Parenting Skills 101

Okay, so I am walking in my neighborhood and as I approach a house I hear a very angry youngin holler "I want to go outside! Why can't I play? Let me go outside!" Dad's response? "Well you can't, so just shut your mouth!" AHHHHHHH! Do not tell your child to shut his mouth!!!!! This is very bad parenting. This is not excusable. This is just simply wrong. Dad could have said, "Hmmm, where did my little boy go? My little guy would never scream at me like that." Or maybe, "I can tell you're upset but until you can speak to me appropriately I can't answer you." Another response might have been, "Well I know you want to go outside, but it is time for a bath now, so you can play more tomorrow if you can behave tonight." Dad even could have said, "You are making me very mad right now and I have no patience left, so I'll just go in the other room while you finish your tantrum." But the very worst thing he could say, he said. Poor little boy.

Shirts for sale! Shirts for sale! T-shirts come in Men's and Women's S M L for $12.00. XL and XXL for $14.00. Youth S M L and Toddler sizes are $10.00. Pick your size and color. Shipping is extra and I encourage group orders to lower that cost! Pick up and local delivery is also available for free! If you think all the testing that the reformers are advocating that does nothing to improve education, but will put money in the pockets of those involved in the testing industry is assinine, then wear a shirt that says so. If you are a public school employee or student who is proud of what we stand for, then wear a shirt that says so. If you are a survivor of any trial, then wear a shirt that says so. If you are simply fabulous, then wear a shirt that says so! This is a start up business, I don't have a business website or a way to collect payment other than the old fashioned way, you send me a check, I get you a shirt! You can order by calling me if you are friend and know my number, by responding to this posting, private message me on facebook, or email me at rose42benn@comcast.net. Phone numbers and addresses can be exchanged and your shirt(s)will be on the way! If you are interested, then please spread the word!

I am tired. I am as tired as anyone else who is sick of hearing about educational reform. I am tired of preaching to the choir. I am tired of trying to get new songsters to realize they are in danger. I am tired of trying to convince my well intentioned friends that the rich business people and the politicians do not know more than I do about the field of education. I am tired of hearing busy parents tell me how unfair they think the treatment of teachers is, but they don’t know what to do about it. I am tired of busy parents blaming teachers and agreeing with the politicians while ignoring the fact that their student has a role to play in his or her own education. I am tired of being tried in the media, being reviled by the media, being made to look downright stupid by the media and not once being given a platform by the media. I am tired. Here are some points to ponder as they relate to the widening topic of educational reform.  Teachers studied to be teachers and while they do benefit from mentoring and guidance they do not need expensive packaged programs that direct how they teach.  Teachers are people first, not insensitive automatons. They actually care about their students.  Teachers are not overpaid.  The Peter Principle is alive and well in education as it is in politics.  Parents do need to hold themselves accountable for their children’s education.  Students do need to do their homework.  Students do need to actually learn the lessons being taught and not just passively take in information. This requires independent study.  Teachers do need to realize that just presenting information is not teaching; truly a college educated person is not needed to tell students what it is they need to learn.  Teachers need to demand that students think, this is much more difficult than giving a lecture or assigning an assignment.  Parents need to allow teachers to demand that their students think.  Students need to demand that their teachers make them think.  Grades should not be that important as they reflect not what a student actually knows but only what the student has been able to demonstrate that he or she knows.  Test scores should be used to provide information on what was intended by the assessment, and not be the instrument that decides that anyone is a success or a failure. A test shows a moment in time, not a lifetime of learning or achievement.  A test score cannot define a student, a teacher, a school, a district, a community, a city or a state; none of these can be summed up by multiple choice questions.  A multiple choice question does not account for a difference of opinion nor provide the platform to engage in discourse to explain one’s rational for their opinion.  In the classroom, in education, being wrong should be okay. Learning only happens when mistakes are made. If I know it; I do it right. If I am learning it, I need to try. Trying means that mistakes will be made. With the way education is being approached, is it any wonder students just stop trying?  What happens when students stop trying? We all fail.  Let teachers teach.

New Year

I believe it is better to be rich than to be poor. I believe that those who are rich, and I mean really, really rich, don't care at all about the poor. I believe that we are being trampled on by leaders who grew up not wanting, not needing, and not being taught to care at all about the plight of so many. I believe that to be really, really rich means that you are completely out of touch with the reality of the majority of citizens who are in need of so very, very much. I believe that we are never going to be a country of equality because greed has become the ominous sound of love for those who would be in control and are in control. How did we get to this? How did we go from President George Washington who was a farmer who went back to his fields when his term was done, to career politicians who live to preside and preside to control? I don't know. But, I know it is better to be rich than to be poor. I know this because even though the rich are mean and ugly inside, and selfish, and godless, they decide. I believe that those of us who sit somewhere in the middle are going to continue to be steered toward the precipice of poverty and will indeed be struggling always. I believe that the American Dream is just that, a dream that can no longer be achieved. There surely was a time in this country of ours when those at the bottom could aspire to and climb their way to the top, but unfortunately those who have always been at the top have decided that there is no room, and they have crushed the dream and stomped on it like a burning cigarette that threatened to burn the tip of their precious little finger. So, I believe it is better to be rich than to be poor. I believe that those who are born into wealth will always be better readers, better students, get better jobs, have more opportunities, get into better colleges, have better self esteem, will be more stylish, will be the stars of the teams, will not be sick as often and when they are will get better care so they will also live longer. They will continue to be in control because they can afford to buy their seats at every level of government, because that is what government has become, a buy your seat at the table of "Yes I've arrived, what the hell do I do now?" If you are comfortable financially, with your personal relationships and or with you own self then it is easy to be complacent and think that you will continue to have a "nice life." You may think my belief that it is better to be rich than to be poor is either completely obvious or ridiculous, and either way, not how you want to greet the new year. Well I can't greet the new year with all that fabricated hope that we will all be better off somehow because well, it's a new year! I can't usher in 2014 with the idea the we as Americans are going to be okay because well, it's a new year! I believe it is better to be rich than to be poor. There are so many more poor, very poor, and utterly without, than there are those who are comfortable, and those who are well off, and those who are rich, and those who are very, very rich. And those who decide have decided not to try and change that. The one for sure thing I can say about what is in store for 2014 is that it is better to be rich than to be poor. Welcome 2014, and to end with a positive, may those who need be given. Rosemary

I came up with an idea quite a while ago to develop products around the concept of Yes I am... With the educational climate being what it is, and being an educator, I decided I wanted to make a statement. I came up with a T-Shirt that says Yes I am... on the front, and more than a test score! on the back. I have been wearing mine proudly to school and will continue to, everyday. I seriously plan to wear my shirt EVERYDAY. I am mad as hell, I am not going to take it anymore, and I am more than a test score, and this is my way of shouting it! I believe teachers need to wear this shirt, and students of all ages need to wear this shirt until those mandating that testing define us get that it doesn't! I am so much more than a test score! Every student is so much more that a test score! We need to stop the nonsense that is going on in Lansing and in Washington. We need to stop this madness, and that is what it is. I used to think that it was just ridiculous, the idea that a test score, a number that tells nothing about what a student actually understands or what he or she doesn't, was causing so much havoc in the world of education, but it has gone beyond being just ridiculous, it has become damaging. The idea that a test score, a number, that gives no information concerning what an individual student really understands or doesn't understand, has become the way we decide which teachers are good and which teachers are not, has become the way we determine which students are "college and career" ready and which are not, is unconscionable. What does an ACT score of 16 tell you? What does an ACT score of 24 tell you? It tells me that overall, the student with the 16 tested less well than the student who scored 24, but it doesn't tell me why. It gives me no indication of how "ready" the student is for life after high school. I know students who scored quite high on the ACT and I know students who scored low, I also know which of these students are more prepared to be successful after high school based on many factors that have nothing to do with their test score, but you can't put that information into any data machine. So if you agree that a test score does not define you, does not define any student, than order one of my shirts. The cost of the shirt is $13.00 which includes tax. I am only just beginning this start-up so I will need you to leave me contact info at rose42benn@comcast.net You can order most any color, sizes are small, med. lrg, & XL, men's or women's. Shipping charges for orders of 10 or more - free, so get with your colleagues, otherwise shipping in the U.S. is $3.00. Yes I am... more than a test score!

This is an open letter to Governor Rick Snyder and the Michigan Legislature. I am a public school teacher, and when I walked out of my building at the end of the 2011-2012 school year I felt battered, abused, confused and angry. I knew that myself and my peers were professional, resourceful, hard working, diligent, knowledgeable, caring, and committed yet we had just spent a year trying to do our jobs while the educational system was in complete disarray thanks to your work at “reforming” and “reinventing,“ and we were being told that it was all our fault. I hoped that over the summer sanity would return to Lansing and those making the decisions as to how public education should be reformed would see the mess they were creating and stop the nonsense. Alas, no sane person materialized and things only got worse. I spent the 2012-2013 school year trying to make sense out of a complete breakdown of this glorious institution that was created to form a knowledgeable citizenry able to benefit from the right to pursue happiness. I know what you are doing. I know that you do not care about the children of this state, so when you utter the words “it’s all about the children” you make me want to throw up. When you say that giving more money to the schools is not the answer I want to slap you up side the head and yell “You lying sack of doo doo, of course you know that adequately funding school districts will improve them and make it possible for all students to have the opportunity to achieve!” How do I know this? Well first of all, and probably the most in your face example is the fact that Governor Snyder, your children attended Greenhills, a private school in Ann Arbor that cost 18,000 dollars a year. It was acknowledged that that amount was not enough to provide the education that your children and their classmates deserve so fundraising takes place to get the additional money necessary to educate them in the way you, and the parents of their peers, want them to be educated. How can you tell the people of Michigan, with a straight face, that its not about the money? Glad I could work that in, now to continue with how I know that you all don’t give a damn about the kids you profess in your speeches to be working for. If you cared about the children of this state you would not be cutting the programs that directly aid the ones whose parents need assistance. If you cared about the children of this state you would be acknowledging that there is a crisis in mental health care and much needed facilities to help those suffering from problems that the schools are not equipped to fix. If you cared about the children of this state you would care about their mothers and not be circumventing their ability to get the medical care they need. If you cared about the children of this state they would not be considered “human capital” and therefore just another cog in the wheel of capitalism. If you cared about the children of this state you would be consulting those who are educated in child and adolescent development as well as those of us who teach these children everyday, as you seek to improve the educational system and not those who will profit from the additional testing you advocate for and the increased reliance on technology in schools that will also bring profits to those in that industry. If you cared one bit about the children of this state you would be doing everything in your power, and boy do you have power, to eradicate the villain that is the root of all of the educational problems, POVERTY. But you don’t care, not about the children of this state. I feel it is important to point out that with all of the quick changes, the lives of teachers have been greatly impacted. I am trying to remain articulate here, but my inner voice is demanding to be heard and is screaming “You are decimating people’s lives and you do not give a damn! How do I know you don’t give a damn? Because you keep passing laws that wipe out teachers’ jobs and put them in the unemployment lines creating stress that transfers to their children who now will have their ability to learn impacted and their tests scores will go down and it will be the teachers’ fault so you will have more reasons to point your fingers, close more schools and put more money in the pockets of the vultures waiting to pounce and reform their way to prosperity. So I am about to begin a new school year, I know that it will not be better than the last school year, it will in fact most likely be far worse. It will be worse because we are again faced with legislation that will demand things of us that we cannot produce because it is all happening too fast, and those at the top are more confused than those of us in the trenches. Those of you who are legislating know nothing about the daily job of educating the children you profess to care so deeply about, so you cannot begin to comprehend how your laws will impact their educational future, but then you just don’t care either. You are on a mission to make public education obsolete, to further divide students economically, to create opportunities for those with money to profit in the arena of education, and because your children will find success because money produces opportunity, you simply do not care about the rest of the children of this state.

Okay, I tried to have this make sense but it is all backwards. I believe it is worth the effort of reading backwards though. The post that follows this is Stephen Henderson's reply to the post about my granddaughter. Next is my reply to him and the one after that is what started it all! So, scroll down to the post about my granddaughter if you haven't read it yet, then Henderson's reply, then mine. I promise you it's worth it. Your comments are welcome and appreciated. Having fun again!