Domestic Violence

October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. This is only one of the reasons that a skit at a pep rally held in New York was so very disgusting and demeaning to minorities. The skit featured white students wearing black face and satirizing domestic violence.

You'd think that even the most obtuse individual would have recognized that the Waverly High School pep rally showcasing a skit performed by three white male students wearing black face, or make-up to make them appear black was wrong.
That these students were allowed to re-enact a 2009 domestic abuse incident when Chris Brown attacked his former girl friend Rihanna for laughs is unconscionable.
CNN contributor Matthew Dishler explains:
At the most recent Pep Rally for Waverly High School, located in Waverly NY, the usual fanfare of cheering for the home team to get them ready was in full swing. As the rally progressed you had your usual cheers and rally cries for the fall sports teams and the football team. It seemed to have done well, with Waverly defeating their opponent 70-21. But what happened at that pep rally went much farther than simple cheers. Three white students were to perform a skit in black face, depicting Chris Brown and Rhianna most notibly. In this skit they would display acts of domestic violence as satire to an audience that included not only students but parents, faculty, and various members of the media and community leaders. None of them stopped the skit.

A scene from the skit.

Now that people are coming together to slam the entire incident, Joseph Yelich, superintendent of the Waverly Central School District claims that district officials will be taking a closer look at what happened at the pep rally.He might want to begin with the faculty that failed to put a stop to this.
While effectively saying nothing of value, he said, "The Waverly School District is committed to creating a positive atmosphere through our activities. I will be working with our building administrators, our staff and our students to examine our current activities and develop future activities consistent with our commitment. Ultimately, our administrators are going to need to meet with the whole student body to set clear expectations for our behavior and the impact it has on all people."
Waverly, N.Y., is 72 percent white, according to the 2010 Census. Depending upon who you ask, the opinions are split over whether the Chris Brown-Rihanna skit was controversial.
Communities everywhere are taking a stand against this horrendous act which very often ends in murder, therefore all schools, grade, middle and high, should also reflect the lack of tolerance to domestic violence. The cycle of violence begins early, after all. 

Presidential Speech Meets the Freak Show

I for one, am thoroughly disgusted over the temper tantrums from the right over the fact that President Barack Obama intends to talk to school children about the importance of staying in school and studying hard to achieve their goals. Is the right so addled that they have forgotten that in 1988, then-President Reagan spoke to students nationwide via C-SPAN telecast? Among other things, he talked about his positions on political issues of the day.

Have they forgotten that three years later, then-President Bush addressed school kids in a speech broadcast live to school classrooms nationwide? Among other things, he promoted his own administration’s education policies.

Now, President Obama comes along and wants to deliver a message to students next week emphasizing hard work, encouraging young people to do their best in school. The reaction from the right only helps reinforce how far gone 21st-century conservatives really are.

The administration has offered to make the text of the address available in advance, just so everyone can see how innocuous it is. It's made no difference. Conservatives don't want school kids to hear a message from their president. Those who claim superiority on American patriotism have decided to throw yet another tantrum over the idea that the president of the United States might encourage young people to do well in schools.

Fox News personalities have adopted the same line, calling a stay-in-school message from the president "cultist" and reminiscent of "North Korea and the former Soviet Union."

Whether some people like it or not, President Obama is the leader of this entire nation. It doesn't matter if you voted for him or even if your head threatens to explode every time you think about him. Trust me, my head was in danger of exploding every single day from November of 2000 until January 20, 2009.

This man is the president, and, as such, it's a big deal that he's speaking directly to students about the importance of education. The idea that any child should be kept home from class just so their parents can make an empty political statement about an apolitical speech is ridiculous. Is the idea that we should shelter children from any contact with or knowledge of any president we personally dislike? Should we pretend that the president doesn't exist, just because our favored party is not currently in power? Yeah, that's really healthy and intelligent.

How can a speech about studying hard and staying in school be political? If this bothers everyone so much, perhaps putting the little darlings in front of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly afterwards will ease their anxieties.

As luck would have it, some cooler heads prevailed.

Idaho school superintendent, Murray Dalgleish of Council, urged people not to rush to judgment. He said, "Is the president dictating to these kids? I don't think so. He's trying to get out the same message we're trying to get out, which is, `You are in charge of your education.'"

So which is it? Do we want students to get the message that staying in school is important, or would we as parents be happy to hear them say things like, "Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?"
You decide.

*Image courtesy of John Cole, Scranton, PA, The Times

Armed and Dangerous

By reenee, Santa Maria

Okay, I'm back. I took a bit of a break for no reason in particular, since I never seem to run out of things to say over here. It's quite difficult to get any real local news since I quit reading the Santa Maria Times. It's so poorly put together that it shocks me that people still subscribe to it. I will usually read the Santa Barbara News Press, which is a bit better. I guess not every newspaper out there can be the New York Times, huh? The one good thing is that the Times does carry news from the Associated Press.

This one from the AP might just have people in Santa Maria buzzing, in particular the teachers. A district in Texas will be allowing teachers to carry a concealed weapon. This is their bright idea to deter and protect against school shootings. The impetus for this was the fact that the small community of Harrold is a 30 minute drive from the sheriff's office. Harrold Independent School District superintendent, David Thweat said that the campus sits near a heavily traveled highway which could make it a target.

Now on paper, this might sound like a fairly good idea. However, in the real world, I've seen good teachers and I've seen bad teachers. In fact, didn't we have a teacher in the Santa Maria Bonita School District that once tied a kid to a chair? Didn't we have another that assaulted a kid? Hasn't this school district had teachers who were discipline problems? Why yes, yes we have.

If we have these types of problems here, then every school district must also have them, or have the potential to have them. If you arm the teachers, what happens then?

Let's face it, not every teacher out there has both oars in the water. Nor does every teacher know how to behave in stressful situations. They are as flawed as the rest of us in certain situations.

I remember way back when I was but a tiny little blogger, one teacher rapped my knuckles with a ruler when I had the gall to use my left hand to write. Another time I watched a teacher throw a book at a kid and bean him in the head. I'm not sure that things have improved all that much when a teacher finds him/herself under fire from an unruly student. Therefore, I don't see it as a good idea to arm the teachers. Nonetheless, this part of Texas is armed and ready.

Barbara Williams, from the Texas Association of School Boards, said her organization did not know of another district with such a policy. Ken Trump, a Cleveland-based school security expert who advises districts nationwide, said Harrold is the first district with such a policy.

Trustees approved the policy change last year. For employees to carry a pistol, they must have a Texas license to carry a concealed handgun; must be authorized to carry by the district; must receive training in crisis management and hostile situations; and must use ammunition designed to minimize the risk of ricocheting bullets.

Officials researched the policy and considered other options for about a year before approving the policy change. The district also has other measures in place to prevent a school shooting.

Superintendent Thweatt said, "The naysayers think a shooting won't happen here. If something were to happen here, I'd much rather be calling a parent to tell them that their child is OK."

No details on which teachers and assorted staff will be armed and dangerous. The supe wants that to be a surprise.

A shining example

by reenee, Santa Maria

Have you ever noticed how the worst of the worst always makes the front page, especially when it involves the salacious? When it's good deeds, or amazing accomplishments, the story is relegated to a lesser part of the newspaper. This is no less true for the marginally acceptable Santa Maria Times.

Today's front page featured story was about the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department needing more officers. Section B, page 3, had a headline that read, Lauded local woman laid to rest. This woman was Dorothy Jackson, an educator for 40 years, the last 10 as the Principal of Clarence Ruth School, in Lompoc, California. She was the first black woman to hold that position, and by all accounts did her job admirably. Some will argue that this story was where it needed to be due to the other obituaries on the same page. Well, sorry, this is not a valid argument. The day before there was a front page story on the less accomplished former mayor of Santa Maria, George Hobbs. Yes, he was the longest serving councilman and mayor, but he was also the man who said that this town had a "Mexican problem." The story was all about how there were two hundred people paying their last respects. This man's passing apparently elevated him to sainthood. Pretty much the same thing happened when the 40th president died.

Getting back to Dorothy Jackson. She was a force to be reckoned with, a proud, honorable and strong woman. According to this sadly abbreviated story, Ms. Jackson was a confidante of superintendents and mayors who fought tenaciously for programs to assist fieldworkers and single mothers.

That was the portrait painted by speakers from the diverse strands of Jackson's life as they gathered Saturday morning to share recollections of a woman too strong to be denied, yet who never forgot from whence she came.

A crowd of 300 composed of family, her Beta Sigma Pi sorority, staff and clients from the Dorothy Jackson Family Resource Center, members of her church, and scores of colleagues from the Lompoc Unified School District filled First Presbyterian Church.

Rubbing shoulders with the prominent were dozens of people associated with Jackson's proudest creation, the family resource center that bears her name.

After Jackson retired in 1995 she served as chairman of the school district's School Attendance Review Board (SARB) which monitors school attendance. “Stories are legion of her challenging parents,” Steve Straight said afterward. Bradley added that it seemed “dishes clattered” in those meetings.

But Jackson is also widely credited for changing SARB's approach away from a strictly punitive one. “It became more parent friendly,” said Cindy Callaham, a member of the SARB board with Jackson. “Truancy is just the symptom. She was Mother Teresa, Dr. Phil and Santa Claus all in one.”

As news of her death spread, heartfelt testimonies jammed the center's phone lines. They came from people spanning the American tapestry of ethnicity and income and their descriptions were as revealing as the books Jackson so prized.

Her direct style was evidenced with the following:

“What are you doing here? Get your butt into college.”

Those were the sledgehammer words Dorothy Jackson wielded on one of her former students when she saw him working in a fast-food outlet. Today the anonymous young man is studying for the bar exam to become an attorney.

This is what teachers should attempt to become. This is the behavior, attitude and support that people in power should present to others. This is what the chunkheads in Washington, who are in a position to do the most good, will never understand. This woman was light years ahead of them with integrity and character, and those bozos will never know it.

Socrates said that the hallmark of wisdom is knowing what you don't know.

By reenee, Santa Maria

Way back in the Dark Ages when I was a kid in school, there was never a good reason for students to get up from their desks and wander around at will. Permission was required to even scratch our noses, so if we did get up, we'd better be on fire. If the teachers were scary and humorless nuns, we'd have willingly burned sitting at our desks, it would have been a less painful death than to cross them. Most all of us students would simply sit there and do what we were told. If we didn't study, we were given a failing grade. If we failed to learn, we flunked. Ah yes, memories of accountability.

These days however, there's an experiment going on in Rochester, Minnesota, where kids are allowed to stand, sit or lie on the floor. The last time I actually saw a student on the floor was during a tantrum. One of the goals in this classroom is to get kids to move around. In a study that might even combat childhood obesity which in itself has become a big problem, researchers are trying to figure out the reasons for the general slippage of what is learned by students in twelve years of school. This classroom allows children to walk around, balance on big exercise balls, or even lie down on mats. In addition to being allowed to move around, they have access to laptop computers, a wireless network and iPods.

So far, the classroom teacher, Phil Rynearson and Superintendent Jerry Williams say that these fourth and fifth grade students are more focused on the subjects being taught than their peers in a comparison group in an ordinary classroom. Plus, there are fewer distractions than in the traditional setup, where a lot of time is spent trying to get children to sit still. Interesting. To be sure, something has to be done, now that children are advanced to the next level whether they learn or not. If you check out the average high school kid, you will see quite a few deficits in their abilities. I'm talking about the average kid here, not the ones that remain focused on their studies either out of an innate ability to do so, or because they are encouraged and helped by their parents.

Let's face it, not enough parents are invested in their child's education. There are some that feel that getting their children to school every morning ends their participation and responsibility. You know the ones, they blame the schools when their child fails to learn. I certainly do not have all of the answers, but I spent ten years in the school system working with parents of fifth and sixth grade students, trying to get them involved, and I made one important discovery: You cannot fix stupid. I have seen college educated parents who remain clueless and disinterested about their children or their education, and I have seen high school dropouts who are extremely involved in their children's education, because they desire something better for them.

This study is at least a good start into how they learn, or at the very least, why they don't. The added plus is combating obesity. My humble opinion on that of course is the fast food available in an age where both parents are required to have jobs just to keep their heads above water, along with the technology that allows kids to remain in one spot all day long. Nothing like a good bag of chips or a hamburger and a Gameboy to deaden the brain. Ah yes, gaming, now that's a good skill to have to enable a student to go to college and then someday get a good paying job, huh?

"Theories and goals of education don't matter a whit if you don't consider your students to be human beings."

By reenee, Santa Maria.

Ah yes, in yet another example of how to remain firmly cemented in denial, here comes a story out of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, about a high school newspaper that was confiscated by school administrators due to the content. The student newspaper, The Oak Leaf, dared to include an article on birth control, along with information on how to obtain contraceptives from doctors and the local health department. Additionally, it had a photo of an unidentified student's tattoo. The student had not told her parents about the tattoo, which begs the question, "How did she get a tattoo?" Aren't most reputable tattoo artists required to demand parental permission for anyone under 18? Of course they are. More on this later.

All of this takes us to the brutal reality that, "some kids will find a way to do what they want, despite parental objections."

Superintendent Tom Bailey in defending his actions said, "The article needed to be edited so it would be acceptable for the entire school." He went on to say, "We have a responsibility to the public to do the right thing, We've got 14-year-olds that read the newspaper."

Call me crazy, but wouldn't it be better to have a 14 year old educated on how to prevent pregnancy? What would be worse here, a 14 year old finding out about how to obtain contraceptives, or a 14 year old getting pregnant? Gee, let me mull this one over.

Is it possible that there are people still living in a world where they think that if as adults, they don't talk outloud about certain things, then the kids won't find out about them and do them? Well, yes, yes there are. This mythical land is called "Denial."

Denial is after all, a refusal to accept or believe something. It's an unconscious defense mechanism characterized by the refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings, and as a result, we want to avoid the pain. It's a very powerful force. Who wants to be hurt, angry, or disappointed? Everyone does it at some point in there lives, it can be very comfortable. However, the trick is to not set up housekeeping in the "Land of Denial." If you have to go there, trust me on this one, never unpack your bags, just visit.

It's obvious that this particular lesson in censorship was the result of Superintendent Bailey reacting to his own kind of peer pressure. The kind of pressure that comes from people that are scared of parental reactions. In my humble opinion, the nation's school's might turn out thousands of more well rounded students if instead of dissecting frogs, and looking for the meaning of poems, they concentrated on life's skills, things like reading comprehension, writing skills, managing/budgeting money, sex education, choices in birth control, and how to prevent the rampant spread of sexually transmitted diseases. All students who are not allowed to attend the birth control and sex education classes could be enrolled in parenting skills classes.

You think I'm crazy? Check out this graph. Whatever it is that we're doing right now to educate our teens is clearly not working. Apparently, neither is ignoring their raging hormones.

Parents thinking that their teenagers are going to do what they say all of the time, are of course, living in denial. When some children find that their parents remain closed off from certain subjects that they're curious about, then they will go to their peers, they always have and always will. Some parents fear the term "peer pressure," without acknowledging that it can be positive at times. Not all children will abandon their value system when hanging around with their friends. Strong, accessible parents will never be completely abandoned by their children. At the same time, parents must realize that no matter how great their relationships are, some children will look to their peers for certain acceptance and or answers. Sadly, for some parents it's easier to lay the blame on television, the movies, music, friends they disapprove of, and even at times, each other, when they don't find the time for them. Perhaps more parents should get involved and keep in mind what Coretha Henderson did when her 14 year old began to misbehave. This woman was both villified and praised. What ever opinion you might have about this woman, what is undeniable, is that she did something.

Regarding the aforementioned tattoo, Superintendent Tom Bailey said, "I have a problem with the idea of putting something in the paper that makes us a part of hiding something from the parents."

Well, I'm sorry, but this makes no sense to me whatsoever. As I mentioned before, the student paper had included picture of a tattoo on an unidentified student. If the student allowed it to be photographed, chances are someone already knows, and the student will have to ready herself for the inevitable moment when her parents find out. Considering this country's preoccupation for minding other people's business instead of their own, odds are that the parents already know.

There are so very many more important things in life to focus on rather than a tattoo or parents boohooing. There are so many other things that could be getting the school boards, parents and administrators to sit up and take notice. Confiscating a student newspaper seems so obtuse. Let's face it, kids are having sex. That's a fact. It matters little whether we approve or disapprove. That's not the point. Dealing with it would be better than ignoring it and hoping that it goes away. Not talking about it will not make it go away. Kids that are aware, are already using birth control. The ones that could profit from this information will not. Getting on our high horses and telling teens to "just say no" is not going to work with all of them, so all we need to stop thinking that it will. Isn't it better to give a teenager the facts about prevention before they're pregnant?

Here are some sobering facts regarding pregnancy:

• Despite recent and encouraging declines, the United States still has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and birth among comparable nations.
• Nearly four out of 10 girls still become pregnant at least once before they reach age 20. Nearly 1 million teen pregnancies occur annually, some 55 each hour.
• Four-fifths of teen births are to unmarried teens. In fact, nearly half of all non-marital first births occur to teens.

Why should this matter to us?

• Teen pregnancy is closely linked to a host of critical social issues-welfare dependency and overall child well-being, out-of-wedlock births, responsible fatherhood, and work force development, in particular.
• Teen mothers are less likely to complete high school and more likely to be on welfare.
• Children of teen mothers are at a significantly increased risk of poverty, welfare dependency, poor school performance, growing up without a father, low birth weight and prematurity, and abuse and neglect.

The only real lesson that the administrators gave to the students was, "We're in control, you have no voice."