pdp1@EARTHLINK.NET on mon 11 aug 03
and a kind one, too...
Hi Nanci,
I will reply amid the writ...
And I will keep them short, too!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nanci Bishof"
> I am a teacher and an artist who is a member of this list.
Over time there
> have been several barrages of vitriol unleashed against
teachers and the
> education system. I and other teachers who I've emailed
off list have picked
> up on
> the hostility toward us. Personally, it makes me feel
unwelcome to be a
> member
> of this list.
This makes no sense to me Nancy, I am not aware of any
'Vitriol' from anyone on this list unless you interpret some
of my meanders to be 'Vitriolic', in which case, if you mean
me, you really should say so!
And again, truely, I have no 'hostility' toward
'teachers'...I have some strong notions as may not seem
pleasant...as regard the whole thing in general...
> I know of no teacher who rises in the morning thinking of
ways to
> deliberately damage the psyche of any student.
Certainly it is not necessary for them to do so as
that...for dimensions of the overall effect to be inimical
to all concerned.
Accountability is not allways so 'simple'...
One thing about 'scool' I may point out, is the banality in
which it makes more banality.
See 'medicine' for corallaries...they 'care' too...and two
hundred thousand people are admitted to have died
unnecessarily from the very very well paid screw-ups of
'doctors'...
Yet if we loose five thousand in the twin-towers, a
nation needs 'counselling' and therapy to get over it.
> Perhaps I am just blessed to
> be among
> those who truly care about our students.
I have no doubt you do care about them.
May you suppose that I care about them as well, in my way?
May we agree...that we all 'care' about them? (if in
seemingly different ways?)
AND...that we may differ in our description or definition of
just what 'them' are? Asin which the 'how' we care foinds
some context for itself?
And, about just what 'them' need?
And just what is or is not to be countenanced in our desire
to respect them, or to see them respected?
> Most of us are at school early or
> stay
> late or do both. Most of us carry our jobs home with us
literally and
> figuratively in order to provide our students with
appropriate, timely
> feedback on their
> work, develop lessons that relate to their lives and that
will help to make
> them want to learn. Most of us worry for their futures as
we do for our own
> children. We want them to be prepared not just in
knowledge but in skills
> that
> will carry them beyond the knowledge. Often that effort is
unmet by the
> student,
> the parent or the community.
I know about this.
My girlfriend for about two years was a Hi School
Teacher...
For the first three Months of our being a couple, I got up
every morning at 4:30 A.M. and made ger a Lunch to take, and
in the Lunch Box put some cigarettes in case she ran out,
put a Five dollar Bill in there, and usually some little
goodies in addition to the various Lunch things...I made her
a nice breakfast, a thermous of Coffee to bring, and a nice
pat on the butt after the kiss of fare-well...many times I
also drove to school during the day to bring her something
she'd forgot...there was endless 'homework' for her...I'd
adjust the lamp, massage her shoulders, make dinner, and see
to it she got all that stuff done...
Have some nice happy sex, tuck her in bed, make sure the
Alarm was set...and I'd get back to work in the Shop for a
few more hours...then to bed with me...up in a few hours at
4:30, on and on...and it was fun and I liked it...such was
the rythum of our days...
Anyway...
She'd been teaching for six years or something...and no one
had ever gave a damn before...so...I did.
...endless demoralizeing
minutae of her paperwork...long days...overcrowded classes,
school
violence...pregnant black girls...minorities with poor
facility in
English...endless problems with school-supplies...no
'chalk'..law suits...on and on...de reducto absurditum, or
however that went...
Not so good, I'd say...in any way whatsoever...bad for her,
bad for them, bad for everyone...
Anyway...
> Yes, we meet in rooms arranged to facilitate communication
to a large group.
> We don't have the luxury of just a few students within the
class. Rooms
> within
> buildings specialized to help provide the resources for an
environment for
> learning help us to be successful.
How would you define...the 'environment' Nanci?
Or...'who' has 'defined' the 'environment'? ( and for whom?)
> The only thing I've known a teacher strive
> to
> control are the environment and behaviors supportive of
learning.
Of 'Learning'? - or the 'management' of students INTO
something 'managable'?
> Most of us
> think of ourselves as facilitators. We can present
information in a learning
> friendly environment and manner.
In what way is the 'environment' to be found 'friendly'? -
'friendly' according to whom?
When I visit 'schools'...I get a feeling of profound
discomfort.
A base-line of profound discomfort with adapted consolation
on top of it...
> We can help guide a student toward
> achievement. We can't however do it for them.
Your 'students' are the compulsory, perfunctory, political
prisoners obliged under duress to be there...and they have
been such since they were five years old. The ones you
'have' are adapted to that surrender and ennui and
compromise.
How is that 'friendly'?
Like being 'friendly' to the Animals in a Zoo? Who have
no 'choice' in being there?
Lets see if we can get them 'Motivated!' - ?
> Unlike the factory that has control over the 'quality' of
its components and
> can send back to the supplier inferior goods, the public
schools can't and
> wouldn't want to send back the students that don't meet
the highest
> standards.
This begs the point I think...and is a dangerous comparison
as maybe reveals something of the 'abstraction' into which
children are made...thence make of themselves...
But too, I understand your situation I think...
Maybe it is worth wondering on, so far as the notion
generally of having them for thirteen years as captives,
demanding they all move along at the same pace
more-or-less...that maybe it is not such a good idea
afterall...
> Our job is to provide the environment and opportunity for
all to learn.
Learn what exactly?
That they are 'property' to be 'managed'?
That they are (tacitly) prisoners whose autonomy or
self-hoods have never been respected by anyone?
That if they compete they may 'win' something?
> Unlike
> the factory, we aren't interested in 'cookie cutter'
outcomes that are
> identical. Teachers celebrate the development of
independent thinking and
> achievements
> of their students beyond the expected benchmarks for
success.
...sigh...
> Teachers are only 1/5th of the equation. The rest of that
equation includes
> the parent, the student, the community and the government.
How many of you
> have
> lobbied for your legislators to fully fund the needs of
education?
I would not willingly give them a 'Dime'...
I could do better on one one-hundreth the 'budget'...I could
do better on one-one-thousandth the 'budget'...
I could do better with "no" budget...
Look at Uganda, or at Biafra before they were rubbed
out...they did very well with what you'd call 'nothing'...
They did better than 'we' did, or do now, or will do...or
can do...
So did we do nicely enough, before 'herbert-hoover' more or
less...we did just
fine...
> How many
> of you are willing to pay taxes to support that funding?
I certainly am not.
> How many of you
> volunteer your time in your community's schools?
I have sometimes, and they did not take me up on it.
I have counselled Children at times as were "not doin' well
in school" and when I got done talking with them, rather,
when we got 'done' talking, they did
much 'better"...AND they knew the score, too because I was
honest with them...something (I must infer) you have yet to
try doing.
But then too, I am firstly honest with myself, as gioves me
a basis to be honest with them.
They know the 'difference'...
But then, what is 'honest' in this context?
I spoke to them exactly as I speak now, and exactly as I
have written here at other times.
I tell them they are "screwed", their situation IS almost
entirely hopeless so far as anyone respecting them rather
than corrupting them... they are "property" that they
are 'shit' to the 'world'...they are NOT "loved" they will
SUFFER, and IF they endure, they may live to keep their
Soul.
I tell them they must NOT expect their parents to be other
than nervous, 'needy' morons...they must not NEED their
'parents', they must lay low, abide, do-the-work, forgo
being 'popular', think their own thoughts, forget having
'friends' as are sell-out cloying puppet fools, mind their
own business, WATCH what goes on...TRUST their own instincts
about how wrong and ugly it all is...and endure...
They do a lot 'better' after that...
They 'glow'...like 'Light Bulbs'...
> How many within your
> community are
> functionally literate, capable and willing to prepare
their children for
> learning?
Almost no one...we have 'D.N.A. dupes..gene-pool-water
sports victims...the normal ubiquitous idiot-breeders...
Irresponsible 'people' incabable of Love or Honor or the wit
to even care in those terms...or to know what they might
mean.
> How many aren't and how many who are volunteer to fill the
void?
I'd be happy to...I am good at it.
Babies and Children like me too...they brighten up like
little "Light Bulbs" also, and usually right away...that is,
unless they are
already
ruined...in which case, you can keep 'em.
> Your
> teachers do. We can make far more money in industry, have
better benefits and
> retirement packages than we do on average in teaching.
I could have made a lot of dough runnin' Cocaine out of
Columbia, or Herion outta the cheery old 'east', or workin'
for old uncle scam's other intelligence services...I met
people in
the 'business' sometimes...the smart ones liked me, they
liked my 'nerves' and my
humor...they liked how they felt they could trust me ( or
screw me, what with me being a little naive and all) ...I
had good
'ethics'...
I did not happen to elect of those vocations...I
have a little Wood Shop...I do my own 'Work' and am 'poor'
by your standards...by most people's standards, unless they
are from Kahzackstan or something, in which case I am doing
pretty 'good' on the Financial Page...
> Too many of our kids, and yes, teachers do call them 'our
kids' come to
> school without having enough sleep for them to physically
stay awake or fully
> participate in learning because they're too tired. How
many come to school
> without
> proper nutrition which does impair their ability to learn?
I was one of them...I was malnourished and 'stressed'...
It is a nightmare for you in many many many ways...I would
never
dispute that.
What you may not understand, is the undisclosed nightmare it
is for 'them'...they will not tell you, either...NOT unless
they trust you...and not unless they trust themselves TO own
their own experience....something which 'school' seeks to
rob them of.
YOU will tell them 'what' to experience, and, how to
experience it.
The entire situation is 'about' that...
> How many come to
> school with inadequate or inappropriate attire for a
learning environment?
> How
> many have parents that don't send them the message that
school and learning
> are
> important? How many parents don't go beyond their child's
response that there
> is no homework, they did okay on the test or they've
turned in all their
> work? How many parents don't begin to provide the basics
of a physically or
> emotionally safe environment for their children? Too many
for me to count.
I conceed that your vocation is about as near to a
'Thankless Task' as a Human soul could endure...
The only thing gererally 'worse' is to be a child born into
this time and culture...
You will get no disputation from me on that score...either
of them...
> The
> number of parents not providing these necessities far
outnumbers those who do
> today.
The Parents ought oversee the Ingenuous unfoldments of their
own Children, or be celebate, or keep their legs
"crossed"...or Learn to Love...maybe THAT is what's missing
in all of this...
"Love"...
A parent as can not benevolently 'educate' their own
Children should not be tolerated. They have no Honor, and
THAT will be the 'lesson' the Child learns most as 'premis'
to be in denial about, all, ever, after...
Thece to be abandonded to a school, merely kills them off
the moreso...they will learn denial, amid others who already
have the knack.
> That's the environment teachers are working within in our
society
> today. Oh,
> and please don't assume that because a child lives in a
nice home, in a
> 'good' neighborhood, their family is religious and has
enough resources to
> provide
> for them appropriately that the child has a safe
environment.
These austensible theatre-prop scenarios do not tend to fool
me...do not worry about me in that regard...
> Teachers know
> better.
So do I...
> I suggest that each one of you try to be part of the
solution rather than
> part of the problem.
In my own sweet way...I am...
> Our schools desperately need your help rather than your
> condemnation.
Like a Rotten Tooth needs my 'help'...
I say, it needs to be 'pulled' to lessen the general
septisemia and sytemic bacteriological toxemia as reduceth
unto naught the descernemts in duress TO see straight and
'pull-it'...
It is plumb 'bad'...
> Our children's futures as well as our future as a country
and
> our
> form of government as a democracy is dependent on the
education of our
> children.
Which is our whole problem already...our whole legacy
already...our whole undoing already...
This already IS the 'future' of presents passed...
The 'future' has allready long since been ruined by just
this inimical, transient, cultural amnesia or amentia of
decency we call 'government' and 'democracy' and those
dehumanizeing
institutions as it hath wrought and as it lives 'in'...
> There is nothing more important than the education of our
children.
> Everything else falls from that.
Well...maybe the only thing more important...is making sure
one has 'educated' one's self first...to be able to evaluate
matters on some basis other than what one was
'given'...told, handed...
Children do not need to be 'educated'...they may need to be
Loved, they may need to feel 'safe'...and allowed to unfold
innately as individuals...if
allowed to, they will acquire the facilities for the Written
Word to be writ, of the Printed or Written word to be Read,
to be well enough Spoke. They
will readily enough acquire the knack for Numbers and
Arithmetic and
managing them on various ways. They will Learn.
They will Learn just fine...
They need to be around 'real' things...wholesome Life
things...they need to roam and play and find out things.
They need to be respected, not patronized.
Learning is INATE...it is ENDEMIC...it is INSEPERABLE from
the Being...
'school' for almost eighty years has 'facilitated'
interference and inimical disrespect TO that ENDEMIC
propensity...
It has not respected it., nor may it do so in the form of an
institution and beurocracy.
One 'Learns' best if one is safe and Loved....as is
reasonably a Childs right TO be.
Abandonment to strangers in political prisons from
indifferent self-doubting parents is not Love.
It is Violence.
Phil
Las Vegas
> nanci bishof
>
>
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Nanci Bishof on mon 11 aug 03
and a kind one, too...
Phil,
No matter what I or anyone else says you will be determined to see teachers
and the education 'system' in a negative manner. From your writings it's
obvious that to you the educational system and teachers are treacherous villains
hell bent on the destruction of the souls of children. You have a belief system.
Beliefs don't have to be based in logic or reality.
Life is too short. I will not reply to your ramblings again.
Have a good life.
nanci
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