Breakfast on the Floor. Poof. Gone.

This blog was first posted at Bustedpencils.com on 8/25/2016.  My blogging will now encompass my additional activist work outside of education, so you can read my work here and at BustedPencils.

On August 10th I posted a blog detailing the breakfast situation at my former school, Jewell Elementary. Feel free to read to catch up.

Within less than 24 hours of posting the blog the breakfast policy was changed. Poof. Gone.  Social media is very useful in exposing bad policies, which then require people to acknowledge the policy, and make a shift - quickly.  As you recall, the options for breakfast were for teachers to give up planning time to allow students to come in early to eat in the classroom or NOT give up planning time and allow them to eat on the hallway floor outside the classroom.

The next morning, August 11th, a  "stand up" meeting was called for the staff. A "stand up" meeting is an impromptu meeting that is called unexpectedly and typically creates quite a few nervous jitters because there is no knowledge of the purpose of the meeting.  This particular meeting was called to announce a change in the breakfast policy. No longer would there be any option of children eating on the hallway floor. The teachers were tasked with discussing how to go about organizing eating in the classroom in the mornings. The teachers were told that the monthly average of planning time being taken from them, for other purposes than planning (data meetings, prof. dev.), was indeed, within the allowable minutes.  Therefore, it was okay and supposedly "contractually legal" to require teachers to give up fifteen minutes of planning every morning for breakfast.

I have a lot of questions about this idea of a monthly average of minutes that are "allowable."  Why are we averaging allowable minutes over a month? What happened to consistent and daily planning? Does this mean that if teachers were to lose almost all their planning for one week (which does happen), and then get buckets of minutes the next week for planning, that this is okay? What happens to the week with no planning? Do teachers just wing it that week? Or do they stay up until midnight on their own time, while being required to ignore their family and their own personal needs?

Considering that these teachers are already losing planning time for required data meetings, loss of one day of specials, and more, I find this monthly averaging to be bogus.  How can this be contractually legal? But teachers are expected to just nod, smile, and say, okay. Then they go home and work their asses off planning in the evenings and on the weekends. Workhorses. And eventually, more Lucys.

Teaching requires a continual cycle of gathering information about our children and then using this information to determine next steps. Teachers need time - DAILY - to plan the next steps. Preachin' to the choir I know.

So without consistent daily planning, what will happen to the learning and teaching at Jewell? What does this mean for teacher observation and evaluation? In addition, the lesson plans required at Jewell this year are incredibly cumbersome and unrealistic - requiring immense amounts of time to prepare. And of course, the required lesson plan components, once again, rob teachers of their ability to make professional decisions.  My best plans were on post-its :)

Back to the breakfast issue. The problem still hanging in the air - that no one wants to address - is that I have been told multiple times that there are OTHER schools in Aurora having children eat on the floor.  I've spoken to three government agencies and each say it's not their jurisdiction. What gives? I wonder if this would be ignored in Cherry Creek? Littleton? Jeffco? Boulder, anyone?

Just a question. And I'll keep asking them.

F%#K the Standards!

This blog was first posted at Bustedpencils.com on 8/24/2016.  My blogging will now encompass my additional activist work outside of education, so you can read my work here and at BustedPencils.

I really don't think I can express how tired I am of hearing teachers tell me how they are required to use the standards, go back to the standards, write down the standards, test the standards, and state the standards. Seriously FUCK the standards. There is NO research to demonstrate that standards improve student achievement. I am so over this and so angry that teachers I adore still have to put up with this shit. Two quarters in cuss jar. And btw, for my chicken friends, Lucy is doing better tonight :)

Power

This blog was first posted at Bustedpencils.com on 8/21/2016.  My blogging will now encompass my additional activist work outside of education, so you can read my work here and at BustedPencils.

I am a white privileged girl living in the suburbs. That being said, I have my own experiences with power structures, and many that have occurred via my activist work, in my personal life, and via my teaching in the public schools. I want to share a few today in the hopes that thinking through these ideas might help others consider how to move forward as activists and teachers as public intellectuals. Right now, we are losing in our efforts to save public schools and the teaching profession.  If anyone tells you otherwise they have not done the research or they are intentionally using their power to keep you in the dark - it's all out there - in writing - for anyone interested to peruse.

One would hope that power is used for the good of humanity, for the good of our world and each human, plant, and animal walking this earth. That's what it should be. Seems like a silly thing to even point out, doesn't it? But in this country - that idea - doing things for the common good - has vanished for the most part.

My chickens have taught me a lot about power. I have eight. We got six about three years ago and added two to the flock two years ago. The youngest two, named Lucy and Phoebe, are thick as thieves. Lucy is a stark white and black beautiful Brahma and Phoebe is a deep black and rich brown red laced Wyandotte. The two girls stick together - it gives them power to ward off potential bossiness or meanness from the older girls. As a young hen Lucy was as fierce as the wind. She would jump and fly up into the face of one of the strongest and biggest leaders in our flock. She would take the older girls off guard and they weren't quite sure how to put her in her place - they typically backed off. I kept waiting for a coup - as Lucy tried to take the lead in the flock. Early on we noticed that Lucy had a crooked claw on her foot. I worried about that for fear that it might someday cause her to lose some of her assertiveness and power within the flock. Phoebe could fly up high and jump on perches quickly whereas it took Lucy a bit longer to learn to grip the perch. Eventually she did.  However, never, did she reach the heights Phoebe could reach. And oddly enough, Phoebe still allowed Lucy to take the lead in everything. At night on the perch she would try to bury her head under Lucy's body to go safely to sleep. Lucy's potential for being the lead in the flock was strong.

Several weeks ago I noticed a change with Lucy. She looked thinner. She was always one of the biggest girls in the flock. I went to pick Lucy up and Phoebe charged at me and pecked me and then pecked Lucy hard on the neck. Lucy cowered. I had never seen her cower. Phoebe charged at me again and in shock I pushed her away hard. She then flew at me and attempted to bite me again. Lucy continued to cower. I was blindsided by these behaviors. Lucy had always protected Phoebe! As I watched throughout the day I noticed that Lucy had become a target. The girls were letting her have it left and right - pecking her neck - pushing her off the perch - refusing to let her eat - and she simply cowered and tried to run away. Suddenly it hit me.  Lucy was sick. She had to be sick. For her dear Phoebe, who had walked side by side with her for two years, to begin to peck at her - HARD - Phoebe sensed something.  She sensed a weakness. And chickens will attack and kill a chicken that is weak.

This reminded me of what an activist told me many years ago - never contemplate what those in power are thinking or feeling - pay attention to their actions.  Their actions will tell you everything you need to know.

But the hard part about being human is that when people are nice to you and then turn on you,  it becomes very difficult to separate feelings from the objective "actions" that you see.  My chickens remind me of where to keep my focus - on actions. Paying attention to these actions might allow me to save Lucy's life. We'll see. This is still a story in play.

Power in the public schools right now is so overwhelmingly at the top,  specifically in our urban diverse schools, that it becomes almost impossible to breathe. Our schools are very sick. There are many people who are thriving off of our dying profession and starving schools.  And then there are the Lucys - cowering and running - simply trying to survive one more day. The question is, how do we support  and nurture the development of power by those who wish to create and do good within the public schools? How do we return to supporting the common good?  How can we make our schools healthy again? How can we help those who are sick, regain their strength? It has been difficult to watch, and understand, how human beings can turn on other human beings - much like Phoebe turned on Lucy. And we cannot allow that behavior to become naturalized and accepted within the public schools.

As our school turned into a Relay Leadership School last year I watched the transition at our school with horror. The manner in which  teachers were treated, and the demands placed on children, were all necessary for those at the top to maintain their power.  If teachers didn't agree with an "order," they were targeted and often treated to relentless detailed emails outlining demands and observations that requested absolutely unrealistic expectations - these expectations were meant to enforce 100% compliance or simply drive the teachers out.  People you thought you could trust, you suddenly realized you no longer could - like Phoebe. It pit teachers against teachers.  And these unrealistic expectations pushed on teachers and students became normalized - creating a very sick environment within the school. Teachers simply could not keep up. One of my colleagues left in December.  It was too much.

As the abuse of power becomes normalized, teachers, in most cases, do not expect or even consider demanding the autonomy that a teacher with a professional conscience needs in order to create problem solving citizens.  They comply, shut their door, and do what they can to do right by children.  It's like we are sick - the energy to fight back is minimal.  And typically, knowing you will be fighting alone, makes it difficult to keep mustering up this energy. Teachers are treated as though we are not human. We are slaves to the corporate machine. Fighting this seems futile in many cases. When I can't be home to care for Lucy I shut the hen door so they can't get in to peck at her. I'm hoping she'll regain her strength. There are other cases where I see hope, specifically in Chicago where the union is strong. Without a strong union - who has your back?

In the world of activism I've watched power destroy and build simultaneously. The key is getting  enough momentum to allow the power of goodness to work together in a rush  - an unexpected flood that allows the power of revolution to overtake those who use power to do harm. The problem is, power, status, and ego are just as prevalent in activism as they are elsewhere.  It's very difficult to succeed - it's very difficult to help goodness prevail. It requires a lot of things to simultaneously occur - some are intentional strategies that are thought out in short term and long terms goals, some might be luck, and others fall into the category of the hundredth monkey  effect. Just my take. Just what I've seen and observed.

While all this is happening - this attempt to regain humanity -  gas lighting is used to disrupt, shock, control and manage the population, allowing corrupt power to stay intact and grow.  I've watched it in my former district - the disruption, the slow removal of elements of teacher autonomy. This year the teachers  at my school were (for the first time ever) told their detailed daily schedule. They were told their literacy schedule. There is no longer a leadership team made of teachers. There are multiple pages of information about "disruptive behaviors"  which they must follow as steps when "disciplining" children. The level of behaviors are categorized from A to F. Level D includes defiant behaviors. The word defiant is completely  in line with Teach Like a Champion tactics - an absolutely racist behavior system used to keep power in place - it's the bible of Relay Fake Graduate School.  Everything is very much about absolute compliance - perfectly in line with the school to prison pipeline. Planning time has been decreased for teachers at my school this year.  Colored printers have been placed on lockdown - the list goes on.  All of this is a pattern occurring all over the country - most prevalent in urban diverse schools. It's like the 100th monkey effect gone bad - gone so bad that I begin to wonder when and how we will ever be able to regain footing to do what is best for children in our public schools?

There are also the visual surroundings - the compliant environment -  at school that becomes the norm, slowly conditioning parents, children and teachers to accept what we see - this new and brave "reality" -  as absolutely okay.  Bulletin boards of data, disciplinary charts, the visual display of lined up desks, and students in regimented lines in the hallway (acronym HALL - hands at your side, all eyes forward, lips zipped, low speed).  Orange cones scattered in the hallways are the norm for months on end to remind children to be quiet during testing. This past year paper chains were added to literally block off testing areas. I always thought about the children behind those closed doors testing away as akin to a prison sentence in a cell. The testing at my former school starts next week. It's August.

All of these power moves via action and visuals completely mess with the mental ability for people to think, act and vocalize concerns. It's gas lighting at its finest. It's Lucy cowering in the hen house. The teachers are presented with these visuals, these compliance models, as perfectly rational.  I once lived in an environment where light deprivation was used as a tactic to control. Low watt bulbs were the name of the game.  It made it very difficult to think lucid thoughts. It made it difficult to create change and/or get out. Our schools present that same concern for teachers today in a variety of shapes and forms.  The language is harsh and rigid, rigor is the name of the game. Teachers become beaten down, behaving as work horses, confused, exhausted, simply doing the bidding of those in power who are pushing forward an agenda and system that profits the .01%.  They get pecked again. And again. And again. There is absolute lack of trust - even among colleagues at times.

As I've watched  public education and the education activist populace grow and change over the last five years, one thing has been very clear to me - as with my chicken flock, always analyze actions - not emotions, or feelings. If you begin to feel  sympathetic towards a corporate reformer, or any district personnel that is making poor decisions that impact the lives of children in a way that is harmful, refocus on the direct actions. Examine the power structure, and determine your strategies based on how you might crack it, tear it down, and rebuild for the common good. Look for patterns and eventually you will discover that some of their actions are predictable - allowing you opportunities to derail and stop them from harming others. Do not allow cruelty to be naturalized.  We are human. Don't let them take your humanity. As we move into this next phase of ESSA, the federal bill which is primed to destroy the teaching profession and further privatize public schools via charters and online daily testing,  we must find new ways to harness our power - because with this new phase, will come great cruelty.  Remember Lucy.

Children, eat your breakfast on the hallway floor at school

This blog was first posted at Bustedpencils.com on 8/10/2016.  My blogging will now encompass my additional activist work outside of education, so you can read my work here and at BustedPencils.

As you all know by now, I am no longer working at Jewell Elementary in the Aurora Public School District. However, I was recently alerted to a new  policy regarding breakfast at the school. The school day starts at 9:25 a.m. This year, if children want to eat breakfast they must get there at 9:15 a.m. If they ride the bus I guess they'll be rushing in the door to eat in five minutes or so as breakfast time now ends at 9:30.

And there's more. There are two options: the children will be eating on the FLOOR in the carpeted HALLWAY outside the classroom OR the teachers can graciously give up some of their morning planning time and invite the children to come in and eat at their desks.

Let that sink in for a minute. I know your mind is racing, as mine did, as I tried to think through the implications here - and there are many.

The first thought I had was - what would ever cause anyone to even consider - fathom - such a policy, as children eating breakfast on the dirty carpeted floor like dogs?  I am horrified that this policy was thought of and considered "rational."

Then of course, I tried to imagine what that policy might look like in action. Hallways lined with children with backpacks, coats, lunchboxes and juggling milk, juice, cereal and more. I tried to imagine how I would feel as a child if I was asked to eat my breakfast on the floor, without a place to properly set my things in order to manage it all. I thought about how that policy might impact my own personal beliefs about my self worth, if I were a child at Jewell. I thought about the racism that is inherent within the behavior policies via Relay Graduate School. I thought about the way the children at my school are expected to demonstrate 100% compliance, and how this breakfast policy smacks of that compliance. Sit. Eat. Comply. On the floor. Where is the respect for the child? Where is it? How can one create a policy so unkind and so disrespectful of a child?

I thought - are the white children in the burbs sitting on dirty carpeted floor eating breakfast each morning? You know the answer to that.

Other thoughts raced through my head. Now the teachers must give up planning time OR choose to inflict such a horrible thing on these children. However, the one caveat to having them eat in the hallway is that it might get the policy exposed. Parents might see and object. It should be exposed rather than hidden away quietly as teachers give up their planning and once more do whatever they can to protect children.

How can this even pass health code policies in the schools?

What if one child from a family gets to eat in the classroom and another child from the same family in a different class must sit on the dirty carpeted floor? How does this play out?

And mind you there are no plates or trays.

Of course if I were at Jewell today I would have said something. I would not have tolerated it.

But I am not at Jewell. My position was eliminated. They keep taking things away from Jewell's children. They took away their reading interventionist (my position which was eliminated) and now they are taking away their right to eat while seated respectfully at a table. I care deeply for these children and these teachers at Jewell - teachers who are once again placed in a position of making another decision that  has such moral and ethical implications - not to mention HEALTH implications. The weight of these decisions is exhausting, truly exhausting. And teachers should NOT be required to give up planning time. Period.

To truly understand the vast implications of such policies as this racist, classist breakfast policy, I recommend reading The Power of Pedagogy: Why We Shouldn't Teach Like Champions as well as my blog where I dissect a portion of the Teach Like a Champion book and more. Layla Treuhaft-Ali in The Power of Pedagogy writes, "Teach Like A Champion promotes working-class behavioral norms through a pedagogy of order, uniformity, and obedience; similar pedagogy has been used in the past to maintain strict class and racial hierarchies and prevent the poor from challenging the powerful." I also recommend sifting through my blog and my work at BustEDPencils to get a good sense of Relay Fake Graduate School and the consequences of  non-educators leading the way in the public school system.

I'm exposing this policy today  in the hopes that this exposure makes this policy go away. I can assure you this would never fly in Douglas County or at Sidwell where President Obama's children attend. This policy flies under the radar only in urban diverse schools where children and teachers are being pounded by mandates in ways that my own son will never experience in the Littleton Public Schools.

Resignation, Red Tape, Renewal

This blog was first posted at Bustedpencils.com on 8/3/2016.  My blogging will now encompass my additional activist work outside of education, so you can read my work here and at BustedPencils.

I am voluntarily   X Resigning
as an employee of the Aurora Public Schools for the following reasons:

My position at Jewell was eliminated. In addition, Jewell no longer is a healthy working environment (for teachers or students) and I would not be able to work there unless we were able to return to our previous work as an inquiry-based democratic school.  We are now a Relay Leadership School which focuses on teach to the test practices that are not good for children.  Relay Graduate School is run by non-educators and lacks pedagogy - it is an embarrassment to the teaching profession. It is unfortunate for Aurora's children that APS has gone in this direction. It is also unfortunate for the teachers at Jewell who were forced to implement 100% compliance models of discipline with continual teaching to the test and skill/drill. The teachers at Jewell this year (2015-2016) were the most unhappy teachers I have seen in my 19 years in public education. They wanted to file a grievance against the principal but were afraid for their jobs. I no longer can work in such a toxic learning/teaching environment. Aurora unfortunately seems to be going in the direction of "no excuse" charter models which do not develop or support the growth of problem solving citizens. Rather, these charter models, which Relay supports, promote racist practices specifically directed towards black and brown children in urban diverse schools. These charter practices promote the school to prison pipeline. I joined APS four years ago with great hope and excitement because the professional development and respect for the teaching profession in APS has always been excellent; that is no longer the case. I am sorry APS has chosen this path. I will miss my colleagues and the children.

And so there you have it. I submitted my resignation this summer. If you are unfamiliar with my story check out my blog at www.pegwithpen.com. All future postings by me will be funneled through BustED Pencils - together we are stronger.

I've been MIA this summer via social media and pretty much any methods of contact. And I feel I owe quite a few folks in explanation - so here it goes.  On May 1st I received a phone call that my mother had fallen and broken both wrists. A social worker at the hospital proceeded to tell me that my mother would undergo surgery the following day and then be placed in rehab. My father would be placed in assisted living. My oldest sister (52) with special needs would be placed in a group home. I said  - no way in hell.

I got on a plane to Missouri and remained there all of May taking care of my family. One day I was completing what I believed would be my last year of teaching (actually testing) in the public schools and the next day I was officially done, prematurely, with my teaching career. There were no goodbyes. Just a void.

In June I returned to Colorado with my family and cared for them in my home with the help of my husband and my boys until early July. I know a lot about home health care now. I also know a lot about systems - systems to support my special needs sister, systems to help the elderly, the injured, and those with dementia.

Let me give you one example of  my new learning. I attempted to enroll my sister in a day program here in Denver because she is accustomed to working full-time in Missouri. We had done our  best to fill out the appropriate paperwork. Upon trying to enroll her they told my mother she had not done all the paperwork. Many of the items she needed to complete the process sat 12 hours away in a lock box in Missouri. As a result, we would have to pay a hefty daily fee if my sister was to attend. We decided to try one half day because she desperately needed the socialization. I dropped her off, and an hour later had a phone call from one of the staff members stating that my sister had flipped off the staff and tried to run away. Remember the kindergartner on the first day of school? Sometimes they throw a fit? This was the scenario in a sense. She was not invited back. If we had the paperwork done, they would have been required to adjust and evaluate how to help her transition into the program. Instead, with a very cold tone, I was politely told by the director not to come back.

There is red tape everywhere you go. Much of this red tape is harmful.

In rehab if my mom did not work hard enough, they said she would have to leave early. If she worked too hard, they would then release her early. It was a dance via insurance to keep her in as long as necessary to allow her to recover.

Red tape, connected to money, connected to systems, speaks to a much more powerful entity, called capitalism, a system that many of us truly do not understand - specifically in re: to its methods of madness during a crisis. Trying to muddle through the red tape requires education, money, and privilege. And this system does not place human beings first. Money and power rules.

Sound familiar?

Families living in poverty often get tripped and slammed to the ground via this red tape.

And now it's August.  And today would be my first day of work at Jewell Elementary if my position had not been eliminated.  Legally, I had the option of taking another position that they would "place" me in - ha - no thanks.

But my adventure, a new life, is just beginning. I have a lot of plans actually. I can finally write during the day rather than at four in the morning or midnight. I can continue the tutoring I have done this summer in which I actually get to teach in a developmentally appropriate, ethically, morally, passionate, engaging, kind, way. I really wouldn't even call it tutoring - I'm simply helping children become empowered as readers and writers in a world that desperately needs democratic problem-solving citizens. I will continue my work as an education activist. I am no longer working with United Opt Out National. I actually have some new activist ventures I am focusing on that I believe must happen if we have any hopes of regaining public education for this country - mind you, I anticipate it will take two generations to get there. It will not be in my lifetime, nor in yours. But I plan to do my part to keep things moving. We will lose before we will win, this much I know. But when we lose, and the masses wake up, the ground work will be done to rebuild. I will do my part. I will be blogging at BustED Pencils now - the only progressive, revolutionary ed. news media site out there currently - I hope to make their voice even louder.

I have a lot of feelings about a lot of things right now.

There's something gut wrenching about having your entire family's life turned upside down, while also realizing how lucky you are to have been able to keep the family intact. Imagine how many families are uprooted as mine almost was? In a blink of an eye an entire family can be separated. And privilege is a large part of what saved my family from that catastrophe.

I have a lot of emotions about my career coming to an end. I am happy to never have to sit silently and listen to leadership spout bullshit that we have to swallow. I'm ecstatic that my voice can ring loud and clear now, without getting shoved down to my feet and making its way back out in violent explosions. I am angry at a system that is immoral, racist and cruel to children and teachers. I am sad that there was no way to make the headway I hoped to make in Aurora, working inside the system. I am giddy at never having to sit in a room listening to a bullshit agenda at the beginning of the year that includes crap data about nothing of value. I mourn never getting to work in a school community environment again, as a member of the staff. It was an honor to be a teacher. It was such an honor to work with such amazing children, parents, and staff.  I'm f%&#ing thrilled to never give another test. As a literacy interventionist, I taught about 1/3 of the year in 2015-2016 (as did the teachers). The rest of the year I tested, getting shuffled from room to room, carrying all my testing material on an old rolling yellow chair from the 70's.

I am incredibly grateful to be with my family more, as between teaching and activism, my family lost me for many hours and many days.

I'll return to social media at some point. And I'll have more to share about my new ventures as well. First, let's get this election done. I am, of course, voting for Jill Stein. I won't say I told you so re: Bernie. I think Chris Hedges sums it up best.  I won't say anything about ESSA right now either, but I have a lot to say - that will come later.

Meanwhile, it's simply August 3rd. It's still summer for me as I am not at what should have been my first day of work.  I plan to go outside and work in the garden, tend to my chickens, take my youngest son to the pool, and maybe I'll do some writing tonight. For all of that, I am grateful.

Just a reminder....I'm blogging at BustED Pencils now!

See my posts at BustED Pencils - in case you have missed them - here they are!

http://bustedpencils.com/blog/peg-with-pen/ 

Check out my posts at BustED Pencils

I have joined BustED Pencils. Check out my latest posts there!

Much love to you all,
Peg