The first quarter of the school year is in the books. Gnu is celebrating the occasion by attending a concert with some of her lady friends. She told me the name of the artist but I forgot it. Despite not recalling his name I do know this much about the artist. He plays country music and she has tickets in the front row and is practically drooling in anticipation of being so close to this male singer. I'm celebrating in a completely different manner as my part time editor, part time consultation and full time spouse left me the list. Do the laundry, vacuum the carpets, go to UPS and mail this package, go to the license bureau and get out license plate tags, take the recycling to the recycling station, do the laundry, blow the leaves out of the garage and off driveway, and blow the pine needles off of the back deck and it is only Tuesday. One of these days I'm going to get up the nerve to put my pants back on and say NO!
The last week of the quarter was a bit of a mixed bag. Mandatory testing took place as the third (MiniJ and Uh-Uh-Uh) and fourth grade (EM) scholars had to take the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) tests. This is the first time I've been involved with the NWEA testing so I know little about it except for this. Our scholars took a reading, language use, and math test. I also am aware of this. Now that the testing is over the scholars have a base line test score. From this point forward they should be showing improvement in their scores. That sounds reasonable but from a teachers perspective stress levels will increase as pressure from the lowest life form and the pointy headed intellectuals that support the lowest life form, in combination with school administration, will expect the scores to show improvement and a failure to do so may result in no salary increase and even worse, no job. On a lighter note, our scholars didn't do that badly and Gnu felt pretty good about it. EM, for the first time that I'm aware of, has a reading score and we were both pleased with that. All three of the scholars now have a math base line score and all three were in close proximity to where they should be score wise. That definitely put a smile on our face. While Gnu and I were pleased with the scores, behavioral issues reared their ugly head toward the end of the week and put our feeling good mood on the back burner. For reasons that I'm not sure about, EM is relocating again. At some point in the preparations to move his parental unit seemed to have misplace his medication. As you might anticipate that is not a good thing. Twice during the week he got verbally aggressive and physically aggressive. During the verbal aggression, you could visibly see the anger in his face before he erupted. During the physical aggression, he picked up a desk and tossed it across the room. In combination with this behavior he tried, unsuccessfully, to injure himself with pens, pencils and a broken plastic ruler. So you know, this particular behavior was duly reported to the appropriate personnel at the school. These were scary incidents for me. I've sat within eight to ten feet of EM for the past two school years and the first nine weeks of this school year and have never seen behavior like this. When I inquired about his behavior I was told it was an anxiety issue due to a lack of medication. The other behavior incident involved a former scholar, The Collector, and again, it is medication related. The Collector has been off his medication in the past but something has changed and not for the good. Now, when he is off his medication, he physical aggression increases to the point of causing injury (minor) to adults. Due to his physical aggression a case conference was scheduled to determine what to do with this troubled scholar. His teacher, Knew2, came down to talk with me about The Collector as I've had more experience with him and she wanted to know what I thought should happen. My initial response was that he was off his mediation which is not entirely his fault. At the same time I told her that his physical aggression has increased significantly this year and this type of behavior was well beyond my knowledge level so I didn't want to offer an uninformed opinion on what to do with him. On the day of the case conference events took an interesting turn. Apparently, The Collector's parental unit is going to lobby to have her scholar placed into a residential facility. That caught me completely off guard and at first I was at a loss for words. Dear parental unit, you are giving up on your scholar, you are recommending placement in a residential facility all because you failed to properly administer his medication. Dear parental unit, if you had a thirty day supply of medication how did you run out before the thirty days were up? Did you lose some, use some, sell some or what. That's nuts! I sent a text message to Gnu on Monday inquiring as to what happened at the case conference. She texted me back stating that Knew2 had tried to call her but they didn't connect so as of right now she don't know what happened. I'll keep you posted as to what happened and as we wait I'd like to ask you to say a pray for The Collector. With the exception of a former scholar I called CorP, I've thoroughly enjoy working with The Collector.
So far this year I've been to a convocation, professional development and recently an institute. That's a lot of time and effort to put into an old guy that just passed his sixty sixth birthday but as Henry Ford said, "Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eight. Anyone who keeps learning stays young."
John Punch and two other gentlemen were indentured servants (not slaves) who decided to run away back in 1607. Unfortunately, they got caught. Two of the indentured servants had their time in servitude extended by four years. The other indentured servant had his time in servitude extended for life. Two of the indentured servants were eastern European. The other indentured servant was African. According to our day leader at this institute this was the first know case of discrimination against an man solely due to his race. I'll let you figure out which of the three indentured servants was John Punch.
I spent two days at a racial equity institute with teachers, instructional assistants and other staff members of our school corporation. During the lead-in to this two day presentation there was discussion about the academic gap between races. That peeked my interest as I work with scholars of multiple races and if I was doing something wrong in the classroom to cause this academic gap then I wanted to stop doing it. The two days started with the John Punch incident and then proceeded from 1607 through the election of President Obama. For two days, incidents of racial discrimination were highlighted during this four century time period. In the afternoon of day two I was getting a bit annoyed as I kept thinking I wasn't even born during the worse cases of discrimination so why do I have to hear this. It was a this point that the discussion mentioned that the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) was created to help GI's from World War II purchase a home. This agency was created so that all of the WWII veterans would be given an opportunity to purchase a home with no money down, low interests rates and thirty years to pay the loan back. Mysteriously the rules changed. White GI's were eligible for these loans as the law was intended. African American GI's had to come up with fifty percent of the home value as a down payment. The conversation then changed from the FHA loan to the GI Loan. The GI Loan was established for all GI's who wanted to further their education but financially couldn't afford the cost of tuition. And as with the FHA loan, the rules for African Americans changed when it came to applying for a GI loan. I remember clearly applying for admission to college way back in 1973. The Registrar speaking, "I'm sorry Mr. Schultz, your high school grades do not meet our minimum requirements for admittance." "I realize that my grades fluctuated based on my interest in the class but can't you give me a chance as I'm older now and a Vietnam Veteran, I said." Back to the Registrar, "your a Vietnam Veteran, we'll let you in but you will immediately be on academic probation and have to pass two ninety level classes (English and Algebra) to stay in school." "If you fail either of these classes you are out." I passed both classes and eventually graduated from Central Michigan University with a degree in Business Administration and the only way I could afford to go to college and earn a degree was the GI Loan. To be told at this racial equity institute that men that I knew while in Vietnam were eligible for a GI Loan but could not gain admission to a college because the academic rules mysteriously changed for them really upset me. Just because an African American had poor high school grades is no reason to deny admission because my high school grades were poor and you let me in immediately because I'm a Vietnam Veteran. Right after this discussion about the FHA and GI Loans I had what I called a re-awakening when it came to racial discrimination.
At the start of this two day racial equity institute I thought I'd hear about ways to reduce the academic gap between scholars of various races. Unfortunately that didn't happen and even though that was disappointing I did have this re-awakening about discrimination and going forward I can do my best to continue working towards it's elimination.
That's it. I'm on fall break for two whole weeks. Time to kick back, eat some sea food, consume a few adult beverages and watch the sun set in the west. Thanks for sticking around. I'm out.
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