I gots me a pretty little bias

So, here's my story.
I was eating at an outdoor restaurant with a friend.  A car pulled around the corner at incredible speed.  The car was being followed very closely by another car.  When they both stopped, the driver of the second car jumped out of his car with a baseball bat.  He reached into the second car and hit one of the passengers with the bat.

My first thought was "What did those guys do to make him so angry?"
No, I did not say "Who hits people with a baseball bat?" Nor was it "Violence is not the answer." or any non-violent things that I would normally think (because I am all hands-across-America like that).

The first car was an expensive sport's car filled with young, white men.
The second car was a clunker with one brown driver, the same skin color as me.

So, here it is.  Somewhere deep inside, if I see a conflict between people of different races, I assume it's the white person who is the aggressor.  Kind of the opposite of the norm, but still not right.

I do know where this came from.  Growing up, I went to three major schools that had very distinct racial breakdowns.  From first grade to fourth grade, I went to a school that had a population that was basically half black and half white.  From fourth to sixth grade I went to a school that was half Asian and half white.  From seventh through high school, I went to a school that was half white and half Latino.

In that time I was bullied, my friends were bullied, and fellow students who weren't friends were bullied. If the bully and the bullied were of different races (as they often were), the bully was always white.  Somehow, that planted the seed in me that all conflicts between races will have the white person as the bully.

What does that mean for me as a teacher?  Alot.  I have to be objective and see every conflict on its own.  Will it make me think any differently if the conflict is between people of different races?

So, I work at a school  that has a completely different race structure than the one I grew up in.  I teach drama which has plenty of conflict, but really no bullying.  So, if there is a conflict, it's probably not going to be racially based, but the situation may not always be this way.

There we go.

a british guy draws on a dry erase board

I am seriously trying to think of the video we watched last week in class and respond to it critically.

Some points that came across were:

School is Expensive

the System is outdated

The System is based on the model of industrialization.

So this leads me to the question of value.

At this point we respect education because it is supposed to get us a job.  

Then you go to college and realize that almost everything you major in won't really get you a job, so you learn the idea of the value of education for the sake of education.  You don't need to go to college and major in art, you can be an artist without the education, but there is value to you personally to learn from people surrounded by your peers.

Really, there are very few jobs out there for someone who majors in Piano, American Studies, Chicano Studies (ahem, theatre), religious studies. women's studies, queer studies, dance, ...perhaps I should break it down by college. 

In the university setting there is value to education for education's sake.  Is this because more than anything Universities are still a business?  Have they falsely created the value in order to have more buyers for their product? Or is there really some value and we just don't see it in the rest of the world.

If there is value in just education, then why does it not translate down to the high school level?  If that were the case, then I would not be the only one forced to put lessons of other subjects in my coursework, there would be teachers from Math, English, and Science having to slyly introduce lessons in theatre and pottery in their classes.  They don't, because Math, English, and Science are the classes that will push you forward, they are the classes that will get you into a good college, get you a good job, and buy you a house.... or something...I think that's the end goal.  I am a bit foggy on the American Dream.  The goal is a house, right?

Priviledge

I was talking to a teacher at another high school. 
I teach at a high school on the south side of coors and I-40.  He teaches at a school on the north side of coors and I-40.  They are a five minute drive from each other.  They are both high schools.  That is where the similarity ends.
I teach at a title I school with the majority of the student body being of color.  He teaches at a private school with the majority of students being white.
My school is public.  His school is private.  The students who go there spend more on one year of schooling than I spent on my first degree in college.  Should they decide to stay in the state to go to college, they will pay less for tuition than they did in high school.   Sorry, their parents will pay less for tuition.

In the discussion, I told the other teacher where I worked....he then did that thing where you suck air through your teeth (this is the same response you get when you tell people the time a billy goat rammed you in the nuts or you tell someone from Santa Fe that you live anywhere else in the state of New Mexico). 
It was a reaction of sympathy, pain, and whatever...overall it was offensive.  I am not a violent person, but it made me want to hurt him.  He may have thought he was telling me that he understood. To me it was a reaction of superiority.  He apparently had heard "how bad" things were over there. 

To me it was just the general dissapproval that the haves give to the have nots.  As if something the have nots have done put them into the position that they are in.  More than anything I was not pleased with the way he somehow made me a part of his team.  Somehow, he failed to see that I was no different than my students.  I come from the same background, I earn about the same as their parents do.  Am I supposed to nod my head and say "yeah, it's rough.  They speak Spanish and stuff..." 

I think this is also a problem with our educational system.  People in charge are the haves.  They somehow blame the have nots with laziness, lower intelligence, inability to organize and continue to contemplate the problems of their own.
Yes, I am a little angry.

The books and superman

The blame game is interesting.
It seems that the only thing people can agree on is that our educational system is broken.

Waiting for superman blames the teachers unions.  Teachers are being rewarded for basically not leaving.  They get seniority they get paid more.   I see this.  I have two bachelor's degrees, A terminal Master's degree, and have take extra classes after that.  I currently earn four dollars more a year than someone with one bachelor's degree.

Some teachers blame parents.  They don't get involved.

Some teachers blame their own education which has left them clueless as to how to deal with actual human beings.

Some teacher's blame the system that won't just let them teach the way they want to teach.

Now, I do know that some complaints are coming from people who really don't want an education system at all.  They think that all schools should be private schools.  I know that they will come up with any excuse ever to blame everyone.  The only excuse they won't use is that we need to dump more money into the system.  Other than that, they are open to the blame game.

I also know that just because people have different motives that it doesn't negate their assessments.

I am just wondering what this all means.  Is the system like my old ford tempo that was just done for?  There were too many things wrong with it to just fix.  Should we just scrap the whole system and start over?
Or is the answer in the charter school system where not everything is set by some governing body?

I have no idea.  I'm tired.

Parents

Parental involvement is brought up again and again in school.
How can we do anything with a student when there is no partnership at home?  What happens when parents don't care?  Or seems like they don't care?
This isn't actually a fair assessment, because some parents still don't know that they can participate.  I mean that some parents come from times and places where they were taught that they didn't have a say in establishments like educational systems.  Some parents are working several jobs and have no time to check in on their kids when they get home at one AM.
I work at a school where this is a problem.  Some parents don't or can't participate in the education of their kids.
This might be part of the reason that kids don't feel like school is important.  Or they don't feel like there are any repercussions for their behavior.
On the other side of the spectrum are parents who participate too much.
I have a friend who works at another school where parents don't work or can take time out of any day to call in or come to school.  Sure, he has a better classroom, but I am not sure if he has a better situation.
A student gets an A minus on a report card, and before the grades have even been printed on paper, he has a phone call and several emails.  It is not that the parents are wondering why their kids earned an A minus, they're wondering why the teacher isn't giving their kid an A plus.
There is never a question in these parents' minds that the kid could actually be at fault.  It has to be the teacher.
In this case, the parents don't respect the teacher enough to give him authority over their kid.
They also can't see that their kid could make a mistake.  The kid, therefore, learns to not respect the system and thinks they can get away with anything.

I know, when I point out the two antitheses like this that the answer is somewhere in the middle.  I don't think, however, that this is the point.  The real point is that parents can do just as much damage by being over involved as they can be not involved.

Local Teacher Selected as National Teacher of the Year

Leonard Madrid is not a small man.  He stands at six feet and four inches.  On the stage at West Mesa High School's performing arts center he is even taller.  Though, he instructs class in a calm and steady voice, the words don't really make sense.
" You can zip a zap, but you can't boing a zap.  You also can't boing a boing.", he sounds almost Seussian, but for the lack of a striped top hat.  These are the words of wisdom spoken by the man selected as Teacher of the Year.
"Mr. Madrid teaches class in an interesting manner.  His diverse background in theatre leads him to teach everything as hands-on.", states Amy Eveleth, Vice Principal at West Mesa.
"He doesn't just treat us like students.  He treats us like young professionals" says Felicia Fellange who is the current Thespian President. "We don't just talk about making theatre, we actually make it."
  Madrid is no stranger to national awards, he has received the Kennedy Center's Award for Latino Playwrights three times.  This is, however, his first award for teaching.

 

The Culture Club...

In class my group ended up discussing the other part of education.  We all agree, I think, that education is greatly concerned with the three R's.  It is concerned with a few other letters that are harder to group into clever phrases.  However, it is also about learning to be a member of society.  By society, I don't just mean how to use cash or how to salute the flag, I also mean how to deal with people.
  Perhaps it is better to say 'culture'.  For many children school is the first time they leave the culture of the family and step into a different culture.  The new culture, that of the school, is no longer defined by the rules and beliefs of the few ( Ma, Pa, and Granny), it is defined by far more people ( superintendent, senator, teachers, other people's parents, the mean girls  who don't really eat anything but still go to the cafeteria). Like Lisa Bonet said, it is a different world.
    I don't want to talk about the culture of the United States or the culture of status quo.  I grew up a poor, brown kid with a high voice, a big ass, and a swishy way of walking.  I know the downside to 'learning culture'.  I want to talk about interpersonal communication and dealing with different people.  Simply put, what is acceptable in your house is not always acceptable outside of your house.  Oh, and though your parents are supercool and great at pinochle, they don't know everything.
   I recall working with two youngsters who had never been to school.  They were not related and did not know each other before working with me, but their parents had decided (for different reasons) that their children should not be educated outside of the home. One of the youths was timid, afraid to talk, and you would sometime forget he was in the room.  The other was loud, rude, and talked about inappropriate things at the worst possible times ever since ever was invented.  They were both from opposite sides of the spectrum, but it occurred to me (after plenty of investigation) that neither of them had really been exposed to any culture outside of their own family culture.
   Despite their differences, they had a few things in common.  Neither of them could carry on a conversation very well,  neither of them responded to non-verbal cues very well, and neither of them got my jokes.  I think all of those things are peculiar.  I think one of those things is just plain wrong.  I am funny.  My funny is like a ham sandwich, it has layers.  These two were not catching any of the layers of funny sandwich I was flinging their way.
  I worked with them for several years.  In that time, they loosened up.  They learned to make conversation, and they learned to joke around.  They had learned the culture of that specific workplace. They still work there.
  I feel that the two of them had only received part of an education.  I could ask them the capitols of states, and they would be able to tell me.  They knew math very well.  They knew the facts of education, which was great, but they didn't know how to deal with people.

I am not saying that all of the culture education a student gets in school is good.  Many of the 'between the lines' education can be downright bad.  I will skip the obvious bad behavior that students learn from each other, and step right into something that bothers me.

Before teaching high school, I taught as an adjunct instructor at UNM and CNM.  Much of what I teach in college is creative stuff.  What that means is, sometimes a question can have a kabillion answers, and all of the answers can be correct.  I have found that students going through the current education system (most from New Mexico, but not all), are used to the idea that there is only one answer to every question.  Therefore, there is no need for deductive reasoning.  There is no reason for creative thought.  There is no room for opinion.  Well, there is room for one opinion...mine, and I think it's stanky.

I have been told that there is a reason for this kind of behavior, and it has to do with a specific style of teaching that must always connect to an answer on a test.  I am not sure.  All I can say is that there is something in the 'culture'  of the education system that is causing students to lose these ways of thinking.  That too is not directly being taught, but is is being learned.


 

Starbuck's and education

I am not going to kid myself.  I am conflicted about my viewpoint on centralization and decentralization of education.  I think I have a grip on both of the concepts and I see positives and negatives to each side.

   I used to work at an independent bookstore.  I loved it.  To me it was the essence of what a business should be.  It invited in strangers who had like minds.  All of the people who shopped there (except for the folks who just lived nearby) shopped there because it was part of the community.  The owners lived there, the buyers for the store had an office in the back.  If an author had recently had her book of cowboy poetry published by Podunk Press, she could probably get a signing and always have a copy of her book on the shelves.  

  Taking it back to theatre (as I will do),  I prefer theatre to film, because film must appeal to such a huge mass of audiences that it usually waters down the product in order to appeal to more.  Theatre can speak to subject matter that appeals to the region of the company. Theatre can speak to matters that might just appeal to a few people.  

   So, I have a preset idea when it comes to centralizing anything.  To me this is synonymous with homogenization ( and thought I am ok with the concept for Milk, I deplore the idea for culture).  It speaks of a person or small group of people making decisions for a large group of people they don't know or understand.  When were all sitting in an office in New York or Washington DC, who is thinking of Albuquerque, New Mexico?  Pretty much no one.  To me this is treating education like Starbuck's or worse Applebee's.  It assumes that everyone wants bacon on everything (Seriously, Applebee's, what is with all the pork?).

BUT (yes, this blog has a big but)

I also come from a very, very....very small town. The folks there understand the culture of the people in the community and the students.  They understand the lingo...they know my dad.  Everyone knows my dad.  I should also mention that the mom and pop restaurants there use plenty of pork (Seriously, Wagon Wheel, what is with all the pork?)   I would not be cool with leaving these people in charge of education either.  

   Why?  Because they have a very limited world view.  They are full of biases, misconceptions, and have incredibly closed minds.  If left to their own devices, school might become solely about Louisa May Alcott and welding.   I say that with love...I type that with love.

So where does that leave me?  In a big ole hybrid of the centralized and de-centralized, I suppose.  Of course, we need national standards.  We need to know that everyone leaving the school system has had a chance to learn many of the same things, but we also need to leave plenty of leeway for curating the educational system for potential regional and cultural differences.  Is that kind of what we have now?  Is that something we are slowly stumbling toward? I haven't a clue.

But, hey, that dress looks nice on you.

Connecting two worlds....in my brain.

Those who know me (no one really in class, but I assure you that there are people out there who know me) know that I am a theatre person.  I have spent the last twenty-one years of my life acting, writing, designing, and dramatrug-ing (That's not really a word, but it is something I have done...so I have made a gerund out of it).  I also teach theatre at many different institutions.  I have always thought of myself as a theatre person who teaches.

   Recently, I have been hired as a drama teacher at a high school.  I have not set foot in a high school in over fifteen years (except for once and that was to sneak my nephew to pizza and a movie).  I am now in charge of five classes, many of them filled with students who don't want to be there or don't want me to be there.  For the first time I have to view myself as a teacher who also does theatre.   

  Last week's class helped me realize that there really isn't that much of a gap between the two.  A philosophy of education isn't too far different from the mission statement of my theatre company (by the way, Rag and Bone opens in two weeks). 

For a theatre company to become such, all of the members have to decide why they do theatre,  what they want to get from it, and what kind of theatre they want to do.  They then work together to decide how much of each person's viewpoint they want to knead into the dough of the company ( did I mention I was also a baker for ten years?).  Most of the time people work together because they have similar ways of doing things or similar ways of thinking about things, but when you form a company you realize that sometimes your reasons for doing them are completely different.  A company makes them all jive and puts them together in a mission statement.  The mission statement becomes the constitution of the company, it defines every action that the company takes from then on.  Sometimes, a company will change the mission statement, if they feel that the needs or aesthetic of the company has changed.

I am not sure why this never occurred to me before.  I suppose, because I have never had to.  I can't go around wondering how everything is similar to theatre.