Stand Up for What You Believe In

A short book I have been reading is The Essential 55 by Ron Clark. My desire to get a copy of the book was the result of my seeing a movie about this educator, a young man who made a difference in the lives of students in some of the most challenging schools in the United States, including one in Harlem, NY. Mr. Clark has taken apathetic students and made them award-winning students.
.
The Essential 55 is a compilation of the rules that Mr. Clark has used in his classes in these challenging schools. These rules were created through "trial and error." Because in so many instances, particularly in the inner city, family lives tend to be dysfunctional, Mr. Clark covered topics not only related to the classroom but also to life outside the classroom.
.
Rule 49 states this: "Stand up for what you believe in. You shouldn’t take no for an answer if your heart and mind are leading you in a direction you feel strongly about."
.
Mr. Clark tells of a time in which he was teaching the principle of student responsibility. He had had problems with students bringing back homework assignments from the previous day. (Rule 16: "You must complete your homework every day.") So, one day he decided to give the students a tiny blue piece of blue paper. The assignment was to be sure to return it the next day. Anyone who did not would be assigned after-school detention.
.
Ironically, the student who forgot her paper the next day was the student who was the brightest, most well-behaved student in the class. She was a quiet, sweet girl who always did her homework. Although Mr. Clark initially hesitated to assign her the detention, he knew he had to, as he had a classroom full of students watching to see what he would do.
.
Hard as it was for him, Mr. Clark sent home the detention notice. Naturally, her mother was not at all pleased with the situation. The next morning, the mother marched into the school and on to the principal’s office. The discussion was such that pressure was put on Mr. Clark by both the mother and principal to give the girl an alternative assignment instead of detention. Another idea was to give the girl "silent lunch" for a day instead of detention.
.
Mr. Clark knew that he could not do that -– go back on his word. He had a classroom of students watching to see if he would cave. The lesson in teaching the class student responsibility was an important lesson for his students to learn. It also was important that he follow through with what he said he would do. He stated to both women that he could not be talked into changing his mind.
.
The principal chose to support Mr. Clark and through her soft words of persuasion was able to convince the girl’s mother that the detention assignment stood. Needless to say, the mother left, still very unhappy.
..
After this incident, that class went on to have twenty-three days in a row of having all of its homework done. They were cheered on, as they proved to themselves that they could do this. Mr. Clark attributes this to a few factors:

1. the students’ fear of being assigned detention;
2. the students’ knowing that although other teachers with the same policy about homework did not follow through with consequences, they knew their teacher followed through;
3. the students’ knowing that their teacher was right there to cheer them on when they made right choices.

Mr. Clark ended the story with the point that sometimes it is hard to stand up for what you believe in. I agree. I have been in the position before of having parents irate at me:

• their child getting a 0% on a quiz because he cheated
• my expecting their child to have assignments completed on time or be penalized
• their child getting the score he did on a test/quiz because that is what he earned – not my making a mistake in grading, taking away points from them
• their child failing a course by five points and wanting me to pass her – it wasn’t my course to begin with (dealt with the issue at least three times; reasoning was that her father had died the year before and so we should pass her, even though she didn’t want to get extra help – she preferred to spend after-school time with her boyfriend and his family – the family whose parents fit in at least three of the other listings here)
• their child failing a course that I didn’t even teach (student tried to do chemistry homework in ten minutes’ time, whether written assignment or prep for a quiz/test – he was a student with reading problems which the parents would not acknowledge)

These are just a few instances, as I could list many many times when I cut students a break -- especially ones from the families who gave me the most grief.
.
The difference in my position from that of Mr. Clark was that none of these parents were willing to talk to me about the issues at hand; they by-passed me and appealed not to the principal but to their friends on the school board. Unlike Mr. Clark’s principal and other school leaders, mine did not support me. My principals tended to be weak; the school board tended to be namby-pamby. The lack of leadership was appalling. They decided they didn't want me there anymore and that if I told anyone what all had transpired in the recent weeks and months (and they caught wind of that), they would tell those people they had fired me. (This was a religious school, ironically.) They weren't about to admit that what they did they did without any prior hints.
.
The good thing is that although that was hurtful, I took comfort in the fact that the vast majority of people associated with the school were not like that; they weren't in the position to know what was going on -- and I wasn't supposed to tell them. They knew that I believed in things and held to those beliefs AND that I had legitimate explanations for why I did what I did.
.
Mr. Clark stated that sometimes it is hard to stand firm in what you believe. The temptation is to back down, even if you can lay out a reasonable argument for why you believe what you do. His success in this particular situation came because he ended up having the support of his administration. They did not sneak behind his back in order to pacify the parents.
.
If all teachers had the dedication Mr. Clark does in teaching the life lessons he does, through his rules, what a difference it would make. If all principals of both public and non-public (including Christian) schools were to support these types of teachers in these effort, what a difference it would make in the lives of the students.

====================

BTW: It has also been a good thing to be elsewhere, as the school has had to make staff cuts (and needs to make more) due to the continuing drop in enrollment. I have not had that uncertainty hanging over me year after year, since this drop began to really happen about four years ago. I do find it ironic that I get more support from the leadership in a public school than I did in a Christian school. ALSO, God has given me a new mission field. [I also have a union that would protect me.]

School Teacher Slams Obama

[Although Snopes says this teacher is not the originator of this letter, the letter is legit !!]

April 17, 2009
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington , DC 20500

Mr. Obama:

I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally. You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America. You are responsible to the citizens of the United States. You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth . I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States, telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe ? Are you brain dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about? Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century?

Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States? This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage. Do you not understand this? Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia . You don't show Great Britain , our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia . How dare you, sir! How dare you!

You can't find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you don't want to offend the Germans but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey ! You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. What's the matter with you?

I am convinced that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you. You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them? Anything? I seriously doubt it.

What about the U. S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer. You haven't said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didn't! Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that's $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million- not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven't you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now.

I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do. We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you. I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my sensibilities. I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country.

Sincerely,
Every real American

[Ms Kathleen Lyday Fourth Grade Teacher]

Need a Job?

Just last week I was reading an item -- Wyoming has more jobs available than its population can fill. Why did that catch my attention? It's because I have thought at other times that if people need jobs, then they need to be willing to move. (Of course, I doubt a Hawaiian would relish the thought of moving to North Dakota for work . . .). Although those jobs may not be in the ideal state, in our view, how are we to know that this is an option to disregard? If you need a job, be willing to move.

I also have noticed signs popping up here and there at stores looking to hire. I have thought to myself that there ought to be people flocking to fill out applications for these jobs; however, that is not necessarily the case. Why? People would rather live off unemployment (at others' expense) than make a wage "below them." I have known people in the past who did claim unemployment checks. Did they have to prove they had truly been looking for work between unemployment checks? No. They could answer that they had; but they did not have to hand in any documentation to show that they really had been trying to find work. I think that's a BIG part of the problem with unemployment (along with the fact that people who make big money with seasonal work, like the six-month season for building highways and bridges, can get unemployment checks during the down time rather than budget the money to cover expenses for the year OR get a part-time job to cover the months between). The government has made it too easy for people to not feel pressed to get jobs.

Is there a job crunch right now? Yes. But I haven't seen that it has motivated most unemployed to move elsewhere or to just be happy to find work, even if they are making less than what they did. Government has taken away that motivation.