My Take

It's not often I climb up on the soap box, but today I feel the need. I also have time because we have parent conferences tonight. This means that we had a half-day with students.

What a perfect segue into my thoughts. Right now we're in the proverbial storm. We have a new state superintendent who took office this year. He's making himself known quickly. Now I'll be the first to say that our current education system is broken. Do I know the perfect fix? No, I wish I did. I can tell you from a business perspective that our new superintendent is making a classic mistake. He's making big and sweeping changes without input or consideration of the fallout.

The first happened in January when he terminated a large number (sorry, I'm too lazy to look up how many) of people from the state office for the Department of Education. About two weeks later, he let another 70? people go. Since I'm always complaining that there could be a lot of money saved in administrative cuts, I can't really complain about this. Except.... Isn't there always an except?

Except that he's let the state specialists for some departments go. This makes all the teachers who teach in those departments wonder what the future holds for them ... err... us. I can't speak for any other department, but I can speak for my own. The woman who headed business education for the state of Indiana is an amazing woman. She made it a point to get to know almost every business teacher in the state. The future of business in Indiana and our students were her highest goals. I've rarely met anyone who put as much of themselves into a job as she did. She would send us a weekly newsletter letting us know any news that was pertinent from information regarding curriculum, professional development or training opportunities, scholarships for our students to birth and death notices for those who impacted our field. I had the opportunity to work closely with her when I agreed to work on a couple of committees to re-write our standards and to help bring keyboarding to the 21st century. In fact last week when I was in Indy, she was the first to come and congratulate me on how well my students did in competition. This was an event that she was no longer required to attend as she's no longer employed, but she came anyway because she cared.

Okay, that was a digression.

What brought me to the keyboard today was the ongoing reaction from this week's press release. The rampant hostility towards educators is somewhat shocking. I realize that part of it is the troll factor. People will post things they'd never say.

I went into teaching knowing that I was going backwards on the salary scale. I knew the workload, and I chose it. No one forced me, and I'm okay with that. I like being a teacher. There's nothing better than connecting with a student. There's also little more frustrating than dealing with the constant change for change's sake attitude or working with a student who is blatantly hostile, but that's part of it. No job is perfect.

The announcement this week from our new superintendent was regarding the school calendar. Our school calendar is 180 days. As part of those 180 days, we have 2-3 days (depending on the school) that are 1/2 days for parent-teacher conferences. Students are released for the afternoon and teachers come back in the late afternoon/evening for 3 1/2 - 4 hours (depending on the school) to meet with parents. We also have six days when students are released 2 hours early. On those days, we have professional development workshops. In addition, there are weather-related closures. Some school corporations are smart (like mine) and add a few days to the school calendar for snow days. That way we still meet our 180 days. If we don't use the snow days for closures, then we have some extra 3-day weekends in the spring. Others don't add the days and have to extend the school year in other ways or request a waiver from the state.

The professional development is a required as part of NCLB. School corporations must provide a set amount of professional development to the teaching staff. In addition, we are required to pursue our own professional development including graduate coursework. Graduate credit is required prior to license renewal.

This announcement stated that 1/2 days for professional development,parent-teacher conferences, and end-of-term grades and weather-related closings would no longer be counted as part of the 180 days. This is in effect for the 2009/2010 school year.

On the one hand, there's nothing wrong with this decision. On the other, it opens a huge can of worms.

The school calendar for 2009/2010 is already completed and approved. In fact, so is the one for 2010/2011. They're working on 2011/2012 now. It's not as easy as it may appear to get that calendar ready.

Our contracts are for 180 instructional days with two days at the beginning to get our rooms ready and attend some additional professional development and one day at the end to close out our rooms. There is now a need to add six days to this contract. The six days we have early release can be combined into three work days, plus three days for parent-teacher conferences.

Where's the money going to come from? I've already talked about our community making national news regularly now due to the economy. We have the highest unemployment in the country. People can't pay property tax, so schools aren't getting all their funding. We'll be very lucky if we make it to the next school year without lay offs.

The consensus of the comments is that teachers are lazy and should volunteer whatever extra time is required. I won't claim to work harder than I did in my previous career, but I do work just as hard. I can just imagine the reaction I would have gotten in any previous job if I had told my employees that I expected them to work an extra week without compensation.

Does this mean I never worked "overtime" in my previously salaried positions? Of course not. I did, and I did often. I was in the hotel/restaurant business. There were some weeks when I was only home long enough to grab a few hours sleep. But I was also allowed to take comp time to make up for it. With some small exceptions, I could schedule my vacation for whenever I wanted. There was a lot of flexibility there. When I worked in offices, there were plenty of days when people showd up to work, but never really did. They would get nothing done for a myriad of reasons. Some were hungover, upset about breaking up with their girl/boy friend, just having a low energy day or whatever. No one got too upset about it because they'd make up for it the next day. It was understood that sometimes you have an off day.

I dare you to have an off day in front of 30 students.

The biggest challenge for me when I entered teaching was the lack of down time. When you're here, you're on. There's no wandering down to the coffee pot for a cup and a chat. Do you know what's happened to the break room in my school? It was turned into another classroom this year. During my 25-minute duty-free lunch, I eat at my desk while allowing students to catch up in the computer lab. I deal with the mercurial emotions of teenagers all day long, and then I take them out of town for three days.

I say all this not to complain because I'm not complaining. I enjoy the interaction, most of the time, with my students. I enjoy what I do, but I don't enjoy being raked over the coals, figuratively or literally.

Even so, I'm one of the lucky ones. Yes, there are some negatives with teaching, and we're all to quick to point them out, but there are some great positives, too.

It is nice to have two weeks at Christmas and one week in the spring as breaks. It is also nice to get two months off in the summer, but I can only do that because Jim works them. He works all summer school sessions. This means he gets about two weeks off during the summer. My actual work day isn't shorter than anyone else's even though many think it is, but I do get more days off during the year. In exchange, I get less pay.

If the public wants us to work a longer year, I'm fine with it. Let's go to year-round schools and rewrite the contracts. I agree that something needs to change, but please respect us as professionals. In return, I won't ask my doctor to volunteer and treat me for free six days a year.

Ugh

I started my day annoyed by a news story, and now I end my day annoyed by another. Reading through the comments on this story just depressed me terribly. It's not news the low opinion so many have about teachers, but it's still depressing.

Give Me a Break!

I don't know about your morning news routine, but there's one story I've now seen from four different sources, and it's not even 8:00 am yet.

Apparently, Meghan McCain was on The View yesterday and responded to criticism from radio personality, Laura Ingraham. Ms. Ingraham apparently referred to Ms. McCain as a plus-sized model among other "insults."

In one of the stories I read they referred to Miss McCain as big-boned. Now to be perfectly honest, I didn't recall Meghan McCain as being on the big side, but then I can't say that I recall exactly how she looks at all.

The fact that her size is even being addressed when discussing her position as an online political writer is bad enough, but you want to know what made it worse?

This quote:

McCain added that she maintains a healthy lifestyle – but doesn’t think about the scale. "I mean, I work out at a gym, I try to eat healthy but you know I'm still a size 8,” she said...

Bad enough that she felt the need to justify her lifestyle, but we're talking about a woman who is a size 8. A woman who just apologized for being an 8?

If you don't think she sounds apologetic, let me pull part of that quote out

I work out at a gym, I try to eat healthy but you know I'm still a size 8

A SIZE EIGHT!!!

She's a political writer. Why do we care about her size? How in the world did a size 8 become the butt of fat jokes? Has the world gone insane? Do we want a world populated with lollipops? Do we want our daughters to think their only value is in being able to wear a size 0?

Okay, I need to rephrase that. Calling someone a lollipop is just as insulting, but I get so irritated. Granted I've never been small, but I know that my own body distortion is one of the major reasons for my weight. The need to fit the media-dictated idea of the perfect body was bad enough when I was growing up, but it's so much worse now.

There is nothing wrong with having a healthy and strong body. That should be our criteria, not the size in the dress label. Some women are healthy and strong at a size 0, but so are many at size 16. As mothers, especially as mothers of daughters, we must raise our girls to be proud of who they are mentally, emotionally, and physically.

Every morning after I comb Sera's hair, I have her turn around and look at me. I always tell her she's beautiful and give her a kiss. In return, I get the best smile. I want to teach her to see the beauty in all people and in the mirror. I also tell her she's smart and funny and kind, but there's nothing wrong in feeling beautiful, too.

What is Wrong with People? -UPDATED

I don't care what your political or religious affiliations are, this is just wrong on so many levels. The room that was gassed housed the babies and small children of the women who were praying.

ETA:

Why hasn't this made national news? If this had happened in a Judeo-Christian place of worship or a school, the news would be all over it. Is it because it happened in a mosque? It happened in OHIO. Why aren't we hearing more about this?

Our Bodies

I was a teen of the 70's. Well, the late '70's/early 80's. Jeans were tight and low, though not as low as they've been recently. Tube tops were big and so were halter tops. I was also a teen in Florida, where going to the grocery store in your bathing suit was a fairly common experience.

My best friends were all tall and lean. I was not. I was 5'4" through most of high school before having a growth spurt in my late teens and hitting 5'6". I had boobs. I had hips, but no butt. I'm part of the flat butt family. I remember staring at my stomach in the mirror. I would suck it in, hold my breath, and think....if I could just stay like this, I'd be okay.

I did Atkins at 15. I literally ate nothing but hamburger patties and peanut butter for weeks. And I peed on sticks, lots of sticks. I had to make sure that I stayed in ketosis just like the book said. I worked out. I played tennis, and I swam. And I never became tall and lean. Imagine that?

My issues with weight have lasted a lifetime. I drank shakes with Oprah and lost a lot of weight. And I gained it back. I've done Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, and psychologists. I even have my very own endocrinologist who diagnosed me with a condition that is both aggravated by and causes obesity. He also put me on thyroid medication for an underactive thyroid.

Though there is a medical basis for my weight issues, it goes much deeper than that. It's a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and emotional issues that have destroyed my metabolism as well.

Issues that started by looking at magazines and television and movies and being told that if I didn't look like them, then something was wrong with me.

The issues didn't stop with me. I have three younger sisters. Sisters I've watched go through their own issues with food and image. You show me four sisters that do not have experience with bingeing, purging, anorexia, etc..., and I'll show you a fairy tale.

This has been on my mind this last week. A beautiful young girl I know was told by her coach that if she doesn't lose 20 pounds, she will not make the varsity team again next year. She's tall and strong and a powerful player. One of the best, in fact. She is not, however, super-model thin. She has strong support on her side. I am confident that this will resolve in her favor.

I do not understand why, as a society, we have not learned how damaging this can be to our young women. We are not all alike. We are tall, short, thin, curvy, fluffy, and fat. We are blondes, brunettes, redheads, and sometimes pink and blue. We are not cookie cutters. We cannot all look alike. We don't want to look alike. Celebrate our differences, our diversity.

The other thing that brought this to mind is something I've seen all over the 'net. Long time readers may remember that I Love America. Well, I'm not alone. America loves America, too. In fact, she's all over the place. One of the things that has been so wonderful about watching her career is seeing the public embrace this curvy young women.

That's why I was so distressed when I saw this:
That head does not fit on that body. Those arms? Way too thin. She's beautiful. She didn't need to be PhotoShopped. Look to see a side-by-side comparison that definitely tells the tale.

But then this is the industry that apparently finds tall, lean, blonde Faith Hill not fit for our eyes. Watch the wonders of her being PhotoShopped here.

Now don't get me wrong. I love PhotoShop. In fact, I teach it. It's a great program with some wonderful features. I found this copy of a clip that I show that class. Don't believe what you see. It's not real.



I may be sensitive to this issue because of my past, my career, and because I have a daughter. This is one battle I will fight as long as it takes. Love us as we are. We are beautiful...inside and out.

The Heart Breaks

My blog started as a way for me to journal my adoption and to keep long distance family and friends informed of our progress. It's turned into a real outlet for me, and something I enjoy doing. It's also brought many wonderful people in my life.

Like a polite guest in the Internet world, I decided there were certain areas I wasn't going to blog about: politics, religion, and sex. The standard big three. If I had to label myself it would be conservatively liberal or maybe liberally conservative. I think if everyone just followed the Golden Rule, we'd all be a lot better off. I have very definite ideas, but I know I'm not going to change anyone's mind. Nor do I feel this is the venue to attempt it.

This, however, goes beyond politics. This is about basic human decency, or lack thereof.

Don't Rain on My Parade!

I've calmed down a lot, but was I upset earlier.

We've not exactly kept this adoption a secret. From the very beginning, we let our school corporation know what we were doing and where we were in the process. All along everything has been peachy.

First, some background. Adoption leave is simply letting us use our accrued sick days to pay for our absence. We were both taking it for the trip. Jim is returning to work immediately while I take the remainder of the school year off. We realized that because we lost the snow days in the calendar and we're leaving about a week earlier than I projected we were going to leave, my leave was going to be about 10 days short of making it to the end of the school year.

Yesterday, I talked to personnel who told me that I could take the last two weeks unpaid. I asked if Jim could use the unused portion of his adoption leave and take those two weeks while I returned to work. They emailed back and said that would work.

This afternoon, about 30 minutes before the end of the school day, I received an email from personnel telling me that not only could Jim NOT do this, but Jim won't get ANY adoption leave. They only allow one teacher parent to take leave. Jim's time will be UNPAID. Now if this were something they'd told us all along, we could have planned for it. Plus, it's just not fair. We're being penalized for being married. They wouldn't tell a married teacher that because X company was giving their spouse paid leave that they wouldn't. And it's not as if the school is paying us anything extra. We're simply using sick days that we've earned and haven't used. In fact, the corporation has to pay us for unused sick days when we leave, if we're vested. It's money we've already earned.

It's just frustrating when you know that you have gone above and beyond day after day and the thanks you get is this.

Anybody hiring? I know two experienced teachers who are pretty annoyed with their present employer.

Okay, rant over.

On the good news side, we paid for our plane tickets today. We have tickets to China!!! Woo hoo!