The verdict is still on my mind….I find it really troubling that in this day and age I will have to have “The Talk” with my son one day.
The Talk that explains how he needs to act when he gets pulled over by the police, The Talk that explains to him that he does not “fit the description”. The Talk that explains to him that he does not deserve to be stalked, he does not deserve to be profiled, and he does not deserve to get shot.
Through raising my son, he will know his life is not worthless, not meaningless. I am going to make sure that he grows into a God-fearing, God-loving, Handsome, Talented, Educated MAN with a beautiful family in which he is a wonderful Husband and Father. It is so sad that he has to grow up in this world in its current state.
Response email from another father of a son:
I understand that racism is not a trait you are born with but it is learned, which makes it that much more evil. I can’t begin to tell you all the times I saw this growing up. As a white man you are constantly bombarded with racist comments, like an advertisement on TV about others and their appearance. The hatred is handed to you on a silver platter while the server smiles at you. As a kid you associate this nonchalant lesson with a positive one and you start (unknowingly) actualizing it. My parents taught me one great thing though, question EVERYTHING; so I did, I left no rock unturned. I questioned Christianity, God, my parents, and all authority. Racism was something that I truly believed I didn’t have a problem with. I didn’t feel like I was racist because I had friends of different colors. I didn’t realize until college that racism was a self-evident proposition and the true evil of it was that it didn’t need proof in order to exist. I didn’t have to believe in it to be influenced by it. This angered me because I let it in. My eyes opened up for the first time and I realized that racism will always be a constant internal struggle for me as much as it is an external struggle in our communities.This leads me back to my son. I haven’t taught my son about racism yet because I still see that innocence in his eyes, but after seeing your post I realize that I better start handing him love on a silver platter while smiling at him. I have to casually, and nonchalantly communicate equality. I HAVE to make it a daily thing in order to make it a self-evident proposition before he can question it and know that it is actually a self-evident truth that all men are equal. I decided to message you this because I didn’t know how others would view this. You taught me something today Evan. I owe my kids this and I have to work hard at it in order to make it reality.
HMMM …Maybe these Kids should have been on the Zimmerman Jury….
It appears a bunch of kids are more mature than some YouTube commentators. When a Cheerios commercial featuring a biracial couple launched two months ago, it was met with so much racist backlash that YouTube had to pull the comments section. But ask a group of 7 to 13-year-olds what they think of the ad, and you’ll find no hints of racism or surprise at seeing an interracial family on screen. Instead, their responses range from “it’s just a Cheerios commercial” to laughter.
Dreams reveal our subconscious, sometimes they can be completely random and they don’t make sense, on average humans tend to have around 3 to 7 dreams a night, we dream around 2 to 3 hours in a whole night and the most interesting thing is that a 90% of the dream is lost the first minute we wake up, also if you have a partner who snores and keeps you up all night, he or she mustn’t be dreaming much, since its impossible to dream while snoring. These are just some facts and statistics about the science of dreaming,
1- There are no strangers in our dreams
The people we see in our dreams are persons who we have met or seen sometime before, but we cant remember, It could be someone who didn’t make an impact in our life but we could’ve seen that face at some point in our life. People who we meet along life become our history of characters that remains in our subconscious and they are used in your dreams.
2- REM sleep disorder
This is the stage of sleep during which dreaming occurs, there is a paralysis of the voluntary muscles and in a bad dream if we wake up it will take a few minutes for our muscles to respond.
3- Symbolism and Emotions
The most common emotion experienced in dreams is anxiety. Also the negative emotions in dreams are more common than positive ones, every dream is symbolic, even the most random one has a lot of symbolism behind it, symbolism that represent our lives who we feel think, etc.
4- Lucid dreams
They represent an alternate reality, it means you are aware that you are dreaming even though you are still asleep, best part about these dreams, you can actually control them.
5- Erotic dreams
These are common and lead to orgasms in both cases men and women.
-Men get erections during REM sleep, whether or not the man is having an erotic dream
-Women get their genitals engorged and lubricated during an erotic dream.
6- Male and female dreams
-Men: they dream more about strangers, violence, sexual activity, achievement, and outdoor events.
-Women: tend to have slightly longer dreams that feature more characters, women have more nightmares than men also are more likely to dream about their children, family or household activities.
7- Precognitive dreams
These are dreams that give you the sensation of predicting the future, but what they actually do is they express our innermost hopes and fears based on subconscious information that we may or may not be repressing.
8- Violent dreams
These dreams are known for causing people to act out their dreams, sometimes with violent actions like kicks and screams. There have been studies made that show indicate that violent dreams may be an early sign of some brain disorders it also includes Parkinson’s disease and dementia.
This has to do with right vs. left brain theories, in fact the right and left ears process sound differently, the left hemisphere of the brain dominates over the right in processing different sounds, this actually dominates in processing rapidly changing sounds such as in speech and words, and is important to take into consideration that the left side of the brain is the analytical part of the brain that’s why it is stimulated in processing the information more than the right ear. Same for the right ear, which dominates in processing prolonged tones such as in music and it, is also known as the creative side.
As for the phone calls, generally if you are a caring person you will put the phone to the right ear. Also, generally, when someone gets a call from someone they care about, they will put the phone to the right ear more frequently than the left.
I have a violet lanyard, and attached to it is a violet ID card from New York University. At the bottom, under my picture, it says, “Visiting Scholar.” Yes, friends, it’s summer and time for all good teachers, at some point in their careers, to be called a Visiting Scholar.
My entrée to this august realm is courtesy of a Great Society law that created the National Endowment for the Humanities, a publicly funded entity whose sole mission is to encourage and support the study and research of the…well, humanities. You know the humanities. They were the subjects in high school and college that promised never to get you a job or a girl/boyfriend or a terrific pile of money. You took them because the education system said that you had to. Languages, literature, philosophy, religion, music, history. They were good for the soul and nourishment for the brain. The Bran Flakes of the curriculum. The subjects that are now threatened because of budget cuts and low enrollment. The basis of our civilization and the cornerstone of our national political and cultural life.
Those Humanities. You remember them.
Anyway, I am a Visiting Scholar (because my lanyard says so) in a seminar called, Eastern Europe in Modern European History at NYU which runs for three weeks and is lead by a fact and analysis machine named Dr. Larry Wolff. There are 15 other Visiting Scholars from across the country and we’re here because of a competitive process that the NEH used to choose us.
It’s terrific. I’ve been there a week and I’m already a better teacher than I was at the end of June. I have materials I can share with my students. I have more knowledge for myself. I have perspective. But I also have the intangibles that come from being among other teachers; judgement, support and camaraderie. A representative came from the NEH to observe us this past week and I engaged him in conversation about how wonderful this seminar is so far. He remarked that he understood what many politicians are pushing and that he supported us as scholars and teachers and leaders and educators and all of the things we’d love to hear from politicians, but we don’t because they don’t understand. It’s nice to know that we have people like him on our side.
I’ve read the bunkum from right wing think tanks that say that these kinds of programs don’t make teachers better or that they cost too much and there’s no objective way of measuring how much students actually gain from having teachers participate. This shows just how anti-intellectual the non-reformers are and it further exposes their agenda that wants to further cut outstanding programs like this so that we can save money and give a buck and a quarter back to every taxpayer.
Don’t you believe any of that. This is what education should be and I’m proud to be a part of a government program that recognizes how important all of us Visiting Scholars are to our students. I’m looking forward to the rest of the seminar.
And I’m going to hang my violet ID badge up in my classroom this fall. My students should know that their teacher is a scholar.
A teacher in New York stooped to disgusting lows to have sex with his 10-year-old student. According to reports, 5th grade teacher, Anthony Criscuolo deceived the parents of the 10-year-old girl, who was a student in his class.
Criscuolo told the girl’s parents that she won an academic award and was taking her to the ceremony. However, there award ceremony did not exist. On June 17, Criscuolo left his wife and took the the girl to an empty parking lot at a school in Queens, New York. He parked his truck and raped her.
The girl’s mother found sexually explicit emails sent to the student and discovered that the teacher bought the child an iPad Touch and a diamond ring. Students who were interviewed revealed that the teacher passed notes to the girl and slow danced with her during a Valentine’s Day dance.
Criscuolo, who earned $73,000 per year was arrested on June 19. He will be terminated by the school system.
As if educators, including me, severaltimes, haven’t been clear enough that rushing into an untested teacher evaluation system is a terrible idea, along comes our esteemed Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan to finally get the message: schools need more time to implement, experiment and, yes, evaluate the new system before it becomes operative and to see if it does what it’s supposed to do. It won’t, because it has fatal flaws in it, but at least giving teachers, administrators and school boards another year might just uncover the folly of using prescriptive tests for evaluative ends.
In any case, Duncan is allowing states to apply for waivers to their waivers, which would require that the Christie administration to do something positive for teachers and students, so I’m not holding my breath. After all, I’ve sat in a room with NJ Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf and heard him, and other DOE officials, wax rhapsodic about how wonderful this new system is. Meanwhile, the data crunchers don’t have all of the numbers, and the numbers they have are not representative of all types of districts.
Then there is this open letter to the New Jersey legislature from noted Millburn Superintendent James A, Crisfield, who makes a powerful case for letting the 2013-14 school year be a test case for every district in the state. That way we can observe how the system works and look to solve the obvious technical problems that the state seems to be ignoring. These include the funding restraints that will restrict districts from purchasing the computers necessary for all students to be able to take the end-of-year evaluations and the rather obtuse attitude the department has about ensuring that the youngest students have the necessary keyboarding skills to actually show what they’ve learned.
But just in case you think that it’s only bitter teachers who are questioning the efficacy of the system, Crisfield reminds us that concerns reach across the education spectrum:
And speaking of fairness, there really needs to be another discussion about the efficacy of using student test scores to judge the effectiveness of a teacher. We’re moving so fast now that we don’t even have the opportunity to fully vet that very troubling (and in most educators’ opinion, highly flawed) aspect of the new system.
In fact, I can’t even explain to my teachers how, exactly, student test scores will affect their ratings, tenure, and pay (and I certainly don’t have the time to discuss with them the research behind, and/or the wisdom of, such ideas).
I like this guy.
This evaluation system has always been a political issue, not an education issue. If the governor was serious about true reform, he would have included far more public school teachers in the process, and he wouldn’t have exempted private and charter schools. If you are in a position to do so, please contact your legislator. I can tell you from personal experience talking to them, that members of the Assembly and Senate want to know how affected constituents are thinking on the issues. The only thing we have to lose is control over our profession.
After 29 years in the classroom, and with a pretty savvy political sense, if I may be so bold, I consider myself a keen observer of most things educational, but this story about Philadelphia’s schools made me shiver with anger from the first paragraph:
Andrew Jackson School too agitated to eat breakfast on Friday, an aide alerted the school counselor, who engaged him in an art project in her office. When he was still overwrought at 11, a secretary called the boy’s family, and soon a monitor at the front door buzzed in an older brother to take him home.
Under a draconian budget passed by the Philadelphia School District last month, none of these supporting players — aide, counselor, secretary, security monitor — will remain at the school by September, nor will there be money for books, paper, a nurse or the school’s locally celebrated rock band.
I know that this kind of mindless budget cutting has been going on for years and real reformers, as opposed to the self-styled ones on the right, have been warning us thatchildren are in real danger, but somehow this story caught me. Or maybe it just represents the last straw on my particular camel’s back. Whatever. I have now officially had enough. If that’s the way that Philadelphia’s families are going to be treated, then we need an educational Tahrir/Taksim/self-immolating fruit-seller moment in this country. It’s that bad now, and it’s going to get worse.
Across the river, here in New Jersey, next fall is shaping up to be one of the worst for education since, well, four years ago when Chris Christie promised to destroy collective bargaining, and then made good on it, among other things. All of the polls point to a reelection win for the governor with a slight possibility that his coattails could enable the GOP to take over the state legislature. With a majority, even if it’s just the Senate, they can reshape the State Supreme Court, and with both houses they can further erode worker’s rights, eliminate seniority, impose radical cuts to public schools and stop funding for programs, like those in Philadelphia, that save lives, literally and figuratively.
What might save the state is a current challenge to the October U.S. Senate primary, forcing it to be held on the same day as the gubernatorial election. That would bring out more pro-education voters. Opponents of the separate election say they’ve found a clause that specifically addresses the issue. Let’s see if the State Supreme Court agrees.
And then, of course, there’s the new teacher evaluation system that’s set to go into effect statewide come the fall. Imagine a program that uses bad data in a manner that it wasn’t meant to be used, then include horse-trading politicians who have little idea what the legislation says, and put a Commissioner of Education in charge of the system who has little regard for anything other than his political standing and whether the State Board of Education supports him. Oh, wait…no need to imagine. New Jersey’s got it!
I’m all for teacher accountability, but this system was created by non-educators as a means of punishing state workers and unions, and making it easier to fire effective teachers who cost too much. If it was about education, then private and charter school teachers would be included in it. But they’re not, and that’s all you need to know about the intentions of its authors.
So enjoy your summer everyone. Let’s hope the shore businesses make lots of money and rejuvenate the towns and people who lost the most. Let’s hope that students and teachers find exciting ways to add to their knowledge, or to just forget about formal learning for a while and smell some flowers. In the fall, a new storm will be brewing, but it won’t be anything like Sandy. It will just be a lot of hot air.
Alyssa Paddock poses with friends at Howard University. (Courtesy of Alyssa Paddock)
Racial integration has long been a symbol of American progress, but Stephen Crockett Jr. wonders at the Washington Post whether white students attending predominantly black educational institutions will be remembered as a step forward or an odd joke.
In the last few weeks, two white women have come out about their experiences as Howard University students; the first, Alyssa Paddock. in an essay published in The Washington Post; the second, Jillian Parker, in a music video about her love for a black football player called “Mr. Football.”
Both the essay and video brought the public to their virtual soapboxes, a.k.a. Facebook and Twitter, to voice either their support or displeasure. Some commenters argued that Howard is hollowed ground, and that the presence of white students feels like an infringement on cultural space. Others shrugged it all off as a natural next step to a completely desegregated America.
Which brings me to a set of questions: is the white student presence on these campuses a racial move forward, or is it all a joke or a conversational topic to be raised over brunch years from now? Will the stories of being a white student at a majority-Black college be sandwiched between summers in the Hamptons and post-grad backpacking through Europe? Is attending an HBCU for white students the equivalent of spending a summer in Ghana? Is a white person who sets out, decides, applies and then attends an all-black-university the equivalent of a Darwinesque social experiment? And, does practicing a minority get anyone closer to understanding the daily struggle of being a minority? Let’s face it; the white student who would even consider attending an HBCU is not the student who is need of a strong dose of black cultural awareness because they already have it.
Iran Becton, a mail carrier whose route is on the University of Chicago campus, recently delivered 79 packages to 5625 S. University, a Phi Delta Theta fraternity house. The 79 packages were to be delivered to “Reggin Toggaf”. Spelled backwards they reveal a racist and gay slur. Becton, who is black believes the post office should track down the culprits and hold them accountable.
U.S. Postal carrier Iran Becton doesn’t take kindly to being the butt of a frat joke.
He’s insulted that members of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity at the University of Chicago were involved in a racist prank that had him needlessly dragging postal supply boxes up to doors of their frat house at 56th and University.
Howard University students compete in the 2012 Honda Campus All-Star Challenge.
Ominous news for the nation’s second-ranked historically black college: A vice chairwoman of Howard University’s board of trustees recently told the board of the Washington, D.C., school that the institution “is in genuine trouble,” the Washington Post reports.
“Howard will not be here in three years if we don’t make some crucial decisions now,” Renee Higginbotham-Brooks wrote in a letter dated April 24 and published on the Chronicle of Higher Education website.
A string of racist emails and controversial remarks have shaken up a school board in southeastern Virginia’s Isle of Wight County, and now one of the people responsible is facing intense pressure to resign.
On Thursday, board members voted 4 to 1 to officially call for their colleague Herb DeGroft to step down over emails he sent this month from his board email account attacking first lady Michelle Obama. DeGroft was the only one who voted against the measure.
According to NBC12, one of the emails DeGroft sent to colleagues depicted bare-breasted, African female warriors along with the caption, “Michelle Obama’s high school reunion.” Another message claimed the first lady was paid $50 to model in National Geographic.
The emails didn’t stop with DeGroft’s initial sending. Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman Byron “Buzz” Bailey forwarded them to other board members and county employees. Bailey drew criticism earlier this month for saying “the South will rise again” during a board meeting on budgetary issues. Those comments, as well as his involvement with the racist emails, led to the resignation of Isle of Wight Division Superintendent Katrise Perera.
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