Tabatha's Bitch Takeover

So, today I was browsing Google News as I usually do and this headline popped up: "Tabatha Coffey: The making of BITCH"   in which Ms. Coffey equates "BITCH" to being honest and willing to speak her mind.  I don't have a problem with being honest or being willing to speak my mind...sometimes to my own detriment.  But why should that require me to be called a derogatory term like "Bitch".  Why can't I be just  a woman and not a bitch? 

Bitch. Bitch? Bitch!

No matter what, a woman in a position of power will be called a bitch. Repeatedly.

Last week I was (as my kids say) "yelled at" by some random guy on Facebook and told I was a "disgrace to my profession", I didn't care about kids (just myself) and that I "made him want to puke, preferably all over you" because I wanted to "shut down the schools".

In my defense, I have not taken any time off since the protests started, and this was unsolicited abuse. (BTW --somebody needs to tell the tea-party nut- jobs that they aren't the only ones being threatened in this world.)

Friday, I was verbally abused by a student, called a "bitch" and other words that I am too polite to repeat (really—they were that bad – and I was called a "Ginger" wtf?). I have been verbally abused by one or two girls in my career, but most of them had been verbally abused by their fathers and brothers – how do I know this? Because I have met the fathers and brothers and they behaved the same way to me. Boys are, in my experience, 10 times more likely to be verbally abusive.

And today it was reported in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (a very conservative newspaper I might add) State Supreme Court Justice William Prosser is accused of calling Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson a "bitch" and he also threatened to "destroy her".

My biggest problem with this incident is that Prosser claims that Abrahamson "goaded him into it." Really? In what reality is it okay to:

1. Call your boss a "bitch"

2. Threaten to destroy her

3. Call the Chief Justice a "bitch"

4. Threaten anyone you work with

5. Threaten any human being on the face of the planet? Not even Khaddafi gets away with threats.

So… my point is this. Women are bitches because as Tina Fey says, "Bitches get shit done." But it's not okay to call us "bitches" because it's abusive and stupid and reflects much more poorly on the bitch-er than the bitch-ee.

That. Is. All.

This I Believe

Kids are worth every minute of crap I take.  (I'll explain the crap in my next post.)  No matter how much I hate the politics related to my job – and politics have created an emotional roller coaster this week  -- The kids always rise to the occasion and remind me why I’m a teacher.  This week I assigned my juniors to write a short statement of personal philosophy based on Edward R. Murrow’s original NPR series This I Believe.  The quality of these papers is to their credit, because it was my first time with this project, and I didn't introduce it very well! 

Their responses were BRILLIANT.  I wish I could get permission to share them all with you.  Kids bravely stood in front of the class and told their stories about living as the child of a poverty-stricken single mother, of having to live through a cousin’s murder, and of being the victim of bullying.  Many kids were physically shaking they were so nervous.  But every one was thoughtful, well-written and personal.  They were beautiful; simply wonderful.  I think I will bake them some cookies!

Big Picture – Missed Completely

A town's two largest employers are a factory (100 workers) and a public school (50 workers). Most of the jobs in the school are white-collar jobs. If we set the average salary at $50,000 for a worker at the school and throw in some benefits, in the school this sets the wage standard for the town.

The factory worker makes on average, 20% less, $40,000 a year, and some benefits, not as cushy but livable, she doesn't have a college degree, and so that's reasonable that her wage would be lower.

Now the factory workers cry "FOUL, the teachers make too much money – they are making our property taxes too expensive." So the school district lowers the wages and benefits for the teachers 10 %. Teachers now make $45,000. We've now saved $250,000 in tax money -- or so we think.

The factory, being a business and always examining the profit margin thinks: 'If the teachers in our town just take the pay cut and are doing 'fine' then we can cut the pay of our workers, we'll manufacture some crisis – commodity prices have fallen, or the cost of transportation has gone up with the gas prices – and so now the factory workers make $36,000 – it's either that, or we lay off workers'.

So the factory workers agree – they don't want to be responsible for their shift buddy losing his job.

Now the factory worker is eligible for state-financed healthcare (she has three children and is a single mom) and reduced lunch prices from the federal government costing the state and the feds $8,000 a year in their revenues.

In addition, the teachers and the factory workers are spending $650,000 less in the small businesses in town, so three more businesses fail, some jobs are lost.

Now everyone has to drive farther for goods and services and buy from big-box stores rather than the local guy, sending money out of the community and making more need for low-wage no-skill, retail jobs.

Where do the local displaced workers go to find a job? To the retail store which pays minimum wage and hires them at 35 hours a week so they have to apply for more state and federal benefits.

Lowering wages for public workers does not reduce taxes. It only shifts tax needs from one pot to the other.

Now I'm not suggesting that teachers should be making six figure salaries or be getting more than they deserve, but realize that when you lower the wages for one group of workers in a town, other wages fall like dominoes. When you reduce the taxes in one area, another area will pay.

As my high school Economics teacher repeated every day, "There is no such thing as a free lunch."

And yes. I am very cynical.

The One Thing Scott Walker & I Agree Upon…up to a point.

Wisconsin educators and the governor agree on very little right now – except this: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker stated in his budget speech on March 1, 2011, "I set as a goal that all Wisconsin third graders should be able to read at the 3rd grade level."

How do we work together as a state to accomplish this daunting task?

The answer to having literate 3^rd graders in Wisconsin is not just about reading instruction but about combining reading instruction with arts instruction. Schools, parents and teachers who expose children to the arts, specifically music, theater, books and poetry are teaching their children something called "phonemic awareness" -- the awareness of the sounds and meanings of speech and words.

A baby recognizes her parents' voices, a toddler tests his knowledge of language by giving one word commands, and pre-school children learn nursery rhymes, songs and play pretend using language. Children also see the symbols of the language, the letters on the printed page of story books next to the beautiful pictures and on television shows designed to teach language.
These basic activities are the roots of language awareness; the next step is combining visual and performing arts with language instruction. Physical participation with words, like singing a song with Mom, playing pretend with Dad, or reading a story with Grandma, is key to the child's making sense of the language in his world.

This is where arts education is critical. The Arts Education Partnership has collated 62 studies about arts education in all the disciplines. The total picture about early arts education is clear.

1. Dramatic play enhances reading skills especially for students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. That pre-school reenactment of the story The Billy Goats Gruff is not only entertaining your child, but helping her to be more ready to read.
2. Dramatic enactment also helps writing skills by helping students to visualize and create language for a particular idea or story.
3. Arts instruction increases spatial reasoning skills, improves problem solving abilities and allows for creative thinking. This helps students apply what they have learned from a text to other activities and other disciplines like math.

Here's how it works: a child seeing a live stage production based on a book she has read will have experienced the story through sight and sound from a trusted adult, a parent, teacher or children's librarian before the production. At the production, she sees, hears and spatially understands the text; the text has come alive on the stage.
Later, after school or on the playground at recess, she embodies the characters in the play through pretending. Last, the child asks for the story to be read again, seeing repeatedly the words and symbols and pictures that readers must decode.

Providing each step of this cycle of learning is essential to teaching reading to young children. Thus it is imperative that our communities provide a rich and varied arts menu for our young children. Support for public libraries, community art centers, theater and music performance spaces, educational performance opportunities, dance instruction, public television shows designed for language instruction and music classes for little ones are crucial for literacy.
And, supporting public arenas for early arts education should be an integral part of reading education in Wisconsin.

One such place where children can experience the arts is the LuCille Tack Center for the Arts in Spencer. Programs like the stage production of the beloved children's story book Click, Clack, Moo May and participation in the Missoula Children's Theater production of Pinocchio, March 28-April 2, performances at and April 2, create literary experiences for children in central Wisconsin.

We invite you to attend or participate in a production with your little language learner or support literacy in Wisconsin. Writing to your local legislator in defense of music and arts education in the public schools, or donating what you can to support your local arts organizations will go a long way in accomplishing our shared goal of making sure every third grader can read at a third grade level.

LuCille Tack Center for the Arts, is located at 300 School Street, Spencer. Box office: 715-559-4499 web: http://www.lucilletackcenter.com/

Gobsmacked

I cried last night so hard that I hit my head on the stove hood and now I have a sore on my forehead.  I think I am going to pick the scab in order to have a scar -- a remembrance of the day when my state government sold my union and my profession down the river. 

I can't be anything but a drama queen.  And I know I'm the drama teacher but my motto has always been: "I prefer my drama onstage, thank you very much."  But I think I speak for many native Wisconsinites when I say I don't recognize my state any more. 

As collective bargaining is eliminated for public employees, I harken back (I know I'm being corny) to the day I decided to become a teacher.  I was helping a friend of the family, a high school teacher, produce a summer musical.  I loved working with the kids.  I thought, "Hey -- this is fun and you can help kids learn really neat stuff."  I have always thought acting and performing was a little selfish -- a little self-aggrandizing and egotistical (no offense meant actors -- it just wasn't for me) after a certain age and so it seemed that teaching was the route for me. 

I caught a lot of flack from my family; With horrified looks they asked,  "Why do you want to work with ...... adolescents?" 

I caught a lot of flack from my fellow students in theater -- "Oh.  High School Teaching.  It's nothing but herding cats and line readings." 

But I was undeterred.  There was the strong appeal of doing something beneficial for my community -- and receiving little pay, but maybe a decent retirement and the hard won respect of parents and students. 

I did not have an easy time getting a job -- Wisconsin educates 3 teachers for every available position. 

I did not have a good experience in my first job.  There was no formal mentoring and I was thrown to the wolves with remedial classes in the near suburbs of Chicago.  My lunchtime duty was standing in the girls bathroom to prevent girls from smoking and fighting.  I was threatened, offered bribes and physically broke up fights.  I founded a theater program in a school where there was none, producing three shows a year.  And, because of a change in the administration, I was not offered a new contract at the end of my second year and because I had not yet received tenure, I couldn't grieve the decision.

But still I perservered.  I got two waitressing jobs, substituted anywhere they would have me and finally sweet-talked my way into a full-time job at a private school that paid less than $20,000 dollars and came with no benefits.  I learned a lot about myself at that job, and I learned a lot about teaching. 

Later, to get back into public school teaching, where my heart was, I was a teacher's aide for a year, observed many brilliant and caring teachers while supporting them,  and finally got a long-term subbing job.   After four years of clawing my way back in,  I got a full-time contract.  I had to leave that job to raise twins. 

When the kids were nearly out of pre-school I luckily found a job in a cute little town, where I fit in, where kids were mostly well-behaved, and where I have taught for seven great years.  It's not perfect, but I love it and I love the kids that I teach. 

Now, because of the budget cuts, the death of bargaining rights and the uncertainty of the state of education in our state, I find myself with a layoff notice.  The day after I received a nomination for a second teaching award, I received the layoff notice.   

Governor Walker has mentioned on his website the award-winning first year teacher who lost her job because of the seniority system.  But he is missing (as usual) the big picture.  Many award winning teachers, some who have dedicated their lives to teaching, are losing their jobs -- I have almost 20 years of teaching experience and I am on the chopping block, too. 

The "tools" Mr. Walker  is giving the school districts are untenable.  In order for my district to hire me back, they must do so at the expense of the rest of the faculty at my school, my beloved, supportive co-workers.  The staff who have not been laid off will have to give up part of the paltry pay and benefits they have earned for many of work and dedication to make sure that class sizes (they are about 25 right now) only grow to 30 -- not to 40.   Classes of 40 students rarely go beyond attendance & discipline.  There is no room for individual attention. 

I don't want to ask for this, but I have three children to feed.  I don't have any choice. 

Mr. Walker, until you and the legislature give up your rights to give yourselves raises, your rights to schedule your hours and to determine your benefits I cannot respect your choices. 

Until you and Republican controlled legislature put the children and the workers of Wisconsin ahead of your political  and corporate agenda, I cannot do anything but work for your recall.

Practically Positive in Every Way

     At parent-teacher conferences, the parents who show up are super-supportive of what we do in the classroom. 
     Case #1:  As I left the building to grab lunch before conferences there was a sign across the street from the staff parking lot with the phrase " <3 teachers the way they <3 your children" -- one of the WEAC sponsored signs from the protests in the state capitol and around the state.  I know who lives in that house (it's a small town), and she's not a teacher, she's a nurse (but isn't a public worker), and I have taught all three of her children. 
     When she came in to discuss her daughter's progress with me (her kid is an excellent student and human being -- like her mom), I asked her about the sign and thanked her for putting it up.  She said she'd been to Madison, carried that sign around with her all day, and when she returned she stuck it in the snow bank because she knew that the teachers from our school would see it when they left that night. 
     After the emotional roller coaster of the last three weeks, I nearly teared up.  She went on to say that she was so impressed with the education that her kids had gotten at our school, that she wanted to let us know how she felt and so she put up the sign. 
     Case # 2: A parent, and my son's cub-scout leader came to see me during conferences (I don’t have any of his kids in class right now, but have taught two) to assure me that he and other parents were going to make sure the referendum we have on the ballot April 5, would pass. (If the referendum does not pass, my job, or the size of my job is in jeopardy.  I received notice this week.) And, he said, he was going to march in the streets, and knock on doors to get people to vote. 
     Case # 3: A mother of one of my daughter's best friends stood at the entrance to the school, passing out pamphlets to incoming parents about the referendum.  She also was concerned about my situation, and expressed dismay at the state of the state. 
      In the eight-hour marathon of parent teacher conferences (after 4 hours of teaching kids who know they are out at noon...) I found more encouragement from outside my profession than I have had in the last five years of my career.  Thank you.
     Teachers don't ask for or need a lot of outside encouragement.  We are motivated by those "light-bulb" moments we see in our students.  But this week has taught me that although the rhetoric in the country is negative, many will stand up when they see the rhetoric affect the people in their own town. 
      And thank you to Jon Stewart and Ed Schultz this week who testified on the national stage to the incredible difficulty of our profession by honoring their mothers who were teachers.