Real Talk: Cultivating Kindness

Surely by now we all are friends. At least the distant digital kind that give a listening ear and kindness when we need it. Right now I need a real talk moment. Parenting has been quite a struggle for me recently. I find myself so easily agitated at my children, even the littlest one, barking orders at them, wishing the day away until it’s time for bed. It’s such a shame because I see how it affects their tempers and attitudes. How they’re treated is often reflected in how they treat others. These days it’s mostly with annoyance and anger. Sigh.

What’s the most difficult is that my two boys are absolute turds. I say that in the most loving, motherly way, but holy shit, they are so loud and fight so much. And you know, Jason and I try to teach them kindness and gentleness, but out come the punches and cries that someone took something that they were looking for and will neeeeever give it baaaaack, despite all of our modest attempts at guiding them to loving others. That’s about when I drop my head and wait desperately for 8pm reading, toothbrush, pj, and bed time. Okay, honestly, they could go to bed in jeans and cavities at that point. Just please, for the love of god, close the door and fall asleep. And there you have it. A vicious cycle of anger begetting anger, and more anger, and a heaping tablespoon of annoyance. No wonder my kids are just so lovely to be around.

I think that it was, oh, everyday this week that the boys were squabbling when I pulled them aside to talk to them about kindness, about honoring others with our words and our actions, loving others, treating them how they would like to be treated. They both darted their eyes around the room, squirming to get away from their nagging mom, and told each other sorry, now give me back boy toy, you thief! 

You know, cultivating kindness really is difficult. Everything in our flesh rejects it. It is a discipline to think of others and not yourself. To forgive when you have been wronged. To love when others hate. Selfishness and pride rule our bodies and minds. Well, at least in our family. And that’s really what I have been struggling with. My own selfishness and time. I want to do what I want, when I want it. So, naturally, that causes conflict between me and my toddler when she’s hungry right when I want to, oh, go to the bathroom or check my email. It also causes conflict when I don’t want to read or play games with my son after he’s been asking for an hour. And I get annoyed. Then he hits his brother. Like I said, it’s a vicious cycle.

But you know, I could go off and read a list on how other families have worked to cultivate kindness – writing encouraging letters to each other, baking each other cookies, shooting rainbows from their… I’ll stop – but those lists always leave me feeling like a pretty big failure. My kids don’t donate their allowance money to starving kids in Haiti. Hell, I can’t even get them to loan me $5 for a coffee at Target. They have Minecraft paraphernalia to buy! But what we can do is cultivate forgiveness. When they do wrong they can confess, ask forgiveness, and be forgiven. Maybe that will cultivate more kindness in the long term. To know that you’re forgiven and loved would motivate anyone to be kind to others. Even me.

Growing a School Garden

Happy Saturday, friends! I’ve been keeping myself busy these last few days with school garden business! It’s been such a great time for me out in the community talking to our city leaders and school principals making plans for outdoor classrooms and food gardens. What I’ve found most exciting is that people are very receptive to these types of initiatives if someone is eager, ready, and willing to take the lead and do the heavy lifting. All of which I’m like, BRING IT.

That’s all to say that we have a long road ahead of us. I’m currently creating a website for the organization that I’m in the process of forming called The Norfolk School Garden Collective. This organization will work to build and maintain gardens and outdoor classrooms at the public schools in our city. Right now, however, I’m just focusing on helping one school, Granby Elementary, to build a school wide food garden, habitat gardens, an outdoor classroom, and picnic area. But it takes money, materials, resources, volunteers, and a community of people dedicated to its success. And I’m just a meager gardner with a big vision. Building this idea from scratch and some timber feels pretty out of my league, but that’s half of the fun. Watching something grow from something small.

Do you all mind if I leave you with the school garden’s GoFundMe page? This weekend I am getting 10 bags of top soil and nectar plants to help the school become recognized by the Monarch WayStation Project. The teachers and the students are committed to helping grow a butterfly and bee habitat on their property and I’d like to help them make that a reality. Please consider donating to their garden to buy the materials that they need to make that a reality! Here is the link to the Granby Elementary School GoFundMe Page! I’ll be sharing pictures of the butterfly garden’s progress with you all! Thank you for putting up with my shameless fundraising attempt and for considering to donate. I appreciate this little community that reads my blog. You all are awesome.

A School Board Report: We Didn’t Fall Asleep, But A Board Member Almost Did

Elections always rile people up. They start good conversations, they expose our city leaders, they bring important issues to the surface, and they get regular old citizens’ attentions. Well, at least for a few hours. Maybe less. If we’re lucky. I decided that since I got a bit involved in our city’s election this year that I didn’t want to lose that momentum. There are a lot of things that I care and complain about between elections and I decided that voting just isn’t enough. So, I gathered a few people from around our city and we all went to a school board meeting last night. Afterwards, we met at Streats, an amazing local pub, and discussed what we heard– some of our concerns and some of our solutions. It might sound boring on paper, but we sat for 2 hours after the meeting and energetically dialogued about all that we had learned and witnessed. And we’re ready to go back next time.

The Meeting
Since none of us had ever been to a school board meeting before, we had no idea what to expect. I half expected to be grilled about my attendance and the board members to be sitting on pillars of smoke. But really, it was a small room, the board sat up front, the smattering of attendees sat facing them just feet away, and board member Brad Robinson snacked on chips, browsed on his phone, and appeared to almost nod off a few times. It wasn’t bad at all.

Superintendent Report: The superintendent Dr. Boone gave her report, which was just a pretty lengthy video that displayed a few amazing programs that some of our students throughout the district have participated in and enjoyed over the last several weeks, from pre-k to high school. Programs such as Young Scholars, the Learning Barge, Military Child assemblies, and ODU Little Feet. It was very encouraging to see children learning in such diverse ways that enabled them to practice and apply learning standards and not just sit and memorize them. Dr. Boone ended the video, I mean her report, by saying that these programs are “wonderful hidden secrets in Norfolk Public Schools.” Her closing words stopped me in my tracks. Why in the world would such amazing programs be touted as “hidden secrets”? They should be front and center!  Every parent, child, teacher, and administrator should be made aware of these programs! They need to be plastered on posters, sent home in backpacks, hung on school walls, placed on the front of the website, and put on the lips of teachers who encourage every student to participate. Maybe these “hidden secrets” would attract more parents and students to our schools and help to support the students that we have.

Public Comment: The most interesting part of the meeting is definitely the public comment portion. Anyone can speak. You just have to sign up and stand at the podium. The various cares, concerns, and personalities of the parents and children in our schools were on full display. A couple citizens spoke about the recent increase on budget travel for professional development seminars in response to a story that was recently covered by The Virginian Pilot and stirred up a bit of a furor. A woman gave a gripping testimony about her 1st grade son being bullied by both students and staff at his elementary school and how his case has been brushed off by administrators and members of the board alike. He has not been to school since April 15th because his torment at school is so bad and she called on the school board to act and investigate. Many people shook their heads and were obviously disgusted by the board’s lack of action in the interest of her son. Maybe a Pilot article will need to be written for her to get their attention.

Monthly Financial Report: Finally, when Dr. Thornton, the district’s chief operations and finance officer, gave his monthly financial report to the board, that’s when some of the most contentious moments arose. Board member Dr. Gabrielle drew his attention to the year to date expenditure on daily substitutes. The board budgeted this year for $846,874 to be spent on daily substitutes for teachers. As of May, there is $309,272.73 available for schools to use for substitute teachers. This is extremely important to point out and to understand. During the election, many teachers attended the candidate forums and raised their concerns that their morale was low and that substitute teachers were virtually impossible to get because there is no money for them. Teachers complained that they could not go to professional development workshops, which the board is spending around $100,000 on for themselves, because there is no money for substitutes to watch their classes for them to go. Well, as we see in the budget, that just is not the case.

Dr. Gabrielle pressed Dr. Thornton on this issue. He explained that money is allocated to each school based on need. If they use all of their funds for substitutes, then they may request more with proper vetting from him and the superintendent. Did you catch that? Dr. Boone jumped in to defend this disparity between funds budgeted and funds expended by suggesting that schools need to be vetted for accountability that teachers just aren’t abusing their time off from school instead of doing their jobs. Our superintendent said that. I’m sorry, but when was the last time that you ever heard of a school teacher taking super fun days off of school at the city’s expense? Right now, teachers can barely get sick days, and if they do, their students are divided up into other classrooms, loading more students into other teacher’s classes. All with $300,000 of available funds for substitutes. Dr. Gabrielle pressed further and asked if principals or schools are being penalized if they request more money for substitutes. He insisted that this is not true. But I’m not quite sure I believe him. Dr. Gabrielle is correct. This needs to be clarified and corrected. The money is there. It just does not seem to be handled correctly by our superintendent, officers, and administrators.

Board Travel Funds: As for the increased travel funds for school board members, I am hesitant to be so critical. I can see the need for practical and quality training for our board members. However, let’s be honest. $100,000 for a few board members to travel to Denver, Miami, and Boston, to name a few, is out of this world expensive. Do you know what kind of vacation you could go on for $100,000? Like, you all better come back with a tan having spent that much money. But, if they insist that this is necessary for the betterment of our public schools, I’m going to request the following:

1. A written report from each attending board member.
2. This report needs to explain in detail the sessions and talks that they attended.
3. Give a description of the new research and skills that they plan on implementing in our schools.
4. How this information and training will directly impact our division, our schools, and our children.
5. Any new areas of growth that needs to be focused on in our school district that have been brought to their attention.

These reports should be given during board meetings and put on their website for the public to read.

Conclusion: All of us that attended the meeting together learned a whole heck of a lot. My husband looked at me during the meeting and said, unsarcastically, that this was really exciting! We got to see our city leaders run our schools. We witnessed their personalities and their decisions and their questions and have a much better understanding of our schools. And we plan to do this every month. I do hope that you will come with us next time! This is how we can better support our city and our schools.

An Ending // A Beginning

Come on a walk with me.

The trees on campus have all been heavily mulched around their bases giving the air a sweet woody smell as we walk through the quad to the halls. Students dressed in their graduation gowns are posing by trees, fountains, and brick walls, sometimes alone, sometimes arms wrapped around another, to take pictures of their long awaited and proud moment. After we walk up the stairs to my last class of the semester, we see a crowd of students huddled around a door eagerly waiting to get their exam over with. I unlock and let them in the door. They go to their usual seats and stare at their phones with ear buds tucked in their ears, some turned up so loud that I can hear the song’s lyrics. Telling them how much I enjoyed the semester and believe that all of them have learned very important things that will not only change themselves but the world around them, some roll their eyes while others smile. But none of them realize quite how nostalgic and nervous I’m feeling. I don’t really want to let them all leave, those adorable students and their phones. This just might be my last semester teaching at a university, if not ever.  And none of them know how much I’m going to miss it. After a couple of hours, they began to pass in their exams one at a time and walk out. Once the last student was still writing and making sure that she had told me everything that she wanted, perfecting her sentences, proof reading for errors, she handed me her paper, wished me a happy summer and left. I sat there for a little bit thinking about this semester, how difficult it was for personal and professional reasons. How much I won’t be missed but how much I will miss it. Working in an environment where all of my efforts to plan meager professional development workshops intended to help me and my fellow adjuncts learn Google Drive were vehemently trampled and tossed out, leaving me feeling pretty undervalued and stuck. I’m a dreamer. A planner. I want to take action. I want to lead and be led. And as an adjunct, at least at my university, that isn’t possible. So, I left. I walked down the stairs and through the quad, smelling the woody air.  And I went home.

This is an ending but there is also a beginning. I walked through another courtyard of grass at a school this week. It is long and wide and open. Old tall trees shade the entrance of the school and when I walk in, bright construction paper lines the walls and kids talking loudly and excitedly are in the cafeteria.  My meeting with the school principal didn’t take very long before she eagerly agreed to let me plan and build an outdoor classroom and garden for the school. I have ideas. So many ideas. So many plans. Ideas and plans that I will be working on all summer. I will be attempting to grow a coalition of volunteers, civic leagues, small businesses, teachers, students and parents that will all be invested in and take ownership of this outdoor space where students can actively learn with their hands and experience. Where they get to grow food, watch insects, feed chickens, explore, do projects, eat real food, and be proud of it. I want our neighborhood to get involved and be proud to send their children to their zoned school. And I want to do it at every school in Norfolk. It just takes one person who knows other people, who knows even more people. That’s what I’ve decided to do. I thought about reopening our produce stand this fall, but I’m a bit tired of navel gazing. I’m not interesting in growing my CV, my publications, my research, my own garden, my own profits. It feels good to look outward at others and want to build them up instead of myself.

This is an ending, but it’s also a beginning. One that I will surely be writing more about and one that I hope to get you involved in. Probably force you in if you’re a close friend. And I’m ready. I’m always ready.

 

 

Cognitive Dissonance

There’s something that you need to know about my city. Everyone is afraid of our public schools. I look to my neighbors to my right and to my left and behind me and in front of me and they all send their kids to private schools or out of their zone. Because my husband and I send our kids to the school to which we’re zoned, we’re often looked at in amazement, bewilderment actually, that we’d make such a political statement. But, really, we just don’t make enough money to send them anywhere else and we’re not that afraid of them being a minority. And what’s most amazing to me is that everyone complains about the schools. Everyone. Everyone is afraid of them and talks so very badly about them. Our whole region talks bad about them. Family’s won’t move here because of them. Young people leave because of them. Our poorest residents stay poor because of them. And it’s such a shame. I see the falling ceiling tiles in my sons’ auditorium and I think that it’s such a shame. I see school after school losing accreditation year after year and I think that it’s such a shame. What can we do? The most powerful and privileged people in our city send their children to private schools or out of their zone. City council members and school board members, too. Isn’t that such a shame? They see the schools in their neighborhoods falling apart and instead of advocating for them, funneling resources to them, volunteering at them, supporting them, giving them a voice, they instead send their children to another school across town. With the other white kids. It’s a shame, isn’t it?

Yesterday, Norfolk, for the first time ever, had the opportunity to vote for 2 new school board members. Actually, we voted 2 years ago to get the opportunity to now vote for a new school board. If that makes sense. But we didn’t. Today we woke up with the same school board. A school board in charge of crumbling, segregated schools that are losing accreditation. But don’t worry. Our board member’s children are at good schools. Schools that most of our city’s residents can’t afford or don’t have the connections to get into. They sit in schools where violence is not tolerated. Where mold doesn’t choke their lungs. Where teachers are not nearly as drained. Who are fully accredited. Isn’t that such a shame? And is this me being a sore loser? Maybe. Or, maybe I’m just sore that our city lost. That we chose the status quo. That everyone will just keep on sending their kids across town instead of supporting our neighborhoods and our children and yet still complain complain about our schools.

Yesterday, our city spoke pretty loud and clear that it was ready for change, that we don’t want the status quo. We voted out Barclay Winn in city council, a 16 year incumbent who represented a lot about our city that we are tired of. Good old boy, payed off politics. And we voted for Kenny Alexander, an outside politician who represents much of the same. This will be so good for our city. New leadership. New ideas. Moving forward. Change. But as I worked the polls yesterday supporting Carter Smith for school board, I noticed that not many people had considered a candidate for school board. Everyone had their head held high and they knew that they wanted to vote for new city leadership, perhaps forgetting that this time we got to vote for our school board. No more insider dealing. No more council anointed favorites.

And I’m just like, damn, people! We had our chance! We could and should have voted to change all of that for our schools. To at least begin making changes in our city and to our schools towards more transparency and safety. So, if I know that you voted for Noelle Gabrielle and you still send your kids to private schools or out of your zone because you’re afraid of your public school, I might just tell you, well damn! How about next time voting for someone who wants to change that? Someone who doesn’t just send her kids out of her district and ignores the school in her neighborhood. Someone who can handle our school system’s budget. Someone who has leadership skills that are better than blaming the others that are around her. Because, I’ll tell ya, the cognitive dissonance in our city is astounding. How can you in one breath complain and criticize our schools, to send your children out of district, and still vote for the status quo? It makes no sense. So next time, if you please, look at the problems in our city square on and vote with a little bit of sense instead of for candidates who talk in circles, can give no answers and who do not trust the very school system that they serve.

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I will close with saying that Carter Smith ran an extremely good campaign. It was smart, positive, ran on actual ISSUES and not his profession, and above all, it addressed the dire straights and condition that our school district is in. I’m very, very proud of his campaign. I got to know him a little bit more over the last few weeks and have been very encouraged by his humility and compassion. He really would have made an excellent leader on our school board. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

I’d also like to close with saying that I don’t want to shame parents who send their children to private schools. I believe very strongly that we deserve the right to send our children wherever we want. However, we cannot deny that many, many people, if not most, send their children out of district and to private schools in our city out of FEAR. And that simply is not okay. We must do better. 

Norfolk Public School Board Race: I am Supporting Carter Smith

It is no secret that Norfolk Public Schools have a bad reputation. When my spouse and I bought our first home in Colonial Place in 2012, it was the first concern on our list: where in the world would we send our children to school? To be fair, most of the schools’ reputation comes from hearsay; from parents and residents who haven’t stepped foot in one of Norfolk’s schools in decades, if ever. But, rumors are powerful.  They are keeping parents from sending their children to Norfolk’s schools and they hurt our city’s economy by deterring new residents from moving here. Our schools need to attract people to our great city, not deter and scare them away. My husband and I heard rumors that ranged from there being gangs at Granby Elementary, to fears of not receiving a good enough of an education, or getting a good teacher, or being in a classroom that’s far too big.  Our imaginations ran wild and we pictured our little children going off to a mini prison and joining a chain gang. Like I said before, rumors are powerful.

After a few bouts of problems at a private pre-k with my oldest son here in Norfolk, we decided that we would at least make an appointment and visit Granby before he started kindergarten. The then Vice Principal, Kathryn M. Verhappen, who is now the school’s principal, spent an entire hour with just me and my spouse giving us a tour of the school. We walked down the cheerful hallways lined with construction paper art and the imaginations of children. She explained their newly earned, and hard fought, accreditation. She explained their demographics, their programs, their PTA, their staffing, their classroom size, their curriculum, and dispelled every rumor that the parents in our neighborhood ever told us. And we were shocked.

We immediately applied for our youngest to attend their pre-k program and enrolled our oldest into their kindergarten. We have been happier there than we ever could have imagined. Our now first grade son is struggling with reading and writing, but to be clear, it has less to do with the school and more to do with the out of control testing culture that has permeated from No Child Left Behind, which is leaving my child behind. But my children are happy at Granby. They love their teachers. They love their friends. They love riding the bus. They aren’t in a gang. They haven’t been beaten up.

However, I very much realize that this is not the case at every school in Norfolk. I realize that there is a huge discrepancy between the funds, resources and attention that various schools in our city receive. I realize that violence is a very real problem and danger at a number of our schools. That is where we must pay attention from where these rumors are coming. I attended the Lafayette-Winona civic league meeting last night to hear the candidates who are running for city council, school board, and mayor. The questions that dominated the meeting were questions of violence and crime in our city and in our schools. It is a very real problem that affects us and our children and what keeps our city from attracting families needed to boost our economy and attend our schools.

It is in the school board race where this issue is the most contentious.  Carter Smith is running against the city council appointed incumbent, Dr. Noelle Gabriel, and questions of safety and administrative transparency mark their opposition. Smith heavily advocates that the school board and administrators need to provide more support to teachers and principals when it comes to discipline and enforcing policy in the schools. He believes that it is the safety of our schools that prevents parents from sending their children to the schools to which they are zoned, which includes Dr. Gabriel who sends her children to Larchmont instead of their zoned Willard. And he is advocating for more transparency and accountability of our administrators who far too often do not support our teachers’ efforts to discipline students and provide adequate professional development.

As a parent who sends her children to Norfolk Public Schools, I am supporting Carter Smith for school board. There are far too many questions that are left unanswered by Dr. Gabrielle in terms of budget and accountability, and from my experience hearing her speak, she seems to be quite a bit out of touch with the concerns of Norfolk parents and residents. A parent questioned her proclaimed success of the Academy of Discovery at Lakewood, the newly renovated school that houses grades 3-8 and fosters a project based pedagogy for its students. It’s innovative. It’s meeting the spectrum of educational needs of its students. And it overwhelmingly points to the disparity of access that far too many students in our district face. When pressed about questions of dividing the haves and have-nots in Lafayette-Winona, with the crumbling Willard Elementary school a stones throw away from Lakewood, Dr. Gabrielle had no concrete and adequate answers, all while seeing the disparity and choosing to not send her children to Willard instead of advocating for it. She actually shifted blame to the previous superintendent and other board members while simultaneously touting  her leadership skills. The answer is clear that her place on the school board has come to an end and she is no longer an effective leader and voice on our school board.

Carter Smith is offering provocative answers to problems with our school system, problems that Dr. Gabrielle last night said are overreaching scare tactics, to keep our schools safe, attract parents and their children to our schools system, demand accountability and transparency from our administrators and advocate for the children and the schools who are often left out from the resources and attention that they rightly deserve. I’m voting for Carter Smith on May 3rd and I hope that you will join me.

 

Systems of Race and Education

Yesterday I wrote an article about the current Norfolk school board election and a local online newspaper picked it up and published it on their site!  You can check out the article on AltDaily here. 

What I found most interesting about the responses on their Facebook page to the article was the knee jerk reactions against the deep problems that our city, specifically our school system, has with race. Several people voiced their disbelief about the disparity of racialized AP and honors classes and zoning practices. That shouldn’t necessarily surprise me.  When it comes to race, something that I am deeply passionate about, study and research, I find that people become defensive when racialized problems are pointed out mainly because they then become implicated in the system of oppression. And that includes me. When white students are systematically encouraged and pushed towards college prep courses more than black, hispanic or native students, then we are all implicated. And this isn’t something that I have just noticed happening at one particular school, nor is it localized to Norfolk. It is a practice that has been occurring for years across our country and is a cog in the great big wheel of systematic racism in America. (You can find an excellent article here that exposes some of these covert practices and attempts to find solutions.)

What is most important in understanding systematic racism is that it is not localized to any one person’s actions or speech. We must look at it as a large system or a machine that has many complex moving parts. In this machine is me and you, our children, our neighbors, our friends, our teachers, our schools, etc, etc. Most of these people are very smart and enlightened and kind and claim to hate oppression and racism. So, this complex system does not look like a mean old teacher pointing her finger at a black kid and telling her that she isn’t allowed into the honors class and gently escorting all of the white children in. It’s much more subtle and quiet than that. And that’s what makes it all the more sinister. This system starts well before kindergarten. It probably starts in the womb, generations before the child is even born. Black, hispanic and native children systematically have less access to the same resources that white children do. Even the poorest of our white children are more likely to have better access to specific resources than minority students. So, from the start, the wheels and cogs of racism have been turning. By the time these children are in high school, they have experienced years, decades, of biases and oppression that all add up. They’re more likely to have poor grades and behavioral problems and are typically viewed as having less potential, talent and ability to perform on school work or creative projects.

When a teacher or administrator is looking at the grades and performance of the children in their classes and school, they aren’t just looking at one individual child. They are looking at the product of a system that has worked to oppress and suppress  some, while assisting and lifting up others. And because of that, they must realize their place in that system and consider very carefully how they are making decisions on who they encourage and mentor. They must realize their own biases that are also products of this system. They must not become defensive when the system is pointed out, but instead look it square in the eye and reject it. We all have these biases engrained into our  subconscious. It’s how the system works. Black teachers, white teachers, native teachers, hispanic teachers, they all have been exposed to and are instilled with these subtle biases of race and ability and it informs the daily decisions that they make with our children.

In order to fix this problem, well, it’s much more difficult than offering honors classes to all students, which is what our school board proposed to do in 2009. That just sets many, many students up for failure. The work to fix systematic racism requires us to look it in the face for what it is, how it informs our biases, prejudices, and decisions and tell it NO. It’s pointing it out whenever we see it, as subtle as it may be. And it’s often us, meaning white people, giving up our own privileges and voices for those who are not being heard and who are being held down. It isn’t as simple as pulling up your own bootstraps. That has worked for a few, but it isn’t enough to work for the many. The system is far too strong and pervasive and protected by people who refuse to acknowledge it.

 

Testing, Homework and Racism in Norfolk Public Schools

With all of the furor and stupidity surrounding the presidential election, I’d like to draw your attention back home here to Norfolk, Virginia. The wisteria and azaleas are blooming, one last cold snap from winter has grasped our air, and we are only weeks away from a very important municipal election on May 3rd. On the ballot will be a new mayoral contest, as the incumbent of 22 years is not seeking re-election, and for the first time in decades we will be electing members to our school board. The school board race is where I’d like for us to sit and have a discussion.

If I had the attention of the two candidates who are running for school board in superward 6, Dr. Noel Gabriel and Carter Smith, there are quite a few things that I would like to hear them address that extend beyond their current talking points:

1. Testing: Last year, the late Virginia Senator, John Miller, passed a bill, SB 336, through the general assembly to begin reducing the number of SOL tests required from 29 to 17. However, this does not address the preparation testing culture that has pervaded K-5. My 7 year old first grader does not take an SOL for 2 more years, however, he is regularly tested on content in the same format as the SOL in order to prepare him for the structure of the future test. The teacher is not allowed to prompt him if she sees him struggling to find the answer. Even though he performs well at home and on his homework, he receives failing grades on all of his tests because he is being held to the testing standards of 9 year olds. This is unacceptable. It has already given him high testing and performance anxiety. I want to know how our school board candidates will encourage less testing in the classroom for assessment and preparation testing that is developmentally inappropriate for younger students.
2. Homework: There is significant research that suggests that homework in grades K-5 does not have any significant correlation with academic achievement. And if there is slight a correlation, that anything past 10 minutes per grade level actually does more harm than good. My first grader regularly spends 30+ minutes a night working on homework plus an added 20 minutes of required reading. With extreme testing practices and an onslaught of homework, first graders are expected to perform at grade levels and ages much more advanced than is developmentally appropriate and creates high anxiety and stress levels. Not only that, they’re spending hours and hours a day doing school work when they need to be playing.  Which brings me to #3.
3. Recess: No teacher should have the right to take away recess as a punishment. Unstructured play is not just a way to combat obesity and improve wellness. It is an important learning tool and process for children. It isn’t something that can be tested and standardized but it is vitally important for how children learn and retain information about the world. The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that “well-supervised recess offers cognitive, social, emotional, and physical benefits” and that it is “unique from, and a complement to, physical education—not a substitute for it. The American Academy of Pediatrics believes that recess is a crucial and necessary component of a child’s development and, as such, it should not be withheld for punitive or academic reasons.” I would like to know how each candidate will revoke the right, city wide, for any teacher to take away recess as a form of punishment and require 20-40 minutes of active, unstructured play for K-5th grade.
4. Nutrition: This year Granby Elementary School received a very generous grant that provides free breakfast and lunch to every student. That’s simply remarkable! Children are being fed and no one is going hungry. But a close look at these meals reveals how extremely sugary, fatty and unbalanced they are. A frozen fruit slushy, which is made from a fruit juice concentrate and high in sugar, is considered a fruit serving. French fries are considered a vegetable serving. Corndogs on a stick and chocolate milk are a standard breakfast. And this is simply unacceptable. We need to collectively raise our standards for the food that is provided in our schools. All sugary milk needs to be removed. High salty, fatty, and sugary processed food needs to be limited and instead fresh and locally sourced food needs to be offered. An excellent way to encourage healthy eating, and teach SOL standards, is by growing a school garden (which we personally have experienced doing at PB Young Elementary School very successfully!). I would like to know how our school board will prioritize and budget nutritional standards and encourage school gardens.
5. Zoning: There is a very sinister (and I believe racist) zoning practice in Norfolk Public Schools that encourages specific schools to flourish and others to decline. I would like to hear the school board candidates address the zoning practices that proliferates the belief that Norfolk Schools are dangerous and inadequate and pushes parents to enroll their students outside of their zoning districts, as candidate Noel Gabriel has done with her children, or to enroll in private schools. There are extremely high numbers of parents who send their children out of district or to private schools with the belief that Norfolk’s schools are too dangerous and unqualified to teach their children. I would like to hear the decisions and guidelines that direct the zoning lines to be drawn. How will you encourage parents to send their children to the schools for which they are zoned? There also needs to be a discussion about the practice of enrolling middle and high school students in honors and AP classes along racial lines. If you walk into Maury High School today, you will see a distinct racial line between those who are in AP classes and those who are not. I would like to hear the candidates discuss the criteria for who is encouraged to take these classes and who are not, and address why there is such a wide racial disparity among these courses.

These are my top 5 issues that I believe need to be addressed by our school board candidates. I unfortunately had to miss the Colonial Place civic league meeting last night that hosted the candidates (my pesky college students needed me to teach them about anti-racism and sexism in literature), though I do plan to attend any future forums hosted by other civic leagues.

I would like to encourage my readers to leave any of your comments, suggestions, agreements, and disagreements in the comments. This is a space for dialogue and conversation and your stories. And, please, share this post on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else that you think would get it into the hands of the candidates. This is an important conversation that needs to be fostered and encouraged.

 

 

 

D/ATA

The square

root

of a first grader is

1.

Children added and calculated.

Manipulated.

Divided and multiplied.

Squared and halved.

Into tiny

little

pieces.

An arm here.

A leg there.

A brain incised and gouged out

with a serrated equation.

Standard No.1.OA4:

Understand

                  subtraction

 as

                                  an

               unknown

addend

                                                                     problem.

Put it together.

Now.

Faster.

Without your arm.

Or your leg.

Or your brain.

After you have been made 1/5 the sum of who you once were.

And when it’s over,

You

all   will  be

tiny numbers

added

up

into dividends of other

bodies.

You add up

into

me, and they add up

into we.

Running     numbers,

tallies,

percentages.

Groups of future tax brackets.

      Dismembered.

---

I sat to write an essay this evening on the current school board election that is currently in full swing in my city. And instead this poem came out. All of my frustration for my kids and how they are boxed, tagged, and numbered without any real representation of them or their abilities. Just tests. Standards. 504’s. IEP’s. A future tax payer. Global contributor. Economy booster.

But really, they’re my sons.

 

 

Oh my god. She might HOMESCHOOL.

One night a few weeks ago while I was tucking my 7 year old son into bed he got all fidgety and bent down from his bunk to wrap his arms around my neck. I was anxious to get him to sleep after a long day so I patted him and tried to pry him off of me but he clung tight. “Mom, I don’t want to go to school tomorrow. I wanna stay home with you.” This tugged at my heart. I teach 3 evenings a week and don’t see my two sons very much on those days at all. I thought he was just missing his mamma, so I gave him another squeeze and explained that we all have places that we have to go and things that we have to learn and that we’d spend lots and lots of time together over the weekend. But that wasn’t what was on his mind. “But I have a clock test tomorrow and I don’t wanna take it because I keep getting bad grades. I can never get A’s. I keep getting 50’s and I wanna get an A. I’m so bad at clocks.” Ah. There we go. He’s learning how to tell time at school and the test was the next day. I nuzzled him and told him how proud I am of him and that whatever grade he gets that I love him. That seemed to placate him and he laid down with his pillow pet and went to sleep. But now I was worried.

Sure enough, two weeks later he came home with a packet of graded papers and as I flipped through them plastered on the top of each paper was a 50%, 54%, 60%. The poor guy. He didn’t even want to show us. And I felt this enormous pang of guilt, again, that it was my fault. That I am abandoning my son who is struggling in school so that I can teach college students poetry and writing. My husband is diligent with our boys’ homework. They get off the bus, have a snack and hit the books. Math, social studies, sentences, sight words, and the occasional project. They get an hour or so to play before dinner but then it’s showers and 20 minutes of reading before bed. And still 50’s on tests. For a 7 year old kid, this all seems so maddening to me.

And all of a sudden the guilt fell away and I started to get mad. But lets bring this essay into the present tense for the sake of transparency. All of a sudden my guilt falls away and I am mad. I am sitting her mad for my son. I’m angry typing. Why in the world a 7 year old is tested so vigorously that he’s anxious and nervous and fearful of bad grades is beyond my understanding. And the most infuriating thing about it all is that at home he can do his work. At home we give him time and space to figure out the answer. There’s no pressure. No rush. No fear of a bad grade. He can make a mistake and not be slapped with a 50 F. Oh, sorry. A 50 E. Whatever the hell an E is. It’s an F, okay? Changing a 50 to an E doesn’t change the fact that it’s a failing grade.

Phew. Sorry. There’s that anger. When I get angry it comes out all cynical and snarky.

So, it leaves us with some homework of our own. I’ve gone to the school and talked about some reading remediation, some psychological testing, as if being a 7 year old is cause for psychological concern. But not much has changed. He’s borderline… whatever, whatever. He doesn’t qualify for an IEP, at least not yet. Well, that’s because nothing is wrong with him. He’s a 7 year old who’s self esteem has been so trampled that he’s fearful of even taking the tests, let alone do well on them. How do you write an IEP for that? You don’t. Because then the responsibility is no longer his or mine but the school’s. And isn’t that where the guilt comes in? He’s my son, shouldn’t I be responsible for his education and not the school? Shouldn’t I step up and recognize the problem? Get him tutoring? Spend more hours drilling him with flashcards and books? Well, no. Not at all. Because to me, if a child is spending 6 hours a day at school he should be learning. Something should be sticking. To me, a 7 year old having to come home and spend more hours on work is absurd. To me, if that’s what has to be done then the 6 hours spent at school isn’t working and something is wrong with them and not him. Especially when we do sit with him and work with him and read to him and encourage him. And let’s not forget that our kindergartner is reading at a first grade level. He’s excelling and doing great. All of that testing doesn’t phase him at all. But I don’t want to compare them. Not ever. They’re different people with different likes and abilities. And they’re both coming from a home that values their education and their well being.

Here we are. Right in the middle of this. I saw all of those grades last night when I got home from work. I’m calling the school again today to see what else we can do. How can we help my son to want to do well?

Remember that change that I mentioned in my post yesterday? Well, against everything that I believe and value, I’m considering homeschooling him next year. I’ve always been a big proponent for public school. I am a product of public school and I loved it. I had a great experience with learning and my education. But that was before standardized testing. It was before sight words. We worked on phonics and did projects and played games and I didn’t start homework until 4th grade. And look at me. I’m well educated and smart, though slightly cynical. Okay, a lot cynical. And I love school. So much that it hurts to see my son struggle so deeply. If there is not much more improvement this year, which we’re in the 4th quarter already, we’re going to seriously consider him staying home with me to give him a project and phonics based education as opposed to a test based education. He’ll have room to make mistakes. Ask questions. Wiggle. Squirm. Stand. Play. Explore. You know, be a 7 year old. I don’t know if it will work. I don’t know if I can do it. I’ve got the support of family and friends and a hoard of teacher’s who are much smarter than me who are encouraging me. Because I gotta tell you, I don’t have a degree in education or early childhood pedagogy or reading skills, but I am a mom and I see my kid struggling in a system that is broken. And I’m going to do what needs to be done to fix it. You can count on that.