Mr. Huckabee has three other colleagues who have similar views: “Women’s voices are not appropriate or qualified to participate in the debate over birth control” (Rep. Darrell Issa, R–Calif.); “That’s not denying women’s rights. If a woman then wants birth control, go work somewhere else” (Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback); “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down” (Former Rep. Todd Akin, R–Mo.).
WOW—War on Women—and the “Pander Bears” have spoken. It’s enough to make a cat laugh.
If any of the above miscreants are married, their spouses-partners have grounds for divorce.
Homework reading assignment: The Joy of Not Being Married: A Guide to Singles (And Those Who Wish They Were) by Ernie Zelinski and No Kids: 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children by Corinne Maier.
Madeleine de Scudery probably said it best when she said, “In losing a husband, one loses a master who is often an obstacle to the enjoyment of many things.” And Liz Winston who said, “I think, therefore, I am single” may have been referring to George Washington, who said, “It’s better to be alone than with bad company.”
David A. Hancock
Chester
Football Proficiency Law
Here’s the No Child Left Behind football version.
All teams must make the state playoffs, and all must win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions and coaches will be held accountable. If, after two years, they have not won the championship, their footballs and equipment will be taken away until they do win the championship.
All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time, even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to practice on their own. No exceptions will be made for lack of interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities of themselves or their parents. All kids will play football at a proficient level.
Talented players will be asked to work out on their own, without instruction. This is necessary because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in football. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept on the third, fourth, fifth, eighth and tenth games.
It will create a new age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimum goals. If no child gets ahead, then no child gets left behind.
If parents do not like this new law, they are encouraged to vote for vouchers and support private schools that can screen out the nonathletes and prevent their children from having to go to school with bad football players.
This law has been revised from A Teacher’s Calendar—Didactic Pensive Musings, Satire, and Oxymorons on Education Issues.
Where is it said that everything worth learning is on a test?
David A. Hancock
Chester
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
WIT AND WISDOM TO PONDER
Dave Lange’s perspicacious column and uninvited commencement address, “Graduates Get Words of Wisdom,” of June 4–5, “I’m Going to Tell You What Not to Do,” reminded me of my commencement address as senior class adviser to the class of 1987 at Cleveland Heights High School.
Ruminating on the event at the Front Row Theatre with approximately 2,500 in attendance, my introduction was, “I have a gift to the graduating class of 1987. My speech will be short.” Laughter. “As all of you know, being a science educator, I do not want to add excess carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and damage ozone.”
The title of my commencement address should have been “I’m Going to Tell You What You Should Do.”
“Please refer to the additional supplemental references in your program for future reference. Refer to it frequently. So you don’t have to take notes now and take a test on Monday.” Laughter.
Thank your inspiring teachers. Verbally and written.
Overcome your miseducation. By this, I mean what was educationally significant and hard to measure seems to be replaced by what is educationally insignificant and easy to measure—multiple guess-memory tests. So now we measure how well we’re taught what isn’t worth learning.
Remember the following wit and wisdom:
•“I never let schooling interfere with my education” (Mark Twain).
•“You can get all As and still flunk life” (Marian Wright Edelman).
•“Fame-celebrity is a mask that eats into the face” (John Updike).
Avoid the lethal habits of criticizing, blaming, complaining, nagging, bullying, threatening, punishing, bribing, and controlling.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. Read Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson.
Avoid the lethal need to judge, to keep score, to get even, to control.
Practice the caring habits of supporting, encouraging, listening (listen and silent have the same letters), accepting, trusting, respecting, and negotiating differences. Avoid being a misanthrope.
Do not be odious, petulant, or a boss-dictator. Be a leader who does not fix blame but fixes mistakes.
Read and implement The No Asshole Rule by Robert Sutton.
The quality of our life is determined by the quality of our thinking.
Avoid the mistakes of humans recommended by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), which are the illusion that personal gain is made up of crushing others, neglecting development and refinement of the mind and not acquiring the habit of reading and study, and attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.
Read and study the following ASAP:
•30 Days to Better Thinking and Better Living through Critical Thinking: A Guide for Improving Every Aspect of Your Life by Linda Elder and Richard Paul
•Wisdom of the Ages: A Modern Master Brings Eternal Truths into Everyday Life by Wayne Dyer
•Any Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff books by Richard Carlson
•Any book by Rabbi Harold Kushner, especially Living a Life that Matters and Overcoming Life’s Disappointments: Learning from Moses How To Cope With Frustration
•Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now by Gordon Livingston, MD
•Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole by Stephen Law
•The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die by John Izzo
•The Top Ten Things Dead People Want to Tell You by Mike Dooley
David A. Hancock
Chester
Final Reflections
“If Hancock elicits anger, he should at least make you think, and that is always a good precedent for action.”
The Problem
School is the first place where children learn how to fail. School culture (physical and psychological environments) tends to elicit and are antecedents to student oppositional defiant disorder (especially if you are a boss-dictator who manages and teaches with coercion.
The Solution
As Kirsten Olson reports in her book Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing Up to Old School Culture:
We all have to start by actually noticing, in a clear and relatively objective way, the things that are dysfunctional about school: how it’s organized, how it makes learners feel day to day, how it achieves its “results” and whether those results are the ones we actually want and intend. Lots of us involved with school teachers, students, parents, administrators, support staff, policymakers—complain about educational systems, but don’t take action to join together with others to actually do something about them. The Giant Step in standing up is forming groups to begin talking to others about school practices, po
licies, and procedures that don’t work—groups that help us understand why schools are as they are, and what we can do about them. Standing up often involves starting with small acts of protest, asking hard questions, supporting others in objecting, refusing to accept “Because that’s the way we do it” answers. Seemingly insignificant little changes can lead to big transformations. It’s a matter of getting started. Otherwise, it’s an oxymoron; “It is essential to the triumph of Reform that it should never succeed.”
William Hazlitt, English writer
My intentions are to be a provocateur who uses words to fulminate discussion, debate, deliberation, and introspection in reference to teaching, learning, schooling, and education.
I recall one of my colleagues saying that we should evaluate a book by whether we can remember them or whether they change the way we think/feel about an issue or subject. It is my hope that I have changed the way you think and feel about teaching, learning, schooling, and education. “We must be the change we wish to see in the world” (Gandhi).
The Panacea
1.We need more male (especially black male) teachers K–5. As it stands now, 83 percent of teachers are white women and 93 percent of K–5 teachers are white women.
2.Administration needs to appoint teachers who reflect the “distinctive dispositions and temperaments—personality characteristics of successful teachers.”
3.Teachers/educators need to implement the philosophy of Haim Ginott in Teacher and Child and Between Parent and Child, William Glasser in The Quality School Teacher, and Jawanza Kunjufu (AfricanAmericanImages.com) in Black Students. Middle Class Teachers, and Kmt Shockley in The Miseducation of Black Children.
4.Sadly, I think that many cannot think clearly enough to understand that they are not thinking clearly in reference to teaching, learning, schooling, and education.
5.In order to teach children fairly and equally, we must treat and teach them differently. Is it a learning disability or a teaching disability?
6.The indelible words of Arthur Costa—“What was educationally significant and hard to measure has been replaced by what is educationally insignificant and easy to measure. So now we measure how well we’ve taught what isn’t worth learning.”
7.Let’s replace the educationally insignificant to the educationally significant!
Appendix A
BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT REFLECTIONS
Instructions: Write the paragraph assigned by the end of class the next school day. Failure to do so will result in a more severe form of reprimand.
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I was given this short paragraph to write as a reminder not to use profanity in the classroom, a violation of school policy and classroom rules. I must demonstrate more self-control and discipline in the weeks ahead. I appreciate this method and this approach to deal with my social and personal development as a responsible young adult. I understand that if this disciplinary action does not appear to control my use of profanity in the classroom, a more severe form of reprimand will follow. However, by demonstrating self-control and discipline, I will not receive another paragraph for profanity and will be able to use my time more efficiently in activities that develop my academic potential and my intellectual growth.
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I was given this short paragraph to write as a reminder not to use racially / nationality insulting terms in the classroom, a violation of school policy and classroom rules. I must demonstrate more self-control and discipline in the weeks ahead. I appreciate this method and this approach to deal with my social and personal development as a responsible young adult. I understand that if this disciplinary action does not appear to control my use of racially / nationality insulting terms in the classroom, a more severe form of reprimand will follow. However, by demonstrating self-control and discipline, I will not receive another paragraph for racially / nationality insulting terms and will be able to use my time more efficiently in activities that develop my academic potential and my intellectual growth.
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I was given this short paragraph to write as a reminder not to disrupt the educational atmosphere, a violation of school policy and classroom rules. I must demonstrate more self-control and discipline in the weeks ahead. I appreciate this method and this approach to deal with my social and personal development as a responsible young adult. I understand that if this disciplinary action does not appear to control my disruption in the classroom, a more severe form of reprimand will follow. However, by demonstrating more self-control and discipline, I will not receive another paragraph for disruption of the classroom and will be able to use my time more efficiently in activities that develop my academic potential and my intellectual growth.
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Appendix B
THE EDUCATOR’S OATH
I solemnly pledge to dedicate my life to the science of teaching. I will give to those who are or have been my teachers the respect and gratitude which is their due. I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity: the well-being of my students will be my primary concern always. I will honor the position of parents and uphold public trust. I will maintain by all the means in my power. (Robert L. DeBruyn, author of The Master Teacher)
I meditated on this oath daily since I started teaching in 1969! The placebo effect?
Appendix C
ELEVEN WAYS TO RAISE A TOXIC CHILD
by Bill Oliver
Reprinted with permission from the Passage Group (www.thepassagegroup.com).
1.Be their lawyer. No matter what they do, defend them. Be their advocate … right or wrong.
2.Be their banker. Finance all of their wants. This will give them a sense of entitlement which will last them for the rest of their lives.
3.Be their insurance company. Any time they make a mistake, you pay the price. They have the party … you have the hangover.
4.Be their agent. Cut the best deals for them. Use your personal contacts and influence to be sure that they rise to the top.
5.Be their mechanic. If anything in their life is broken, you fix it … even if they broke it themselves. That way, they will never have to learn about “consequences.”
6.Be their administrative assistant. Every child needs a personal secretary. Be sure to let them delegate their responsibilities to you. Always do their homework for them … that way, they can make the “honor roll.”
7.Be their butler. Learning how to manage servants will be important as they grow up and become successful. Let them start with you.
8.Be their apologist. Put your best “spin” forward. Make excuses for their bad behavior. Blame the teacher, the school, the community, the Republicans, the Democrats … anybody but your child.
9.Be their emotional doormat. They have a bad day and you pay the price. They want respect from everyone but refuse to give it to you.
10.Be their fairy godparent. Turn pumpkins into coaches. Wave your wand and make it happen. After all, making them “happy” is your primary function in life.
11.Fail to share your belief system with your child. They will have a system of belief. The question becomes “Who will teach it to them, and what will it be?” People act out of what they believe … in their hearts. The difference between Hitler and Mother Theresa was a matter of belief. Like the song from the musical South Pacific says, “You Have to Be Carefully Taught.”
Further Reading List
•Don’t forget to look up the word heterodoxy and then follow the meaning during the rest of your life.
•The Mad Teacher panacea. Let’s settle this once and for all—right here, right now. Become an autodidact and read/review/reflect on the following: “What The Teacher is—is more import
ant than what s/he teaches” (Karl Menninger).
•The Quality School Teacher and Every Student Can Succeed by William Glasser (wglasser.com).
•Heart of a Teacher by Paula J. Fox.
•Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing Up to Old School Culture by Kirsten Olson.
•Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think and What We Can Do About It by Jane M. Healy.
•The Inspired Teacher: How to Know One, Grow One, or Be One by Carol Frederick Steele.
•The American Public School Teacher: Past, Present, and Future by Darrel Drury and Justin Baer.
•Any publication from RethinkingSchools.org and journal subscription.
•Any publication from AfricanAmericanImages.com.
•Any publication from ASCD.org professional development DVDs.
•Any publication from ResponsiveClassroom.org.
•Any publication from MasterTeacher.com.
•Any publication from TeachersCollege/tcpress.com.
•Black Students. Middle Class Teachers by Jawanza Kunjufu.
•Challenging Assumptions in Education: From Institutionalized Education to a Learning Society by Wendy Priesnitz (The Alternate Press).
•In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child’s Personal Learning Style by Thomas Armstrong.
•The Myth of the A.D.D. Child: 50 Ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Attention Span without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion by Thomas Armstrong.
•Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto.
•Motivating Black Males to Achieve in School and in Life by Baruti Kafele.
•Black Teachers on Teaching by Michele Foster.
•Teaching with Poverty in Mind by Eric Jensen.
The Diary of a Mad Public School Teacher Page 11