Four Hundred Years of History

For the first time ever, I taught Shakespeare this year. Oh, I've read Shakespeare, both in and out of classes. (Yes, that's right, I've read Shakespeare just FOR FUN, what about it?) But teaching it was a new thing entirely. I couldn't just read it, I had to be prepared to explain it, and, gulp make it INTERESTING.

Believe it or not, some people, actually lots of people, don't find literature just inherently wonderful or read just for reading's sake. They have to be encouraged. Enter the English teacher.

I think the others in my department didn't quite know what to make of me this year. I would sit in our preliminary meetings discussing literature and lesson plans and ideas with them, while all the time they are thinking I'm a science teacher. And some days, when the English classes are really going great, I think, "I can't believe I'm paid to do this!"

But toward Hamlet I didn't feel quite so confident . . . Shakespeare is the holy grail of English teaching, and Hamlet is the holy grail of Shakespeare. I didn't want to do what Mrs. Forsberg did to Romeo and Juliet when I was in the ninth grade (can you say butchered?); I wanted to bring all the subtlety and complexity and beauty to it that Mrs. Reed did with Othello. I read and studied and forced my husband to watch varying versions on Friday nights for movie night. I agonized.

For four-hundred years these plays have been taught because they are just so good. So many other plots are based on Shakespeare stories; indeed, there are few original stories left. Shakespeare is foundational to our culture and to refining your language and understanding. We celebrate this man because he was, truly, a genius. Oh, how I agonized.

And then I got some good advice.

That I actually listened to.

A wise English teacher (I hesitate to say "old" as she might be younger than I am) shrugged at my dilemma and said, "Don't get caught up in the symbolism and the imagery and the making it GREAT LITERATURE, just let the kids play with it. It is a performance piece, after all. Just engage them in the greatest revenge story of all time with a protagonist that is just an emo teenager." Prince Hamlet is actually 30, but like, whatever, he seems more like an angsty 17 year-old. Believe me, I know what angsty 17 looks like.

And it worked. The kids, not all of them, but by in large, they understood it and connected with it. They grumbled at Ophelia's brother and father who thought it was their business to tell her whom to love and could see that it was their interference that set certain events in motion. They argued about whether revenge and justice were the same thing and which Hamlet was really seeking. They empathized with his actions, even as they didn't condone them. They saw that truly dark path that revenge takes you on. They discussed mental illness and suicidal thoughts and how sometimes really hard things happen in your life that make you wish you didn't have to deal with them. They laughed at Polonius' famous advice and brilliantly translated it into modern English. The played the final scene for laughs, even as they recognized the waste and irony of it all.

It wasn't glorious. But it worked . . . and they connected in some small measure as so many English students have before. And, I hope, as they will for generations to come.

Science fascinates me because it explains the how of life. But literature . . . literature gets us closer to the why.

Doing Science-y Stuff

Remembering

My mother sent me a letter on my mission in which she wrote, "You have the ability to glean a lot of wisdom from everyday experiences." I've often believed this to be one of the greatest compliments I've ever been paid, and a fortunate byproduct of my unfortunate tendency to overthink everything. In my mission journal and my letters home, my hands would ache and time would run out long before I was finished telling what I had observed, and how it had changed me. 

This month in youth Sunday School, the kids are talking about ordinances and covenants. The lesson outlines aren't as clearly delineated from one another as they seemed to be last month, and there is a lot of redundancy built in. The result is that I've read many conference talks this month on the sacrament. The recurring theme I have noticed over and over is the idea of "remembering." I was pondering this word a lot on Sunday. During my lesson, the Spirit was very strong, and the kids were really getting it. I don't know that they were a lot more forthcoming than usual, but there was a definite difference. They were more attentive, brows were more furrowed, and there were even a few glistening eyes. Then, boom, without it being according to plan, there was an account from my mission I felt impressed to share. It was a little thing really, seemingly unimportant, but somehow it was exactly the right thing at the right moment. It was a thing that hadn't been part of my preparation or even conscious thought for some years.

But it was a thing that helped my precious young class to see that their gospel preparation and knowledge is serious . . . and those years between baptism and the temple are vital. The moment was sublime and reminded me of every good reason we come to Church. I felt humbled and grateful that the Lord had put me in a place where I might make a difference.

And I understood something I've never quite seen before. 

Though it doesn't appear on any list, remembering, in its many and varied form, is itself a gift of the Spirit. Remembrance takes so many forms and meanings, each of them vital to gospel living. 

Remembering past blessings makes us grateful and humble.

Remembering is how we keep our covenants as we take the sacrament.

Remembering the Savior gives us the integrity to keep our covenants when we are away from Church.

Remembering our own weaknesses can keep us from judging others.

Remembering our ancestors helps us honor our religion and our liberty.

Remembering preserves our spiritual and familial traditions. 

My simple, unheralded event from my mission, came back to my memory in the very moment that my class needed to hear the words. If this is not the Spirit working, then I don't know what is. When I teach my class this week, I am going to ask them to pray with all the energy of their hearts that the Spirit will bless them with remembrance, so that it will be a shield and a protection to them against a world where everything changes and drifts into decay. 

In the words of Teryl Givens:

"I believe remembering can be the highest form of devotion. To remember is to rescue the sacred from the vacuum of oblivion. To remember Christ’s sacrifice every Sunday at the sacrament table, is to say “no” to the ravages of time; to refuse to allow his supernal sacrifice to be just another datum in the catalogue of what is past. To remember past blessings is to give continuing recognition of the gift, and re-confirm the relationship to the Giver as one that persists in the here and now. Few-very few-are entirely bereft of at least one solace giving-memory. A childhood prayer answered, a testimony borne long ago, a fleeting moment of perfect peace. And for those few who despairingly insist they have never heard so much as a whisper, then know this: We don’t need to look for a burning bush, when all we need is to be still and remember that we have known the goodness of love, the rightness of virtue, the nobility of kindness and faithfulness. And ask if we see in such beauties the random effects of Darwinian products, or can we not perceive in them the handwriting of God on our hearts?"

That almost sounds like poetry to me. 

Temple

I think our Father in Heaven communicates with each of us in somewhat different ways. It makes sense; each person is unique in the way they learn. We are each a combination of our history, natural ability, the way we process information and our willingness to learn. Therefore, it stands to reason, that if loving Heavenly Parents are omniscient and know us the best, then they would seek out ways to give us guidance that best suit us. 

From the very first time I attended the temple, I learned that my Father in Heaven has great capacity to reach me when I am there. It is one of very few places that I'm still and not busy. I realize this is not the case for everyone, and my intention here today is not to tell you that you are duty bound to be there THIS WEEK. I only wish to express gratitude for my experience there last night.

Usually our temple attendance takes some long term organization and planning, because it is about 7 hour round trip when we go, but last might was more thrown together on a whim late Thursday. I had just interviewed for a job (the second in the week) and thought I was in need of some direction and help making a decision. Both interviews went well and I had every confidence that I would make it through to the next round for both.

Within 15 minutes of leaving on Friday, I got a call from one of the principals at an interviewing school. It was a rejection, but it was the strangest rejection ever. She seemed legitimately sad to be not choosing me, saying that she just saw me in a high school position. That comment was strange, considering most of my experience has been in middle school. Her tone and other words were equally strange. I think she is really hopeful that I get the high school job I applied for . . . her own students feed into the other school. Anyway, it was just weird. And yes, rather disappointing. My next thought was then to go to the temple with fervent prayers that the other job would work out.

Fast-forward four hours later to the temple session. I felt really happy there--probably more attentive and reverent than I normally am. And I felt fine about the rejection, but with no need to pray about the other.  I didn't really have a strong impression that it will happen for me, necessarily. Instead I mostly felt very impressed that whatever happens we are in God's hands. There was a gentle reminder that He knows both our needs and wants and that He has never let us down yet. For some shining moments last night I knew that God recognizes our consecrated efforts to His Church and our family, and He will not let us down.

I am not without wonder and some anxiety about what happens next for us; it is my nature to be this way. But I'm not without faith, and I know that we have prepared both spiritually and temporally for whatever the Lord has in store for us next. Things may not unfold in the coming weeks how I want them too, but I believe today that they will transpire how they are meant to.

Elizabeth Smart is Super Smart

Ms. Smart has been getting a lot of press this week for some remarks she made at Johns Hopkins regarding human trafficking. I read many comments and summaries in various places about her remarks which left me feeling a little bit confused about what her actual message was. I was grateful to finally listen to the bulk of her speech this morning and get some clarification.

Before listening I was under the impression that Ms. Smart was fiercely advocating against abstinence education, and that she had cited a particular and terrible incident at church (the gum chewing chastity analogy) as her reason for not running from her captors when she had the chance. She felt worthless and dirty and to blame and therefore did not want to go home. This left me sad and confused.

However, just as the Internet will give you a thousand opinions on even seemingly mundane events, it will also allow you to go to the source. In her speech, Ms. Smart was blunt about what had happened to her. These are facts I have heard before, but coming from her in measured, soft-spoken and perfect diction, her story became very real. She speaks without emotion about her experience, but it is clear that what happened to her for those terrible nine months has given her vast stores of strength.

Here are my take-aways, for what it is worth. Again, my opinion here, though I'm hoping I'm more fairly representing what she was really trying to say rather than cherry-pick what I wanted her to say.

1.  She is advocating for a more balanced approach to sex education. She thinks that we should be more blunt with people at an earlier age about the very real dangers in life. She also indicates that at least some of this training should take place in school. At age 14 she had some skewed idea that sex only happened between people who loved one another; she didn't really understand the ugly side. She is advocating that children should be appropriately educated about dangers that exist.

2.  I don't have any impression that she has rejected the importance of chastity as a law of God. She spoke respectfully of the beliefs she was raised with, and has made the choice to stay active in the Church and even marry in the temple. Rejecting abstinence-only sex education is not the same as rejecting your belief system.

3. The chewing gum analogy was given to her as young teenager; however, she indicated that this teaching came from a teacher at school during abstinence-only sex education. It was Salt Lake City so the odds of that teacher being LDS were probably pretty good, but she did not say the incident happened at church. Yes, you might have had this taught to you at church (I'm sorry), but Ms. Smart seems more critical of the push to water-down school curriculum than values teaching at church. Because of this type of teaching, she did feel like garbage when she was raped; she wondered at times if she would ever be worthy of being loved again. However, even to girls who have not heard the chewing gum analogy, these feelings are often prevalent after being raped, or even being manipulated into having sex. The rapist's whole point is to degrade and assume power; rape is only marginally about sex.

4. Ms. Smart said firmly that her primary reason for not running was fear. After all, her captors had managed to do all this stuff to her, it seemed perfectly logical that they could make good on their threats to further harm her family. She loved her family. She made a decision from the very beginning that she would do whatever they told her if it meant she might one day get away and return to the family she so dearly missed. Fighting them continually or trying to escape might have just gotten her killed, and the world would have lost a very, very bright light. Elizabeth's decision took courage; perhaps even inspiration to make. It was only when a police officer had the idea to interview her alone that she would admit to who she was; she never openly defied her captors in front of them for fear of further harm to those she loved.

5.  My final impression from her remarks is that people should be made to feel valuable regardless of their sexuality or virginity or however you want to term this. Perhaps, just perhaps, if she had felt more confidence in people's willingness to look beyond what had happened to her, she might have had more courage to speak up when she first had a chance.

JoAnna Brooks wrote a piece for Religion Dispatch in which she indicated that the primary reason for Elizabeth not running is that she felt like trash because of what she'd been taught at Church about the importance of chastity. That somehow all LDS people (women) collectively held their breath when others asked why Elizabeth didn't run because we really understood that is was all the fault of our culture. I think this is a rather gross misrepresentation of Ms. Smart's actual remarks, and Brooks opened the forum for plenty of angry people to dismiss God's laws as ridiculous, as if such feeling would somehow have prevented Ms. Smart from ending up in the situation she did. One Internet comment-er indicated that Elizabeth's religious training had forced her to feel like she had sinned and needed to repent. This person trashed religion (and specifically the atonement) for turning victims into sinners. This frustrated me deeply. LDS doctrine on the atonement is clear--it is for everyone. While Ms. Smart was clearly not in need of repentance related to her time in captivity, she was then and now in need of the strengthening and enabling power of Christ to move forward with her life. She is a perfect example of how the atonement heals even the most innocent.

I like Ms. Smart's actual comments very much, and I hope they give many teachers of youth (in and out of the Church) something to think about. I think our children need to be smart; they don't really live in world anymore where we can extol naivete. Innocence is lovely and good; ignorance is not. We should teach our values, but also teach children about their own inherent value. Nemesis, Desmama and I had a conversation not long ago about the problematic use of a scripture found in Mormon. It is used because it indicates "virtue" (one of only a few places that particular word is even found in relation to chastity) is the most precious thing; however, it does so in the context of talking about male warriors raping the women of the opposing side. The wording of the scripture clearly states that the rapists took the virtue of their victims.

We have concluded that we sort of hate this scripture. What the rapists take is their victim's innocence and their virginity. They don't take their virtue. Virtue is a less tangible quality than, in Nem's words, "an intact hymen." Virtue is something that is your own to give away through deliberate acts . . . only one of which might be sex. I am not sorry that the 8th value has been added; but I do wish that it was more clearly defined. This difficult scripture, again as one of very few places "virtue" is used in relation to sexuality, comes up time and time again in talks and in the study YW are meant to do for a virtue value experience. By this scripture's direct reading, it does indicate that Ms. Smart was less than virtuous when she was stripped and thrown down on the floor of a dirty tent, less than five miles from her girlhood bed and treated like garbage. That is a load of hooey. We need to be very careful what we teach our kids.

Her real take home message is that while schools need to work harder to educate, it is familial love and proper teaching about a person's true worth that can save.

Sex and Power and the LDS Woman

I find myself singing to my kids often--snippets of songs, really. I think I do this because my mother did. And just like her I sing in snippets because I can't remember all the words and when I am on my own with no music I'm usually off key. One of my earliest mom-song-memories is Helen Reddy singing the great feminist anthem:

I am woman hear me roar
In numbers too big too ignore
And I know too much to go back and pretend
'Cause I've heard it all before
And I've been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna' keep me down again.

It is funny, really, that this song, a huge hit the year I was born, should have so permeated my childhood. My mom did not, and definitely does not now, consider herself a feminist. And yet, she represented all that the movement wanted--she rose up from a difficult family life to attend college, told her boyfriend she wouldn't be married until she finished college (marrying in 1969), insisted on going back to work part time after her children were born, managed her own money and bank account for her whole adult life, had four children spaced exactly as she chose them to be. Growing up, it never occurred to me that there might be places in America where men and women weren't treated as equals. In my family, the women always had equal say with the men. Always.

And yet I don't consider myself a feminist either. It is ironic really, because I also completely recognize that my lifestyle, choices and self-actualization are a direct outgrowth from that time. I am not a feminist because for all the good the movement did for women in my generation, there were also heavy costs. A huge part of the movement, and the 1960's in general, was an exploration of sexual "freedom." Instead of helping to create a world where men were held to the same high standard that women had always been judged against, they advocated the freedom for women to act to the lowest common denominator. Empowering women became so wrapped up in sex that all the good work the feminists did ended up resulting in some pretty terrible unintended consequences. Women may now exhibit all kinds of lewd behavior without the consequences of a generation or two ago, but in the process these same women cause men to further objectify them. So much for the sexual revolution being anything more than huge step in the wrong direction.

A few months ago, Kathryn Soper, one of the lovely and talented women behind Segullah, posted an incredible article at a website called "Patheos." The article is about the ways in which we miss the mark when it comes to teaching teen aged women about chastity. Her insights are fascinating, the writing engaging, and her personal experiences deeply poignant. If you haven't had a friend send you the piece yet, you really should take a few minutes to go and read it. Ever since reading it a few weeks ago, I haven't been able to quite put it out of my head, and though I won't be as eloquent, I would like to add some of my own thoughts here.

The article begins by pointing out that most teenage girls do not engage in sexual activity because of an overwhelming desire to have sex. In fact, a New Yorker article from a couple of years ago, when reviewing the Twilight books, believed the popularity of the books was due to the fact that young women want love without sex. Soper asserts the same, and quotes President Ezra Taft Benson to back her up. The teen sex itself is a symptom of a deeper problem. Or problems.

Going further, Soper focuses the rest of her piece on just one of these problems: power.

Too many young girls, maybe particularly LDS girls, feel a lack of power. In this case, power is defined as a person feeling like they have a large measure of control over what happens to them. When we talk about power at church, we most often talk about Priesthood power--exclusive to men; or the power of procreation--inaccessible without a man. It isn't that there aren't plenty of examples of female power within the Church, it is just that our terminology doesn't acknowledge it.

When a powerless feeling is coupled with a strong need for love and/or attention, sexuality is the most obvious default for a teenager. Because, let's face it, ladies, men are wired to be deeply driven by sex. Women who learn from an early age to manipulate that desire can gain a lot of power. Of course, Soper reminds us, the power is just an illusion because it isn't based on something inside the young person, it is based on others' perceptions of her. Like the other power mentioned above, such burgeoning sexual power is based on something a man gives or does or notices.

I'd like to add that the power usually only lasts as long as the object of young man's desire is unattainable. Studies show that the vast majority of teen relationships end within a month or two of a couple's first sexual encounter. Girls, of course, have the most to lose in such a break-up, because it ensures that the temporary substitute for love is now absent, and to make matters worse, she has given up the only source of power that she had. In the self-image crash that inevitably follows, needs deepen further and our powerless young teenager finds herself repeating her mistakes because this time it will be "different."

The remainder of Soper's article is in the form of a personal essay, where she bravely talks about her first encounter with the realization that sexual power was within her grasp. In my own life, I was lucky not to have such an experience when I was in my mid-teens, though I knew that many of my friends understood that power. At the time, it didn't feel lucky. Other than a brief stint during my junior year, I could count on one hand the number of dates I had until I was twenty years old.

I was so jealous of the way my many friends could flirt and tease and even manipulate to find any number of boys with which to spend a Friday night. Or to take out the garbage. Or to lift something heavy. Or to hang on their every word. Or ultimately, to spend three months salary on a diamond ring.

Yet, even as my bitterness and mild disdain for what I perceived as the weakness of men grew (along with frustration over my sisters' cruelty toward them), I was busy cultivating other sources of power: intellectual, emotional and spiritual.

Then, when I was twenty years old, something remarkable happened. After a very unusual set of circumstances that landed me in Sacramento California and hanging out with a guy I didn't really like all that well, I looked into his eyes (too) late one night and I recognized exactly what Kathryn Soper is talking about in her article: sudden approval where before there had only been indifference. Bald desire that frightened me.

I kept my power and walked away from the situation, terrified at what I was capable of, and more than a little embarrassed. Because of this person's previous role in my life, for me to suddenly have such a hold was complete reversal, and more than a little exhilarating. What I learned that night, however, without really realizing it, was that "no," was more powerful than desire. My choice, my decision, was a product of every part of my power, not just my sexuality.

In Disneyland last month I was terribly disappointed not to see more evidence of Mulan: my favorite Disney-heroine and the consummate non-Princess. At the first of that movie, right after a disastrous trip to the matchmaker, she goes to the temple of her ancestors, made up and lovely. She is the classic picture of Chinese beauty. Yet, she knows as she catches her image in the highly polished stones that the gorgeous woman she sees is not a reflection of herself. As she wipes the make-up off just one half of her face, she sings,

Who is that girl I see?
Staring straight back at me?
When will my reflection show
Who I am, inside?

I saw this movie the summer I met Plantboy. I was quite self-actualized for 23, but I understood Mulan's sentiment exactly. How many times had I asked myself the same question, though perhaps without the moving vocals. Mulan is not just a love story between a man and woman, it is also a love story of a girl and her father, a girl and her country, a girl and herself.

Some time in my early thirties, I finally looked into the mirror one day and loved the woman I saw staring straight back at me. I found the place where I ceased to see myself through others eyes, even Plantboy's, and I felt deeply empowered. Intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and sexually. A balance that had taken me half my life to finally achieve.

The question I have today is, "why did it take so long?" What can be done to speed this process for the wondering and wandering young women we know and love so that they can be the heroines in their own lives?

Just a few weeks ago, a man in our ward gave a wonderful fireside about dating, but during his remarks he noted that if you believed yourself to be "in love" in high school, then you were just being ridiculous. (Ironically, his own wife, to whom he is very close, is his high school sweetheart.) I felt impressed to drive one of my young women home and speak to her a little more closely: she is dealing with some serious empowerment issues right now, and a serious boyfriend issue. I told her that loving another person wasn't ridiculous, and that part of the nature of women was to be loving. I reiterated that it is never okay to break the commandments, but that there are plenty of appropriate ways to give and express all kinds of love, even that feeling of romantic love. I pray that she will feel the power that comes into her life by choosing to be chaste. By choosing to love. By choosing her own path and asserting what she really wants. Mostly I pray that she will find her power before she finds herself on a road where she actually is helpless.

It is a hard thing we ask of our youth and young adults; it is a hard standard the Lord holds us to while simultaneously blessing us with such powerful needs, but we weren't sent here to fail, either. Empowerment is about realizing that we can do hard things. Because I am God's daughter.

A woman.

Strong. Feminine. Empowered.

Hear me roar!

Another Post About Me Hearting Public Education

MStanger posted this on his Facebook Page today: one of the few media sources I've read which is highly critical of the recent love affair with charter schools sweeping the country. Indeed, charter schools are about the only bi-partisan thing happening in this country right now, oddly enough. It takes a bit of time to read it, but it is wonderful, and worth passing along to every public school teacher that you know and love. My guess is that there are quite a few. My guess is that every one of you can cite a public school teacher as having had a remarkable effect on your life.

The posting was followed by a number of "yeah but" comments, and I started to respond, but there was just too much to say. So rather than clutter his page and quite possibly start an argument with some people I really like, I'll attempt some thoughts of my own here.

One of the lines of conversation on the thread went like this: that charters aren't actually necessary where there is open enrollment and school choice. I happen to live in a town with the most bizarre education system I've ever seen and my take is that open enrollment/school choice lends itself to a community that LOVES charter schools. The more the merrier!

I'll explain: the charter movement has been popular here because each parent/kid gets to attend exactly the type of school they want. Spanish, French and Japanese immersion campuses. Science academies. Art academies. Even the public high schools have mostly jumped on board and created mini-schools within each campus with different start times and isolation from other groups. If you have a curriculum you find and like and can get even 100 people to agree with you? Great! Apply for a charter. Our city is more than happy to give you money for a start up, despite the fact that many public middle and high school grade classes have upwards of 40 students in them. Oh, and don't forget about the very strong home-schooling movement in this area either. After ten to fifteen years with this local experiment, here are some of my observations.

Any time a teacher looks at a child wrong, the parent begins "shopping around" for a new school. I talk to parents all the time who are filled with nothing but criticisms and anger for previous schools they've attended, generally because of a single incident. (One mother pulled her daughter for the school's expectation that 30 absences for "illness" would be verified by a doctor.) Rather than attempting to sit down with concerned parties and solve issues in a way that is dignified and reasonable, the kids are pulled and sent some where else. The take home message, for the child, of course, is that your parents will always save you. That you only need to listen to adults when they say what you want to hear. That if you are unsuccessful at school, it can't possibly be your fault, or have anything to do with your parents. It must be the school's fault. But especially the teacher's fault. The long term message sent to these children is that quitting is the most effective answer to a difficult situation.

I have never been around so many young adults who have negative things to say about their teachers. In a town where competition for teaching positions is as competitive as any I've ever seen, I cannot believe that all of these teachers are truly awful. That they all took a pay cut and added classroom numbers this year because they just really hate kids. That they have some power-hungry, socialist agenda to ram down kids' throats.

I know kids in their mid-teens who have never moved, but have attended five or six different schools. Including, of course, the years of non-school that too many people call home school. The 12 teenage girls in my ward, an area of about 10 square miles, attend 3 different middle schools and five different high schools. There is no continuity in our church group, but neither is there any continuity in their neighborhoods.

When kids go to school where they live, and the teachers live in the same area, the entire community becomes invested in whether or not that school is successful. Parents and kids know what is going on with the other folks in their neighborhood because they have grown up keeping an eye on the local school, volunteering there and being involved. Neighbors know one another, because the school gives them a sense of shared purpose and involvement. The "buy-in" (A Greg Mortensen term) is less about property taxes and more about human resources--time, compassion, loyalty. When communities get attached to their local schools, they can have reasonable conversations about school board members, property tax issues and curriculum change. They see first hand how occasional tax hikes affect their community in positive ways and they know the people making decisions for the schools, and by extension, their kids. They might choose to run for this position themselves.

The article cited above is full of interesting facts, but the one I found the most telling is that a super-majority of Americans rate American education, as a whole, as being lousy and broken. However, the same super-majority (nearly 80%) gives their OWN public school a rating of A or B. Pretty damn good. You bet that inner city schools are failing regularly, but it is because inner city HOMES are failing. Even the best trained and most caring teachers in the world cannot overcome the direst circumstances for each child. It doesn't mean they won't try. Public or charter, it doesn't mean they won't try.

Without addressing the whole child failure-paradigm, we cannot fix it. Education is certainly one component, but health care issues need to be addressed, early childhood intervention, parenting, poverty, hunger. . . . kids who are falling apart before they even get a chance to meet that caring teacher in that new, beautiful school. I've looked into the eyes of 12 year-olds who, through no fault of their own, have seen enough despair and hopelessness to fill five lifetimes. There is no band aid for this problem. There is no idiot political solution that is the equivalent of "just pull yourself up by the bootstraps." The best system cited in the film--the Finnish--is also in the society Americans would term as being the most socialist. The least private. The most public. Is this ironic?

The truth is, when you run the numbers, there are just as many failing charter schools as there are public schools. Maybe more. It is also equally true that public schools can take lessons from the charter's philosophy toward smaller classes and hiring the best teachers. Abandoning one to give money to the other will only fix one school at the expense of another. And it has no hope of fixing the system as a whole.

I can promise you this: public or private or charter , your kids' teachers care. A lot. So much that they may spend time every day with your kids at the expense of spending time with their own. They work under enormously stressful conditions for pitiful pay. A mostly female workforce is constantly reminded by mostly male bosses and politicians that they signed up for a 3/4 job that is seen as barely more professional than any other public service. Besides being beholden to an employer and politicians, parents also claim some authority over teachers (what do we pay your salary FOR???). On any given day, your child's teacher is working to please a whole lot of different people, knowing that her whole job might hinge on a single mistake. The media bombards kids with images of stupid adults, particularly teachers, and parents allow them to watch such programming from an early age and then wonder why they have no respect for anybody or anything.

American kids aren't failing because of stupid teachers. They are failing because laziness and entitlement has become the norm. If you think I'm talking about inner-city kids here, think again. Nobody wants to major in engineering, because it is hard. They major in business because they want to make money. The only product we seem to manufacture in America anymore. Wait, scratch that, we manufacture plenty of cynicism also.

As I ponder taking out a loan to go back to school, so that I might have the tools to re-enter a profession I love, I am so disheartened. I grew up with such respect and admiration (read: hero worship) for the teachers who gave me so much. Once upon a time I had pretty decent grades. I might have been anything I wanted to be. I chose teaching because I'm passionate about education as a tool to overcome so many social ills. Because I believe in equality and democracy. Because I love America. And now, to be standing on the edge of the next part of my life, and hear so much invective for public school and see the competition for jobs coupled with some of the worst working situations I've ever seen for teachers, I feel that cynicsm creep inside of me also.

Evilution

Some weeks back, a former student sent me a message on Facebook, expressing conflict over the way her high school teacher was presenting evolution in her science class. My previous school was in a predominately LDS small town in Utah. Knowing that she is a very religious person, she didn't need to say very much for me to understand precisely what her conflict is.

Over the years, as I've worked with young teenage women in the LDS Church (and heck, their mothers and grandmothers too!) I am often discouraged by what a bad rap science gets. Too many religious women view science as something for men to glom onto, or as something whose purpose is to undermine faith. For the uber-religious, science is too often synonymous with atheism. Because I usually am in the context of a church setting when working with these kids, it is not always appropriate for me to challenge their thinking when it comes to secular knowledge.

My young friend gave me a perfect opportunity to both share my faith, and my own seemingly contradictory journey to marry science with religion. It also caused me to do some careful research. A generation before the years that had a strong bearing on my adult self--both religiously and intellectually--the Church also underwent a time of growing pains. When Dallin H. Oaks (now an apostle of the LDS Church) was the president of Brigham Young University, there were deep divisions in Church administration regarding whether or not the subject of evolution should be presented at BYU. Though the Scopes Monkey Trial had been fifty years earlier, there were statements by general authorities in place--both official and unofficial--that were problematic for determining a mainstream course of action at the Church University.

Oaks settled the question by offering his professional opinion to those who made such decisions for BYU (including President Hinckley) by making the following statement, "If we stopped teaching this theory, within a few years students from BYU would not be admitted to…graduate schools. At that point we would cease to function as a recognized university and would, in the eyes of the world (especially the world of higher education), be little more than a seminary with added courses in the humanities. I have no doubt whatever that our accreditation as an institution of higher education would be lost."

He then added, though I must say he hardly needed to, "The issue is just loaded."

For further information, there are a couple of really great websites I found. The first contains any statement the author could EVER find on evolution put out by the Church. It is important to point out, however, that only four of these statements are deemed "official." The most recent of these official statements was actually given in the 1930's, and though each builds on a First Presidency Statement made in the very early part of the 1900's, over the years, each statement becomes more and more general, in the end merely emphasizing that God created the earth and that Adam was the "first man" and prophet. The eternal progression of man in the world to come is also reiterated (talk about evolving). This softening of language is indicative of a view of science at odds with those who would use the Bible as a scientific manual to teach Creationism.

The second website emphasizes the official statements, quotes from faithful LDS people and scientists regarding knowledge and the attainment of it, and a wonderful talk from Hugh B. Brown under the "LDS Articles" link. There is enough here to keep you busy for days if you are interested. If you are not, well, you've probably already quit and I'm already over it.

Years before going to bat for evolution, Elder Oaks issued statements to the faculty at BYU strongly condemning those who would make assumptions about their colleagues' commitment to the Church based on their training in the sciences. As your read excerpts from the letter I sent to my former student, I would ask you to do the same for me.

Enjoy.

"Dear K,

"My intention is not to convince you of a certain way of thinking: as always I want my students to think for themselves and draw their own conclusions, but sharing my story might help you to see that any worthwhile journey of faith and knowledge takes time, and that some answers and conclusions don’t immediately reveal themselves.

“My first good life science class was my AP Biology class. It was a bit intimidating—I was a young sophomore and my teacher was the head football coach. He was loud and disorganized and sometimes lazy. But I loved him. His perspective was unique. He had arrived at an interest in science only later in life when he realized that if he wanted to coach high school ball, he was going to have to actually get a major in something besides PE. Though in his early 40’s when I first knew him, he had only been a member of the Church a few years.

“When he taught the chapter on evolution (he called it “evilution” just to nettle us), he presented the information in the book and I found myself very conflicted. Though it seemed to contradict everything I’d been taught at church, the theory deeply appealed to my sense of logic. Furthermore, that appeal was disturbing to me—wasn’t my faith already weak enough to be wondering about such things?

“Then, on the last day of the unit he gave us time to express our opinions and discuss discrepancies between the stories of creation we had been taught and evolutionary theory. Most of us, though not all, were LDS, but most of the other kids were Christians of some variety and the conversation was lively and fascinating. Though I’m pretty sure neither our science or our religion was very factual that morning, it was wonderful to have such a discussion in an atmosphere where we didn’t feel chided for our questions about God, or unsophisticated for our belief in something beyond biological chemicals. It was because of his class I became a science teacher.

“Fast-forward to college, where I spent much of my first year spinning my wheels both spiritually and intellectually. Gone were the days of Christian science teachers helping you navigate your way through tough concepts—evolution wasn’t merely a subject you studied in biology, this theory and its huge body of supporting evidence provided the entire foundation for most of my biology classes. There was no question of it being ‘just’ a theory, this was THE theory. (If you look at the word theory from a scientific standpoint, you know that 'just' doesn’t really apply anyway.)

“. . . . I spent a lot of time questioning. I didn’t think it was at all possible for religious doctrine to reconcile with scientific teaching. Some people are given the gift of faith. My mother is one of these, and so is my sister. I am not. In fact, quite the opposite. My own gifts of intellect, practicality, logic and curiosity sometimes seem to work in direct opposition to having faith.

“Then, halfway through my freshman year until about halfway through my sophomore year, I was faced with a series of unexpected and very serious challenges. The details here would fill pages, so I will spare you, but suffice it to say, I had to really find out for myself if the Church was true, or if all this eternal-families-stuff was just a nice fairy tale to make us feel better about death and trials.

“It took some time, but I’m glad I didn’t give up. I came to know for myself that the Lord had a hand in my life, that the Atonement was real and personal . . . once I was finally at peace with my own beliefs, I was able to compartmentalize the science. It wasn’t easy, but I was determined not to let my perceived inconsistencies between faith and science either deter me from my religion or from the subject I loved.

“Time passed, and as my spiritual faith and secular knowledge both deepened, I came to realize that I no longer had to compartmentalize the two. My study of science had given me a greater appreciation for God and His magnificent creation. My study of religion had given me the influence of the Holy Ghost which helped me to separate truth from error, or to be settled with the questions that weren’t answerable. I eventually became a missionary and recognized how simple the core message of the gospel is, how simple salvation is. The more questions I asked and more curious I became, the more I also realized how few of the questions really NEED to be answered in order for you to live a good, righteous life. . . .

"Deseret Book published a collection of essays some years ago called “Reflections of a Scientist” by Henry Eyring (the current apostle’s father) that says some amazing things about faith and religion. (Excerpts here.) I will not quote it directly—I loaned the book out and it seems I didn’t get it back. But I remember him saying that true science and true religion would never be in conflict with one another. That if they seemed to contradict, it was because we didn’t have enough knowledge. As a member of the General Sunday School board, he of course asserted the truthfulness of the Church, but readily acknowledged how little had been revealed to us by God about the majestic workings of the universe, and that human curiosity should be boundless in trying to figure things out. . . .

“When my husband took his core biology classes, he was taught the evolution portion by a wonderful professor named Dr. Frank Messina. (I’d had Messina for graduate level evolution years earlier—one of the best classes I ever took . . .) In the upper level class, Messina dove right in on day one with micro-evolution content, assuming that if we had made it to that level then we were all on board. In the basic biology class (my husband’s) he spent the first several days reassuring the students that his goal was not to undermine their faith in any way. . . though not religious himself . . . he understood the culture of the area and had no wish to be seen as a destroyer. . . .

“Dr. Messina came to the conclusion . . . that both religion and science were ways of knowing. Religion uses the 'evidence of things NOT seen' (Hebrews 11:1) and science uses evidence we can observe through our five senses. Interestingly enough, at the same time I attended a Utah State Science Teachers conference and one of our break-out groups was facilitated by a BYU professor who broached the subject of teaching evolution in a conservative community. Many of his conclusions were identical to Dr. Messina—who are we to say how God created life on our planet? It is enough for salvation to know that He did. For me, my own life would be incomplete if I had not learned to use both the seen and the unseen to help guide my decisions and stimulate my mind and spirit.

“As for specifics? I’ve come to some of my own (very un-doctrinal!) conclusions there, and won’t share them. In time, if the reconciliation seems important to you, the Spirit will guide you into your own truth. Or it will help you to know that NOT knowing (at least for now) is okay too. What I will say very specifically is I . . . believe whole-heartedly that Adam was the first prophet—the first man who in body and mind was created in God’s image and with potential to become like our Father in Heaven. I believe that same potential lies in each one of us as well. I know that having faith makes life richer, fuller and better. . . ."

I told you in my last post that I was bundle of contradictions.

Let's Talk About Sex

Education that is.


This topic was brought up, rather inadvertently, in my book group the other night. The group is affiliated with RS Enrichment, so we mostly do a good job of sticking to the topics in the book. As when I'm with (most) any group of LDS women, I've learned to just bite my tongue when snide comments are made about the global warming "hoax", Barack Obama being a commu-muslo-terrorist and the latest blog news from Glenn Beck. As much as I hate it when people assume I agree with them about politics because we have the same religion, in person I'm much less confrontational than my writing suggests and I don't like the argument that political discourse often engenders. Discussion yes, but argument, no. Besides, in our group there is a woman who is Canadian, a former social worker, and was a rabid Hilary supporter. She isn't afraid to have a little go-time.


But back to the subject. I only said the other to give a little bit of background into our group and its dynamic. One of our younger sisters was very angry about some diversity posters that were going to be hung at her son's elementary school. Coming into the conversation a moment late, I thought that she was perhaps over-reacting, but then she was specific about the content of some of the posters. A couple of them were about transgender and homosexual individuals with blunt vocabulary. I think some kinds of information, particularly presented in such a sound-byte fashion, merely give children more tools for mocking one another. Also, since homosexual and transgender lifestyles are so wrapped up in sexual behavior and not just inherent identity (like race), the teaching of such should be handled the way sex education is at schools, not the way mulit-cultural education is.

My friend, incensed, wrote a letter to the school. A second mother in the group, who has some older children, also indicated that she has had trouble with the sex education programs at area schools. I kind of cornered mother #2 later and tried to get specifics about her issues with the programs, but she wasn't really able to say. Only that when given the choice, she opted her child out and was promised he'd have other work to do at his seat. He did not, and ended up doing most of the worksheets the rest of the class was doing. Again, no idea about the age of the child in question or the content that was so disturbing to her.

Before I hit you all with my barrage of questions, let me give you a bit of my own history. My first knowledge of sex came from two sources: I was staying with a friend for a few days when I was about 8 years old while my parents went on a trip. While bathing together one night, she told me how babies were made. I was shocked, horrified and disgusted. She told me that it was true and if I didn't believe her I should ask my mother. How could I say ANYTHING like that to my mom!? I'd be in so much trouble. Looking back, I can see that this experience has turned me into a mother that is pretty much anti-sleepover. Don't even get me started on why her mother put two eight year old girls in the tub at the same time.

The second source was a cousin, my age, who loved to entertain us with dirty jokes while all of the cousins stayed up late in the huge tent set up on Grandma's lawn every Labor Day. When I first heard his naughty potty mouth, and his awful jokes were pretty much confirming in their perverse way what bathtub-girl had said, there was no possible way for me to talk to my mother. It was too embarrassing and too gross. Years later I would learn that she was waiting for me to ask, just as my older brother had asked questions while she was pregnant with my youngest sibling.

Then mom forgot to come of the second of our two maturation films at school. She was the only absent mother in the entire sixth grade class. Okay, like I can really know that. But it sure seemed that way. This has been a running family joke for years, but at the time it probably really affected my willingness to approach my mom about girl stuff. I was embarrassed beyond belief when I had to tell her I had started my period, and for years I wanted to die whenever I had to ask her to buy pads. And tampons! Let's not even go there.

Fast forward to junior high health. Our sex education unit took a whopping 45 minutes. Our lame-o health teacher showed a movie about the miracle of childbirth while the boy behind me made snide comments the entire time. I tried desperately not to keep my head on my desk so that I could pass the quiz later. I willed myself to disappear, but not having any magical powers, it was no good. When the movie was done--10 seconds before the bell rang--our teacher said, "If you have an questions, go home and ask your parents."

I did not.

Being a nurse, conversations about sex and even sexuality should have been doable for my mom, but she just kept waiting. It's crazy, really, we talk about all kinds of things now and have a really positive and wonderful friendship. But I was the oldest girl and my mom's own family had been fairly dysfunctional; it seemed like everything I did was uncharted water. Well, about the time I turned 16 and was taking AP biology, Mom figured that she'd just missed the boat. After all, she reasoned, I was exceptionally bright--I'd certainly put two and two together. (Or, in this case, one and one; though my experience was all cerebral and the thought of even kissing a boy terrified me.) As for the chastity stuff, well, I was getting plenty of teaching in church; my dad did give me some kind of object lesson about a boiling frog. But you had to be dating anybody more than once, and they had to be marginally attracted to you, to get anywhere near boiling. Chastity was not a problem.

When I was a senior in high school, my youngest brother went to the maturation film for boys. My mother did not forget to attend with him. I took him on a long walk that night and told him all about the girls' movie. I told him that he wouldn't get this talk from mom but that he was mature enough and smart enough to understand some things, and that I didn't want him to be one of those idiot boys who teased girls about things they didn't understand. I think I knew that afternoon that he would eventually be a doctor.

On to college. I learned a lot, again all academic knowledge, about the mechanisms of sex and birth control and anatomy and physiology and vocabulary and . . . . well, you get the gist. Biology girl, remember? My older brother and his sweet fiance gave me a ride back to school one weekend and in a conversation that must have required him to swallow a lot of pride and mortified her, he asked ME about birth control options. I was 19. I was very blunt. I still wonder if her reticence towards me stems from that single conversation.

I was nearly legal age before I really kissed a boy. We won't go into the depths to which I was naive and stupid about what certain kinds of kissing can do to a man, or how cruel it is when a girl ignorantly starts the launch sequence. The early days of marriage were a long, slow learning curve; and yes, for all my book learning, I was pretty embarrassed about nearly every aspect of intimacy.

My own views of what the schools should or should not include in their sex education curriculum has no doubt been heavily influenced by things I've seen as a teacher. I was 23 and a single student teacher when a gorgeous Hispanic senior came to me and asked me about fifty questions about pregnancy; she was a few months along and I was the first adult that she'd told. I was 24 and teaching 7th grade when some foster parents told me the girl that had guardian-ship for was dealing with the aftermath of a sexually abusive stepfather and an abortion the previous summer. As for my eye-opening experiences at my inner-city school in Texas, well, let's just say that I'm a big advocate of giving people some kind of a license or test before they engage in sexual activity, let alone pro-create! ;)

Permanently damaged by my convoluted sex education? No, of course not. But I would like to do better for my own kidlets. And don't go saying "Get your spouse's support" because we'd been married about twenty minutes when Plantboy said, in no uncertain terms, "you are talking to the kids about sex; you're the science teacher." He has a point, from my painfully bashful beginnings, I never miss a beat when I say sperm or egg or sex or mating or reproducing or penis or vagina or whatever in front of a group of 13 year-olds. It's just science.

But with my own (and my oldest is just five months away from that magic age of accountability), it doesn't feel like science. It feels like how they will normalize themselves to the opposite sex, especially because they don't have sisters. It feels like their understanding of sacred principles. It feels like their future chance at an eternal marriage. The facts are the same, but what my little ones DO with these facts will literally make or break their lives and spirits.

My cornered friend from book group talked about how she opens up the conversation by talking about stranger touch, private parts, etc. The rest kind of evolves from there, over time, as you children are ready for it and ask questions. This is the approach advocated by the Cub Scout Manual. But I remember how poor I was at asking questions, even in an atmosphere of love and trust that my mom always inspired. And my boys are such boys--so mechanical and busy and practical--I don't know if they ever even think about babies, let alone where they come from. I also wonder if by jumping right to the molesting conversation, we rule out any possibility for such touch to be good and wonderful and necessary? Of course, all that affirmation stuff is not really appropriate or desirable for quite a number of years still . . .

What are your thoughts here? Things your parents did well? Things that have worked with your older kids? Didn't work? And most all, funny stories; sex is serious and sacred, but it isn't ALL bad. ;)

Nine Years and Nine Reasons

Tomorrow it will be nine years since Plantboy and I got married. Nine years ago today I was working frantically to get in grades on the last day of school for my first teaching job. I was so green that I was actually still taking work and grading it that day. Besides getting all the grades in, I had to leave a spotless room because I was changing jobs as well. Oh, and it rained all week, ruining any chance for the outdoor reception Plantboy and my mother had spent untold hours on. The temperature also plummeted to the 40's. Very unseasonable for the first week of June. I remember taking the hour ride to the temple where we were getting married with my parents--Plantboy was coming from another direction and we were meeting there--shivering in my summer dress, snapping at anyone who looked at me wrong, feeling so nervous I wanted to throw up and fighting the tears the whole way.

Hm . . . . probably not the way most people describe their emotional state as they head toward marital bliss, right?

I was exhausted and overworked; I had only spent a couple of days with Plantboy in the month previous because he was working in another state; the weather was a huge blow to our plans; I had just said goodbye to a job and a group of students that I absolutely loved; I was about to spend the summer living with my in-laws whom I hardly knew in another state . . . I suppose that there were definite reasons for my near breakdown the morning I got married.

But it wasn't until I walked into the foyer at the Logan temple that I really knew the source of the anxiety, which mounted and mounted until I actually saw him walk in--about two minutes after we did. He gave me a big hug and I immediately relaxed. I said to him, "You came." He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Of course." I think in some corner of my mind, I really didn't think that marriage would be a part of my life. I wasn't that old, even, but for those who didn't know me in the 18 months leading up to my marriage, I was pretty much an emotional train wreck a lot of the time: maybe there were too many beginnings and endings and heartbreaks in too short of time for me to be entirely stable.

When we were married, the man who sealed us said that part of the symbolism of the altar in marriage ceremony is that we lay down all we have and are for the sake of the union. A true marriage is an act of sacrifice. He said a lot of other great things, that I'm sure were very useful, but it was that part about sacrifice that has stayed with me these nine years. I've learned that sacrifice brings amazing blessings.

The rest of the day was a whirlwind of joy and sensation and yes, exhaustion. The third day of our honeymoon, I told Plantboy that I was going to take a "short" nap. He woke me up five hours later, no doubt wondering if I had entered some kind of alternative universe from which I'd never return. The whole first year of marriage was a little unsettling for me. I had been on my own and independent long enough that adjusting to the new "we" consciousness was a slow learning curve for me.

People talk about the "honeymoon" phase being the earliest part of a relationship and/or marriage. For me, however, I really believe that Plantboy and I finally hit our stride in the summer of 2005. I'm not exactly sure what changed, but since then we have been amazingly happy together. Even when things have been difficult, they are not difficult between us. As a youngish 20-something it was so easy for me to imagine myself being alone, but instead I was blessed to marry a man I'm still so in love with that at times it makes my heart ache for the joy of it. So, here it is,

Nine Reasons I Love Being Married to Plantboy

1. He can never keep the whole truth from me, even if he is trying to tease or surprise me. I can just read him too well.

2. Our favorite dating memory is of cuddling in a sleeping bag under the stars in Logan Canyon. We were way too unmarried to be there (I'm smarter now that it doesn't matter any more), but Plantboy was a perfect gentleman, keeping his hands and yes, his lips to himself while we talked for hours. Though I didn't admit it until several weeks afterward, that was the night I fell in love with him.

3. From the very beginning I always knew where I stood with him. In all the years I had dated (and not dated), I had never known a boy that was crazy about me from the moment he met me. Once I got past the feeling that he was human crazy glue, I knew that I was happy to not play games anymore and just know how somebody felt. Even now, I catch him looking at me sometimes and I know that time has not diminished his sincere and tender attachment.

4. His eyes. Oh yikes. I've never seen eyes as fantastic as his. (Except maybe me oldest son's!) When his optometrist told him that he may not be a great candidate for Lasic, I was secretly happy. I'm afraid that if he starts going around without his glasses on, women will start chatting him up in all kinds of random places whether he is with me or not.

5. Though he is beginning to gray and will probably be totally gray by the time he is 40, I'm just shallow enough to love that he still has a full head of thick hair and probably always will (as did his maternal grandfather). The irony is that every other guy I ever dated or was attracted to was losing his hair: they are probably all bald now.

6. I've never known a man (at least one who was straight and LDS) who loves the natural world the way Plantboy does. I love that our idea of the perfect vacation is to get as far away as possible from other people and look at God's creations. And when we hike or just drive around and I see plants or flowers or shrubs that I love, he can nearly always tell me the common and sometimes scientific name of what I'm looking at.

7. He is a great home teacher.

8. He is willing to listen to the other side of an argument before forming an opinion. We both like to read TNY, National Geographic and listen to NPR: we never run out of real things to talk about.

9. He loves our kids. When he spends time with them, he is NOT babysitting. He is parenting. We nearly always see eye to eye in our approach to raising kids and if one of us is grouchy and short of patience, the other can easily step in. He never acts like he's doing me a great favor when he takes the kids with him to the store or stays home so I can go alone.

I love this man with my whole heart. And, a year from now, I'm sure it will not be hard for me to come up with ten new ones. If you are lactose intolerant, you may want to skip the cheese next year.

Teachers

I've just read another story this morning about a couple of teachers doing something stupid in front of students. I say "another" because I can't believe how many of these I've read recently. It seems FoxNews would have the public think that teachers are little more than violent, uncontrolled pedophiles preying on our children.

And while it might be obvious to point out that these teachers are the exception rather than the rule, there is still painfully little good press for public schools these days. In case you haven't heard the latest funding debacle, Governor Swcharnegger's balanced budget plan for California next year includes pink slips to 20% of the teachers (not administrators) currently employed in the school system. I'm sure that will do a lot for classroom size, student management and learning.

School is getting to be a harder and harder environment to work in all the time. Granted, school has always been a place where kids assert a degree of independence and, particularly as they get older, spend a fair amount of time unsupervised. I had an acquaintance tell me the other day that she'd heard in the last 10 years or so that our public schools are turning out dumber and dumber kids every year. She cited some random statistic (you know, 90% of statistics are made up on the spot), and sounded very authoritative. I've thought about her remarks the last few days. As a person who has, and will again, make her living by teaching public school and who will send my children to public school, I feel a very personal stake in how it all works out.

Schools do need work, and though throwing money at a problem won't solve it, correctly applied money could do a lot--better equipment; technology that allows teachers to communicate quickly, effectively and transparently with home; clean, well-lit buildings; a student-teacher ratio that doesn't exceed 25:1 (and much less before 3rd grade); assessments not merely based on testing; revamped and respected vocational programs in high schools . . . .

I could go on, but I won't. I think that any one of you could look at your child's public school and see a place where improvement is needed. In fact, schools that function the best are schools that have a lot of local control with a powerful community of parents, administrators and teachers pulling for common goals. In my mind, this control is why charter and private schools have gained so much ground in recent years. As they are not tied to federal funding, and therefore the accountability standards of No Child Left Behind, the schools are run as the community sees fit, not as bureaucrats in Washington mandate.

The elephant in the room that nobody is talking about is classroom management. Oh, the discussion on out-of-control classrooms is masked under more funding for "teacher training," but it doesn't address the heart of the issue. College (particularly for science and math teachers) is already rigorous and certification requirements are getting worse and worse all the time. What teachers are unprepared for when they walk in the door to the classroom is the chaos that often awaits there. And while the best teachers know the fine art of classroom management (a skill almost impossible to acquire if you don't have a feel for it) and can keep a classroom in line, there are far too many kids coming to school socially unprepared for the school experience because their homes have set them up to fail long before their school careers begin.

Let me explain:

Children who spend hours a day watching television--particularly television filled with commercials and programming only valuable as entertainment--will have a very difficult time concentrating in school, even if they have no disorder to speak of. School will not be funny enough, exciting enough or instantly gratifying enough to compare to the lives of the people they see on TV. And don't even get me started on the sex: even during commercials for programs (usually sports) that have NOTHING to do with sex.

Children who watch any kind of programming where adults are treated with a great degree of sarcasm, sassiness and disrespect will interact with the greater world this way, thinking it is appropriate. Or if not appropriate, at least hilarious to their peers, and sometimes all they are looking for is a laugh.

If your son or daughter takes a cell phone to school then they are more likely to cheat on tests, pass texty notes during class and be in violation of school policies. I believe kids are losing the ability to concentrate on and follow the nuances of a face to face conversation because of cell phone use and text messaging. I currently tutor a student who thinks nothing of listening to music, IM-ing on her computer, texting on her phone, surfing the web and watching television all AT THE SAME TIME. But to ask her to concentrate on her science for 15 minutes? It is like pulling teeth. She is impatient and antsy. She is also 100 pounds (at least) overweight. She is 13. What kind of a future does a child like this have, even though she is generally very sweet?

Dress codes are nearly impossible to enforce when parents allow their children to leave that morning wearing tight or revealing clothes. As for the boys? Their own tee-shirts now are riddled with suggestive and disrespectful sayings. Even young boys. These things are so detracting from a learning environment that even the best management makes it difficult to keep a class of hormonal teenagers in line.

If you have allowed your children to be in charge entirely at your house--calling their own shots about bedtime, what kind of groceries you buy, no consequences for naughty behavior, etc. then they are likely to be sassy, temperamental and argumentative at school.

If a normal child (meaning no disease or disorder) under the age of 14 or 15 is morbidly overweight, that is almost always a parenting failure. Kids this overweight have health problems that keep them from full participation at school, sleep apnea that affects their brain development and social issues that can dog them for life.

Kids who are never required to be still, play by themselves, or focus on a task for more than a minute or two will find school boring. On the other hand, kids who have been read to frequently and taught that hard work is a joy, will begin to understand the long term benefits of daily attendance at school.

Lax parents often complain of teachers not being kind enough to or forgiving enough of their slacker children. I agree that teachers need to treat children with respect, kindness and even charity. But I don't agree that teachers should dismiss rude behavior or lower their expectations because a child's home is run that way. How forgiving do these parents think cops, judges and bosses will be? Particularly in this age of VAST amounts of information, school has to do far more than just teach information (they can never teach enough), they are attempting to teach young people to function in a social framework, which, love it or leave it, involves conformity to appropriate social norms.

If you think your child is lazy at school because he is brilliant--you are probably wrong. I have had many parents give me this excuse over the years when the truth was that junior could hardly tie his shoelaces without a diagram and someone to hold his hand (I'm not talking about kindergartners here). In the last ten years I've worked with probably 1000 students (a small sample compared to more veteran teachers), but I can only think of one or two students that I thought fit the "brilliant so I misbehave/tune out" scenario. Chances are, your kid is just pretty average like most other kids. Sure, he is the world to you and you see his gifts in a way that others don't, but just make sure you are honest about his limitations too. Others will be. And don't expect your child's teacher to treat her as the most special kid in the room. Each child is worth more focus than they can reasonably get at school. It is YOUR job to give the kind of attention your child needs, not her teacher. Even the very best teachers are frustrated by the logistical demands of trying to help each child as much as they need helped.

Even a few years ago (when I first started teaching in the late 90's), a teacher in an average school might have a handful of kids in a classroom of 30 that were difficult. This could mostly be dealt with by seating charts and teacher proximity. But when a teacher with 35 students and 33 desks has ten or fifteen students with classroom behavior issues, it becomes nearly impossible to keep problem students separate from one another.

A generation of children is being raised up with too few checks on their behavior. The best parenting advice I ever got was from my mom when she said, "Somebody is going to be in charge at your house. It may as well be you: you are the grown-up." Yes, public schools need to be smaller, better equipped and staffed with better trained teachers, but they need to be attended by children who have been taught to respect adults, concentrate on tasks that are difficult and understand that there is a real difference between public and private behavior.

I am a great believer in a (relatively) free public education for every child: I think it is at the heart of any democratic society. But if our homes are failing, then our schools cannot succeed.

24

I've often thought it was ridiculous how much could happen to Jack Bauer in just 24 hours. But let me recount my last 24.

Tuesday 8 am--Scallywag gets on his bus, which came late on the day I really needed it to be on time. I turn off Poopy Pirate's show to get him dressed to go to the doctor for Captain Tootypants' four month visit (two weeks late). Pirate has his first tantrum of the day and I hold him down to dress him and wrestle him into the car. Tootypants begins crying because he woke up at six and is wanting his first nap. The clinic is not where I thought it was and I end up fifteen minutes late.

9am--I call the clinic in L**** to ask them to fax Tootypants' shot record to my new clinic. I fill out the paperwork while Tootypants cries and Pirate pulls out every toy in the place. We see the doctor who is really nice but find out that poor Tootypants is in single digits for both height and weight. The first of my children to earn this auspicious honor prior to their second birthday. We wait for the shot nurse. . . . and wait. . . . and wait. . . . Tootypants falls asleep in my arms while Pirate runs around the tiny exam room throwing his second (or third?) tantrum of the day.

10am--I get to the car and call the moms I'm supposed to have at my house for pre-school right at that minute to tell them I'll be late. I'm home about four minutes when we start preschool. We sing songs, I try to keep the kids out of the toys (it is their first day and they just want to play), and try to interpret the language of 2 1/2 year olds that are not my own. Princess Pink (one of the pre-schoolers) poops. She won't let me change her. We get out the playdoh (this is NOT a euphamism for poop.)

11 am--I referee playdoh while I clean up the breakfast dishes. I tell Cutie Haircut (another pre-schooler) that she can't mix the colors. She says nothing and just gives me THE LOOK while digging in deeper to the white she had and the red she stole from Princess Pink. She squeezes the mass defiantly in her chubby patties and I just decide there are some things not worth fighting over. Yellow eventually makes it into the mix. I read stories to Princess (stinky) Pink and Pirate while Cutie Haircut destroys the rest of the Playdoh. Play time! I pass out fruit snacks while Pirate walks around telling everybody what to play with. He also poops so Princess Stinky doesn't feel so lonely. Scallywag gets off the bus and yelps, "What are all these babies doing in the house!" He then demands a peanut butter sandwich because kindy snack time was only a square piece of cinnamon cake, not a triangle. Mommys come.

Noon--Clean up, lunch, Diego's Animal Safari rescue and some house clean up. Change to the big-boy pants because Poopy wants peep-treats instead of lunch. Tantrum # whatever we are on ensues.

One pm--Baby wakes up and all that comes with a child who had four shots in his less than chubby legs just a few hours before.

Two--Baby goes back down. Kids go outside. The neighbors are putting up a new fence and have taken out the old one, so if the kids are disobedient then they can easily walk through two yards and jump right into the open pool I didn't even know was on the block. Thankfully, kids are obedient and fascinated watching the worker-guys. Why do they always have to smoke? Three and four wasn't super busy. Just the typical mom stuff and house cleaning and never-ending laundry. Mommy gets a few minutes of down time.

Four--Comb hair and do make up. Change clothes. Run off Mapquest directions to the tutoring center where I will go to meet my first client. Plantboy comes home and gets his "instructions" for dinner, etc. I wake up the baby and feed him.

Five--Drive through half and hour of horrific traffic to get to the center. Meet my client. My cellphone rings, but I don't pick it up or look at the number. In the seven o'clock hour I find out that it was my home teacher who tried to call before dropping by, but dropped by anyway. I spend a half and hour working through six homework problems. Negative and positive numbers.

Six--I try to help my student through his science homework because it is covering the same concepts he is STRUGGLING with in math. I hope the CAPS show some of the mightyness of his struggle. He doesn't get it. Not. At. All. I meet Dad who happens to be a principle at a local high school. I think we may have some reasonable expectation problems here. Drive home through lesser traffic though still a pain. I turn my IPod way up. I listen to Keith Urban's Stupid Boy about three times. No reason. It is just a good wailing song.

Seven-- I come in the door to a nice spaghetti dinner, or at least I think it will be. The baby takes one look at me and starts wailing. Apparently Tootypants had been angelic until he saw me, but one look at Pirate's red, blotchy eyes told me that he had been less than happy during Daddy in charge time. Another look at Plantboy's face told me the same. Hold baby while I eat cold spaghetti. Hand off baby for Plantboy to change his horrificly stinky (cloth) diaper, sort laundry, help Scallywag clean up toys, Pirate refuses to help and has to be put in the tub kicking and screaming. I am soaked by the time he comes out. Put Scallywag in the shower, nurse baby while Plantboy deals with Pirate.

Eight--Put down Pirate and Tootypants, they fall asleep almost immediately. Small favors. Read to Scallywag, put him down. Go through Tuesday folder items and write out check for school pictures, wishing that Scallywag didn't have that big black bruise on his face where he and Pirate head butted each other while jumping on my bed. Remind Scallywag not to sing the alphabet song at the top of his lungs in the bedroom he shares with two sleeping brothers.

Nine--Begin to do dishes and decide I'm just too tired and want to go to bed. Then, for some reason I begin going through all of the products in the house hunting for Box Tops For Education.

Ten--Go to bed. As soon as I lay down, Scallywag begins crying and whimpering. I go into him. He is hot and grouchy and his cold medicine hasn't really kicked in yet. I change his pajamas and put him back in bed. Fifteen minutes later he begins calling out and crying again. He tells Plantboy he is scared of monsters. They pray, talk for the hundredth time about monsters not being real and put him back to bed. He lays next to me and tells me he is afraid of Star Wars. Plantboy moves him when he drifts off.

Eleven--Sweet sleep.

Midnight--Again with the monsters and Scallywag. I move him out to the couch where it is cooler and there is more light. Sweet Sleep.

Two am--Nurse the baby. He doesn't eat well, so I know he'll be up again, but I'm so exhausted I fall immediately asleep. Go back to bed.

Five am--Baby wakes up again. Plantboy's alarm goes off at 5:30 because it is Ride Your Bike To Work Day. Baby won't go back to sleep, but lays in bed squealing at me for half and hour.

Six am--Bounce baby to keep him happy to avoid waking up big brothers. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. He is finally relaxed enough to lay down, but there is no point in trying to sleep as the big kids will be up any minute.

Seven-twenty am--I should have gone back to sleep. Surprisingly, they woke up very cheerfully and Scallywag even made his bus on time.

At eight I should have gone to sleep for at least thirty minutes while Pirate watched his last show of the morning, but I kept thinking the baby wouldn't last much longer. Again, mistake. Because here I am blogging and the baby is still sleeping. . . . only now the pirate is poopy again.

And just when I thought it had been a VERY long day, my mother calls to tell me that my sister is down and out with strep throat and a kidney stone. It can always get worse. :) Hopefully blogging my own version of 24 will keep a smile on my face through this inevitably exhausting day. And if it puts a smile on a few of your faces then it is as good as saving the world.

And Pictures!

For details, read the previous post.

I had a cool experience the other day. I was walking around the temple with my family when I saw somebody that looked familiar. Unsure if it was him, I haven't seen this person in seven years, I called his name from a distance and sure enough he turned around. It was one of my students from my first year of teaching! He had been a senior in high school then and I hadn't seen him since he went on his mission; about the time Plantboy and I moved to Texas. Anyway, he was there with his wife and two kids. He was doing great and is looking to apply to PhD programs in environmental science--the same subject I taught him in! Granted he had very high interest before I ever met him; I don't think I influenced him one way or the other, but it was really rewarding to see how successful he is and that he has followed his heart. His wife was absolutely lovely and his kids were really cute.

It is exciting to get a tiny taste of the fruits of some of our labors. Mancub told his Sunday School Teacher the other day that the picture she was holding up was the Liahona and that is worked by faith and obedience. The Poopy Pirate sang all of the words to "I Am a Child of God" in nursery the other day. Don't give up moms! These little ones have such hope and promise. We must all hold out for those occasional glimpses we get into their potential.