Category: Commentary

A Grand Experiment

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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We are almost at the end of June which means that we have to begin thinking about sending the children back to school in six to eight weeks. I often used July to plan lessons for the coming academic year. I am a freak when it comes to preparing ahead of time. I have never been able to do anything at the last minute. When I look at the possibilities of chaos in the coming school year I feel for teachers everywhere. Never has there been so much uncertainty about what will happen once children return to the classrooms.

The governor of Texas has declared with great confidence that all schools will reopen and that masks and other forms of protection from the virus will be optional. The reaction from the public has been mixed with many insisting it’s time to get back to normal and others worrying about the dangers of turning classrooms into germ farms. I have heard of parents investigating home schooling for at least the next year and teachers resigning or retiring because of health issues. We are wading into unknown waters and the fear is that those waters may be infested with sharks.

I teach eight home schooled students and we have not yet decided whether I will resume in person lessons or continue teaching them remotely. I am not as self assured as our governor is. I am still in the mode of wanting to wait to see what happens in the coming weeks. I can’t afford to bring illness into my home so I am a bit more circumspect.

Knowing what to do is a major dilemma for so many people. I agree that the best case scenario is for the nation’s students to return to a sense of normalcy but there is still a little voice whispering concerns to me. My forty plus years of teaching taught me that classrooms are like petri dishes for growing germs. I’ve seen more than my share of outbreaks of disease that closed down campuses. My hope is that this does not happen when we attempt to get back to the books.

The planning in many school districts appears to be far too nebulous for my taste. I’m of the mind that every teacher and parent needs a clear outline of Plans A through Z that will take into account any eventualities. All the shareholders need to know exactly what to expect when they return. How many students will be in each classroom? Will masks be a requirement? How will the school day change from the norm. Everyone must be told what will happen if there is an outbreak of the virus in a particular classroom or if the virus runs rampant through an entire campus. There should be plans for doing a better job with remote learning if that becomes a necessity again. Just using canned programs did not appear to be particularly effective so there should already be discussions about to how teachers might make those lessons more meaningful to their students?

There should already be concrete learning alternatives for those students with illnesses that might make them more vulnerable to the effects of the virus. Parents need to know what to expect if they choose to keep their children home. Teachers who have compromised immune systems should be provided with opportunities to become remote instructors for the children who need to avoid classrooms. There needs to be consideration for all individuals, not just a statement that if they can’t handle things they should just stay home.

July should be dedicated to using the creativity and talents of teachers to help in the design of each possible scenario. Schools need to be willing to try new ways of providing instruction that focus on the health and safety of all parties and provide the needed materials to institute each idea as needed.

I know of parents who are trying to find masks, hand sanitizer, and disinfecting wipes for their children to take to school. Each campus should be well supplied with such items and even have a larger than usual janitorial force to maintain bathrooms and general cleanliness throughout the school day. I have so often see restrooms without soap. This is something that should not ever happen and its occurrence must be reduced with a firm plan for continually monitoring the building throughout the school day.

So many schools have eliminated nurses from their faculty. I can think of no better time to bring them back onto every campus. Schools will need their expertise in attempting to insure that the virus does not overwhelm the efforts to provide education. They can also vanguard the daily monitoring for signs of potential illness and help to determine when and if there are particular dangers.

I know that many school districts are working diligently to be prepared. I hope that they are willing to allow teachers, parents and even students to both ask questions and provide input. I would also request that the governor please quit changing his mind about how things should work. His latest remarks undid a great deal of work that had already been done. If you are going to make the teachers and students return at least allow them to create the plans that work best. This is going to be a grand experiment and our halls of education need to be ready for anything. 

Become the Helper

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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An oft overlooked aspect of our current times is the psychological destruction that is infecting minds as silently as the coronavirus enters our bodies and makes us sick. There is so much happening all at once and the fact that we cannot seem to agree on much of anything only compounds the difficulties of dealing with the anxieties that are plunging many individuals into a state of distress. Any one of the issues that have come to the fore would have been cause for concern. When all of them are blasting our society at once it is akin to a violent storm, an earthquake and a tornado all happening at the same instant. Little wonder that my friends who are counselors are feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by the stories of patients who are struggling to maintain a sense of balance and safety.

At the same time there are those lucky individuals who appear not to have been affected by anything that is happening. They have retained their jobs and their fine incomes. Nobody in their circle has become ill with the virus. They have few interactions with minorities so they do not feel the urgency of the Black Lives Movement or DACA. They do not have an elderly parent, relative or friend in a nursing home whom they are not allowed to visit. They have not seen how a preponderance of bad luck can lead to depression, addiction, despair. The people in their world are happy and eager to get back to vacations and all the rituals of summer. They are blessed and enjoy the bounty of their good fortune.They post images of themselves having a good time as though life is as wonderful and normal as ever. They are generally good people who simply do not know how much suffering the pandemic has created because it seems to have little to do with the worlds in which they live.

In truth there are many layers associated with the mental health issues that are making a difficult time even worse for those who are struggling to maintain a grip on hopefulness. There are people who lost their jobs in early March who are panicking because their searches for work have been fruitless. In the beginning they felt confident that the unemployment help from the government along with assistance from in the form of temporary loan forgiveness would carry them through until they most surely would return to their careers, but as the weeks and months have gone by far too many are still unemployed. They see the patience of the nation dwindling for their cause. They have calculated that they are on the verge of destitution and perhaps even homelessness if nothing changes within the next few weeks. Even though they have always been hard working and reliable they are questioning their own worth. They feel abandoned, alone. They are losing the confidence that was once their trademark.

There are elderly individuals who have been sequestered inside their homes for so long that loneliness has overtaken them. They feel forgotten. Worse yet when even the political leaders who should be encouraging them suggest that they are on their own with regard to staying safe from the virus they worry that they will be confined to a kind of homebound imprisonment for an undetermined time. Because they understand that the number of years they have left on this earth are dwindling with each passing month they worry that their final moments will be lonely and secluded from the joy of human contact.

There are those already burdened by mental illness or addiction. They have had to get their therapies remotely. Somehow the positive effects of talking with a caring professional has not the same under such circumstances. Their days have come to feel bleaker and bleaker and their minds play all of the psychological tricks on them that create the kind of chemical imbalances in their brains that cloud their thinking. At times life seems almost unbearable and sometimes they even act on such thoughts.

The problems of our Black citizens have taken center stage but even as they voice the concerns that have stalked them unrelentingly they see that far too many refuse to listen or understand. They wonder why it is so difficult for people to comprehend what they are trying to say. They relate the stories of their lives with honesty and then are accused of overreacting, expecting too much. They see people wanting to wish them away, hoping to sweep their cause under the rug. They wonder how many more years they will have to pay for the sins of slavery, because it is they who have paid the price of a heinous practice that is somehow defended year after unchanging year.

A toxic political climate fueled by those seeking power has divided us so badly that even friends and relatives who love one another are on edge. They choose up sides and steadfastly retain their own beliefs even when evidence suggests that they may be wrong. In many ways we are all being played and we somehow know it but nonetheless deny that we are affected. It grinds away at our sense of security. We question ourselves and each other. Some among are reduced to abject sorrow.

We have drawn back a curtain that has shown us an ugly side of our natures, an aspect that we had managed to mostly ignore before the stakes became so high. While we are grappling with our personal difficulties and with each other we sense that somehow it did not need to be this way. We might have all been feeling confident that together we would solve all of the problems that face us. Instead it feels as though we are engaged in battles on multiple fronts all alone. It is every human for himself/herself and so the numbers suffering from psychological disorders are growing, leaving a toll that is as distressing as Covid-19 and the battles for equity.

It is time we each took a deep breath and eliminated our tone deaf tendencies. People are dying of broken hearts and minds. We need to step back and assess the damage that has been done to them and then begin the process of working together to set things right. Look around you. Find the suffering and become the helper that they need. 

Dear Sir

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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President Donald J. Trump                                                                                                            White House                                                                                                                      Washington D.C.                                                                                                                          United States of America

Dear Sir,

I am an American who loves this country with every fiber of my being even as I realize that it has problems which must be addressed. I am only a few years younger than you are. When we were  children the world was recovering from a terrible world war. Our elders had been heroes fighting in Europe and the Pacific for the very existence of democracy and justice. We grew up hearing of the horrors of autocratic leaders that lead to the murder of millions of innocent souls. What we heard less about was the unfair treatment of citizens in our own country whose ancestors had once been slaves. We were young and lived in a white bubble with our privilege of freedom to go wherever we wanted whenever we wanted. Only now and again did we witness hints of the inequities in our society and so in our minds the America of our youth was a beautiful thing, a safe and lovely world. We did not yet know of the injustices that some of our fellow citizens with darker skin were enduring even as we reveled in our own safety.

I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. My father was a college educated man who provided our family with luxuries that I took for granted until he died suddenly when I was only eight years old. I quickly learned what it was like to worry that my family’s most basic needs would be difficult to meet, but even in our greatly reduced economic situation I knew that we were better off than many Americans and so I began to better understand the plight of the poor and suffering.

I was mostly sheltered from the racism that existed nearby me. It was only when we would ride a bus downtown to enjoy a Saturday of shopping for sales in the basement of Foley’s department store that I saw the water fountains and restrooms marked with signs for “whites” and “coloreds.” I found myself wondering why the black people on the bus had to sit away from the rest of us. I knew them only from such brief encounters because they lived in neighborhoods segregated from mine. I only saw them when they came to clean the houses or work in the yards of white friends. Even as a child I felt an element of mystery and injustice in their situation but nobody really spoke of such things with little ones. They must have believed that we were too ignorant to see the evidence of prejudice that was so clear to me.

The first I heard of the civil rights movement was just before my father died. We had gone to visit my grandparents in Arkansas and there was talk of integrating the schools. My father and grandfather would sit on the front porch of the house discussing the pros and cons of the situation while I was shuttled away into the kitchen with my grandmother. I suppose they thought I was too young to hear about such things but I got enough information to begin to question so much about what we were doing to an entire group of people who had long suffered from abuse.

By the time I was in high school the civil rights marches, demonstrations and sit-ins were in full force. I watched the progress with great joy and anticipation even as I heard whispers from adults who were worried that the world as they had known it was about to change for the worst. There were great divisions in our country even as a sense of hopefulness began to spread from sea to shining sea.

In college my friend Claudia and I were active in the continuing civil rights movement. We marched and campaigned and lived in the hope that the stains of slavery and segregation would be eradicated forever. We listen to Mohammed Ali speak on our campus. He was still Cassius Clay back then and he would soon be expressing his right to freedom by refusing to submit to the military draft. It was his way of bringing attention to the inequities that were still holding our nation back from the greatness that had been the set forth in the ideals in our Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation. We were still struggling to achieve a goal that should have been insisted upon as far back as 1776 but was compromised to satisfy those who used slaves for their economic betterment.

I entered the adult world thinking that we had resolved the problems of our Black citizens. I went about living my life and created my own little bubble of satisfaction. The world seemed to be a very happy place for everyone. I welcomed Black children to my neighborhood and I taught them in the schools where I worked. I shared stories with my Black colleagues and entertained them in my home. It was not until a group of my Black students and I prepared for a school sponsored civil rights tour of the south that I began to hear of the inequities and fears that continued to stalk even the most highly educated and economically secure Black people that I know. In transparent conference after conference they related their experiences and I knew then that we had left so much work undone.

So here we are now in a state of unrest in the midst of a pandemic as people not just in the United States but across the globe insist that somehow we must begin the dialogue and the processes of eliminating racism that is still inherent within our systems. We know that we cannot dislodge discrimination in all individual hearts, but we can and should attempt to eradicate it from our public institutions. The Black Lives Matter movement is not about the exclusion of all other lives but an insistence that we once and for all must admit that too often Black lives do not matter as much as ours. When athletes take a knee during the National Anthem they are not attempting to dishonor veterans but rather to bring attention to the reality that we are often prone to look away when Black lives are undervalued. We do not see such incidents as our problem because after all we are good people who love everyone. Sadly by ignoring the situation we contribute to the abuse. Just as we would report adults who mistreat children, so too must we take action against people and systems that are cavalier with the lives of our Black citizens. 

Mr. President, the throngs of people in the street are generally peaceful and their cause is a beautiful thing. They are protesting for the very soul of this country and in many ways they are more intent on making America great that your supporters. They are not thugs or destroyers or looters. The millions of earnest souls across the country are risking their own safety in an attempt to rebuild and redefine the systems that continue to ignore the facts surrounding the history of slavery and segregation. They are drawing attention to the racism that continues in far too many corners of the country.

If you truly want to make America great then I implore you to set your divisive rhetoric aside and serve as a model of compassion and understanding. We are all hurting and we desperately need a leader who is willing to bring us together, not taunt us to fight one another. This is a powerful moment in our nation’s history when we might once and for all admit to the egregious mistakes of the past and move forward by repairing the institutions that continue to ignore the discrimination that breeds in their midst. Truly loving this country means that we will not enable its flaws to fester and grow. Loving the United States of America means coming together to repair the damage of four hundred years of looking the other way. What a glorious thing it would be for all of us to march into the Promised Land together at last. Seize the opportunity to listen and to hear the cries for what they truly are. 

Your sincerely,                                                                                                                                         A proud citizen of the United States of America

 

(Please Note: For those who may think that my naiveté knows no bounds, I do understand that this letter is a dream but it outlines realities and hopes that I do not think any of us can afford to ignore. We must move beyond sound bites and self interests and insist on doing the right thing. This must also include those in the halls of power. Let freedom ring.)

Learning From a Mother’s Love

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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Tomorrow would have been my mother’s ninety third birthday. She died only days before turning eighty three. After her death nine years ago my brothers and our families decided to meet each year at the Cracker Barrel restaurant in League City to celebrate her life. She often chose to dine there whenever we took her out of the solitude of her home. If it was a Friday she invariably adhered to the old fasting tradition of eating fish. She found great joy in the simplicity of the menu and the potpourri of candy and doodads offered in the country store that adjoins the dining room.

This year her medical doctor granddaughter advised us that we should not adhere to our tradition of convening together even though the restaurant will be open. She fears that such a large gathering would be unsafe for us, and I have to agree. My brothers and I are all of the age considered vulnerable to the worst effects of Covid 19 as are all but one of our spouses. This year we will have to remember our mother from our homes. Maybe we will set a Zoom conference just to “see” each other and share our stories of the remarkable woman who lead us through so many difficulties and taught us how to be empathetic and generous.

My mother always viewed life from a lens that was far bigger than her own seemingly simple existence. She had a poetic way of seeing the human experience. She was a woman of immense faith who quietly forged a powerful relationship with Jesus and his mother, Mary. Somehow the irony of her life and death has not been lost on me during these days of virus and struggle for justice. It is as though everything that she ever attempted to teach me has come together into a coherent sum of multiple parts. I have dreamed of her night after night as though she has been attempting to tell me something very important. As her birthday nears I have felt her presence in my very soul providing me with an understanding of the chaos that seems so rampant in the world. This daughter of immigrants who had bravely struggled through prejudice and poverty and illness for most of her life was still smiling even as she gasped for each precious breath in her final hours. It is in remembering the ending of her life that I have unlocked the message of hope that defined the many active years of her life.

Somehow thinking of my mother has helped me to make sense of the world’s present situation which is unlike anything that twenty first century humankind has ever experienced. It is as though God himself is sending us an important message that is difficult to hear but to which we must force ourselves to listen. What is happening is so much bigger than any one of us. It is a wake up call from the dreamy indifference that has defined our society for all too long. We are witnessing a virus that threatens our very ability to breathe. We have watched the murder of a man begging for the love and protection of his mother as he could not breathe. We have heard but all too often ignored the cries of those whose sexual orientations are different from our own as they have worried about losing their livelihoods. We have neglected the children who call themselves dreamers, immigrants like my mother who only want an opportunity to breathe freely.

All of these things have upended our lives at the same time. We don’t want to see them or hear them or think of them. We just want our lives back the way they were many weeks ago. It is too difficult to deal with all of it at once, to unravel the complexities of it. Surely if we simply ignore it all we will soon be our old selves going out to eat, watching ball games, celebrating with friends. Sadly, it is not a simple thing to put the pieces back together, to unsee what we have seen. To forget what we have heard. To pretend that all will be well if we just refuse to wear masks or speak of injustice.

How many of us have silently cried out for our mamas during the confusion of all that is happening in the world? How many of us have at times felt breathless as we search to make sense of a seemingly senseless time? Do we not realize that everything has meaning in the human experience? Nothing is to be ignored. There are important messages in the unfolding of our histories. It would behoove us to silence our hearts long enough to hear the whispers inside our souls, for surely as my mother so ardently believed, God or some force of life is trying to get our attention. We would be foolish not to consider what all of this might mean.

There are watershed moments in our individual lives and in the arc of history. They are often difficult to handle. They challenge us to think out of the box, to make uncomfortable changes. We are in the midst of what will either be a cataclysm or a redemption for humanity. How we accept our individual responsibilities for the welfare of the whole of the earth will determine our ultimate fate. Our focus cannot be inward at this time. It must be outward. It calls for soul searching and honesty, compassion and sacrifice and the kind of love that is bigger than our own selfish needs, a mother’s love.

We are all brothers and sisters regardless of the color of our skin, the countries in which we were born, the orientation of our sexuality, our economic status. We will overcome the virus and the inequities of our systems only if we work together, only if we are understanding and forgiving. We have run out of excuses for our unwillingness to love unconditionally. Nobody should have to die because our vanity does not allow us to wear a mask. Nobody should have to die because we have not been vigilant in eradicating prejudices. Nobody should have to live in a closet because we judge them to be deviant. Nobody should have be unwelcome in their quest to build a better life among us. These are systemic wrongs that we must right. The message of our need to do so is loud and clear if we are willing to hear it.

My mama was a kind hearted soul. She dissolved into tears at the thought of any person suffering. She would have given her last dollar to someone in need. She experienced insults and slights of her own and never lost her gentleness. In her honor I fight for those who have too long struggled in the shadows. I join them as a sister. We are all one team, one family and as my mother always reminded me  from Matthew 25: 40, “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” Let us learn from a mother’s love.

We Are Losing Some Good Ones

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

 

Life goes on even as we struggle through days of watching the virus find its way into every corner. We continue our routines even as we watch protesters crying out for justice. Birthdays come marking the completion of another year of life. Easter reminds us to be hopeful. Graduations in different forms than we are accustomed to seeing celebrate hard work and accomplishment. Our planet dutifully rotates on its axis bringing us new days and nights. We revolve around the sun moving from spring to summer just as though everything is as normal as can be. People whom we have loved and cherish die, some from Covid-19 and others from disease or accident.

We muddle along for the most part, adapting to our present situation, but death gives us pause. It is perhaps more difficult to accept than ever. It is a kind of insult added to our injury. Covid-19 forces us to endure it without the rituals or the comfort of hugs and human touch that we have come to expect in such moments. Of all the things that we miss about our days of isolation and uncertainty people are surely at the top of our list. Most of us are working so hard to keep the ones we love safe and virus free, so when one of them dies no matter the cause it is almost too much to bear. 

I have watched from inside my living room as people very special to me have endured the deaths of loved ones. I grieved for a teaching colleague who lost her beloved mother at the beginning of the pandemic, not from the disease itself but from the completion of a long life. My friend continues to long for the beautiful woman who taught her how to love and gave her a lifelong and beautiful relationship with God. So too does another friend long for her sister who left this world all too early only this week. A young man that I know is heartbroken over the death of a dear friend who will not be able to share the joys of senior year in high school with the rest of the class. 

I watched with great sorrow as two of my high school classmates and friends lost their beloved brother, John King. He had been sick for a very long time but he had overcome his disabilities again and again with a valiant spirit. He was a dedicated and admired teacher, a man who devoted forty eight years of his life to guiding the young into wisdom and grace. His students adored him just as his family did. He will be quietly laid to rest this week but his legacy will be celebrated for years to come by those who knew of his dedication to education and creating a better world. He was an optimist in a time of great cynicism and his example will live in all of  the hearts that he touched. 

A man who attended my high school while I was there has also died. I did not know him well but I knew of him. His name was Steve Waldner but his friends called him Wes. He was a member of one of those large Catholic families from the Baby Boom era. He lived across the street from Our Lady of Mt Carmel Catholic Church and School. He was a sweet and happy fellow, someone people called a nice guy. My husband, Mike, would eventually meet Steve and learn just how amazing he had turned out to be.

Mike was loaned out to the United Way one year as part of their program to use the talents of executives from businesses to help with the various causes that it supports. That’s when he met Steve who was the director of the Bay Area United Way. The two of them hit it off immediately. Both had attended Catholic schools and both were avid alumni of the University of Houston. Steve had first graduated from the University of St. Thomas and then earned a Master’s of Social Work at the University of Houston. He and Mike shared a love of Catholic education, the Basilian fathers, the University of Houston, and the work being done to help the less fortunate in our midst.

Mike learned of the devastating consequences of addiction and homelessness from Steve who worked tirelessly and compassionately to be of service to those who are often ignored and misunderstood. Mike was impressed with Steve’s optimism even in the face of human tragedy. Here was a man so incredibly devoted to the causes of those who were lost and broken. I began to learn so much about someone who had shared the hallways of my school with me without our ever getting to know each other. I was humbled by the stories of his work and his dedication.

Steve Waldner was eventually recognized for his contributions to the downtrodden of the city of Houston. The Department of Social Work at his alma mater, the University of Houston named him as one of their most outstanding graduates. He even taught classes for a time at the University of Houston campus at Clear Lake. He continued to give of his talents in work that focused on those with disabilities and disorders of the body and mind. Like his father before him he was dedicated to being a point of light in some of the darkest corners of our city.

John King and Steve Waldner will be missed for their magnificent contributions to the betterment of our world. In our dark days we long for such shining lights of selflessness and devotion. Both men used their time on this earth to touch the minds and hearts of countless individuals who became better for knowing them. We might all take a cue from them for leading our own lives.

It is difficult to lose good people anytime, but somehow it is doubly so in a moment like the present. It saddens us to know that we are losing the best among us when we need them so dearly. We will remember these good souls and use the models of their lives to guide us and we will comfort their loved ones who have been left behind. May these angels who dedicated themselves to love and service rest in peace.