Month: December 2023

I have led a very busy life, even after retirement I have continued to teach young people and mentor some of my former students. I keep quite busy continuing to learn, even to the point of investing in continuing education classes at Rice University. I read constantly and try to keep up with local, state, national and world events. I don’t consider myself to be a radical of any kind and I have always believed that I was a fairly good observer of human nature. In my work life I had a pulse on both my students and my fellow teachers. Somehow over the last decade or so I seem to have missed realizing the power of the MAGA movement. Furthermore I am totally confused by the ardor of those who support it. In my mind it is a frenzy led by ethically dubious political hacks, and yet instead of fading away the movement only appears to have gained steam. 

I have watched a man who shows no signs of ever attending church become an icon of evangelistic adoration. In the meantime a man who attends mass weekly and prays daily is often portrayed as an agent of the devil. I have no doubt that our former president encouraged his followers and his fellow Republicans to overturn the election of 2020. The attempted coup of January 6, 2021 was one of the most shocking events of my lifetime. I was certain that every patriotic American would turn on the people who helped to create the furor and treason of that moment, but instead large swaths of citizens have turned on the victims of that melee rather than the perpetrators. All of which has left me dumbfounded. 

Way back in 2016, I had a friend predict much of what has happened. I pushed back on what I saw as his hysterical hyperbole. I argued with him that the American people would never stand for the kinds of things that he predicted would happen. Since our discussions I have had to apologize to him again and again as I have watched the unbelievable happen in our country. Now I have come to believe that there is nothing that is off of the table with the power hungry elements of today’s Republican party. They make Richard Nixon appear to be an altar boy and Eagle Scout all rolled up in one. Why Donald Trump is still holding rallies and still considered the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidency is beyond my ability to grasp. 

I understand that there are people who are hurting who see Trump as a someone who actually hears their pleas for help, but to me supporting him amounts to being the same as suggesting that Al Capone would have made a great president. It feels as though the sense of honor and respect and decorum that a president should possess is being set aside. Instead of ostracizing Trump for the crimes that I have witnessed, he is lionized by a large majority of the Republican party and even those who dislike him are afraid to speak out. They simply retire from public office or whisper in private but are unwilling to challenge a man that they surely must despise. 

I often wondered how evil individuals managed to rise to power and somehow I feel that I am watching that happen in our country right now. It is indeed frightening to me that any person or group can be so adept at spreading fear and alterations of the truth. The fact that so little of that is being questioned tells me how desperate people can befin to hear what they want to hear, not what is actually being said and done. 

At the moment we seem to be regressing into a longing for a time that no longer exists and actually should never exist again. We have moved to a better time than the days of my youth but too many want to take us back to the era when women had little or no voice and gays and lesbians were derided and forced to live in fear. Some of us may have felt just fine in the nineteen fifties, but Blacks and other minorities were pushed out of our sight, hidden and shunned. Seeing the light and being more just has been a good thing, not something that we should fear or condemn. The progress of moving toward living together in harmony was right and fair. We cannot allow despots to use fear and anger to set back the years of progress that we have made in understanding and accepting one another. 

I’ve revealed much about my life. It has been riddled with tragedies and losses and many challenges. I have not become wealthy because I chose to be a teacher, a career of service to my fellow humans. I have dealt with the same kinds of difficulties as almost anyone else, but I have never blamed my troubles on others. I have not lost anything by integrating our society, sharing my good fortune with those who have less, embracing same sex marriage or welcoming immigrants to our country. In fact I am so much better. The scales on my eyes have been removed as surely as if I had once had cataracts. I see so clearly how the diversity of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, religious beliefs have made life so much more beautiful than in the days when I rarely had opportunities to interact with anyone who was not mostly just like me. Going back is a profoundly horrid idea, especially if it is led by an individual or party who is unwilling to admit to their transgressions in the pursuit of power. 

I suspect that one day this time will be judged rather poorly by history. In the future people will wonder how we allowed things to get so out of control. I wish I knew how to stall the backward regression that seems to be barreling back to a darker time. All I can do is use my voice while I still can. After all, Trump has promised retribution for those who have not supported him. I used to believe that he would never bother to come after insignificant people like me. Now I am not so sure. Things are already so unbelievably out of control that anything might happen. It is a frightening and confusing time. 

I loved my teaching career. It was mostly delightful but almost always stressful. Attempting to reach one hundred fifty souls each school year was a daunting task. There were times when I carried my concerns about them home with me even as I pretended to be engaged with my family and friends. All of those young souls were rarely far from my thoughts. Sometimes they even interrupted my sleep. I had learned the value of focusing on the positive aspects of each school day, but as with most educators I often found myself brooding over the moments when I might have done better. I felt the weight of my responsibility full force and so did my professional colleagues.

Over time I rose to leadership roles like team leader or department chair. Eventually my job was to mentor and guide the teachers. I had differing titles but my duties were essentially the same. In one school I was known as a Peer Facilitator. I liked that designation because it fittingly described what I had been tasked to do. My whole focus was on helping the teachers to be the best versions of themselves. I was there to help them, not to grade or judge them. 

At another school I was the Magnet School Coordinator. That title confused everyone because there had never before been a person dedicated to supporting the teachers. I spent much of my time attempting to demonstrate that I was not there to critique but to provide them with ideas for enhancing the level of learning in their classrooms. It took time for them to trust that ours would be a collaborative effort, not a competitive one.

I spent my last years as a full time educator with the title of Dean of Faculty. It made me sound more important than I felt that I was. I saw myself as a voice for the teachers. I was a coach, not a boss. Title notwithstanding, I felt that I was on an equal footing with them. I was there to make their lives at school as successful as possible. Sometimes that meant just listening to them voice their concerns. Sometimes it was a matter of procuring funding and supplies that they needed for a special project or lesson. Always it involved coaching and interaction with them. 

I came to understand what happens in schools both from my own experiences in the classroom and from the many observations of teachers at work. I learned that the vast majority of men and women who choose to teach are highly educated, dedicated and hard working. Like me, they take their jobs so seriously that their students are never far from their minds even when they are away from work. There are things about teachers that most people do not know and I wish that there were some way to convey just how hard they work and how much they love their very difficult jobs.

A teacher’s day does not begin at nine and end at three in the afternoon. In fact most teachers set their alarms to begin their days before the sun rises in the morning. Many of them are already on duty by seven in the morning, preparing their classrooms for the day’s lessons, attending grade level meetings, monitoring the cafeteria and hallways as students arrive at school. When the bell rings for classes to begin they begin a long assignment of vigilance which keeps them on their feet, ever alert, striving to make lessons exciting and fulfilling for students while also watching for trouble spots in the classroom. Teachers end up with bad feet and aching backs from rarely sitting down. They have to control their bladders until they have a few minutes to race to the bathroom. There is no time for daydreaming or taking an unscheduled break. Every minute of every single day is focused on their work. Even lunch time can be divided between eating and monitoring students in the cafeteria. Thirty minute lunches are the general rule, so there is no time to get away to a restaurant and just chill for a time. 

After school teachers monitor students as they get on buses, ride or walk home. Sometimes they have duties like watching the kids assigned to detention. Other times they sponsor clubs or coach athletic teams. There are department meetings and inservice presentations. Most teachers hold tutoring sessions in the morning and afternoon. While the students may leave at three, teachers will still be at work until five in the evening and sometimes even later on special occasions. Most days they carry home bags of papers to grade and lessons to plan. It will be late in the evening before they finally crawl into bed exhausted and sometimes worried about their students’ progress or behavior. Even sleep is not always restful for them. 

The end of the school year may free the students for the summer but teachers remain on duty to tie up loose ends, tidy their classrooms, turn in final grades. Many will return within days to teach summer school, others will be taking mandatory classes to keep their certifications or to learn the latest pedagogical methods. It will be the end of June before they finally have vacation time and even then the best among them begin planning for the coming year while at home. Some even take vacations to places where they will be able to gather information and items for use in their future lessons. 

When August comes they are back on the job, preparing for the new students to arrive. There is no such thing as a three month vacation for teachers. They myths of how little they actually work are totally false. In fact, I have calculated that they work more hours per calendar year than people in most any other profession than perhaps doctors and nurses and some zealous souls who are passionate about their work. For all of their efforts they have almost always been underpaid and under appreciated and yet they return again and again because they truly believe in the importance of what they are doing. 

There was a time when teachers from other countries came to visit the school where I served as the Dean of Faculty. These individuals were from nations often praised for their schools. When I asked them how we might rise to the level of excellence that they had achieved they told me that we already had. The difference that they saw was in how our nation appreciates the teachers. They told me that in their countries teachers are revered and compensated fairly for the amount of work that they do. They noted with a bit of sadness that Americans don’t seem to realize what wonderful things are happening in our schools. Many Americans seem to take for granted that teaching is a job for people unable to do anything else. 

I don’t know how we might convince our citizens that our teachers are the very backbone of society. They are the foundation of our progress. They fuel our industries and businesses with educated workers. They improve our economy by preparing the innovators of the future. Somehow only our universities get the credit for doing all the good work when they are only the endpoint. It is a travesty that from preschool through high school teachers are not lauded as much as they should be. Perhaps one day we will finally figure out that they are the foundation of society. 

I’ve always been drawn to stories about heroes. When I was very young I read every book about saints in the library. Some of them impressed me with their willingness to stand up for what is right and just. Profiles In Courage remains one of my favorite books for outlining situations in which individuals went against the tide of opinion in order to follow their consciences. More recently I have been impressed with folks both young and old who passionately fight for causes in which they believe. I’ve even known heroes in my own life that nobody else will ever recognize, but whom I recall and admire because of moments when they rose to defend ideas that did not conform with popular thinking. 

It is incredibly difficult to buck the system in pursuit of integrity. I will always remember one of my students who stood up to her entire class, urging them to be honest about a situation involving cheating. She was a small girl who was normally quiet, but on that day she stunned everyone with her fearlessness. So too did another student who returned stolen items that his brother had taken from other students. He was initially shunned even by his own family, but over time his teachers and peers realized how dependable and morally upright he was. They ultimately chose him to represent the school at a summer leadership camp where he soared. 

I have admittedly been turned off of late by people and politicians who run with the pack, refusing to admit when wrongs have taken place. I may not agree with many of her political stances but I will always tip my hat in approval of Liz Cheney’s defense of our American democracy. She proved her mettle in defending our Constitution and the peaceful transfer of presidential power even as her political party mostly turned on her. So too was Adam Kinzinger a man of honor in the same regard. 

Sadly in today’s highly charged environment being a hero often means receiving death threats and being stalked. How the bravest among us are able to endure such things and stand firm in their beliefs leaves me in awe. I like to believe that I will always do the right thing, but I’m not so sure I would be able to do so publicly. I know I cringe and hide a bit when someone gets angry over the topics in my blogs. Nobody has ever threatened me with harm for having contrary ideas but I’ve been called a few names that were uncomfortable to hear. 

David Hogg was a student at Parkland High School when a mass shooter killed many of his fellow students. From that time he has been an ardent supporter of gun control and continues speaking out and organizing. He has been the victim of harassment and hatefulness even from public officials but he does not bend. He gives me hope for the future of the world. We need young people like him.

John McCain was one of the bravest men to ever serve our country both in war and in the Senate. He was a man of honor who loved the United States, not with a crazy fanaticism but with the highest respect for the laws and the American people. I remember the time that he insisted that Barack Obama, his opponent in a presidential race, was a good man. He refused to go along with lies and propaganda. He also voted with his conscience on many occasions. His time as a prisoner of war is legendary. He refused to take advantage of an opportunity to be freed earlier than other men simply because his father was a high ranking officer in the military. No amount of torture swayed him to relent. He had an iron will and he loved our country more than most of today’s politicians put together. 

Barbara Jordan was another of my heroes. I loved that she was born, raised and educated in my hometown of Houston, Texas. She was a brilliant woman and a voice for justice in a time when it took great fortitude for a Black woman to speak her mind. She ranks right up there with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in my estimation and I always wished that her health would have allowed her to run for President of the United States. I think she would have done that job remarkably well. 

I have been fortunate to know real life heroes again and again. They are people without an ounce of hypocrisy in their daily dealings with the world. They are what they seem to be, rising above the ordinary with their determination to work for just causes. Sometimes they are heroes like my dear departed friend, Sharon Saunders, who quietly counseled young men and women who were suffering. She listened with razor sharp attention and provided them with comfort and wisdom and most of all love. 

Sometimes it feels as though everyone is just a mindless follower these days and then out of nowhere there comes a hero. Watch for them. They are all around us. You may find them in the most unexpected places but you will always know them when they demonstrate their honor. 

We recently finished watching Bodies on Netflix and it’s premises have continued to creep into my mind when I least expect that to happen. The story is a mashup of detective genre , mystery and science fiction that posits several theories about the nature of being human. The main question lies in two arguments. One is that our history is a repetitive loop in which we are only players with predetermined roles. The other is that we have the free will to determine and change our destinies. We are not just puppets doomed to mistakes not of our own making. 

It’s a thrilling and thought provoking series that suggests the kind of search for answers that have fascinated humans for thousands of years. Only recently a Stanford professor claims to have proven that free will is a myth. His hubris fascinates me only to the extent that thinkers have tinkered with such ideas for a very long time and yet the discussion of what drives us seems to continue. 

I for one vote with team “free will” not just because of my religious upbringing, but because it makes sense to me that the very essence of the difference between humans and animals is that we have the ability to think about our thinking. If we were only bit players in an historical play in which our parts were carefully scripted it would not account for heroes who courageously opt to toss the playbook aside in a quest for justice. We humans actively seek to be virtuous even as we often fail in our efforts. I do not believe that these failures result from some vast eternal plan over which we have no control. Instead I am certain that every single day in every way we have opportunities to decide our own fates.

While our situations and our opportunities may vastly differ, we always have moments in which we choose how we will think and act regardless of how difficult doing so becomes. I understand that enslaved people had little recourse but to follow the commands of their masters, but inside their hearts and souls the same dreams and desires that anyone has were very much alive. If our destinies were indeed pre-programed we would be dullards without thought. Since I have never met anyone who did not consciously think about things, I tend to believe that our skill in that regard is the driver of our free will. We may not make the best choices and we may even be limited in those choices by cruel circumstances, but we have a higher calling than being simple minded and obedient. 

The question then becomes why and how some people use their free will to be virtuous and some choose evil. Those are conundrums that I don’t think we yet fully understand even as we study such things in attempts to unlock the keys to human behavior. We are certainly influenced by the sum total of our experiences and the people we encounter, but we all know of those who react differently to the same situation. John McCain might have used the influence of his father to be freed from captivity faster than those who shared his fate. Instead he chose to wait his turn even though he was being tortured. Not everyone would have done so. In fact we see people all the time taking advantage of others because of their wealth, status or power. 

Why do some of us become profiles in courage while others bow to temptations? These are questions that we humans often contemplate. I suppose that everyone wants to be good but our human frailties often get in our way. Sometimes we even have difficulty deciding what is actually good and what is evil. The complexities of life are daunting and they create doubts that sometimes freeze us into a state of inaction. 

Even with the gift of retrospect we realize that it is not always clear what might have changed the course of history for the better. Would things have turned out peacefully if the German citizens had never voted for Hitler and his henchmen or were the nation’s problems so deep that another bad actor would have evolved anyway? We can never really know how one change will affect the whole. The “what ifs?” of life do not always lead to better outcomes. 

I often wish that my father had not chosen to go driving down an unfinished highway in the middle of the night. The fact is that my thoughts are moot because it is exactly what he did. I might have been a very different person had he decided to stay home. My own way of interacting with the world would have changed. The people that I encountered would have been different. All of the influences that molded me would no longer have been there. It is fruitless to even attempt to contemplate a different theme to my story. 

As I have recounted I nonetheless find thinking about our thinking to be an exciting endeavor. I doubt that anyone will ever find a universally accepted way of explaining why and how we humans operate in the moral sphere. Still I hold fast to the theory that each of us has the free will to decide how we wish to behave. Therein lies both the glory and the shame of humankind. 

I am writing from my bed today as I keep my left ankle elevated and iced after enduring an accident yesterday. I have not allowed my advancing age to slow me down one iota until this moment. I have spent the last week decking the halls of my home and my yard with holiday cheer. I have climbed up and down the ladder to my attic to retrieve lights and ornaments and other decorations that I use to celebrate the Christmas season. I’ve been engaged a a flurry of activity, ignoring the pains in my knees, hips and back. I’ve learned that a dose of Advil keeps me going like the Ever Ready Bunny. I have ignored warnings from my daughters that is time for me to slow down just a bit, but my vanity would not allow me to do such a thing. 

Pride goeth before the fall and I pushed myself a bit too far last night resulting in an ankle injury while hanging lights on a tabletop tree. My attempts to simply keep moving came to a halt when my ankle swelled to double its size and began to show bruising. Walking became almost impossible as a searing pain jolted me with each step. Fearing that I had perhaps broken a bone as I had when I was decades younger, I decided that I needed to have it checked with a doctor. With the help of my husband, Mike, I limped down the stairs and into the car for a visit to the Methodist Pearland Emergency Center. 

Luckily it was a slow night so the emergency crew saw me right away. Explaining how my klutzy tendencies had landed me there became more and more embarrassing as the doctor and nurses looked at me the same way my daughters might have. Somehow I understood that they were wondering why someone my age was standing on a chair to decorate a tree on top of a table in the second story of my home. As I told my tale over and over again I began to feel more and more stupid. In my head I was asking why I had not just settled down after dinner. I should have patted myself on the back for putting in a twelve hour day of creating Christmas cheer. The words “if only” danced through my head like visions of sugarplums.

While waiting for the X-rays to be developed Mike and I began joking about my situation. I suggested that I might tattoo the word “Klutz” across my forehead because I had injured the exact same ankle only a couple of weeks earlier after tripping over a rolled up rug in a friend’s home. I seem to have a knack for getting into wacky trouble as I rush through the world as though I am still sixteen years old, ignoring suggestions that maybe it’s time for me to surrender some of my compulsive behaviors just a bit. 

When my mother and mother-in-law were my age they had both simplified their lives greatly. They no longer hosted large holiday gatherings at their homes. That job fell to me. Their once extravagant decorations were permanently stored away. They might have one tiny tree to designate the season but nothing more. I understood their need to slow down because both of them had serious health issues that sapped their energy. My mother-in-law died at Christmastime when she was only seventy-six years old. My mother would last longer but her stamina became more and more stressed with each passing year. I, on the other hand, have always felt like my grandfather who lived the the ripe old age of one hundred eight. 

Somehow I have always felt invulnerable to the challenges often associated with aging. I bristle over questions about whether or not I have fallen or how many rugs I have in my home that may trip me. I refuse offers for a visiting nurse to come inspect my home because I am the one who is caring for my ninety five year old father-in-law. How dare anyone insinuated that I am no longer as capable as I once was!

The truth is that I have to keep myself busy with writing and reading and watching Christmas movies from my bed or I will surely be tempted to resume my decorating with abandon. After all I have a boot that keeps my ankle stationary and while I don’t maneuver as quickly as usual, I can still get around with minimal pain. I know I can gut it out, but perhaps nature is telling me to surrender just a wee bit. In refusing to acknowledge that I should begin to avoid climbing on tall ladders and crawling around in my attic or I will surely be as hard headed as my mother once was and my father-n-law now is. 

I have always promised myself to be logical about my capabilities like my grandfather was. I have hoped to be willing to hand over my car keys before my daughters have to wrench them from me in a big scene. I don’t want to be that old person who is driving the younger folk crazy with my demands to do things that I should be slowly phasing out of my life. The beauty of my grandfather was that he always knew when it was time to fold his hand without anyone having the plead with him to do so. He was a delightful elder who made it easy for his younger caretakers. 

I suspect that this is a wakeup call for me. I am going to have to learn to accept help and even to scale down my demands on myself. I can think of no greater gift to my children than to show some common sense beginning with taking the doctor’s advice and allowing my ankle to heal before I go traipsing about again. I’ve bruised a bone and created a contusion on my soft tissue just to prove that I can still be a person of boundless energy. I now see that as a somewhat selfish thing to do. 

So I resolve to find joy in doing nothing today other than allowing my ankle to heal. I accept that the world will still keep going even if I am stagnant in it for a day. I’ve got seven strong grandchildren who should be able to do the hunting in the attic and they will be all the happier in knowing that I am demonstrating my grandfather’s good sense. I suppose now is the time for me to learn how to let go gracefully.