Motivation

This week we watched the movie King Williams with Will Smith in it. I got very emotional but probably not at the part that was intended for that. Will Smith's character, Richard Williams, gets literally and figuaratively beat down again and again and again.

There's a point where this motivates him just to push harder and be stronger. I felt so angry. Why do people have to be motivated this way, by long-term and overbearing adversity?

When is it enough and people get a little help pulling the monkeys off their backs? Why are some people in a situation where everyone and everything seems to be pulling them down but somehow they hang on through it all? There are others that seem to be in a similar situation but they have all the support in the world and sometimes that gets them through and sometimes even with all that support, they still give up while the person over there has no support but keeps on going-I don't understand any of this!

Is it all worth it? If it is, at what point do you know it's worth it? I'm not ready to throw in the towel or anything like that. I'm just tired of seeing how much adversity some must face without ever catching a break. Sometimes I'm tired of not knowing how to catch my own break. For the record, that show was incredible. I loved it!

Musical Time Machine

There's a song that plays on the radio now that affects me so much!!! I don't want to say what the song is, just what it does. It takes me right back to a very specific time in my life. When I hear the song, I immediately feel young and free and like I can remember all my thoughts and views from that time.

It's back when I thought a lot about the relationships I'd have and I thought I knew how they'd go and what love would feel like. I was incredibly hopeful for my future. I couldn't imagine anything standing in my way of going and getting what I want out of life.

It's the most incredible feeling bursting with possibilities and optimism and hope. When the song ends, uh, things get weird for me. I feel really lucky. It's easy to name people I love and be grateful for a home and job and friends but I know that world I once believed in isn't really there any more. It feels like I'm not living in that world anymore. Some things went how I thought and how I wanted but a lot of things didn't. Now I've experienced enough sadness and pain and hurt and judgment and loss that I don't think anything is possible. I think there are possibilities but they aren't endless. I've experienced enough joy and accomplishment and forgiveness that I still hold onto little nuggets of hope. I just at times miss that other world.

Substituting

I've mentioned I'm a substitute teacher before. I've been doing it for 6 1/2 years. Many interesting things are going on around the country for substitutes at the moment.

In New Mexico, bus drivers have been getting pulled into the schools and asked to substitute in between driving. In Texas, the National Guard has been recruited. Many states (such as Wisconsin) have had or are considering having law enforcement step in. In Utah, the governor said state employees can take 30 hours PTO to go help in schools. It's an interesting time for sure. I read the comments to some of these articles and felt myself getting a little worked up. Teachers are on there complaining about substitutes and how unqualified and uncompetent they are. Some of them say their job as a teacher is so much harder. Parents are complaining about both substitutes (and saying they're just a warm body/babysitter) and having state employees help. "They aren't qualified to help my kids." People are complaining about teacher pay being too low or many complain teachers get paid too much. People are just overall complaining.

These are some of my thoughts and experiences. First of all, in the case of the national guard or law enforcement coming in, I'm all for it!!! The biggest issue in school right now is student behavior at all age levels. If a police officer has his gun dangling as he tells students to put their phones away or stop talking, I have a feeling behavior would change pretty quickly. If law enforcement just stopped into each class during the last 5 minutes and had us report kids who couldn't get their behavior on track and the kids had to have a chat with an armed officer, I think we would see change. Of course I hesitate to just intimidate and cause fear with guns. What's lost is respect. I've seen enough students have no incentive to use respect in their lives that at times I think something like having armed officers around might be enough to bring a little respect back to school. There are many liaison officers that are a friendly face in schools but the fact still remains that they are armed.

Next, why are so many people hell-bent on proving a teacher's job is harder and they don't get paid enough or a substitute's job is harder and they don't get paid enough? (As a sidenote, I see this thing going on that "life has been so hard on teachers since the pandemic" and then responses of "That's nothing. You should be glad you're not a nurse during the pandemic" and "I'd rather be a nurse than work for the state health department during the pandemic" and so on and so forth. It's not a competition. Every job, every human has felt the struggle in some way. We don't have to have had the most acknowledged struggles to just admit we have all struggled in different ways. We don't have to prove to anybody that our job was harder. It doesn't matter. There's not gold star to display for your troubles. Let's connect more along the lines of humanity.) Couldn't we just respect that both professions are difficult and don't pay that well? For teachers they have to grade assignments, communicate with parents, and attend extra training. For substitutes, they are disrespected right out of the gate, they come into an unknown environment and just have to lead somewhat on the fly constantly, and they are publically told they are nothing more than a warm body or babysitter for students. People assume we don't have the skills or qualifications to be there.

Once in a while I sub for a teacher that respects and helps a substitute. I know this when they've done things such as: *told the class ahead of time there will be a substitute and they expect best behavior (which they can't always do if they're absent unexpectedly). *told the class there will be some kind of incentive if they get a good report from the sub *made rules about the bathroom or hall pass. My district says we can never tell a student they can't use the bathroom because we don't know if the student has a medical condition. However, if a teacher tells me no students are allowed to use the bathroom, then I know there are no medical conditions and I'm allowed to say no to the excessive use of "bathroom time" when there's a sub. In one school, the rule is they can't go. If the student says it's an emergency, we call the office to get the student an escort for the bathroom and they can use it then. With this rule, it turned out that not one student had an actual bathroom emergency. *allowed me to run a class discussion-I automatically get better behavior when a teacher trusts me enough to allow me to engage with students. My best subbing experiences are the few classes where the lesson plans allowed for a good discussion. One teacher suggested I tell the students that they have to participate in a meaningful discussion but if they run out of comments, it's okay. The teacher left worksheets as a back up. Wow-those kids had lots of ideas under those circumstances and I enjoyed the experience, too. *allowed me some wiggle room in the schedule. I appreciate when a teacher leaves plenty of work to do. However, I appreciate when there is time that I'm allowed to use to adapt. I always bring trivia which makes class fun if we have time to do it. Sometimes extra time allows for discussions or other ways to engage the students. Sometimes assignments take longer than the teacher thinks they might. When a teacher leaves some wiggle room with the planning, I find I can run a much more successful class.

There are comments made all the time that sustitutes aren't even qualified for the task at hand. I understand there are a lot of bad substitutes. I hear about them often. However, I work incredibly hard to be and stay qualified. I do some district trainings every year and I do extra training on my own as well. I subscribe to a newsletter that's always giving me ideas of how to be a better sub. I have never NOT followed a teacher's lesson plans, no matter how much I dislike some of the plans. I don't yet have my bachelor's degree, which is sometimes why comments are made about not being qualified. I don't know how taking another English class, another science class, an art class and a few other random electives would make me any more qualified. Those are completely irrelevant to what goes on in public schools. I have 3 years of college and two associates degrees, one in pre-teacher education. However, even the classes I took for that didn't greatly enhance any of my teaching skills. I have 12 years experience teaching Jr. Achievement classes, which is a program that provides business, financial, and community lessons to elementary students. That is just coming into a class for an hour or so once a week for 6 weeks. I've taught the Great Artist Program, which goes on a similar schedule. I've been a room mom lots of times. Every one of those experiences better prepared me to substitute than any college class I took. Even then, it's what goes on in regular life and with my own kids that has best prepared me for being a sub. What do you do when a kid doesn't fit in the normal boxes? How do you handle disruptions? What are kind ways you can address problems? These are all things I've picked up more from mothering than anywhere else.

There is some training we're never given: What to do when you hear at least 30 times in a day, "oh no! we have a sub", how to handle a student that won't quit telling you about his mom's sex toys, or appropriate ways to respond to students that talk openly about their drug use. They've never instructed me on the ins and outs of when a fight breaks out unexpectedly during class or how to handle a student opening a condom instead of the book the class is reading or how to show a student you care about them when they struggle with a parent's incarceration. They don't tell us how to not feel dead inside after pouring all the love we can muster into students that won't recognize or respond to us caring and we come home with nothing left to give our family members that day. They don't give you pep talks to shake it off when garbage is thrown at you or students comment that it's sad you couldn't find a real job. These are all things I've dealt with that there is no stardard in which to follow to navigate the circumstances. Parents want to talk about who's qualified to be with their kids. Is that your kid that refuses to put their cell phone away because no other adult in their life teaches them technological boundaries? Is that your kid that thinks it's okay to make sexual comments repeatedly as long as others in the class laugh? Is that your kid that hits on me without any way for me to squash the behavior other than asking them to stop? Is that your kid that throws their garbage on the floor because "somebody else gets paid to pick it up?" Is that your kid that absolutely refuses to do any work in class? Is that your kid that turns on a game for the whole class and then complains they didn't have enough time to do the assignment? Is that your kid who won't work but also won't stop distracting other students? When was the last time you talked to your kid about their behavior at school? When was the last time you told them you expect certain things from them while they're at school? When did you last talk to them about how they treat other students? When was the last time you went through your students assignments with them to see if what they're being taught is meaningful? When was the last time you talked to them about all of their education options or even considered an alternative yourself if the traditional route is not working? When was the last time you thought about what it would be like to be in charge of 30-40 kids at a time for different subjects on a regular basis who were so distracted by technology and social media that they can't even commit a reasonable portion of their time or energy to learning new things?

When was the last time you considered these tech-addicted kids go home to tech-addicted parents and siblings who are so distracted they forget to connect with one another? I'm saying this because of what I see in the classroom and I'm saying this because of what I see in my own home. I'm not immune to these pitfalls. We struggle as a family to connect and balance our time using electronics, too. I forget at times to talk to my kids about their behavior at school. Sometimes when they struggle with classes and grades I forget to dive in deeper and see if there are things we could do differently to get them more engaged. Sometimes the answer isn't blaming the teachers or the substitutes for "not being qualified" as teachers. It usually takes a qualified parent to end up with a well-taught student. I write this, not because I think anybody will ever read it. C'mon-who even blogs still? I write this because of years of struggling in certain ways but not having anybody to talk to about it. There are not substitute conventions (that I know of) where you get to swap these stories with others. Substituting is actually a very isolating job. You don't have many opportunities to connect with other teachers and you endure many hardships without having a way to unload them. When you log in to an article on a Friday night, as a random example, and it's after a long, difficult day of substituting and you see how many people are saying subs are nothing more than overpaid babysitters, it doesn't feel good. Today was the day I wanted to put my experiences into words. I substitute for two reasons. The first is because of the flexible schedule-I really love the flexibility. The second is that I love the chance to try to help and teach students. I'm passionate about education and I'm passionate about every student holding untold potential. The passion dulls a little every time I'm hit with garbage or insulted or manipulated. When I see other jobs I could do that pay nearly the same but it wouldn't involve trying to keep 40 students on task or stopping fights or competing for attention against cell phones, it's very tempting to throw in the towel with this. When I know I could do a more simple job and come home with plenty of energy left to spoil my family with, I wonder how much longer I will keep this job.

Doing the wrong thing

I was at the dentist's office this week and the assistant started talking to me about her son. She said he's in kindergarten and he's so good at school. She's a little surprised because she sees a naughtier side of him at home but she's glad he's good at school. His best friend, a neighbor, gets in trouble at school quite often but her son always gets to pick prizes and gets teacher praise because he does what he's supposed to. She told me she's so glad her son is a rule-follower, not like the neighbor boy. I have thought about this quite a bit. First of all, why did she tell me all of this? "Hi. Remember how I haven't seen you for 6 months and don't really know anything about you? Well, let me tell you about my son and his rule following abilities. Also, let me tell you about the neighbor, who doesn't follow the rules." That's all weird. Secondly, why do they even talk at all? I can't respond. My mouth is open and they know that. Okay, my rant is over. Her son follows the rules & she's very happy about that.

I've been simultaneously reading the book Unwind for the second time. I read it 10-12 years ago but had forgotten a lot. Now there's two more books in the series so I re-read this so I can take in the whole series and be up to speed. I liked it the first time. I liked it even better the second time. My favorite sentence of the whole book is "He will only do the wrong thing when it's the right thing to do."

I've talked a lot to my kids about following the rules and my take on it. Just this week, my boys encountered some poorly behaved children and got upset about both the kids and the parents. They said they would never have gotten away with behaving that way. That's true. Did I have expectations for their behavior? Absolutely! I asked if they think I made them follow rules straight across the board. They said no. They knew that I expected certain things and that many rules were good to follow such as keep your hands to yourself and stay close to me. However, rules were expected to be followed if they were good rules. There was wiggle room for bad rules. One example that's come up over the years involves my brother-in-law. One time when he was in high school, we got a call that he was suspended and we went immediately to be with him and support him. Somebody at school was causing trouble for a disabled kid so my bro-in-law caused trouble for the bully and got suspended for it. I remember the day as being kind of a family party, people hugging him and praising him and us all just spending time together having fun. He still got in trouble from the school. He still had a consequence. Nobody tried to take the consequence away. However, he broke the rule of never getting in a fight because protecting the disabled to him trumped not fighting. We all felt he did the right thing. When my kids tell me of a rule they want to break, I listen to them and think about what they're saying. If I see their point, I often tell them they have to decide but if they do break that rule, this or that might be the consequence. They understand that breaking rules has consequences but if they are using their brain to make the decision of whether or not to follow the rule, I want to support them because they are doing what they were raised to do. I never wanted to raise exclusive rule-followers.

I don't have a problem with people that raise their kids to follow the rules. Honestly, those are probably the kids that are much easier for me to substitute. Those kids often do well in school and at jobs and even in their social lives. There are benefits to raising rule followers. Also, parents who raise rule followers have certain life experiences and priorities that lead them down that path. It just isn't the same path for me. I have often wondered, if I lived during a time of slavery, would I have opposed it? Would I have seen the worth of the blacks in spite of hearing garbage that many others believed? What if I lived during the Nazi regime? Would I have helped the Jews? Would I have put my life on the line to do the right thing? The government legalized slavery. The government narrative was that slavery was a good system. The German government and other European entities opposed Jews. They blamed them for everything that was going wrong. They made it illegal to help and/or hide them. These are two of many examples of when the government is wrong and doing the wrong thing. There is no way to know if I would have stood up for what was right if I lived in another time and place. I do know now that I'm in an unpopular position today, opposing what the government is saying and doing. This isn't a problem isolated to one country or even a few nations. This is a world-wide narrative. We have a constitution that aims to prevent censorship but try to post real facts on social media that oppose the government narrative and see how long they remain posted. The government is blaming one group of people (the unvaxxed) for something. They are persecuting them and breeding a nation where most vaccinated citizens believe unvaccinated people deserve any suffering they get. They are creating different rules and privileges, depending on which group you belong to. Heaven help me to hang on to my convictions. I would rather do what I think is the right thing and end up wrong than to do nothing...

Honesty's a Lonely Word

Billy Joel has shared these words with us: Honesty is such a lonely word...Everyone is so untrue...Honesty is hardly ever heard...And mostly what I need from you.

My thoughts about honesty have evolved over time. I grew up with a dad who sometimes forced us kids to be dishonest. We had to make calls to people about why he couldn't follow through with plans made. We all hated doing that and it showed me a very ugly side of how it feels to be dishonest. Once I was an adult and living on my own, I made a commitment to always be honest. I figured I'm an adult and I make my own choices now so there's no reason to ever be dishonest.

Sometimes I make bad choices so being honest doesn't make me look good but there was still a reason why I made that choice so even if I look bad, I'll be honest 100% of the time. The older I get, the less I think life is black and white. Sometimes being honest hurts people. I could say, "Well, being honest is the right thing to do" and continue to be honest 100% of the time but hurting people isn't the right thing to do. When you're choosing between hurting somebody and being honest, what is the MOST right is less clear. I've also learned some people can handle honesty all of the time, even when it hurts but I would venture to say that more people CAN'T handle pure honesty. As soon as you get into the business of not being honest because you believe you are minimizing hurt to others though, it becomes a slippery slope.

Should you really be protecting them from the truth? Are you protecting them in the first place or are you just delaying an inevitable pain? What if they find out you weren't honest? Are you protecting somebody else with dishonesty or protecting yourself? Each situation will hold different answers and the answers get complex. It circles back to the only way to prevent these complications is to be honest 100% of the time.

However, being honest can cause some big problems and pains for other people and it can't be right to hurt people either. How does one find the balance? I have an example that caused me to process this. I have two friends that did what I would call an Intervention on me in the middle of January. I had turned down all their requests to get together. They threatened to kidnap me with my husband's knowledge and came pretty close to doing that. They asked me many questions I didn't want to answer and kind of wore me down until I shared a limited amount of information about some challenges I was facing. They told me what I should do about it and I disagreed. They said they'd be there for me as my support system and that they wanted to see me in a better place.

They never checked in on me (other than the "hi. how are you?" people use in passing) and never followed up until the end of August...7 1/2 months later. By then I had processed many complexities about myself, my situation, communication with them and other people. I knew that if they were truly concerned or if they truly wanted to help, it wouldn't take 7 1/2 months to follow up. By the time they did ask me how things we had talked about were going, I felt certain that the answer they wanted was not the truth. I chose to lie and said, "Everything's good. All those things we talked about have really turned around and it seems like the little details have kind of just worked themselves out." One of them noticably took a a huge sigh of relief. It could have been true relief for my sake but it seemed like relief that she wouldn't have to concern herself with any of my possible problems anymore.

It's been about 2 more months and I haven't heard from these people at all about anything other than little hellos. Overall, I feel like lying to them was the right thing. Idealistically, I still lean toward believing that lying was the wrong choice but as far as what I'm actually living with they seem happier after the lie and I feel happier seeing them relieved. This isn't a case of me lying about anything I'm doing such as drinking or abuse or any of those things-that is a whole separate can of worms. What I lied about is little things that I have no control over that don't affect them at all. I also want to mention that I don't have a problem with these friends. They are kind people who I believe want good things for all the people they know. Some people want the truth and won't be appeased with anything less but I believe that there are less people that desire to have that or even know what to do with it than there are people who don't want the whole truth. It's often called the Ugly Truth for a reason. I don't feel like a better person. I feel like I compromised something I believe in to protect other people but the feedback I received reinforced this evolved method of sharing (or not) truth with others. Billy Joel may have been right. Honesty might be an even lonelier word that I had thought it was.

It's the division that's killing me

The pandemic has been rough on everybody in some way. That's a guarantee. The thing that's killing me is the division. *Everybody should be wearing a mask vs. Nobody should force anybody to wear a mask.

*Everybody should get vaccinated vs. Nobody should say what goes into my body. *People who care about others get vaccinated vs. People who see past political facades stay unvaccinated. *People should be forced to vaccinate for the greater good vs. The government should never have the right to force vaccinations. *People who are unvaccinated are the reason this pandemic is still here vs. The truth is not being told about what dangers vaccinated people are facing.

And so on and so forth. That's not so incredibly different from the normal flow of whatever is going on in the world, even if it's a little more intense. What I'm really struggling with though is people within my own religion tearing people to pieces over these differences, publically saying how wrong the other side is, how right they are, who's the wheat and who's the tares, etc. It's fine to disagree. My experience in life almost makes me feel like a disagreement ambassador. People have always disagreed. They will always disagree. You can disagree without dividing. It just requires both sides respecting the other. What I see is many saying, "That's fine. You can have that opinion" and then saying or posting things to other friends belittling the opinion you have or the conclusions you've drawn.

I see people posting about disagreements they've had with people on social media and "I just wish I could get them to see it this way" type of comments. Why? If you feel so comfortable with the conclusions you've come to, why do you have time and energy to spend attacking somebody's conclusions that are different? Don't you have other things to worry about? You can belong to the same religion, come to different conclusions about many social or political issues and neither one of you have to be labeled right or wrong, righteous or apostate, caring or careless, humble or proud, etc. Really respecting and loving other people means that you still hold them in high regard, even if they have different opinions and approaches. You don't suddenly put them in a category of "people who are wrong or less or unrighteous or whatever". I'm just exhausted from the division. That's all.

Reading

I'm currently reading The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel. It states this: "There's danger in being principled in the midst of a war, but I believe that it's more dangerous not to be."

What beautiful words!!! There is a war going on right now where people are being used as weapons. I believe people are (mostly) unknowingly assaulting others while turning a blind eye to the truth. People don't know who to trust or where to get reliable information. Uncertainty makes soldiers out of those who are reluctant to take a stand. It feels like a great escape to read about a "real" war, a more tangible war where each side is labeled and aware that a fight is afoot. I'm 40% of the way through the book and look forward to reading more. -------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of reading, it can be a clever teacher. I checked out a book, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, from the library and knew I would not understand a great deal of it but I wanted to take on a challenge. I read a huge chunk of it word for word and did learn a little bit but decided to skim the rest of the topics. This way, I could get an idea of all the topics broadly without trying to push so much in areas that I didn't have enough knowledge to dive deeper into. I feel like I learned quite a bit this way. One thing that really stuck with me was a small blurb about the ghost town of Pripyat in Ukraine, a town evacuated after radioactive material was released in 1986. I wished I could know more about this town and what it was like today. Later that day, I was substituting a chemistry class and the teacher was having the class watch a video about uranium, which is radioactive. A bit into the video, the host visits Pripyat!!! I got to hear more about the situation, see the town as it is today, learn about radioactive levels there currently, and just get more insight about the whole thing. I couldn't believe it! I read more about it, too, when I got home and found out Pripyat is the town linked to Chernobyl, which is a place I had heard about.