If you haven’t read Stacy from Apathy Lounge you need to go there NOW. OK, well maybe wait until you’ve read this story first. She’s funny, she’s irreverent, she’s from Texas. Nuf said.
~Shauna
This has been a trying week for the Lounge in so many ways, and I think it most likely that none of those reasons really warrant listing here. That is, unless you count the fact that I live in a house with three PCs ( plus two laptops currently residing in College Station) and a still-new Mac Book Pro, most of which were rendered functionless after my modem/router suffered a technological myocardial infarction. Luckily for me my enterprising husband was able to MacGyvver together the new router with an old (and as yet undiscarded) modem using duct tape and a coathanger and now my old computer–which is hooked up to my printer–is working fine. For the moment. It will not, however, send a signal to my Mac Book.
Oh well. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
It has been a great week and a half back in the work saddle…or it was…until yesterday’s field trip to something called Pizza Ranch which, unlike a friendly Facebook warning someone posted, was–in fact–NOTHING like Chuck E. Cheese. Or a ranch. As a mother of three, I’ve logged a fair number of hours at Mr. Cheese’s fine establishments and I’d like to say right here and now that I would have rather spent an afternoon trapped in Chuck’s ball pit with a case of atomic diarrhea than ever again help herd six classes of fidgety kids through an old rodeo arena filled with more of the same…all of whom were battling the bad accoustics and the sound of their own voices in order to hear a Florence Henderson lookalike talk about wheat germ. Lunch was sponsored by Domino’s Pizza and served with chocolate milk and an ice cream sandwich. I shudder involuntarily for the lactose intolerant among us. Also? The pizza tasted like ass, though that might have been because I was breathing through my mouth inside a building which had been recently vacated by animals of the bovine and equestrian variety. Animals who poop whenever and wherever the mood strikes. Not that I’m judging.
In other news, today’s Cinco de Mayo program at school was pronounced a rousing success, mainly because it featured the volunteer work of parents who mostly don’t participate in the academic lives of their children. Even when we threaten beg ask and say “pretty please” and then send notes home in a language that we don’t speak because they’re not interested in learning ours. Not ever. Not that I’m bitter. There was music and fancy footwork aplenty…sort of like Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance set to mariachi music. And performed while drunk, of course. The last set was executed by elaborately costumed young girls whose choreography consisted mainly of twirling their ruffled skirts and all was going fairly well until one of the younger Frida Kahlos suffered a sudden and heartbreaking wardrobe malfunction of Janet Jackson proportions when her skirt fell off.
Luckily she was wearing pants underneath. The end.
About Aiming Low Does Good
OMG, I still have Christmas lights up too! I live in an apartment and they are still hanging on my patio. I’m surprised I haven’t been evicted yet!
Twitter Name: AmazingGreis
I like her… can she stay?
Irreverent is one thing. Completely ignorant is another. Using your blog to patronoize mexican-americans for the sake of a laugh is pretty pathetic. Next time at least try to make it funny, not offensive.
It’s Mexican-Americans and not the lower case version, but thanks anyway, Makayla. I love my students and most of their families, but unless you’ve taught school in an area that has a multi-cultured population of people who have very little education and very little interest in it (or have simply taught school at all), you might have a hard time telling the difference between patronization and simply telling it the way it is. Either way, thanks for reading. You can’t please all the people all of the time. I guess this is one of those times.
Right you are Ms. Apathy, some parents just FLOOR me with their ignorance and I’m not even an educator, merely an observer from my kitchen at the daycare.
Ah language barriers, they’re a bitch! Here its French and makes most sane people want to be committed with the BS…
Just saying ;)
Twitter Name: ChefStephMTL
I didn’t read it as patronizing to Mexican-Americans at all. Let’s be honest – all areas have groups of people who place no value on education, and it doesn’t matter what color their skin is. This particular group of parents just happened to be of that demographic. It’s called story-telling. Should bloggers water down their posts to keep all descriptions out? That’s not something I’d be interested in reading or writing. Description brings depth and texture, and that’s what draws us in.
Twitter Name: bonesysblahg
Okay, so what’s wrong with Christmas lights? Particularly if they’re the little white ones? I call them my fairy lights, and they look very pretty on the flowering andromeda on the front of the house. Just like all those restaurants on Newbury Street in Boston.
As for the other “issue” – give me a break. There are issues in every school, and studies have proven that parent involvement goes a long way in a child’s education.
Twitter Name: ProWorkingMom
Unfortunately, Working Mom, these are the big, honking, multi-colored glass lights that get really hot and only hang outside. And they’re hanging from the roofline. It’s so depressing. We have the “fairy” kind too, but they’re in the courtyard twined around some lovely vines and we keep them up all year long. So help me God, the big ones are coming down this week. Or else.
I say “Taking low to new heights” is an apt name for this blog. As an educator in a “multi-cultured population” I think your views on your students and parents are not just ignorant, but can also be seen as malpractice. As an educator, you should be looking at all avenues of connecting learning to a student’s prior knowledge and get them to make connections between things from their own lives and new material you are teaching. Not taking time to learn about their culture and backgrounds sounds like just bad teaching. Taking what can be a rich culture experience, something personal and meaningful to each region, and dismissing it as unoriginal and uninspiring shows your less than an open mind and not love of learning. Also, to say that parents don’t want to learn English is another ignorant comment. Have you ever talked to parents, even through a translator, about what their lives are like? Many work multiple jobs, have various responsibilities and economic concerns that limit their access to English language classes. Many parents I have talked to wish they could both participate in their student’s education and navigate in our English speaking communities with more ease. However they don’t know how to become more involved and it doesn’t sound like you are doing anything to invite parents to play a larger role in your classroom. So who isn’t trying now?
Mrs. D–
Unfortunately, you judge me based on the fact that I pinpointed the parents in my school who AREN’T working and who, even though the pleadings of an interpreter, are very reluctant to discuss their student’s progress or lack thereof. Many of these parents live on some kind of public assistance which, as you know, would be impossible to obtain if you were someone with MULTIPLE JOBS.
Academic apathy is color blind and though our school has it’s share of those parents from each demographic, Hispanics make up the majority of our school population. Among those kids who do try their best are those who don’t and many hail from parents whose “cultural history” is one that believes an 8th grade education is about as good as it gets.
We who are charged with changing this mindset (or we are deemed failures) are also required to do so without appearing to devalue the educational ideals (however misguieded) of an entire demographic. I don’t know where you work, lady, but if we were to even SUGGEST that an Hispanic parent learn the official language of this country, we’d be hauled off to diversity training ASAP. Complicating matters is the fact that we have quite a few parents who are–from all accounts–illegal residents of the state. Getting them to come to the phone or answer a letter in Spanish is as difficult as getting them to speak to us in person. While I’ll grant that some parents are caught in a poverty grip that makes learning another language a luxury, I will also say that many of our parents cannot or will not play that larger role in the classroom because they are illiterate in their own language and their children (forced into the role of adjunct translator) keep them at arm’s length because they don’t want them there.
Our district won’t even spring for enough security to cover every school building, let alone make sure that there are paid interpreters everywhere. If we have someone in the building who speaks Spanish it’s not necessarily by design but by accident. The two we do have are overworked as a diagnostician and as a Special Ed. aide. They already have a job and we keep them from it when we ask them to interpret for us.
I don’t even know you and I can accept that, wherever you are, your situation is different from mine. How dare you take a few off the cuff statements and weave them into a banner for malpractice. You know nothing about me or how I teach or even how much I care. Our success rate (at least in the grade I teach) is phenomenal and my “malpractice” as you so kindly refer to it has vaulted our literacy scores 14 points in the last year. Our 5th grade occupies the top 5-7 slots (out of 77 elementary schools) in all domains. Many of our kids are successful students IN SPITE of their parents….not BECAUSE of them. The ones who do well do so because we expect a lot and because we don’t sit around making sad excuses for them.
I never said anything about Cinco de Mayo being unoriginal or uninspiring, so that little observation must have come from your fertile imagination. Long-winded? Yes. Rich in meaning? Yes. Frustrating because so many of these same parents we saw refused to conference with us about their kids’ grades, but they showed up in droves for this? Absolutely. Who wouldn’t be frustrated? But Jesus, lady, the kid’s skirt fell off. She had pants on underneath and but nobody died and the show continued. I laughed about it only afterwards.
And I connect plenty to the backgrounds of these students. Students who move every three months to a new school and lose valuable opportunities for accumulated knowledge or vertical learning. It’s why some of them are set for failure, despite our best efforts. Fact is, the truth is often painful and even though we want to believe that everyone’s just a victim and those same people all want the same things that we want….they don’t. I’m judged by how well I can convince those parents to want what educators want for their children. I’m judged by the peope who evaluate me and then sign my check every month. I will not be judged by the likes of you.
There are a few typos in that last diatribe that I just now noticed. I’m pissed off and righteously so, but I do know the difference between “though/through” and “it’s/its”. Just so you know.
Apathy,
I think you’re missing the point. I have the utmost respect for educators, especially in a disadvantaged community where the resources and parental support are in limited supply. In my previous comment about patronizing, I wasn’t talking about the parents I was talking about your mocking of cinco de mayo and specifically the ballet folklorico dance that is a mexican tradition. maybe you didn’t think before making your comment that any of your readers would be mexican-american #1 and #2 that we don’t see the dance as a drunken flailing of skirts. But I see now that I obviously struck a chord with you, as did Mrs. D, because your frustration in the lack of parental involvement or ability to cross the language barrier (on no fault of your own, clearly) has influenced your view of the culture and allowed you to think comments like that are ok. And furthermore when someone disagrees with you, it’s clearly okay to patronize them for their grammar… in a blog comment box of all places. All that said, I’m glad you’re out there fighting for childrens literacy, but I hope you can see where I’m coming from. It’s (apostrophe) not about pleasing all your readers, it’s (apostrophe) about not being offensive in your humor. Doesn’t feel good, does it?
Makayla–
If I dish it out, I have to be able to take it. That’s the name of the game, no? So it your intent was to point out that I had typos in my lengthy commentary, I’m way ahead of you. If it made you feel better to pay me back for your hurt feelings, then you should–by all means–indulge. Your comments in no way hurt me. I have a sense of humor about myself…as well as one about others. You should try it sometime.
Still not mocking the Cinco, but you’re too close to the situation to see it for the way it was intended. Kids in costumes that are too large for their frame can be funny, despite the serious message behind the dance. That’s all I was saying. I’d say the same thing if they were wearing lederhosen (I’m German) or wooden shoes (I have a Dutch co-worker). And our audience? Totally laughed that aforementioned mishap. If I remind you that the majority of our audience was Hispanic, would the laughing part still be a bad thing for them to do? Or just for me?
and I think it most likely that none of those reasons really warrant listing here : what do you mean?
looks like you watch Piano Briefs lol
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