced that it would layoff about 9% of its staff to boost returns.

The Fallout

It was raining on Friday the 13th. The OEA called it quits, but plenty of teachers were mad and felt betrayed by their announcement. Alberto Morejon requested that every school send a representative to the Stillwater tent south of the Capitol to help decide what to do next. “Remember that we teachers are the voice that started this movement, and we are the voice that ends it.” I was going to go. I was… but my truck was in the repair shop and it rained that day ruling out going on my motorcycle. I had posted a comment on Alberto’s FaceBook page to tell him that the political event was one of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object, that this was just the first battle in a greater war, and most of all, that he doesn’t need to fight the OEA — he needs to join it. He needs to rise to leadership in the OEA. Once you descend into teachers fighting with teachers, you’re done. I don’t want any part of that.

Come to think of it, why do we have all these splinter groups? The American Federation of Teachers, the Professional Oklahoma Educators, the Oklahoma Association for the Education of Young Children, or the Oklahoma Association for Career and Technology? There’s no strength in that. They have divided and conquered us before we’ve even started. We need one large and powerful organization to represent public education. The OEA is member driven: if you don’t like something the OEA is doing (or the NEA) then get involved, join them, write them, call them, go make an appointment and talk to them, run for an OEA office. Don’t drop out and then complain. That’s not powerful, that’s defeatist. Even as I write this, two weeks later, there are still a few teachers at the Capitol.

So how successful were we? Some claim success, after all, we saw a raise in teacher and support staff pay, a record number of filings for state office were made, parents and business showed their support for the cause of public education. Others say it was a calamity. All of the significant legislation was passed before the walkout began. We’ve descended into chaos.

So Now What?

The success of a democracy depends upon its citizens becoming informed and engaged. That’s what education does: if done right, it helps your kids become better citizens. This walkout was a giant, impromptu lesson on democracy. People who haven’t thought about the problem of education funding are thinking about it now. People who didn’t know much about state government now know more. Kids saw their teachers and parents modeling what participatory government is all about. Apathy lost this battle.

The politicians witnessed public opinion rise up against their austerity war on public service, on core state service. Maybe, just maybe, some of them are rethinking their position on education, on funding core services. Citizens are more engaged in their kids public school and more empathetic to the struggles that public education faces. Students are more aware and involved than I have seen since the 1960’s. That’s good, we need them. Frankly, my generation has screwed up. We’ve dropped the ball on public service, on the environment, on diplomacy, and on caring in general. It’s going to take all of us to fix this.

On Balsa Wings

(Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images)

Emma Gonzalez is my new hero and I’ll tell you why. She’s an eighteen year-old student from Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a troubled youth with access to assault weapons shot thirty-four students and teachers, killing half of them. It’s how Emma chose to react that make her a hero. She got mad and then, she got busy. There are other students no less heroic (David Hogg, Cameron Kasky, Delaney Tarr, Jaclyn Corin, Alex Wind, and more), all cast as a “belligerent band of media hyped know-nothings” by Kevin McCullough in Townhall. But these kids saw that the adults in charge were not going to do anything to prevent the next school shooting and decided that they were just going to have to fix it themselves. Regardless of the costs.

Emma has become the primary target of wrath resulting from their courage. Her mother, Beth Gonzalez, said this about Emma’s activism: “I’m terrified. It’s like she built herself a pair of wings out of balsa wood and duct tape and jumped off a building. And we’re just, like, running along beneath her with a net, which she doesn’t want or think that she needs.” Sometimes you just have to go with what you’ve got. Coming up against an assault rifle is a motivator for action. Since Emma was born, there have been over 200 school shootings in the US, killing more than 265 and inujuring more than 370. In that same time period there have been more laws passed to enable shootings than their have been to prevent them. Many states have passed laws to provide consealed carry license, open carry license, or even carrying with no permit at all. Some states have passed laws allow possession of a firearm in schools. After the Parkland shooting, all the talk amoung law makers centers on throwing more guns into the mix, not fewer. They want to arm teachers and harden school campuses. They ridicule the “Gun Free Zone” signs at the school door.

Thoughts and prayers. That’s all the reaction that main stream politicians offered to prevent the next shooting. Others, however, could smell blood.

Leslie Gibson, who was the only declared candidate to represent the 57th District in Maine’s House of Representatives, Tweeted “There is nothing about this skinhead lesbian that impresses me and there is nothing that she has to say unless you’re a frothing at the mouth moonbat.” Shortly after this Tweet (now deleted), Gibson dropped out of the race.

Fox News, of course, explained the actions of Emma and her fellow students saying, “they have been brainwashed by government-funded indoctrination camps – pardon me – public schools.”

Fox labels anyone who supports the Florida students as Hollywood types, famous and wealthy, the NRA discribed the protests this way: “Gun-hating billionaires and Hollywood elites are manipulating and exploiting children as part of their plan to DESTROY the Second Amendment and strip us of our right to defend ourselves and our loved ones.” I would expect nothing less from the money-strapped, benevolent NRA. Fox points out that the March for Our Lives organization registered as a 501 (c)(4) to “keep private the names of donors”. Hmmm, just like the NRA general fund?

How about the alt-right? Their version of Twitter, Gab, faked a video of Emma. Substituting the traget practice paper she was tearing in half with an image of the US Constitution, only to later declare the faked propaganda as “satire”. They hate her because she is defiant, because she it bisexual, because she is Cuban, because she shaved her head, because she is open about who she is, but mostly she’s hated because she doing something. She’s standing up, questioning their beliefs. She’s demanding change. She’s calling BS on leadership.

So square in the middle of a sea of support and an ocean of opposition there is Emma on balsa wings, listing the names of students and staff who would “never”, then standing in silence for six and a half minutes before a Washington DC crowd estimated to be over a million, representing the amount of time Nikolas Cruz used to gun down his victims. Shedding tears but standing strong. Defiant. I put her on my hero list with Ricky John Best, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche, Aaron Feis, Scott Beigel and a host of others who’ve given everything for others. God bless them — there’s no greater love.

Driftwood

We’ve got this piece of driftwood on our front porch. It’s really not much to look at. I guess it’s about four feet long. I picked it up on a rocky beach in the state of Washington. We drug it home back in 2009 and it’s been on our front porch ever since. It looks a little like a dolphin — got a bit of a smile. Bleached white when I first saw it, now it has settled into a dull grey.

It’s worn down to rounded ends and smooth sides. The beach was piled high with driftwood and this was one of the few pieces I could carry or fit in the truck. We never really think much about it. It’s kind of an odd thing to have on your porch in Oklahoma. I wondered at the time if I was breaking the law by taking it. I’m weird that way. I hope no Park Ranger reads this blog and comes tracking me down with a violation fine.

I couldn’t tell you the kind of tree it came from, but odds are it was a conifer. Probably floated down the the Quileute (also called Quillayute) River and washed up and down the coast before getting stranded on Mora Beach where I snagged it.

There was a movie series about werewolves and vampires that I never watched which transformed nearby town of Forks into a tourist destination. But Mora Beach is a few miles west, just across the Quillayute from La Push, the other, less visited town in the movies and home of the Quileute Nation. Even though Mora Beach is in Olympic National Park, we were the only ones there. I felt like I was visiting a mystic land.

When I was there with my wife and kids it was a foggy morning, the air heavy and thick with Pacific moisture. The beach was nearly all black igneous rocks, worn round and smooth, and most were between the size of golf balls and bowling balls. There was so much driftwood, no, these were drift trees, piled so high and so entangled that they became impenetrable walls paralleling the beach.

In the past, this was a land of great cedar longhouses and magnificent totems, where the people were isolated enough for their language to become unique among the Americas. A people who survived thousands of years fishing and whaling and buried their esteemed dead in canoes placed in the trees atop the great sea stack, James Island (Akalat). Sadly, the cedar lodges, totems, and the entire settlement of LaPush was burned to the ground by a newcomer in 1889 who wrongly believed he owned it all. Only those cultural treasures that had already been carted of to museums survived.

On my walk of Mora Beach, I first noticed sea stacks – those columns of rock rising from the waves, formed by the quirks of geology and erosion, that must be a hazard to the weary mariner. Waves were calm the morning of my visit, but the scenery suggests this is rarely so, as do the tsunami warning signs in the parking area. These rocky shores were avoided by invasive European explorers and exploiters making the Quileute the last to be molested by those they saw sailing by: Ho-Kwats or White Drifting-House People.

After walking the beach a while I discovered rock stacks. Who builds these? Who has the patience to balance rocks on stacks of balanced rocks? There was a strange art at work here, but I’ve since learned that, like most human impact on nature, the practice has ballooned to nuisance levels. Cairns for guidance on a convoluted trail, a good thing. Natural graffiti, not so much.

A bit later I began to notice huts made of driftwood. Someone invested a lot of time in these constructions of unknown purpose. They were built in a variety of sizes with ornate door openings. Some had windows. None appeared to offer any kind of protection from wind or rain.

This walk on Mora Beach wasn’t my first sight of the Pacific. I’d been to Morro Bay, Monterey, and San Francisco in California years before, but Mora Beach was the first time I’d seen the Pacific without people, without cities and ships, where it felt like nature. When the wind blew and the fog lifted you could see a house or two across the river in La Push, but it took an effort. Mostly there was the beach, the ocean, the trees behind, and harsh beauty of it all. The quiet sounds. The history. The weird little signs of humanity that we just can’t help but leave behind. And the irresistible urge to take some of that with me. I couldn’t help myself. It was overwhelming.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

After years of neglect and disparaging bills from the state legislature, Oklahoma teachers are emboldened by the “success” of the teacher strike in West Virginia. It’s a shame that the West Virginia legislature decided to fund the teacher pay raise by cutting medicaid and health assistance to their poor instead of rescinding the tax cuts to the rich and corporations, but I digress.

Here are some recent news items about the movement in Oklahoma:

CNN: Oklahoma teachers consider a strike after state House fails to fund raises

The Washington Post: Oklahoma teachers may strike — and Tulsa schools officials say they are okay with it

Los Angeles Times: Oklahoma comes closer to joining West Virginia in a major teacher strike

Tulsa World: On day West Virginia teachers end walkout, Oklahoma teachers union gives Legislature deadline for school shutdown

The Intercept: TEACHER UNREST SPREADS TO OKLAHOMA, WHERE EDUCATORS ARE “DESPERATE FOR A SOLUTION”

The Economist: America’s public-school teachers are fired up about pay

Update: March 13

The Konawa Board of Education said in their meeting last night that they would support our teachers in the event of a walkout. We meet tomorrow to discuss it.

Update: March 29

The Oklahoma House and Senate passed HB 1010xx which was signed by Governor Fallin today. The bill increases teacher and state worker pay, but not as much as was asked for. It does not contain general education funding or address many of the other concerns as demanded by teachers and state workers. A walkout is still on for April 2 at the State Capitol. The bill is likely to be enough to forestall a prolonged work stoppage. Frankly, I was amazed that the partisan divide could be breached enough to permit even this much funding to be provided. The media describes this bill as a historic tax increase.

Why is this a bad idea?

Photo found on Un-Politics: a slightly, dysfunctional government http://theun-politics.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-slightly-dysfunctional-government.html

The State of Oklahoma and the United States of America have something in common right now: they can’t pass a budget. As a result, neither our State or our Federal Government is working. Our elected officials are not doing their most basic duty – running the government. As a result, the citizenry of both bodies of government are suffering more our elected officials are.

So I have this idea, maybe a couple of ideas, and I’d like for my dear reader (note the use of the singular here) to point out why the idea is a bad one. How about we make a rule of law that no bill can be brought to committee until the budget has been passed and signed into law? It’s okay to submit bills: get the lawyers busy analyzing all of the crazy stuff submitted to please the constituents and (hopefully) weed out all the unconstitutional nonsense, but nothing goes to committee, discussion, consideration, or vote until the budget is done. That is the one job they absolutely have to do: run the government. We have seen what happens if they don’t do this. We look to the entire world as a bunch of idiots. Dysfunctional. It’s embarrassing and something has to be done.

Remember elementary school? The school yard bullies who picked on everyone “inferior”? Remember the clicks and the hen pecking to establish a dominate order? Stupid behaviors you hoped every one would outgrow? Well, they didn’t.

A second idea to support the first can be borrowed from the Catholic Church. When a new Pope is required, the Cardinals are shut away in the Vatican until the new pope is elected. Let’s say our elected officials fail to do their one important job and can’t pass a budget. Instead of rewarding them for their failure by paying for a special session, how about we board up all the doors and windows (and close off the secret tunnels) until we see the smoke of the burning papers from their secret deliberations, compromises, and concessions? No food until the job is done. We may even have to cut off the water after a day or two.

Can a Question be Presumptive?

Images of galaxies far away may be forever blurred – no matter how big the telescope. Credit: NASA/Hubble Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2015-11-universe-resolution-limitwhy-view-distant.html#jCp

I’ve had a question nagging at me for years now and I just wish someone would resolve it by pointing out my error. The question regards how, behind everything we think we know, there are one or more assumptions. If an assumption is incorrect, how can all that follows be more than folly? If our presumed knowledge is folly, why do we take it all so seriously?

Let me start by saying that I am aware of my lack of knowledge in the subject of physics (and most other subjects as well). I find it fascinating: particularly cosmology, astronomy, and the particular subject of the nature of light. It’s so fascinating and baffling that light behaves as both a wave and a particle. Admittedly, I don’t even begin to understand most of what I have read – especially when the mathematics is far beyond my comprehension. But one thing I have learned from mathematics, a fact of logic, is that any inquiry or discourse in science must begin with certain assumptions. We assume that the speed of light is constant. Well, not really. Its speed diminishes in media such as gases, liquids, or solids, but is the vacuum of space its speed is roughly 299,792,458 m/s. Further, we frequently assume that the speed of light is a limit. So much theory is based upon those assumptions. I, in turn, assume that if at some time in the future we discovered that the speed of light in a vacuum were not a constant or a limit, much of what I’ve read about the universe could be absolute folly.

Where did the assumption of the constancy of light’s speed come from? Observation, experiment, theory, and minds far superior to mine. I wonder: is what we observe here on Earth, in our Solar System, in our Milky Way Galaxy, and what we deduce from those observations, is all of that still valid on a much larger scale? Are our current laws of physics valid when dealing with light from distant object such as galactic clusters, quasars and pulsars. We have an entirely new set of laws for observations on the very small scale (particle physics and quantum physics), so may we not need to question our assumptions for the very large scale. Does the search for a grand unification theory only need to rectify inconsistencies between physics and the quantum universe?

The magnetic and electrical transverse waves that are used in the description of light’s wave nature are said to reinforce each other perpendicularly, allowing the electromagnetic spectrum of energy to travel without a medium. But light’s particle nature, the photon, is I suppose whizzing through the vacuum unimpeded in a like manner? I may not be able to grasp the explanation.

What keeps floating through my head is the idea that maybe old light may be different from new light. We think that light is bent by gravity as it passes close to a massive object such as a star, another galaxy, or a black hole. Is there a cumulative effect of this bending, the increased distance traveled, on old light that we can’t treat the same was as we do light from our own galaxy?

The Doppler Effect is something even a lay person such as myself can observe. The motorcycle speeding past you may produce a tone with the frequency of, let’s say, middle C when it at rest, but approaching you the frequency it may be D and receding from you it may be B. The jet flying at or above the speed of sound can’t even be heard until the accumulated sound waves reach you simultaneously. So we apply that effect to light from distant objects and assume, due to spectral analysis, that the light has shifted toward the red end of the spectrum and that the object is, therefore, receding. We conclude from observations that the more distant the object is, the greater the shift and the faster the object is receding, Thus the expanding universe, thus the Big Bang. (Even the expansion of the universe doesn’t appear to be constant.) What about dark energy(68%) and dark matter (27% of the universe). Those uncomfortable theories appear to be necessary because of the same assumptions. So my question is: are our assumptions valid? Does that shift in old light, from very distant objects beyond our universe, really imply that the objects are moving away from us?

Who says that scientists, physicists, and cosmologists are not people of faith? They certainly are: they have put their faith into their most basic assumptions. We all have to start from somewhere. So straighten me out. Tell me why it’s perfectly valid to assume that the speed of light is a universal constant. I won’t be the least bit surprised that my troubles are those of an ignorant and confused man, so don’t worry about hurting my feelings by exposing my error. I will, in fact, be relieved.

Update: in the 2022-2023 academic year I was tasked with teaching science for the first time in my career (four years after I retired). My mind was blown. It’s very humbling to realize your own ignorance. I’m thanking to have had the opportunity, responsibility, and challenge to spend my last school year contemplating science.

Here’s an interesting article about the age of the universe and a 1920’s theory of “tired light”:

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/universe-13-8-or-26-7-billion-years/

So I officially give up. I surrender. I’m not smart enough to think about this stuff anymore.

 Here’s yet another article on the subject:

https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/dark-energy/the-expansion-of-the-universe-could-be-a-mirage-new-theoretical-study-suggests

Even more recently:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ad1bc6?

Time on My Hands

The Blue Dog – I offer this as proof that I absolutely cannot paint

There are only a few months left until I retire. I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about that, but in general I think “excited” still fits pretty well. When I try to answer the question, “Why retire now?” my answer has varied from time to time. Basically, because I finally qualify for both retirement and Social Security and I want to spend more time with my already retired wife. On the down side, we have two kids facing college — yeah, I know.

There are a few big things we’d love to do post-retirment, like travel and family visits, but for a while now I’ve been imagining what a typical day as a retiree will be like. I imagine all kinds of things I want to fit into the daily schedule:

• household chores
• drawing and painting
• woodshop projects
• working outside
• reading
• exercise and meditation

And yet, having been care givers for our aged parents, my wife and I know that the reality of most retiree’s daily schedule is more like:

• household chores
• medical appointments
• pharmacy trips
• post office
• grocery store
• television

I recently read an article from US News and World Report about time management for retirees. My first thought was to make a list of activities for an average day and try to stick to it, but I kind of like the idea of setting three goals each day for what you want to accomplish.

As I remember my father’s retirement, it seemed like he did well at first when his primary activity was an agressive exercise regimen. Exercise was very important for him as he had just survived a quadruple bypass surgery. This carried him through the first year of so until he started getting restless about what to do with his life. What followed was a disastrous move out of Dallas to Oklahoma, then moving back to his childhood hometown, and building a house. After that, there were a few day trips and mostly television. Television and the social media are high on my “avoid” list.

There are other activities that I tend to forget about and I wonder if they aren’t really some of the most important to quality of life. Things like motorcycle trips, service to others, meditation, and walks in the woods. The goals all blur when you try to group activities by things you want to do and things you should do.

You noticed that household chores are on both lists. Just a nod to reality. Those chores come without any decision on my part, so I don’t feel any guilt about doing them — I only feel guilty when I neglect them.

It may be comical later to look back at my list of things I imagine myself doing after retirement. Like drawing and painting: who am I kidding? No one cares about what I draw or paint. It’s not like I’ll ever really be an artist or produce anything that will be valued by anyone but me. I just always wanted to be able to spend more time trying. Seems like it would be nice to have a place set up where I could spend a few hours a day trying to learn to be better at it. It gives me a little pleasure. That’s really quite selfish, I guess.

And what about woodwork? It’s not very likely that there will be a positive revenue stream associated with my woodworking hobby. So far I’ve only spent money on building a shop, purchasing tools and materials. It’s a good way to injure yourself, but I hope I’ll avoid the pain and expensive of a careless moment. It isn’t likely that I’ll ever produce any heirloom objects that will be passed down for generations. I know it’s highly unlikely that I’ll produce anything that could generate a profit. But it gives me pleasure to feel like I have made something. So selfish.

We live on fifty-six acres of woods and creek bottoms. Linda and I wanted our home to be surrounded by nature, to be quiet and unhurried, and we have accomplished that. Maybe we didn’t reason out the downside of the equation: inconvenience, isolation, and the maintenance of driveways and utilities. Our water supply requires much more than just paying the bill and turning the tap. Every time I walk out the door I see more things that need to be done and every year I seem less able to do them. But the upside is a walk in the woods, a trip to the pond, and a view from the porch. I work outside a lot, getting nothing much done, but it gives me pleasure. I garden, feed the fish, and contend with the cedars and fire ants. I use my tractor to mow, move brush, smooth out the gravel, and I feel good about it. But in the end, it’s selfish.

I go through phases with my reading. Sometimes I am a voracious reader and spend hours at a time with that book I just can’t put down. Maybe it doesn’t really accomplish much. My dad used to read westerns. Sometimes he’d be chapters into a book only to realize that he’d already read it. So he started writing his initials on the inside cover of the westerns from his hometown library when he finished a book. I visited the library with him a few times and looked in his favorite sections. He’d read nearly everything there. I don’t read westerns, but I’ve read all kinds of goofy stuff: most of what the Huxleys wrote, all of the translations of Hesse, the Tolkien trilogy and Hobbit over again and again — to the point of embarrassment, all the Grisham books, the Clancy and Cussler adventures, Assimov and Heinlein, and the fantasies of George RR Martin, and so much young adult fiction like “The Hunger Games” that are just a part of being a teacher. I’ve read a lot of science: astronomy, physics, geology. I couldn’t tell you that anything is any better as a result of all that reading, maybe somethings are worse. After reading “Black Like Me” in junior high I couldn’t stand bigots and racists anymore. After reading “On A Piece of Chalk” I can’t listen religious quackery anymore. After reading the New Testament I can no longer empathize with libertarians or worshipers of Ayn Rand. If fact, I can scarcely empathize with myself. Reading even seems selfish.

As long as I can remember I’ve pledged to exercise more. It’s one of those persistent nagging dreams you just can’t wake up from. And why? Who will benefit from all the work and sweat? An easier, though just as evasive goal is meditation. Purify your mind, relax, release, elevate. Umm.. Okay.

Maybe I need a retirement mentor. Maybe there is some value in just staying out of the way.

 

 

Reflections on a Career

Why on Earth would anyone use dog as a derogatory?

Minnie, our current companion

The soul of a dog is pure. When I was in Kindergarten, my teacher gave me a Cocker Spaniel puppy. I suspect this was not a reward for being good student, but a case of having a litter of puppies that desperately needed homes. I named my dog and, for a while, drew her close to my heart. She was a perfect companion – followed me everywhere, never bored with what I was doing, craved my affection. I was fully aware of how much my touch, my time, and my attention meant to her. Slowly, as is often the case, my interests drifted elsewhere and I spent less and less time with my dog. I fed her and gave her the occasional bath and vaccinations, but invested a dismal few hours in her companionship. I neglected my dog. She grew old and lonely.

Years later, when gray hair appeared on her snout and her movements showed signs of age, I remember looking at my old pet, laboriously wagging her tail, and thinking how I wished she would just die, that I wanted a new dog. The next day she died. Guilt hit me like a hammer. There was no doubt in my mind that God had just delivered to me a lesson in life.

Dogs are the loyal to a fault. They are obedient and willing to do anything to please their masters. They are eager to learn. It is truly amazing what dogs can learn to do from a diligent and patient owner. Being pack animals, they want to belong and they love unconditionally. A dog will bond with a human as readily as it would with others dogs and they crave affection. And trust… where can you find that magnitude of trust anywhere else in life? Dogs are naturally affectionate. If a dog is aggressive or dangerous, it is because a human has trained them to behave that way. To be given a dog is to be entrusted with a grave responsibility.

Thanks to social and news media, I’ve seen people who seem to be confused about the relationship between masters and pets – people that seem to think that their pets are their children. I tend to think that they have endowed their pets with an inappropriate sanctity, reserved only for another human, but it’s just as likely that I am only blinded and calloused by my ego. The responsibility you owe to your pet is a training ground for life…

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It’s time for me to retire. This year I’m embracing the task of wrapping up my career of thirty-eight years as a teacher and I don’t want to miss anything. I yearn to let it all soak in and savor the experiences during this last opportunity of teaching. It’s time for me to reflect on the lessons I’ve learned, the experiences I’ve shared, and the blessings that have been bestowed upon me as I’ve struggle to learn how to be a teacher. Above all, I am humbled that such an awesome responsibility has been entrusted to me for such a long period of time.

Public school teachers in America are understandably tempted to complain about their compensation, the lack of respect teachers receive, the hateful attitude of politicians and privateers, the erosion of the family, the lack of resources schools face today, and the apathy of their students. In the present political climate, it seems that public school teachers have been targeted as a symbol of what’s wrong with America. We have been villainized and disparaged at every opportunity. Plumbers aren’t treated that way. You don’t see news stories about the slothfulness and misbehavior of engineers or retail clerks. Everyone has gone to school in America, at least for a while, so it seems that everyone considers themselves to be experts on education. Yet, fellow teachers, we knew all of that when we decided to become teachers. We did it anyway and some of us determined to stay in the profession, even when offered other opportunities.

What we miss, if distracted by those problems, is the good stuff. We have been entrusted with the care of children. We have been given the opportunity to try and help them to improve their lot in life: to learn how to learn. Teachers endeavor to empower their students, not just to survive, but to thrive. In the best of times we witness the spark of curiosity, the leverage of skepticism, the energy of diligence, and the wonder of awareness. Those moments are not ubiquitous or automatic – watch for them, make note of them, savor them.

A pivotal moment in my path toward the career of teaching came in a conversation critiquing my own public school experience as a student. At the time I had already graduated from college and was working in the real world. Complaining to my sister, a teacher, about the many faults that my own high school teachers had possessed, she challenged me. She said, “Maybe you should be a teacher. Then you can do a better job than they did.” Like a sucker, I took the bait. I went back to college taking more education courses, earning a teaching certificate, and eventually a master’s degree. The night before my first day as a professional teacher I had nightmares. All my doubts manifested themselves as monstrous criminals exposing my ignorance and threatening my safety. During my young adult years I had put myself in some genuinely stupid and dangerous situations from which I emerged intact, but here I was, afraid of some kids who turned out to be great people. Looking back on that conversation with my sister, let me just say I’ve gained a great deal of appreciation for the teachers of my alma mater. I don’t think I’ve come close to the talents, professionalism, or dedication that they each possessed.

W.W. Samuell High School, Dallas, Texas

I’ve really dropped the ball many times. For most of us, it takes a lot of painful lessons to become a teacher of any quality. There are so many things to overcome: your ego, your lack of patience, your ignorance, your anger, your laziness, your lack of compassion, your intolerant attitudes — this list could go on forever. Teaching is not for everyone. It’s not the right career for many that have been in it for years. It’s not the right career for anyone whose ambitions are dubious. There were many, many times when it was not the right career for me, yet I always aspired to become a better teacher. My wife, herself a veteran teacher, once told me that the difference between us was that I taught mathematics while she taught children. You can easily replace the word “taught” with the word “love”. That is key. If you are to become a teacher, you have to grow beyond the mere love of your subject. An essential skill for a teacher is to learn to care for your students.

A wise person once told me that if you really want to learn something, try teaching it to someone else. I had earned, barely, a degree in mathematics. From childhood, I had always been drawn to mathematics. Math was, to me, pure and unquestionable. It was the pinnacle of human achievement, beautiful and endless. As a rather inept college student, mathematics retained that loftiness, but it also became out of my reach, seemingly unattainable. Yet I persisted, despite failings and doubt, eventually obtaining that degree – a piece of paper that had questionable meaning or value, but I knew it represented something. It was a commitment that, once chosen, had to be obtained.

The mantra, “if you don’t use it, you lose it” was always on my mind as I worked for years in jobs that didn’t require or often apply my degree in mathematics. But once I stood at the chalkboard (yes, it’s been that long ago), I realized that I didn’t know anything at all about teaching mathematics. The teacher has to not only have competency in their subject matter, but also become an educator, psychologist, cheerleader, and a magician. The kids question, “When am I ever going to use this?” And you think, “Are you serious? That’s like: when are you ever going to use oxygen? Just because you don’t see it or think about it doesn’t mean it isn’t essential.” But that’s not the way kids think. Most are expending more energy working to get out of doing something than the energy it would take to get it done. As a teacher, you are trying to provide them with another tool for success and survival and they are questioning your sanity. The teacher has to launch a public relations campaign to sell students on the idea that mathematics is useful. Really?

But onward through the fog:

It’s not about you

Many of the suggestions I needed so desperately as a beginning teacher were offered to me right at the beginning, I just didn’t understand. My first superintendent made a point at every single staff meeting to remind us that the goal of all our efforts was to serve our students. He reminded us that the school wasn’t there to provide us with a job, it was to give our students an education, prepare them, equip them, guide them, support them, help them. During my career I’ve lost count of the number of superintendents I’ve served under, but none of the others ever made this point. It’s basic human nature to focus on your survival. We all need to earn a living, pay the bills, and keep our sanity. Teaching may not be the right choice for achieving those goals any more than the ministry is, or the Peace Corp, or Unicef. If you aren’t driven to serve, to give up personal ambitions, then it would be better for everyone if you considered other ways to earn a living.

And this humility aspect, this commitment to service of others, doesn’t stop with just your career choice: it’s pervasive. You have to combat ego at every turn. You nature will tempt you to react in ways that are counterproductive in the classroom. You will think that a student’s behavior is about you when it’s not. You will think that you how are being judged, and you are, when that can’t be a factor in determining your reactions. It’s an impossible task. I fail at it everyday, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important – that it’s not essential.

It’s not a job

I took lot’s of teacher education courses in college. In the first day of a basic course, the instructor asked everyone to introduce themselves and to explain why they had decided to become a teacher. I remember one young lady, who was probably a very fine person, said something like, “My husband is a coach but doesn’t make enough money for our family to be able to get by, so I decided to become an elementary school teacher because it’s probably the best job that I can get around here.” That seemed to make perfect sense to everyone in the course, including the instructor, but I was appalled. I couldn’t think of a worse reason to enter into the profession. In truth, her words probably impacted me so strongly because there was an element of the same reasoning in my own career choice. Yet it was obvious to me that this was a recipe for disaster. I wanted to plead with the lady to look around and find a better job.

Once more, it’s not about you – it’s about the students. If you aren’t driven, determined, fanatically dedicated to helping those kids, then don’t. The pay stinks. Hardly anyone is going to respect you as a teacher. There is no upward mobility in the teaching career. Please face that right at the start: becoming an administrator, moving to the State Department of Education… whatever, those are all moves out of the teaching profession. They are all managers or bureaucrats. In my experience, most of them disdain teachers, considering us a necessary evil. There are considerable efforts afoot to replace teachers with online courses. You have to put all that aside so that you can focus on your real task.

Don’t be dominated from above

There are going to be demands for you to conform. Beware.

There are standards: read them, consider them, try them, but don’t blindly adopt them. If you feel in your heart that there is something important to teach, then teach it – even it is not in the standards. Those people who wrote the standards are not really the sages we assume they are. They are just other teachers who are also struggling, making decisions, hoping for the best. Sometimes they aren’t even teachers. They may be lobbyists. There agenda may not be yours. Consider their efforts, but don’t blindly adopt them.

There are mandated tests: these are not your friends. They come from above with the pretense of reform. That is a code word. Today it means “deconstruct”, “undermine”, and “eliminate.” Sure, there is a pretense of accountability. Sure, there really are teachers out there who do a crap job and should be weeded out. Tests are not getting rid of incompetent and ineffective teachers any more than a war will win the peace. Principals will come to you with test preparation books. Give them a read, then put them in a drawer somewhere and forget about them. There has never been a standardized test that helped a student learn or succeed.  Your principal may evaluate you by how well your kids do on standardized test. So what? That doesn’t have a single thing to do with you or your students. Embrace the task that’s important, do what really works for you and those kids in your room. If you get fired, it is probably a blessing. Move on. There are other ways to serve.

There are veteran teachers, department heads: listen to them, be polite. Then go back to your classroom and follow your heart. Keep listening and considering, weighing their opinions, but don’t submit with docility. Sadly, some folks have an issue with control and their own dominance. The act of surviving doesn’t confere wisdom or righteousness.

Listen to your students

This is harder than you might think. Even if you hear them, you may not be getting it. They’re words will sound like judgements, threats, distractions, gossip, idle conversation, or insanity. When I’m in the classroom, there is always something I want everyone to be focused on. I’m compelled, by my nature, to want to insist upon that focus. There is this assumption that classroom teachers have to control their environment. We have to establish this safe place where learning can occur. You know you have to get your bluff in and that classroom management is the key to survival. Don’t let these thoughts turn you into a ruthless dictator – it won’t end well. All the time there are little hints about what is really going with those kids. They are trying to tell you what you need to know in order to effectively help them. But, I’m telling you – this is hard. Nothing ever prepared me to listen to these kids. Take a minute before you react. Try to understand what that kid just said. There is always a chance that it might open a door to understanding what it really going on. A peek inside that door might just keep you from doing something stupid and closing other doors forever. When a student says, “I don’t care” they may really mean “My parents had a fight last night and my dad left.”

Pray

I drove a school bus for ten years. There were some very interesting experiences during that decade. My route crossed a busy (and dangerous) four-lane divided highway and a railroad track, so I made ran that gauntlet four times every day — that adds up to about 7000 times. This was back before cell phones and my district didn’t have radios, so if something happened, you were pretty much on your own. It was all rural gravel roads, ditches, rain and snow. My gas tank fell off one day. A tie rod broke once and the left wheel turned left while the right wheel turned right. An airplane crashed on my route. I came up to a creek crossing early one morning while it was still dark and discovered that the bridge was totally gone, burned up the evening before.

One very foggy morning, I came up to the railroad crossing and realized I couldn’t see even 100 feet. This was a crossing on a gravel road that only had a sign – not enough traffic to warrant warning lights or a gate. I had really good kids on my route and when I told them to be quiet, they were. Perfectly quiet. The fog was so thick that I turned off the engine and opened my door, listening for a train. There was nothing. So I told the kids that I could not see or hear anything and I was going to start the engine and cross as quickly as possible. And that’s what we did. The engine started immediately and we bolted across the tracks. We hadn’t gotten ten feet across when a train horn blew. This train had to be going fifty miles an hour. My heart stopped and I can imagine that the kids in the back all peed their pants. I turned off the bus again and it had to of been ten or fifteen minutes before I recovered sufficiently to make the rest of the trip to school. The railroad crossing at this little town had claimed many lives over the years. The highway crossing has claimed far more.

At no point in my life have I ever been so diligent in prayer. I prayed before my route each morning asking for the safety of my charges. I thanked God after the route for our safe return. I went to my bus early just to have time to pray. There is no doubt in my mind that God watched over that bus and blessed those children. I could write a book just about the things I experienced on that route. My bus driving salary was $500 per year. The route took nearly an hour every trip, I had to wash the bus and take it for oil changes. It was our Christmas money. If you don’t think praying will help you in the classroom, try it anyway.

If you assign it, read and react to it

Sometimes I wonder why I give writing assignments. Am I punishing myself? Kids think it’s so mean to ask them to write three paragraphs. They have no idea how long it takes to read all those paragraphs, mark grammatical and spelling errors (hey kids – use spell check!), mark run on sentences, and make suggestions for a clearer meaning. But it doesn’t seem to take long before they realize that you are interested in what they have to say. That awareness seems to diminish their plagiarism and encourage their thinking. The quality of their work and the level of their research both improve it you read and react to their work. You also get to know them and they are very interesting people. There’s a lot to learn from our students.

Most of my career was teaching mathematics. I assigned problems and tried my best to use the student’s work to determine their level of understanding and to guide them by using corrections and comments on their papers. This requires an enormous amount of time and it seems they usually don’t even look at your marks. My mantra was “Show your work!” To this day I have no use for an assignment where the student just writes an answer. I know I’m old school, but I believe a calculator should only be used on problems where the student has clearly demonstrated an understanding and proven their competency of all the mechanics of reaching that result. A calculator is appropriate for the time consuming minutia that you know they have already mastered, when they are working a bigger problem where understanding and problem solving skills are over and above the calculations. I think they should able to plot a sinusoid with pencil and graph paper before using the graphing calculator. Sure, use the calculator to find the values of points you’re going to plot (the days of books of tables, slide rules, and interpolation are over) but have the skills to plot the points and connect the dots.

Even if most of my efforts were ignored when I attempted to encourage skill building by pointing out where the student went wrong on their homework problems, I still believe it was good to insist that they showed the steps that explain their thoughts in getting from the problem to the answer. Encourage them to think and to explain, to justify and illustrate. And then be sure to demonstrate that you have seen that work, reacted to it, and valued it. It’s hard and time consuming. If you feel like you’re killing yourself, consider making fewer and shorter assignments.

It’s not a train

There is always this list of things that you assume you have to cover durind your course. The list might come from those hallowed standards, or they might be the chapters in the book, or they might be on the test, or maybe you just really think the list contains the essential elements of the subject. We want to keep going, not get bogged down. The clock is ticking and there is only so much time to get it all done. The train is on a track and if you get derailed, then all hell breaks loose.

Well, the classroom is not a train. You may be headed the wrong way. The passengers are not in boxcars on the way to the concentration camp: they may be jumping off the passenger cars and escaping into the woods. Sometimes I have justified my dogged insistence to keep moving by thinking to myself that mastery has to be balanced with exposure. All the while I know that if no one is getting it, there is no sense in forging ahead. You tend to think the only possible way of progressing is keeping everyone together: you can’t wait for every student to demonstrate mastery if the rest of the class is ready to move ahead. Differentiated instruction sounds so much harder to plan for and manage than what you already can’t keep up with. Individualized instruction would be great if you only had three of four kids at a time. In my last year as a teacher, I have to confess that I’ve never really figured this out. Yet I have never given up. I am still fighting the good fight to overcome obstacles and considering methods. My takeaway is just chill. It’s going to be okay. You don’t have to expect the same results from every kid. Blend your class with lots of kinds of assignments and projects. There will be something that works in the mix. Spend more time with the kid who’s struggling and have something ready for that kid who’s already finished that they can do on their own. Everything doesn’t have to be assigned or turned in. Sometimes it is enough just to challenge.

I’m not trying to tell you your destination, but I’m just saying that the train is the wrong analogy for the classroom. Find your own analogy. Look around and decide what works.

If they ask if you’re going — then go

When you are a teacher, regardless of grade level or subject, your kids are going to be involved in activities outside of your class. Many times they will be activities that you really have no interest in and certainly don’t have time to attend. But if you are going to be a teacher, you may as well plan on spending a lot of your time just to show that you care about them.

I’m not a sports fan — not a football fan, not a basketball fan, not a baseball fan. Well, okay, maybe a baseball fan. I have a serious issue with competitive sports. They injure our kids needless lessly and permanently. They distract from academics and divert resources. I think of them as extracurricular and believe that no class time, not one minute, should be lost to sports. Trust me, I could rant about this until the cows come home. But… I will wager I have spent more time attending ball games than most ardent sports fans ever thought about doing. And I try to act like I’m interested and having a good time. And that’s because my students (or my own kids) are playing and they are sports fans. Sports is important to them. So, yes, when they say “Are you going to be at the game?” then I’m going to try to be at the game. They will see you there. They see when you aren’t there.

It would be nice if I could say that I have attended all thirty-eight graduation ceremonies, but I can’t say that. I regret that I haven’t. If there was anything I could get a do-over on, I’d pick graduations. That’s the business we are in. I should have gone to them all.

Always present both sides

So many teachers try to tell their kids what to think instead of how to think. They assume that they know, that they are right, and that anyone who disagrees is wrong or maybe even evil. (Thank you very much Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich for villainizing opposing opinions.) I believe that learning the difference between fact and opinion is an important life skill. Let me illustrate with a story:

When I was in college I took a course titled Introduction to Philosophy taught by Harvey Solvanick. He made such an impression on me that I remembered his name. During the course he presented the case for the major schools of philosophy, in a more or less chronological order, as though he were the most devoted adherent. His presentations were so convincing that when he would move to the next school (or belief system), the students were generally appalled. We would stop him and ask, “But wait, what about…” the last set of beliefs that we had all adopted as universal truth. Then he would say something like, “Oh, that all bunk. Here’s the reality… ” and move on. My head was spinning. What a course! It was all new to me and I loved it. And it serves my point here.

Kids will always want to know your position on issues: never tell them. Make them wonder and try to guess where you stand. Don’t tell them what is right: inspire them to seek the truth. Teach them to research. Help them learn to analyze, gather evidence, consider both sides, to realize that there are many sides to any issue. Help students understand that we all make assumptions and that these assumptions predetermine all our beliefs from that point on. Discuss judgements and consider when they are appropriate. Model for your students the value of keeping an open mind. Discuss rhetoric, propaganda, subversion, and simplistic beliefs. They get plenty opinion and self righteousness outside of your classroom — no one is starving for revelation of infinite wisdom.

Forgiveness

After thirty-eight years of opportunities, I actually think I’ve developed a pretty good ability with forgiveness. Granted, I’ve never really had an atrocity committed against my students or myself. If there had been grievous harm done to any of my kids, I honestly don’t know if I could forgive the one who did that. So I’m just thinking here about the small stuff: insults, belittling, accusations, threats, prolonged periods of being regarded as the enemy. I once had a kid step on my toe, literally. I had an ingrown toenail and the pain was so intense that I couldn’t see or breathe. No big deal. I don’t think I even mentioned it to him. I couldn’t talk, anyway. It wasn’t done intentionally and I don’t even remember who it was. There are a million things I can’t even remember. At the time, they hurt. They may make you question your career choice. They may make your blood boil. But it’s all water under the bridge. I don’t think any of that has diminished my enthusiasm for teaching today. I don’t think I’ve been impaired by any of that. Most of the time, it really doesn’t have anything to do with you. It’s just pent up anger that had to go somewhere.

What I can’t forgive is going on outside of the school. I can’t really forgive the politicians who are working so hard today to destroy public education. They are mostly libertarians who believe education should be privatized and public schools closed. Under the banners of “school reform” and “school choice”, they pump millions of dollars into propaganda to convince voters that public education is failing and that public school teachers are, well, basically evil. I’m sure they feel completely justified and righteous. I’m also sure that they have no idea what’s going on in my classroom, but are cutting off funding for my school anyway. They pass silly, spiteful legislation to make it more difficult for a public school teacher just to exist: things like trying to make me write a check to my education association instead of letting the school hold it out of my monthly pay as we have done all my career. They pass legislation imposing student testing and evaluations of schools and teachers, based upon those arbitrary scores, that force teachers to do nothing but “teach the test”. They pass unfunded mandates. They imposed self-inflicted economic downturns or recessions on states by cutting taxes at will and at the same time making raising a tax, or even returning it to a previous level, practically impossible. They run their campaigns on promises of tax cuts with no mention or regard to the services that must be sacrificed with those cuts. The goal is to make everything for profit. They are greedy and want the poor to bear the entire burden of the public good, while the rich and corporations are exempt. I may be able to forgive these politicians someday, but for now I’ll oppose them any way I can.

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Well, that’s it. Thirty-eight years in the classroom. I’ve had some great times, worked with some really nice people, and have been able to get to know thousands of students. I’m sorry about the times I’ve failed you all and apologize if I didn’t listen to you or lost my temper. I tried, I really did. And I want to wish you all the best in the rather spooky looking future. I hope someday we can all realize that we are in this together and are on the same side. Shalom.