Month: May 2025

I have officially been retired from teaching or being a school administrator since the end of May in 2011. It’s difficult to believe that fourteen years have passed since I walked the halls of KIPP Houston High School. My former students are now in their thirties, forties and fifties. Many of them have children who are graduating from college or getting married. I find myself wondering where the time goes and how it seems like only yesterday that I was teaching pre-schoolers while I finished my degree and earned my certifications.

I’ve stood in so many classrooms in front of both eager and challenging students. I learned right away that each of them had a story that would tug at my heart. Some were eager to grab the opportunities of education. Others were so burdened with troubles that it was difficult for them to concentrate. Some had exceptional parents who gave them the foundations of a good life. Others were overwhelmed by family and personal situations that few of us would be able to navigate without help. I see their faces to this very day and I even keep in touch with many of them. 

Since retiring I have cultivated a new group of students. Only months after I had seemingly hung up my teaching spurs, I got an itch to be with students again. I felt a void in my life that could not be satisfied by trips or mornings sleeping in when the younger people in the world were scurrying off to work. I missed the challenges and the emotional rewards of helping a young person to master concepts and become a model adult. I searched for new ways to continue the vocation that seemed to be an essential part of my very existence.

I found a tutoring job that was incredible while it lasted but the funding for the program changed and so did the rules for which students I was allowed to help and even the means by which I would do so. I was unwilling to compromise the personalized assistance I had given the students to become a monitor while they worked canned computer programs over which I had no say. It seemed that I was finally retired in every sense of the word.

Life is filled with surprises, unexpected joys that come our way when we are least expecting them. Out of the blue I got a message from two ladies who were looking for someone to teach math to their sons. The boys had been homeschooled but the mothers realized that the math that they needed was slowly but surely becoming more and more difficult for them and for their boys. Thus began a journey that introduced me to a new set of students and kept me doing the thing that I most love. 

Those two boys are now men. I got them all the way through College Algebra and along the way picked up their siblings and a few of their friends. This year three of the younger crew are graduating from high school with dual credit degrees from community colleges. They are excitedly planning to continue their education in the coming school year. One of them has earned a degree from the Bauer School of Business at the University of Houston, earning the distinction as the youngest graduate of 2025 at the age of eighteen. Now I am teaching the siblings in the families and enjoying the experience of working with young people as much as I always have. 

I know for certain that the youngest members of our nation are far better and far more intelligent than many citizens believe them to be. The reality is that one generation after another has looked at the younger set with a suspicion that perhaps they are not as driven or polite as they should be. When I was a teen in the long ago the adults were horrified by our “hippy” ways. We were far too outspoken for their taste. They worried that we would not amount to much but somehow we survived just as today’s generation of adolescents and teens surely will as well. 

Most of us find our way out of the confusing days of growing up and become model citizens who work hard and act nice. So too have I watched the progress and success of the thousands of students whose lives I shared for a brief moment in time. I only know of a couple of them who took a wrong turn and ended up in jail. All the rest have demonstrated their mettle and created extraordinary lives for themselves and their families. Many of them have become teachers who are far better than I ever was which has made me so very proud. 

I still see those faces staring expectantly at me on the first day that we met. I would learn their strengths and attempt to shore up their weaknesses. I would privately cry about their sometimes overwhelming challenges and celebrate their victories. I carry them in my heart and think of them often. I hope with all of my being that they will always know how much I love them. 

I listened to the man speaking of how he worried that his dying grandmother might leave this life on his birthday. I understood why he felt that way because deaths on meaningful dates are rarely forgotten. Year after year those occasions become painful reminders of loss. It is difficult enough when someone dies on a random day but when that moment comes on or near a time that will forevermore be a trigger of remembrance, it is somehow doubly bad. 

I was once celebrating with a group of teachers at Christmas time. The food and the company were both great and we were chatting gleefully when one of our colleagues suddenly burst into tears and rushed away from the table. I left to look for her and found her outside sobbing uncontrollably. I worried that she was having some kind of medical scare but when I inquired she simply shook her head while attempting unsuccessfully to halt her tears. I stood near her not knowing what to do. I feared that if I suddenly attempted to hug her she might push me away. I decided to just take her hand and give her the time she needed to recover. 

Once her tears had stopped she told me that one of the carols playing in the background inside the restaurant had been her mother’s favorite. She recalled how her mother would stop whatever she was doing just to hear the tune. Her mom would smile and close her eyes with unadulterated pleasure and then proclaim that it finally felt like Christmas. Sadly my friend’s mom had died on Christmas Eve a few years back. Her death had been a shock to everyone. She had a stroke and was gone before an ambulance reached the location where the family was celebrating with Christmas music playing from the family stereo. Just before she collapsed she had once again been happily enjoying her favorite song with her eyes shut and an angelic grin on her face as her favorite carol boomed across the room. 

My friends explained that every Christmas time since that tragic moment she had been unable to hear the song that her mother had so enjoyed. It was an emotional reminder of the tragedy that would forever be associated in her mind with Christmas. In spite of a decade having passed since her mother’s death, the song was like a pushing a button that brought back memories that never seemed to fade in her mind. 

I totally understood her feelings. I have experienced the same kind of traumatic flashback every May 31 since my father died. At one time the Memorial Holiday was set for that exact date, revolving around the seven days of the week in a recurring pattern. Eventually the date was instead celebrated on the last Monday of May rather than changing from year to year 

On May 30, 1957, my mother had spent most of the day preparing food for the family celebration that was scheduled to take place at the beach the following day. I boasted to my friends in the neighborhood that it would be an adventure with my aunts and uncles and cousins. I looked forward to swimming and people watching. Mama had made her “famous” chocolate cake and baked beans that were legendary. Daddy was going to cook hamburgers and slather the patties with my mom’s yummy homemade barbecue sauce. Her potato salad was cooling in the refrigerator and my mouth was already watering with anticipation. 

Mama shooed me and my brothers to bed early on May 30. She told us to sleep well so that we might have breakfast, get dressed and leave before nine the next morning. It was our turn to secure a good spot on the beach for the whole extended family. With visions of what the morrow would bring I shuffled off to my bedroom without complaint. 

It took a bit of time for me to fall asleep but when I finally did I dreamed of the fun that lay ahead. I liked those outings to the beach with my family more than anything about summer except perhaps the vacations that Daddy planned each year. I already knew how wonderful Memorial Day would be. Somehow at that stage of my life I did not yet realize that it was actually a holiday to remember our fallen soldiers. I just thought it was the send off for a great summer.

I awoke early on May 31, just as the sun was rising. I was so anxious to get the ball rolling that I was ready to jump up and run to the kitchen but I heard something that sounded strange. I decided to stay in bed while I listened to my mother talking with someone on the phone. Her voice did not sound right and she seemed to be talking about a person using the past tense. I could not imagine who might be the subject of her comment nor why she was having such a conversation in the early morning hours. Before long I had put the pieces of her puzzling sentences together. I believed that she was speaking about my father, but why?

My stomach was growling enough that I lost interest in sleuthing and headed for the kitchen to prepare a bowl of cereal. I was shocked to see one of my aunts there looking nervous and distracted. She asked me if I wanted to eat and I responded that a bowl of cereal would be fine. her demeanor was anxious and I too began to feel that something was very wrong with the scenario playing out in my house. I wondered again why my mother was on the phone telling someone about my father as though he was a memory, not the man sleeping down the hall in his bedroom. 

I suppose that my aunt suddenly realized that I was looking puzzled because she came over to the table and sat in the chair closest to me. In that moment she almost blurted out that “God had called my father.” I played dumb even though I knew what she meant. Nonetheless, I did not believe my ears. My aunt had to tell me with very clear words that my father had died in a car wreck in the early morning hours of May 31. 

I don’t recall much that happened after I got the shocking news. My aunts and uncles and cousins came to our home. The Memorial Day festivities became a day of mourning and grief and have been so for me every year since then which is probably more in keeping with the original intent of the day. Each year the last day of May takes me back to that kitchen and to the horror of losing my father. 

I’d like to say that maturity has helped me to move on from the emotions that swept over my being back then, but in truth I am much like my friend whenever she heard that song that was playing when her mother died. May 31 sends me plummeting down over and over again. In fact, my sorrow on that day seems to only grow as time goes by. I even find myself having silly thoughts like wondering why my father-in-law got to live well into his nineties while my father was only on this earth for thirty three years. It’s a silly and senseless way to be, but I suppose that emotions find strange spaces to hide. There will never be a time when I forget.

So Donald Trump has justified his tariffs and the difficulties that they may bring to ordinary citizens with one of the most clueless and least compassionate comments that he might have made. He opined that maybe children “will get two dolls instead of thirty at Christmas” but it will be worth the sacrifice in the long run. 

Don’t get me wrong. It is possible, but not too probable, that his tariffs will work out much better than most economists believe. That’s not the point I want to argue at this moment, but rather the crassness of his assumption about how the not so rich live. It’s obvious that it has never occurred to him that most children only get one doll and if times get hard they may not get a doll at all. 

I realize that Donald grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. He never really had to work too hard to enjoy the pleasures of wealth. He had a head start that few of us ever enjoy. I understand that because of his experience he may not fully appreciate the struggles of the ordinary everyday American. I can actually relate to his lack of insight because I was once like that in the long ago. 

I lived the high life of a most fortunate little girl. My father was an engineer and everything about my life was several notches higher than the reality of my cousins. We always had a custom built home filled with gorgeous furniture, china, crystal, silver. We had books and records and one of the first televisions. Our car was never more than two years old and we travelled all over the United States on vacations. At Christmas time I might actually get numerous dolls. I took it all for granted even as I noticed that things were not quite so luxurious for my cousins. I made assumptions about people based only on what I knew. 

Of course all of that changed when I was eight years old and my father died. The world as I had known it tumbled down around me. We moved to a smaller home that was the definition of ticky tacky. Our car was not something that was not going to impress anyone. Everything about our lives became more measured. We had to adhere to a strict budget and my brothers and I learned to appreciate whatever we had without wanting more. My mother was masterful at working with an exceedingly tight income and she taught me all of the tricks for getting by on a thread. My whole worldview changed and it was as though scales had been lifted from my eyes. I began to realize that even though my family struggled there were others having an even more difficult time of just surviving. I learned how to see things through the eyes of others and to consider how my own decisions might help or harm my fellow humans. I was enlightened by my experience. Some might even say that I became woke.

I suppose that we each view the world according to our own experiences but we would do well to learn more about those in different situations. I know that having my father-in-law at my dinner table everyday for three years has shown me just how much we make choices and say things based on what we have known in our lives. He speaks often of the perks of being the son of a doctor. During the Great Depression when my mother was lucky to get a nickel for her birthday he was receiving gifts of electric trains and toy cars that he could ride around in. I don’t think my mother ever went to see a doctor until she was expecting a baby but my father-in-law enjoyed regular visits and exceptional care. Sometimes because of his lifestyle that has followed him all the way to his ninety sixth birthday he seems as unaware as Trump to the needs of others. I have had to do a great deal of educating of him and in some ways my influence has indeed changed him. 

Sadly Trump does not seem to have any advisors who do anything but praise him for his every remark and action. They seem to be afraid to explain how hurtful some of his remarks might be for ordinary people who have never had two dolls on Christmas day much less thirty. He would do well to find such a person to explain to him what it is like to struggle even while working and scrimping and saving. Being poor is not always a sign of laziness. Sometimes it is just a matter of circumstances like what happened to my mother and me and my brothers. 

I have adjusted to my father-in-law over the years. I have enough confidence in myself to know that I did not need to purchase my clothing at an expensive store like he always did when there were bargains to be found at a low end outlet. I am proud of being the daughter of an industrious and creative woman who somehow managed to get by on an income so meager that most people would not believe how little there was if I told them. I learned from my mom how to survive in times when little girls may get only two dolls instead of thirty like Trump predicts may happen. I know the joy of inheriting her skills. I can make a pot of soup with leftovers and run down a bargain when I need to purchase something. I’m ready for the sacrifices that Trump is predicting that we must all make but I would sure appreciate it if he actually understood what it will be like for us rather than making ridiculous remarks from his gilded castles. Some Americans don’t have a private plane or the ability to celebrate a birthday with a ninety million dollar parade. Maybe just maybe Trump would do well to get out more and find ways to spread the wealth to those who actually need it instead of giving massive tax breaks to billionaires. The American people deserve so much more. 

Over and over again for more than fifty years of my life I have found myself having to defend teachers and the educational system in the United States of America. I have always been honest in pointing the imperfections but I have never definitively said the hard part out loud. In truth education is a easy target because of the old saw that everyone thinks they know exactly how to repair any of its deficiencies simply because they were once students and therefore should know exactly what is wrong. The naked truth is that in spite of their monumental efforts to educate the youth of our nation, teachers in the United States have not received the kind of recognition and honor that they enjoy in the nations that we keep applauding for their educational success. 

It’s time to break down the differences between the American public school experience  and that of other countries that seem to some to have a better idea of how to do things. We first must accept the truth that Kindergarten through grade 12 education in the United States is not codified by a unified conglomerate. Instead it is a hodgepodge of fifty individual systems designed and overseen by fifty different state governments. The curriculum for a particular place is designed by the state, not a national mandate. Teacher pay is determined by local school boards. The federal government has very little to say in the everyday operations of a public schools other than to support programs in poor areas, help with the cost of serving students with special needs, insure that the civil rights of all students and teachers are honored  and provide grants for students who wish to continue their educations beyond high school. In fact, few teachers are actually aware of any kind of influence from the Department of Education from day to day. It is the state government that looms large in the directives of what they must teach.

In Texas there are lists of skills and knowledge specified for every subject in every grade that teachers must use as the guide to their daily lessons. It is a monumental task to follow the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills to the letter within the confines of the school year. There is little or no room for frivolities or efforts to propagandize students. While those things sometimes happen and should be corrected, they are not the norm. Texas teachers must work hard every single day. They often stay on their feet for hours and never have even a few seconds to just tune out for a moment. The task at hand requires their total attention from the time the students arrive until all of them have left the school for the day. It is an exhausting process and only the most dedicated among them survive long term.

Designing a plan for presenting the lessons takes time and thought. Much of the most crucial work of a teacher happens beyond the hours of the school day which are used to determine their pay. Teachers take home work virtually every single day. There are papers to grade, essays to read, research to be done to create engaging lessons. Teachers must keep students, parents and the administrators informed of the progress of each individual in their care. Their work days are long and exhausting and often do not end until late into the night. They wear sturdy shoes because they are so often on their feet. Their backs hurt and they ride a daily emotional roller coaster along with their students who bring their difficulties and problems to the classroom. They have so many duties that are never listed in descriptions of their work.  

Sadly, teachers are rarely consulted about how to improve areas of education that are imperfect even though they have many wonderful ideas. Most of the time they simply have to follow the dictums of state boards of education whether or not they can see the flaws in the programs designed by nameless individuals who do not really know their students. They have to be adept at creating individual plans within the master plans to take each individual into their classrooms into account. 

I have often advocated for smaller schools located in neighborhood settings in which few students have to add hours to their school days riding in busses that bring them home so late in the afternoon that they barely have any time to interact with their families. I think that we would do well to offer both classical topics and training for future occupations so that students will not have a one size fits all kind of education. Such ideas would have to be enacted by the state legislature and designed hopefully by actual teachers who are still working inside classrooms. A bit of restructuring would eliminate the need for using public tax dollars to fund private schools with more money than public schools receive per student. The goal would be to improve public schools before surrendering to wealthy people who want to reduce their children’s private school costs.

I often hear complaints that American students are not performing as well as their peers in other countries. Much of the reason for that is that many countries track students into different groups based on their abilities and interests, something that we do not do. Everyone takes tests to determine their levels of achievement in the United States. In other countries it tends to by only the most highly academic students who do so. Comparing their educational success with ours is a zero sum game that we will always lose because our schools provide every student with the opportunity to reach higher.

Teachers in other countries are much more highly respected that those in the United States. They are paid more for their efforts. Teachers elsewhere rarely experience the high levels of diversity that American teachers take for granted and incorporate into their planning. Culturally Americans citizens all too often criticize the educational system without actually understanding what is happening in classrooms. They accept propaganda that makes them believe that students are being subjected to critical race theory and DEI overload, little of which is true. 

Our classrooms are diverse because so are our neighborhoods. Teachers equitably meet each student where they are and who they are. In one school after another students are included in the efforts to prepare them for the future without bias or prejudices. DEI is not a class. It is a way of treating all children with honor. 

Over fifty years of teaching experience has convinced me that the problems schools face do not lie in the teachers or even what was once the Department of Education. The real problem comes from politicians using schools as a cudgel to gain votes even as they have no idea what actually happens inside the thousands upon thousands of public schools throughout our nation. If anyone wants to honestly improve the system they would do well to take the time to talk with the teachers and actually listen. Our public schools can always be improved but not with mandates or total destruction. It’s time to use the resource that has mostly been ignored, the voice of our dedicated teachers.

I think that in preparation for July 4, 2025 we would all do well to carefully read each line of the Declaration of Independence and familiarize ourselves with what the Founding Fathers were attempting to decree to the people. You may find much wisdom in parsing each idea. Ask yourself if we are presently living up to the declaration made so long ago. Become familiar with what this actually says. It is indeed a beautiful document but it is not all about unity and love.

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.