I read a quote recently and have no idea to whom I should accredit it, but here goes: I must do this as a paraphrase, because I do not remember it fully. If Rip Van Winkle had awakened in 22nd century America and seen nothing that resembled when he had fallen asleep, he would feel right at home within an American High School.
The truth of that statement should scare every one of us. American High Schools have been the major purveyors of status quo in our country. Nothing seems to ever change, which I know is redundant.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
The Most Recent Background
I began full time teaching as a semi-permanent, my phrase, substitute in 1990. I worked in the middle school special education classes, specifically learning disabled, for about two years in various districts. I had subbed in various social studies classes and even phys. ed. once or twice (I hated nothing more that that). I did, though, find my niche in the LD classes. At the time I was working for a special education camp in Lake County called "Camp Sue Osborn." This camp was run by the East Shore Special Educational Resource Center, which has since been re-named to make sure no one knows about "Special Education."
I worked with and learned from some of the most dedicated and brilliant people I had ever met. The camp brought kids from all over the county together in a special education only setting. We had kids with Muscular Dystrophy and other degenerative diseases, severe mental retardation, traumatic brain injury, gifted kids, kids with learning disabilities and, my favorite, those deemed SBH. The term has since been politicized as have most, but Severely Behaviorally Handicapped is pretty self-explanatory in my book. I learned more in the three summers I worked those camps than at any other time during my formative collegiate and beginning teaching years.
Through my connections at the camps, I met a Superintendent in a small Southern Ohio district. New Lexington City Schools was my first full-time, salaried, contracted position and Clyde Metz was my mentor. As soon as I began in New Lex, I was put into a position that had me flying by the proverbial seat of my pants. The middle school was new as was the LD unit, so I had to create something from nothing while not really having any idea what I was doing. I had begun taking special education classes at Ohio University and Kent State, but hadn't even completed one yet. They learning by full immersion is the best way to go. I am not sure if I agree, but it did force me to come up with a plan pretty damned quickly. I had a superb mentor in Pam Melragon whom I still keep in touch with regularly. She and I went to many a seminar to see what was going on in our SPED world. I spent three years there.
I then spent two years on Put-in-Bay, South Bass Island, as the SPED Director. There were only about 90 kids in the entire K-12 school but I was the only SPED person, so I was able to be named director. This position afforded me the ability to attend State Directors of Special Education conferences in the State Capital of Columbus and various other events furthering my knowledge of the Special Education world. I was also a member of the CEC (Council for Exceptional Children), which was once the definitive organization for SPED professionals, for most of the 1990s.
Needing to leave the stifling confines of the island as well as the prohibitive nature of travel in the winter, I took a position as a part-time LD tutor in Parma at Valley Forge High School. From Parma I spent four years as a middle school LD teacher in the Cleveland Municipal School District under the Barbara Byrd Bennett regime. That did me in for about four years. After my stint in Cleveland, I felt totally worthless. I felt that our entire system was too far gone to ever make a difference. Thank God, the years away re-vitalized my need to help kids find wroth in themselves. My work is just beginning, but, as you all now know, I do have some background giving me the right to voice some of the opinions herein being discussed.
A change MUST come and soon. We are losing our greatest asset at an alarming rate, and the tide must not just be stemmed it must be reversed. I have some ideas and would love for you to take them and use them to help me help the world.
I worked with and learned from some of the most dedicated and brilliant people I had ever met. The camp brought kids from all over the county together in a special education only setting. We had kids with Muscular Dystrophy and other degenerative diseases, severe mental retardation, traumatic brain injury, gifted kids, kids with learning disabilities and, my favorite, those deemed SBH. The term has since been politicized as have most, but Severely Behaviorally Handicapped is pretty self-explanatory in my book. I learned more in the three summers I worked those camps than at any other time during my formative collegiate and beginning teaching years.
Through my connections at the camps, I met a Superintendent in a small Southern Ohio district. New Lexington City Schools was my first full-time, salaried, contracted position and Clyde Metz was my mentor. As soon as I began in New Lex, I was put into a position that had me flying by the proverbial seat of my pants. The middle school was new as was the LD unit, so I had to create something from nothing while not really having any idea what I was doing. I had begun taking special education classes at Ohio University and Kent State, but hadn't even completed one yet. They learning by full immersion is the best way to go. I am not sure if I agree, but it did force me to come up with a plan pretty damned quickly. I had a superb mentor in Pam Melragon whom I still keep in touch with regularly. She and I went to many a seminar to see what was going on in our SPED world. I spent three years there.
I then spent two years on Put-in-Bay, South Bass Island, as the SPED Director. There were only about 90 kids in the entire K-12 school but I was the only SPED person, so I was able to be named director. This position afforded me the ability to attend State Directors of Special Education conferences in the State Capital of Columbus and various other events furthering my knowledge of the Special Education world. I was also a member of the CEC (Council for Exceptional Children), which was once the definitive organization for SPED professionals, for most of the 1990s.
Needing to leave the stifling confines of the island as well as the prohibitive nature of travel in the winter, I took a position as a part-time LD tutor in Parma at Valley Forge High School. From Parma I spent four years as a middle school LD teacher in the Cleveland Municipal School District under the Barbara Byrd Bennett regime. That did me in for about four years. After my stint in Cleveland, I felt totally worthless. I felt that our entire system was too far gone to ever make a difference. Thank God, the years away re-vitalized my need to help kids find wroth in themselves. My work is just beginning, but, as you all now know, I do have some background giving me the right to voice some of the opinions herein being discussed.
A change MUST come and soon. We are losing our greatest asset at an alarming rate, and the tide must not just be stemmed it must be reversed. I have some ideas and would love for you to take them and use them to help me help the world.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
More Recent Background
I began my professional career with a need to write about something. At first I had no specific goal as to what it might be, but I DID know it had to be something that had a basis in reality and that people needed to know about. I began by writing constant letters to the editor, which, while in high school, I thought was me being well on my way, what a farce that was. I found that I needed to have a reason for my opinions, even if they would not appreciably change, which I must say they really haven't. Education, I knew, was the way to go.
As an aside I also need to let you know that, because I was such an incurable know-it-all in high school, I failed the eleventh grade and in turn had to graduate a semester behind my class. (Look closely and you will see that I failed and ENTIRE year, plus half of tenth grade, but only had to do one extra semester to catch up, this will be important later.)
My first thought was to get into juvenile probation because I had been put on this ridiculous thing at the age of sixteen for cutting fucking school. That had to have been the most asinine things I had ever had happen to me. Anyway, I figured I could help those having problems. I took about a year's worth of classes and then decided I would MUCH rather get to the kids BEFORE they needed incarceration or probation. The idea to go into education had been born. As you may have already seen this was natural since it IS what I had done when younger, but my "brilliant" ass didn't see it until I had wasted a year or so in another field. That's what I get, I guess.
I decided to go to a local college because I could not really afford to go away, AND I really didn't want to leave my friends. That was quite the misnomer as I was to find out, because I left them anyway in theory. They thought I had changed because I often talked of my schooling and I thought they had changed because that's all they ever wanted to talk to me about. We were both right.
Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio had just opened its doors to men in the previous couple of years and was actively recruiting. I happened to have the correct credentials and happily enrolled in the social sciences program headed toward a degree with a minor in secondary education. I was going to become a junior high or high school social studies teacher. (At least that's what I thought.) I started in August of 1988 and graduated in December of 1990. Again, look at the time frame. Even if we use all the credits I got while in Community College, I still blew off about a year of my regularly four-year degree, but most of those Lakeland credit did NOT transfer. I also took about 1 year off between high school and Lakeland, then another year between Lakeland and Lake Erie. Both intervening years were spent traveling to different parts of the United States in order to see what things were like out of my so call comfort zone. Strangely, except for the temperature and in some cases the terrain, things were not that odd. The ethnic make-up in Bakersfield, CA; San Diego, CA; West Palm Beach, FL, and other places was different than good old Cleveland, but I could find enclaves of most enthnicities if I looked hard enough. The big difference is that everyone was more homogeneously mixed in West Palm and San Diego, most certainly not in Bakersfieled though. I stopped in various places along the way, like Denver, Oklahoma City, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, El Paso, even up to Niagra Falls and Toronto. Again, I have a reason for telling you this. I want you to know that I am not talking from a tunnel vision type of perspective. I love to learn about people and culture and have done so through travel throughout various portions of my life, which, I believe, gives me a right to speak on what I have observed.
As an aside I also need to let you know that, because I was such an incurable know-it-all in high school, I failed the eleventh grade and in turn had to graduate a semester behind my class. (Look closely and you will see that I failed and ENTIRE year, plus half of tenth grade, but only had to do one extra semester to catch up, this will be important later.)
My first thought was to get into juvenile probation because I had been put on this ridiculous thing at the age of sixteen for cutting fucking school. That had to have been the most asinine things I had ever had happen to me. Anyway, I figured I could help those having problems. I took about a year's worth of classes and then decided I would MUCH rather get to the kids BEFORE they needed incarceration or probation. The idea to go into education had been born. As you may have already seen this was natural since it IS what I had done when younger, but my "brilliant" ass didn't see it until I had wasted a year or so in another field. That's what I get, I guess.
I decided to go to a local college because I could not really afford to go away, AND I really didn't want to leave my friends. That was quite the misnomer as I was to find out, because I left them anyway in theory. They thought I had changed because I often talked of my schooling and I thought they had changed because that's all they ever wanted to talk to me about. We were both right.
Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio had just opened its doors to men in the previous couple of years and was actively recruiting. I happened to have the correct credentials and happily enrolled in the social sciences program headed toward a degree with a minor in secondary education. I was going to become a junior high or high school social studies teacher. (At least that's what I thought.) I started in August of 1988 and graduated in December of 1990. Again, look at the time frame. Even if we use all the credits I got while in Community College, I still blew off about a year of my regularly four-year degree, but most of those Lakeland credit did NOT transfer. I also took about 1 year off between high school and Lakeland, then another year between Lakeland and Lake Erie. Both intervening years were spent traveling to different parts of the United States in order to see what things were like out of my so call comfort zone. Strangely, except for the temperature and in some cases the terrain, things were not that odd. The ethnic make-up in Bakersfield, CA; San Diego, CA; West Palm Beach, FL, and other places was different than good old Cleveland, but I could find enclaves of most enthnicities if I looked hard enough. The big difference is that everyone was more homogeneously mixed in West Palm and San Diego, most certainly not in Bakersfieled though. I stopped in various places along the way, like Denver, Oklahoma City, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, El Paso, even up to Niagra Falls and Toronto. Again, I have a reason for telling you this. I want you to know that I am not talking from a tunnel vision type of perspective. I love to learn about people and culture and have done so through travel throughout various portions of my life, which, I believe, gives me a right to speak on what I have observed.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
My Background
I will quickly go through the beginning for you, so you have an idea as to my qualifications to factually speak on the subject at hand. Many people would have you know they are, "experts," but have never really been in the proverbial trenches. I have, and there are ways you can actually do the research to find this out.
While still in elementary school in Mentor, Ohio, I was tapped by my fifth and/or sixth grade teacher, I am not positive when I started this, to go down to the 1st grade classroom and help them as a tutor. I did this for one or two entire school years, helping the little kids with their phonics or doing grading of some sort. I was also crossing guard of the year, as voted by my teachers, in the sixth grade, which allowed me to go on a free trip to Washington DC. That was a HUGE vote of confidence for a Mama's boy crybaby from the suburbs (though I was born in East Cleveland), but it definitely opened my eyes. I think, that the first night away was the last time I was worried about being away from home. I was never homesick again afterwards.
Being a teacher's pet allowed me to gain access to things most people didn't even think of. While my best friend had our fifth grade teacher wrapped up like a Christmas gift, I had the sixth grade homeroom goddess. I was just sneaky enough, and curious, to look at things that were not really my business, in the guise of looking for something else of course. In fact, I found our intelligence test scores one time. Although I hate to admit it, my best friend, she still is to this day, had a score about three points higher than mine. I scored at 128 and she was at 131, putting her at Genius level and me just below at Upper Above Average. I told her and she has never let me live it down. Anyway, since I found that out I kept it in the back of my head. In fact, it has pretty much ruled my life since then, because I refuse to let people talk down to me just because of their perceived knowledge or position. So the reason for the above is to let you know that I have worked with kids since I was a kid AND that I have innate intelligence. Oh, I also babysat a low functioning mentally retarded neighbor boy when I was 11 and 12, which was my introduction to Special Education.
While still in elementary school in Mentor, Ohio, I was tapped by my fifth and/or sixth grade teacher, I am not positive when I started this, to go down to the 1st grade classroom and help them as a tutor. I did this for one or two entire school years, helping the little kids with their phonics or doing grading of some sort. I was also crossing guard of the year, as voted by my teachers, in the sixth grade, which allowed me to go on a free trip to Washington DC. That was a HUGE vote of confidence for a Mama's boy crybaby from the suburbs (though I was born in East Cleveland), but it definitely opened my eyes. I think, that the first night away was the last time I was worried about being away from home. I was never homesick again afterwards.
Being a teacher's pet allowed me to gain access to things most people didn't even think of. While my best friend had our fifth grade teacher wrapped up like a Christmas gift, I had the sixth grade homeroom goddess. I was just sneaky enough, and curious, to look at things that were not really my business, in the guise of looking for something else of course. In fact, I found our intelligence test scores one time. Although I hate to admit it, my best friend, she still is to this day, had a score about three points higher than mine. I scored at 128 and she was at 131, putting her at Genius level and me just below at Upper Above Average. I told her and she has never let me live it down. Anyway, since I found that out I kept it in the back of my head. In fact, it has pretty much ruled my life since then, because I refuse to let people talk down to me just because of their perceived knowledge or position. So the reason for the above is to let you know that I have worked with kids since I was a kid AND that I have innate intelligence. Oh, I also babysat a low functioning mentally retarded neighbor boy when I was 11 and 12, which was my introduction to Special Education.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Before I Go On...
Before I go on to the crux of this writing, I want you to know that this is not an expose`. I have not the urge nor need to make it such. My purpose is to let all of you know what it is really like from the inside. Parents should be the ultimate consumers of this service we provide, even though it is a governmental service. Many of "us," meaning those in the field, have the feelings I will express, BUT most will not let them be known. People know of the phrase, "Company man." That is the way quite a few of my colleagues act towards the proverbial,"powers that be." No one seems to want to take the time or take THE CHANCE to make things work for our kids. But I sure as hell do.
Friday, November 23, 2007
New beginning
As stated before in "schoolhousemyass.blogspot.com" I wanted to take this in a different direction. My constant confidant and reality-check(er), Jodie, said I should write a book about my experiences in education without making it fictional. Well, this is the book, though some names have been changed to protect myself from legal bullshit. (Any of you who think it is something about you are probably right though, unless you are even more stupid and self-centered than I already believe you are.)
I have been wallowing in this field for the better part of the last two decades and still have no fucking idea what I am doing. I want you to know that I do not mean that is a nebulous, "my head is permanently in the sand, or up my ass as far as that goes," manner. I truthfully mean that things change every second when one deals with the human teenager, so... It is not possible to, "know what you are doing." I have styles that work, for some, and ideas that I can impart to colleagues, but nothing I say or do works in every, or even most, case(s).
I often get overwhelmed just by the sheer enormity of my task. I have no God complex, so you may as well get that out of your mind right now. I do not see myself as, "The Great ...(anything you choose to insert)... Hope." I do, though, consider myself one of the billions of "Keepers of the Keys." Our children are our future and we CONSTANTLY do them the disservice of forcing them to comply with outdated rule and regulations based on some time that I find it difficult to believe has any REAL bearing on today's society. For instance, the entire compulsory school system with set rules dating back to the early 1900s, makes no sense in 2007. What about the absolute segregation of kids by economics? I know I can, and do, make a difference each day. I believe in my kids, but I need them (and their parents/family) to do the same. More importantly, I see the need to get the rest of the nation to see that what we are doing throughout the United States is the wrong damned approach. We ALL have a stake in ALL of our children and ALL of society.
You "lily-white," motherfuckers need to come down out of your ivory towers and make things better, and not through another donation. All of you who are talking about the environment seem to be forgetting that education of those in our own country will be much easier than trying to get someone else, as is always the way we fucking do things, to do what WE want. Help me to affect the, "paradigm shift," that is being so touted within the environmental community lately. I do not deny that we have treated the planet like shit, but I am much more worried about how we treat our neighbors.
In the year 2007 we should never have to hear things about race relations. Over two hundred years as a country and we still have fundamental differences with folks due to their SKIN COLOR???? What the fuck is wrong????? This goes for the bitching within your own communities as well. "Light-skinneded vs. dark-skinneded," light and dark complexion, ivory skin, yellow skin. I suppose we will always need to use certian words as descriptors, but is should never be used in a derogatory manner. And, how in the hell did someone let a phrase using the word, "skinneded," become acceptable in any way shape or form. Here again is something the educators should have made happen. We as a group have dropped the ball, BUT, with a ggreat deal of work and an even greated amount of luck, we may be able to pick it back up. I have some ideas but will give you some background first. Here we go..!
I have been wallowing in this field for the better part of the last two decades and still have no fucking idea what I am doing. I want you to know that I do not mean that is a nebulous, "my head is permanently in the sand, or up my ass as far as that goes," manner. I truthfully mean that things change every second when one deals with the human teenager, so... It is not possible to, "know what you are doing." I have styles that work, for some, and ideas that I can impart to colleagues, but nothing I say or do works in every, or even most, case(s).
I often get overwhelmed just by the sheer enormity of my task. I have no God complex, so you may as well get that out of your mind right now. I do not see myself as, "The Great ...(anything you choose to insert)... Hope." I do, though, consider myself one of the billions of "Keepers of the Keys." Our children are our future and we CONSTANTLY do them the disservice of forcing them to comply with outdated rule and regulations based on some time that I find it difficult to believe has any REAL bearing on today's society. For instance, the entire compulsory school system with set rules dating back to the early 1900s, makes no sense in 2007. What about the absolute segregation of kids by economics? I know I can, and do, make a difference each day. I believe in my kids, but I need them (and their parents/family) to do the same. More importantly, I see the need to get the rest of the nation to see that what we are doing throughout the United States is the wrong damned approach. We ALL have a stake in ALL of our children and ALL of society.
You "lily-white," motherfuckers need to come down out of your ivory towers and make things better, and not through another donation. All of you who are talking about the environment seem to be forgetting that education of those in our own country will be much easier than trying to get someone else, as is always the way we fucking do things, to do what WE want. Help me to affect the, "paradigm shift," that is being so touted within the environmental community lately. I do not deny that we have treated the planet like shit, but I am much more worried about how we treat our neighbors.
In the year 2007 we should never have to hear things about race relations. Over two hundred years as a country and we still have fundamental differences with folks due to their SKIN COLOR???? What the fuck is wrong????? This goes for the bitching within your own communities as well. "Light-skinneded vs. dark-skinneded," light and dark complexion, ivory skin, yellow skin. I suppose we will always need to use certian words as descriptors, but is should never be used in a derogatory manner. And, how in the hell did someone let a phrase using the word, "skinneded," become acceptable in any way shape or form. Here again is something the educators should have made happen. We as a group have dropped the ball, BUT, with a ggreat deal of work and an even greated amount of luck, we may be able to pick it back up. I have some ideas but will give you some background first. Here we go..!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
