MOVE THE STATUES

By Ruth A. Sheets

It's time to acknowledge that the Civil War was really totally about slavery, slavery in one part of the country, which affected and infected the whole.  It is also time we remove from public spaces, the statues of the men who decided that slavery was more important than the union.  We now need union more than ever. 

It is also time we as a nation acknowledge that we have seen and understood African-Americans as less than human and that this vision keeps us from truly knowing African-Americans as our equals in every way. 

For these reasons and so many more, the statues must go.  They belong in museums, cemeteries and national parks, where people can remember that human beings can and should be better than the worst impulses our biases and prejudices would give us.  We can remember that people can be brave in causes that are unjust, but should not be celebrated for that.

Perhaps removing the stone and bronze remembrances can allow our nation to acknowledge our racist past and a present built on the beliefs and prejudices, as well as the money that came from a slavery economy and its Jim Crow aftermath. 

There are many among us who continue to see African-Americans as inferior and design laws, neighborhoods, poverty programs, education systems, a justice system, and economic policies to prove it.  White people declare "We are not racist," without ever having to examine why it is our kids are in the "good" schools and they get in the "good" colleges and live in the "good" neighborhoods.

Do we White Americans really deserve all our privileges while so many Black Americans languish in deep poverty, isolated from technology, trapped in schools with inadequate resources, stuck in food deserts, where there is never sufficient money to demand a livable environment.  Do we really think all we have, came our way  just because we worked so hard?  Of course most of us do.  Why not?  We are told that all our lives.

The statues of Confederate soldiers are a reminder to Black Americans that those rebels are more revered than they are and more valued by the culture. 

Those statues must be moved from our public spaces to remind us that black lives do matter and that we as a nation need to start living as though they do.

TEACHER SHORTAGE

By Ruth A. Sheets

There is a national teacher shortage.  In many states, we are told, this shortage has been going on for some time.  It is a critical problem.  I had a friend who had no degree, but was teaching in a school in New Mexico.  She was a dedicated person, but had no substantial training to be in a classroom as its teacher.

Why is there a shortage?  Forty years ago when I came out of college with an Education degree, I couldn't get a job because there were so many teachers looking for work.  Teaching was seen as an honorable profession and although pay was low, teachers were respected.

I am now a teacher.  I just completed my 22nd year in public school teaching.  I love my students and work many extra hours each week and during the summer.  Like so many veteran teachers, I work hard because I believe what I do matters.

Why is there a teacher shortage?  There are a lot of reasons.  Here are a few that I see in my district. 

Teachers are often treated like incompetents.  Our ideas are dismissed in favor of "I feel this would be better for our children" stated by administrators whose experience is not adequate to the needs of the students.  For example, we are told we must have "bell to bell instruction" which means some kind of reading or written work all day long.  As if this were not enough, all classes in a particular grade are to be teaching the same thing at the same time every day.  When we ask where the evidence is for these practices, we are shown none, but told we MUST do this or lose our jobs.

Despite strong evidence that recess, physical activity during the day, and the arts are essential for happy, healthy, well-educated children, our schools have less than 15 minutes per day of recess, limited exposure to the arts, and sitting all day is the norm.

Every couple of years, new curricula are purchased, never the whole curriculum  for any subject, and we are given inadequate training in it.  But, we are expected to raise student achievement with it, while we are trying to learn its nuances.  We are told that unless we follow every single step of the procedure, we are responsible if our students don't get "Proficient" scores or higher on the state exams.

We must daily, perform miracles with students whose living conditions are in some cases 3rd world with limited resources, while governments discuss cutting funding to every program that helps people in poverty.  My students' families struggle to make ends meet, holding down 2 or more jobs at a time. The stress students experience can be dramatic.

In most states, all teachers have at least a Master's degree by the time they have taught 5 years.  That is a substantial education requirement that many occupations do not have, yet teachers' knowledge and experience are ignored as though what has been learned and experienced counts for nothing. 

Then, administrators are in a "gotcha" mode.  Every time they enter a classroom or do a "walk through," of a school, it is not about encouragement for either teachers or students.  It is about pointing out how the teachers are doing things wrong and are incompetent, but "allowed" to teach in the district's precious classrooms out of the goodness of the administrators'  hearts.  Teachers are often threatened with loss of job if they don't measure up to some arbitrary standards, impossible to meet with real children who live in challenging conditions. 

We are no longer to display store bought materials and posters.  Teachers in our district are expected to produce all of our own room decorations and handwritten notes on what the class is working on every day.  These are to be displayed prominently in the classroom so anyone walking in the room can "see" what the class is working on.  This leaves little room for either flexibility or true adaptation for struggling students.  And, we are to provide our own materials if the school does not have them.  It feels like being a robot training robots.

It is hard to attract new teachers to this.  We veterans have come to love our children so much we will put up with all this nonsense.  The new teachers get burned out before they get to see just how great our kids are. 

How do we fix this?  We begin by acknowledging that "not everyone can teach."  The notion that everyone is already a teacher and with a little training can manage and equip a class has let governments, administrators, businesses, and so many others dismiss the complexities of teaching.  If you assume anyone can do the job, you put little or no value on it.  You come to expect that the children will be taught everything they need to know in the ways colleges and businesses want them to be  taught or else the teachers are just not doing their job correctly or are lazy.

I am sorry to have gone on in this way, but I love teaching and want things to change enough to encourage young people to enter the profession and come to love teaching and the children taught as much as I have.  I want young people to know the joy of watching children grow and learn and discover as they move through their childhood into the future. 

We as a nation need to stand up and claim our public schools.  Instead of trying to privatize and shut them down.  WE need to state loud and clear for all to hear that it is in public schools that our children learn diversity.  They come to value our democracy and want to pass it on.  Our children can learn to see and help those who are struggling.  It is where we have exceptional teachers who care deeply for the children, not because their parents have a lot of money to support the school, but because they are children for whom we as a community are responsible.

We count on you, the village that we are helping to raise our children.  Stand up for us teachers and our children. 

THE NEW AMERICAN PIE

by Ruth A. Sheets

Some days, turning on the news takes an act of courage.  Can I bear to eat one more piece of the hate and fear pie being baked for us by the current administration?  We are told it is a great American pie and we  should love it.  The chefs, primarily white men regularly dish up a concoction of misogyny, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transaphobia, urbaphobia, pooraphobia, and a variety of other stuff THAT'S harder to identify. 

These chefs are pretty good at THEIR WORK.  They tuck their ingredients into a crust of double talk, lies, blaming, ignorance, naivete, childishness, and insensitivity.  Then, the top of their concoctions are brushed with a generous helping of hypocrisy, passing the buck and lack of accountability.  It is often baked in secret and fed to us in small enough servings that we don't really complain too much.  After all, we have lives to live.

If we don't like the slice of pie we are given, that's our fault because we are told how healthy this is for our nation and that our bad taste makes us unpatriotic.

There is always a crowd screaming for the chefs telling them how wonderful they are and that there has never been such a good group of bakers. 

If one were to ask one of these pie lovers what they like about the pie and the chefs who made it, they would say that the chef doesn't take anything from anyone and doesn't care what anyone thinks.  The chef really knows them and cares what happens to them.

When the pie is actually examined, it is clear its ingredients do not include generosity, caring, kindness, loving one's neighbor as oneself, or any of those things once thought to be essential to a good American pie. 

Many gag on the fear and hatred wafting from this pie, but it is hard to escape it.  The chefs were carefully selected to be sure they had a hate and fear level high enough that some could be transferred into the pie during each baking session. 

There is a problem.   Even if one does not want to eat a piece of the pie, it is hard to escape.  It's brought out every day with fanfare, like the pie with the four and twenty blackbirds was brought out.  So much of it comes out each day that the nation is choking on it.  Just as one recovers from the last bite, the next is coming along.

"Fire the Head Chef!" you say.  That will not help much because the assistant chefs are of equal quality and this American pie will just keep coming.

Maybe it is possible for other chefs, rival chefs to arise and begin baking pie that is more in keeping with the kind of diet Americans mostly want.  This will keep the recipes fresh for when this becomes the pie of the land again. 

The recipe we will keep alive has a filling of acceptance, understanding, caring, kindness, and courage.  It must be served in a crust of generosity, honesty, insight, intelligence, and topped with faith in our democracy. 

Pass the recipe.  Add all the positive ingredients you want.  Share the pie so we will have practiced enough to make a truly glorious pie in the near future.

TALK OF REGULATIONS

by Ruth A. Sheets

Regulations are in the news in a big way since the 2016 election.  Mr. Trump claims that regulations are causing our economy not to grow at the rate he says should be happening.  So, of course, as with many issues this president has "taken on," his followers think it's a great idea to get rid of regulations.
What are regulations?  They are rules passed to help someone.  There are a variety of someones who can be helped:  citizens of a community, state, or the nation as a whole, businesses, the flora and fauna of a place.

There are many reasons regulations are passed.  Probably health and safety are the most common, but sometimes, regulations are passed to stop or hurt a rival, to give a person or company an advantage, to regulate behavior an individual or small group does not like.  The one thing to be sure of, there was a stated purpose for every one, and someone had to agree to pass them.

Clearly, some of the things being regulated no longer have meaning as times have changed.  They often remain "on the books" because there seemed no reason to remove them.  Some of the people who wanted to injure rivals have passed on or the companies have closed, so these also were just left to history's dustbin.  When critics complain there are too many regulations, at least some fit into these categories.  

Many do not fit.  These are the ones that require accountability from individuals, corporations, and governing bodies.  These make it possible to function in a complex society with competing interests and activities.  No one will claim that all regulations are necessary and that there are not some that are actually stupid or even harmful.

A friend of mine is preparing a house to rent in New York.  They needed an inspection to see if there was lead paint in the house.  That makes sense because children might be in the renter's family.  However, there was a regulation that if there was lead paint on the outside of the house it had to be removed too.  Really?  On the second floor, near the roof?  My friend had to scrape the paint off, standing on a ladder, with a face mask.  That puts people at risk for something that will never affect a child or anyone else. 

I suspect there are more regulations like this one on the books of every community.  With no science to back them up, rules are passed, just in case, then never revisited or evaluated to see if they are effective or necessary.

Another example is school uniforms.  Districts across the country decided that students would behave better, learn more, or feel more included (or something similar) if school uniforms were required.  No studies were done to see if this made sense.  No well-documented studies have been done since to see if the schools have improved due to wearing of uniforms.  Naturally, this occurs predominantly in urban poor, mostly minority  schools.  An excuse to keep the regulation in place is that it is easier for parents to buy clothes for school.  What!!  Then I hear "well, kids in private schools wear uniforms.  (They wear uniforms to show they belong to an exclusive club, better than everyone else.)  Is this what "poor" schools want to convey? 

If the president's aim was to end this type of regulation, I would be with him.  This is not his intent.  He tells communities coal would come back if the regulations on the companies were eased (meaning they can dump waste into streams and rivers and ease safety rules).  He neglects to mention that coal is not coming back.  Who benefits from removing the regulations, the companies who are losing money staying in Appalachia.  Who pays, the people who will be left behind to deal with the consequences when the companies pull out, which they inevitably will.

Pollution acceptance seems to be at the center of the regulation removal.  Let companies pollute and they can make more money and, maybe create a few more jobs.  Mr. Trump does not have to prove this or even pay attention to the science that says this is not a good idea.  His followers believe it, so, of course, it must be true.  When the polluted air and water begins affecting their families, they will be sure it is someone else's fault, not theirs for not questioning the man who has lied to them constantly since he entered the 2016 campaign.

There is no doubt that communities, states, and the Federal Government should look at their collection of regulations and determine which are not supported with scientific or real-life evidence.  Which regulations could be tweaked a bit to help businesses be successful without harming their communities or the folks downstream or downwind.  They should look at the purposes behind each regulation.  Does it try to enforce someone's particular taste, religious beliefs, or personal level of comfort at the expense of others?  Does it give advantage to one particular business over another?  Does it make life better for only a small group while making life for everyone else more difficult or problematic?  Does it only pretend to promote safety and good health?  Does it claim a risk that does not exist?  Does it favor one race, religion, socio-economic group over another, limiting the prospects of the others?  If the answer to any of these is "yes," then consider removing or changing the regulation, guided by science and best practice.

Always ask:  what is the purpose? what is the expected outcome? what will this regulation correct? who benefits? who is harmed or inconvenienced? how will it be evaluated when and by whom?  No regulation should be approved without good answers to all of these questions and others that are relevant to specific situations.  Just because Mr. Trump wants regulations removed does not mean it is a good idea.  He really does not know what he is talking about, and it is not clear that he even cares.  It's about the message to his followers.  That's all.