For anyone who needs to see this....

Black lives matter, and anyone who doesn’t understand why this needs to be said, or why it needs to be said on behalf of all marginalized groups, needs to pull his/her head out of his/her derrière, and look around at what has been going on in this country for centuries.  Nothing will change as long as we pretend that nothing is wrong.  All that does is make us look ignorant at best, and complicit at worst.

If your retort is that you’re “color-blind,” or “don’t notice skin color,” then you’re deluding yourself.  Do you see the color of an individual’s eyes or hair?  How about his/her height, or the presence of facial hair and/or jewelry?  We all notice these things, and they become part of our descriptions of people’s physical characteristics all the time.  Therefore, you notice skin color.  If you choose not to acknowledge it, then that’s a sign of your privilege, as Black people cannot ignore theirs.  If they do, it could mean their very lives will be forfeit, even in the 21st century.  If, by saying that you “don’t see color,” you’re talking about your lack of racism, then you are ignoring the experiences of all people of color, as well as deceiving yourself.  We all form prejudices;  it’s a natural component of our biology as animals.  Animals respond to fight-or-flight impulses, which they form on the bases of past experiences.  If you call your dog and then hit it when it comes to you, then what will happen when someone else tries to call the dog?  The dog won’t come;  it has formed an innate prejudice against humans based on its past experiences.

Our prejudices work the same way.  We cannot help them;  they are reflexive.  What we do have control over, is how we respond to these prejudices.  Do we automatically give into them or willfully ignore them?  If so, then we are giving into our most animalistic impulses.  As human beings, we must use our intellect, in order to acknowledge these unconscious biases, so that we can understand their irrationality and replace them with rational, constructive behaviors.  We must admit what we do not understand and what frightens us about it, and we must ask for help from people who are more knowledgeable than we, so that we might continue to explore and to learn.  Only by acknowledging the beauty inherent in diversity can we begin to teach not just tolerance, but acceptance.

Teaching in the Age of COVID-19

Obviously it’s been years since I’ve written a blog post;  while I have many thoughts racing through my head, I’m always reticent about putting my thoughts in concrete form so extensively.  Few things could have driven me from retirement, but two did, one of which being the current COVID-19 pandemic.  The novel coronavirus has permanently altered many aspects of our lives that, up until now, we have taken for granted, one of which being education.  Teaching and learning has been irrevocably transformed, and both students and teachers still are reeling at the speed and degree of which these changes have occurred.  However, as always non-educators have decided to chime in, and dictate how and when learning must occur, while ignoring the advice—and warning—of both many health officials and education specialists.

Many doctors and nurses have warned any teacher who needs medical accommodations to get them, for protection against COVID-19 and to continue keeping down the infection rate.  However, I am so sick and tired of a certain subset of people for saying that because they have to go into work during a pandemic, then teachers should too, while totally turning a blind eye to all others working remotely.

Nurses and other health care professionals, especially those in hospital settings, may not have anticipated a pandemic, but knew when they took their jobs (and even began their courses of study) that they would be working with sick people, at least some of whom would have communicable diseases.  Teachers did not sign up for this.  Some of us literally have taken bullets for your children; all of us have participated in lockdown drills where we’ve practiced shielding your children in situations where bureaucratic protocols leave us as little more than sitting ducks.  I have held my students’ heads as they projectile-vomited blood, with no gloves because there weren’t any readily available, and I wasn’t going to leave them alone to go find some.  I’ve helped stabilize students having overdoses so that they could be transported to emergency rooms.  I’ve protected my students from attacking peers, and mediated aggressive students challenging administrators, all while pregnant.  I had a student actively seeking me out to hurt me when I was nine months pregnant, because my administrator told him that I’d called ACS because his crackhead mother kicked him out.  BUT I DID NOT SIGN UP TO DIE IN CLASSROOMS WHERE I CAN MANDATE, BUT NOT ENFORCE, PPE AND SOCIAL DISTANCING, AND WHERE THE PUBLIC WAS BEING TOLD IN MARCH THAT SANITIZING PROCEDURES WERE BEING IMPLEMENTED THAT WERE NONEXISTENT.

This past spring, I worked HARDER putting together remote learning classrooms from SCRATCH, and worked longer hours because I responded to each and every student who reached out at any hour, because I recognized that not all were keeping “regular” hours.  I counseled kids from home, who’d lost all of their grandparents months apart, who’d lost parents, uncles, cousins, who’d sat outside the hospital rooms of sick siblings.  And all the while, I still supervised—mostly alone because my husband worked outside the home—the online learning of my two young children.  IT WAS DAMN HARD, but I made sure that my students had as worthwhile an experience as possible, and that my own children did, as well.  I worked my ass off.  How dare you tell me that you expect me to fall on my sword, in order to make you feel better about your life choices?  How dare you tell me to sacrifice my family’s health and well-being, not to mention their emotional well-being, by having a mother who’s alive?

AND I AM NOT ALONE;  all of my colleagues, and teachers who I don’t even know personally, share the same story.  WE ALL WORKED OUR ASSES OFF, to ensure that our students had one bright spot of normalcy in the chaos and uncertainty through which we’ve been living.  HOW DARE ANY OF YOU MINIMIZE WHAT WE’VE DONE, FOR YOU AND FOR YOUR CHILDREN?  

Am I aware that remote learning doesn’t work well for all children?  Yes.  Do I think that more needs to be done to ensure that our “at-risk” student populations are better accommodated, in order to ensure their success?  Absolutely.  But that needs to be done without turning all other teachers, and the students they teach, into sacrificial lambs for a grasping, corporate-driven economy that looks at mortality rates as collateral damage.  We teachers don’t expect “thank-you’s” for what we’ve done, but we do expect a little common decency.

Promoting Change within My Classroom, One Student at a Time

After reading Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher, with my freshmen, I assigned a project requiring them to research local suicide charities and create both visual and oral presentations using their research.  The company that one of my students researched learned of the assignment, and posted this on its website:

http://www.fukitt.com/blogs/news/14003973-15-yr-old-student-uses-fukitt-as-her-english-final-scores-a-100#.U2rF63Wg6qU.facebook

I am so glad that this assignment reached not only this student, but also any visitors to Fukitt's website.  If I can get my kids thinking about such important issues, and they take what they've learned beyond my classroom, then I've done my job.  My message may not get through to each student, but this shows how even one student can make a difference, with far-reaching consequences.  Bravo to her. :-)

Honoring the Past while Embracing Change during the Holidays

For the past four years, the holidays have been a difficult time for me, and for my family.  At the family dinner table, as blessed as we feel when we look at all those who are there to celebrate with us, we cannot help but remember the one who's missing.

My brother was studying for his master's degree in electrical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, and when we called to wish him a happy 24th birthday, he didn't answer the phone.  This made my mother nervous, so the next day she asked the CA police to conduct a "well-visit," where they found his body lying on the bedroom floor of his apartment.  It turns out that two days earlier, he'd gone to his graduate school, handed in his master's thesis, gone home, and hanged himself with his belt.  Needless to say, we were absolutely devastated.  My father had only just gone to CA to help George move from Berkeley to Sunnyvale, so that he could start looking for a job in Silicon Valley.  He'd even gotten his learner's permit two days earlier.  What's truly difficult for me to come to terms with is the fact that I knew something was bothering him, and I knew what it was, but whenever I tried to talk to him about it, he would downplay the situation.  My brother was the type where, if you pushed too hard, he would just shut down, and wouldn't talk to you about anything, so in order to keep him from pulling way, I just dropped it.  And I was on the opposite end of the country, so it wasn't even like I could just rent a couple of movies and go over there to hang out for a while. 

It's tough to realize that, even though "officially" he reached his 24th birthday, according to his date of death, in actuality he never did.  And of course, it's hard for me to be the only child left in a two-child family.  Sometimes it's easy, since he moved so far away, to pretend that everything's "normal," that he's still out there, working and studying, and that this is all a big mistake, which makes it hurt all the more when I remind myself of the truth.  Even though I know that there was nothing I could have done differently, I still am plagued by guilt.  I'm also still overcome by anger at times;  my brother was born two months prematurely, and overcame such obstacles as an infant, to be a good-looking, kind, brilliant, and talented individual.  Even though I know how overcome he must have been by despair, and how hopeless he must have felt, it's hard to reconcile how he could have fought so hard and worked so much, only to let it all go at the end.

In some ways, though, things are much better now.  In the two years after losing my brother, I bought a house, got married, rescued an American bulldog from the ACC, and gave birth to a son.  All of these things have given hope to me, and hope to my parents.  At the same time, it's hard to reach these milestones and to know, particularly with the marriage and the birth of my son, that my brother should have been there to celebrate those things with us, and never will be.  My husband is very like him, and they would truly have enjoyed each other's company, and George will give meet his nephew, who will only learn about him from stories.  But my son has looked like him from birth, so at times, I watch him, and think that a part of my brother still lives on, and this gives me comfort.

Since my brother's suicide, the childhood holiday traditions that were always so comforting to me while growing up have run hollow in their incompleteness.  But with my husband and son, my family can begin to create new traditions, and I have begun to find joy in the holidays again, by seeing them through my son's eyes.

The Muppets Welcome the Royal Baby

Grandparents' Day at the Staten Island Children's Museum, 7/10/13

Gem and Grandpa Playing in Block Harbor.  They're having an absolute blast!!!

Remembering the "Hundred-Acre Wood"

I saw in today's Staten Island Advance that Alex Coladonato was married in November.  I would like to extend his new wife and him my utmost congratulations.

My father, my brother, and I knew Alex, otherwise known as "Pooh Bear," and his brother, Anthony, from our summers spent working at Staten Island Academy Day Camp.  The last time I heard "Pooh Bear" mentioned was nearly four summers ago, when my brother told us that he was a contestant on "Big Brother" that season.

Ironically, that same summer, nearly four years ago, was the last time I heard from my brother, too.  Seeing Alex's wedding announcement in today's paper was just one more reminder of how the rest of the world continues to move on while a part of my family's has died--probably the same thing that Alex felt after losing his father, an employee at Cantor Fitzgerald, on September 11, 2001.

I'm sure that, on his wedding day, "Pooh Bear" was missing his father and wishing that he could be there to celebrate with him, as I've missed my brother so many times since the summer of 2009.