I Am The Problem

  

        Sometimes you have to admit that it's you.

        If twelve people say a thirteenth person is an asshole, there is a reasonable chance that the selected number thirteen is the problem, not the core twelve.

        So my posit is this: if a teacher educates in two different buildings in two greatly differentiated districts, and the administrators in both buildings are built of a similar plastic...

    Well, similar, needs explanation. The similarities lie in the pursuit of an agenda. Physically they are different. But they both seem  to have an agenda that is not rooted in the needs of the students, and instead focused on running out teachers and/or destroying a building and/or pursuing their own career path. Which today, 12 October 2023, seems to me to be an insane agenda considering our current educator crisis. 

    My point is I left a similar party in a different district in January of 2020 and it seems the problem followed me. Thereby presenting my posit: I am the problem, not the administrators.

   I am the problem for drawing boundaries in personal relationships with administrators. 

   I am the problem for stating in public that additional busy work like meetings and data tracking are not making me a better teacher, or supporting my students.

   I am the problem for  asking "How is this choice best for our students?" at every opportunity.*

   I am the problem for believing we cannot shelter high school students from theatrical texts that are emotionally charged and challenging.

  I am the problem for pushing theatre students out of their comfort zone so they can stretch and grow and discover the power of their own talent.

  I am the problem for believing drag queens are performers and should be treated as such,  without any trigger warnings or hoopla.

  I am the problem because I understand the game and I refuse to play it. Even for a minute.

  I am the problem because I have Resting Bitch Face, and when I smile I look like a shark.

  I am the problem because I am older than all the administrators and they see no value in my experience. 

   I am the problem.

   I am the problem for insisting that my kids learn and perform Shakespeare.

   Fun update: as of 6 November, it seems I have officially killed this theatre program. We opened a show...and nobody attended. So my posit is correct: I Am The Problem.

    Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

 * The answer has yet to contain the word "student" in it, let alone "best for our students". It generally has to do with district policy, parents, administration, turn around or testing.

Square State Ruminations 27 October

 

    I overheard a student tell their friend that if they touched a Tarot card, God would kill them for trying to do his job and predict the future. I did not know God was in the business of fortunetelling. This changes everything.

    If you complain, and nobody does anything, complain some more. When still nothing changes, rethink your approach and hit something. Not anything that would cause you to break bones- like a car or a light pole- or anything that is alive like a cat or iguana. And don't hurt yourself. I like boxing gloves and punching bags. Buy those. Or knit. I hear that works too. You could knit the guy's face you want to hit and punch it all day.

    When bill collectors call, don't answer. That's why you have caller ID.

     I see quotes that extoll travel as the greatest way to learn and grow. All of the quotes are from rich white guys who could afford to travel. I can't afford to go to the grocery store. 

     The further we journey down the road of Late Stage Capitalism, the more I understand why the Irish got a reputation for drinking and yelling and fighting in pubs. 

      I think theatre is like life, except that nobody knows the script and some idiot put grandpa in charge of light board, so we never know when the lights are going to come on, or for how long, and when we yell at grandpa he just laughs and says "Be quiet or I'll turn on Pat Boone at full volume".

    I think if teachers just behaved the way their students do, they would lose their jobs and we'd have to close the schools. That'd show them.

    As I take my weekend drive through Evergreen, I note the majestic elk as they meander across the road as if they own it. As I take my daily drive to work on Colfax, I note the same behavior from the sex workers on Spruce Street.

Square State Ruminations (renamed)19 October

     Deep Thoughts...A Third Attempt At Humoring The Purge by kryssi

     When you look back on your life and have nothing but regret, find a mad scientist who has built a time machine. They are not great for hopping around in time, and they are expensive,  but if you can find the one moment that you can alter that would fix everything, go there. Fix it. Then you won't feel so much regret all of the time. Unless you fix the wrong moment. Then you just have to live with your life choices and possibly the New Thing you messed up. Unless you're rich. Then you can do it again and mess up more things.

    I think we should apply the Ferris Bueller approach to learning anything about other countries or history. "Who cares if they're socialists? They could be fascist anarchists, it still wouldn't change the fact that I don't own a car." I think we could all use a little more selfishness, don't you?

   They should stop making sequels and prequals to all movies. They just get muddled after a while, and I don't enjoy the original anymore. Eventually they go too far and negate the original, so what's the point in watching?

   Fall is the best season. It should be extended and we should get rid of summer. It's too hot. It's only there so kids get a break from school. In my plan, we would have school year round, but only four days a week, with three weeks off at Christmas. And a two week spring break. Give the kids and teachers their breaks, they're in school year round.

    If you're going to kill a snake by running over it with your car, don't just roll over it once. They are round and will roll along with the tires. The best approach is to hit the brakes as you roll over, then reverse your car and do it again. Keep doing it until the viper is deceased. You will know because it will be squished and smeared on the asphalt. Unless it is your pet snake, then you should stop and gently carry it back home into its tank before some jerk wad tries to drive over it.

    One time, I went to a Steep Canyon Rangers concert, featuring Steve Martin on banjo. I wore white in case he wanted to marry me. I walked down the aisle to the stage, there were no bodyguards or security. He was playing the banjo. I stood right below him looking up. I waited. He kept playing. So I walked back up the aisle to my husband. My husband's name is Jim Martin. I feel like that was close enough.

    Drag queens are performers. They wear costumes and play a role. Scene.

    Sometimes pizza rolls are the Best Idea Ever for a snack. And sometimes they explode in the air fryer.

Deep Thoughts by k.w.martin 14 October 2023

 

   As a fan of SNL and "Jack Handey", I've always felt like Facebook wall posts and tweets have taken Deep Thoughts' place. I'm working on Finding My Humor again through this model. If you've never heard of him, here is an example:

"Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than to be selfish and worry about my liver.” 

Here are mine this week. Still working on "the funny"::

 The medical insurance industrial complex is going to kill us. This realization seems contrary to the Hippocratic Oath "First do no harm". I think we should remind the insurance companies and medical receptionists who are the gatekeepers for our doctors that the medical professionals cannot do their jobs if we cannot see them. Of course by the time I'm admitted, after slaying the gatekeepers, I will probably just scream.

  The public education system isn't failing. It is collapsing under the weight of raising too many children. It was designed to educate, not raise, feed, clothe, counsel, discipline...essentially parent. Stop blaming teachers. And also go outside once in a while. 

  Hubie Halloween is a great movie. You should watch it.

 Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a dog? A dog who has owners and whose owners dress them up and make tiktoks with their boopie noses and soft eyes, not one who is stray or in the shelter, that's just sad. And now I'm sad. Never mind.

  Most movies shoot their "night scenes" during the day with a blue filter. Why can't we do that in the real world so we can see each other and cast shadows at night? We'd be bathed in a gorgeous blue light instead of squinting in the inky blackness. It would make changing a flat tire at night much easier.

   When you are young, remember someday you will be old. Eat your vegetables. So you can poop.

   Do something every day that your future self will thank you for. Like avoiding high crime neighborhoods and adhering to traffic signals.

   Depression is real. Get help.

   Call your mom on your birthday. Tell her you hope you interrupted something important. You'll have a good laugh together.

   "Die you gravy sucking pigs" is the best retort every written. Thank you Steve Martin.

   Sometimes finding free events when you are broke brings more joy than shelling out Big Bucks for Big Events. Something is going to make you mad at the expensive thing, anyway, so you may as well do free stuff.

    If you're good at something, work to be great at it. If you suck,keep working at it until you're good. Unless it's murder, then you should stop.

    "If you build it, they will come" only works for sports. Don't try it with theatre.

This Is Not Sustainable

 

        Like corn fuel and the housing market at any time, the approach to public education is not sustainable.

        For years we have been asked to "do more with less". At first, that meant supplies. bought kleenex, highlighters, notebooks. Science teachers bought beakers, math bough calculators, language arts  had to have kid buy their own books, That one we couldn't afford and had to pass on to the kids. 

 Then it was "do more with less" meaning students coming to us without parental support. So we stocked classroom food pantries on our own dime, became counselors because ours  were busy with administrative and testing tasks--doing more with less  meant loading more duties on counseling- mitigated arguments between friends and gave grace when Covid arrested their emotional development by two years.

 Now it is "Do more with less" meaning they heap more responsibilities on the suckers who  have stayed to cover for those who leave. I don't have enough to do teaching theatre full time. I have PLT meetings during one of my planning periods twice a week. We are short subs, so I sub one of my planning periods daily. Both of these inflictions put my own planning behind, and frankly I have it better than my colleagues. There is a teacher in a department with two open positions right now. When the long term sub quit, my colleague started writing lesson plans for five classes that he does not teach. And so far, he's doing it without financial compensation.   

This is not even the tip of the iceberg, friends. It's quite literally a fly over. A brief swoop to inform and enlighten those who may not understand why this is not sustainable.

Deep Thoughts...Not By Jack Handey

1. If you are the principal of a low income, troubled school--possibly in turnaround--it is in poor taste to drive your Mercedes to work every day.

 2.Teenagers are terrible drivers.

3.Schools are not failing, parents are.  Teachers stopped giving homework because it was not getting done at home. Parents failed, not the schools.

4. It  does not matter what content a child reads, we should support  the act of  reading not attack the subject matter they are reading. 

5. Addendum to #4, we should also appreciate anyone willing to give up their own time to read to our children, not attack them  because we do not like that they are wearing the clothing assigned to the opposite sex.

6.Dolly Pardon should be put in charge.

7.If you cannot put together a coherent sentence, you should not be in a position of authority.

8. Hey kids, when you do not have any lunch,  it's OK to ask a teacher for theirs. 

9. If you have  never experienced or researched or taught or worked yourself, you should probably stop citing the research, experience, work and teaching of others as your own.

10. If you are right and everyone else is wrong  and they insist on pointing out your incorrect statements, stop listening. Lock yourself in your tower and issue directives from there. People will do what you say when you behave like a monarch.

June 2023 in pieces: Act 1 Scene 2

 The Bugs

    Colorado has had a wild May and June. There has been more rain than we've seen in years, and two days ago a tornado touched down in Highlands Ranch. Dude. What? And the hail...ever since the storms of 2017 we've been on edge. This week's deluge was not a disappointment.

    The side effect of all of this is the bug infestation. Usually it is too dry for the bastards. But when it's rainy, bugs bugs bugs and more bugs. Some that we've never seen before. In 2017 our house was invaded by millipedes. Really? Where'd they come from? Sometimes the bugs are just bigger---giant prehistoric mosquitos and dragonflies, very Land of the Lost. Sometimes it's the numbers: hoards of beetles or ants. Sometimes they're in the wrong state. For example, cock roaches are not a Colorado thing, but we found a tiny one last week.  Also fleas. We are not a big flea state.

    The morning after George ran out the door, to the neighbor's and into to open space, H woke up covered in bug bites. George had not been in her room, but her main coon cat sleeps with her, and those floofy things are an easy landing spot for fleas. Based on the look of the bite, we determined fleas. Because that made sense in the moment, even though there was no physical evidence or scratching among  the animals.

    * We made Lisa buy flea bath for her dogs.

    *We bought flea baths, flea killer meds and flea brushes for our animals

    * We called our exterminator to move up our quarterly appointment and added a flea bomb 

    * We bought a flea bomb at ACE hardware, figuring we'd bomb the bedroom. We've only had a flea issue once, years ago, when Sundown brought them home from the groomer. It was a Pain In the Ass. But because it was years ago, I could not remember how we did the bomb, or where we took the animals for two hours, or how we even managed. The packaging says to turn off the gas and the pilot light, so I did, but then panicked because even though I have turned the pilot light back on before, in my current state I was sure I would blow up the house.

    So. The day of the terminator visit, which I wrote down as between 1 and 2 pm, my cousin had to schedule herself for the afternoon off -she works from home-and I had to borrow additional cat carriers from a neighbor. I went to Target that morning to buy a fan and an umbrella for the deck, since that was the only place myself, five cats and five dogs could safely remain for two hours.

    The terminator arrived at 12.30. We were unprepared, he was thirty minutes early- I thought. I had written it down wrong. I had to scramble to get cats in carriers. H took hers to her sibling's apartment for a visit, so I only had Diana and Houston to wrangle into the carriers. I still have the scratches on my arms. Sock is an indoor/outdoor old lady, so she was allowed to free range. Sock is our elderly cat. Did I not mention her name? You're smart, you understand context and I'm sure figured out it was not a cotton sport sock. For reference our  cats are Sock, Houston, Diana and H's are Boo and Pickles.

    My cousin left her  dogs with me because I said it wasn't a big deal  (foreshadowing)  that I could handle five dogs in the back yard in 77 degrees with little shade. She had to take the afternoon off because she works from home,  and left to have lunch with her grandson. The terminator returned at 1 pm and I was I set up on the deck, phone fully charged to follow the Titan search, two dog bowls of water and two water bottles, two cats in carriers, leashes, a new chair to sit in and fans. I had thought of everything.

    By 2pm nothing was OK at the Martin house.

    Even though the temperature was only 77, it felt like 100  on the deck under the umbrella.  Both cats were panting, even with the fan on them. Sock was under the deck until George figured out where she was and then he ran her out, Paco running excitedly behind him to join the fun. I decided to move us all to the garage, where at least it was shady and out of direct sunlight. During the move, I discovered that Paco did not have a collar on which to attach a leash ---with so much fur, I had no idea---and my cat carrier containing Houston broke. I reassembled it the best that I could, schlepped  the cats through the gate, down the sideyard, across the front steps, around the mailbox, up the driveway to the garage. A trek to which I am unaccustomed. It does not look that far from inside the front window. I placed the cats facing one another in the garage while I retrieved the dogs. I had to carry Paco.

    What happened next will be neighborhood lore forever. Let me just snapshot it here:

    *Sock decided she need to go inside right the hell now so started screaming at the front door. A neighbor came over to see if everything was OK. The gentleman repairing the fence three houses down looked up to see who was torturing a cat.

    * George escaped from the pack, dragging his leash as he tore down the street, past the nice Fence Man. I called his name, and he continued to run. I continued to stand on the sidewalk, tangled up in three leashes, holding a Pomeranian.

    * I closed the garage door hoping to  find a way to collar and leash Paco, only to almost suffocate all of us in the heat.

    *Houston broke out of her broken carrier and disappeared.

    * I hobbled to the garage trying to manage the melee and shut the door. George was still running down the street. Within minutes the garage was stifling and I realized I did not have a collar small enough for Paco.

    So.

     I opened the garage as my neighbor was ringing the bell. She asked about Sock, who she called a "Poor Sweetie" and who was howling at the front door. I told Sock repeatedly that she cannot go in, the house is poison, but Jim says she doesn't speak English, so she did not understand. I was holding a Pomeranian and had three dogs on leashes, winding around my legs. I told her my cat has escaped, my cousin's dog has gone rogue, my house was being bombed for Unidentified Bugs---we assumed fleas,  but none of the animals were actually scratching, Paco doesn't have a collar and have you heard any updates about the Titan submersible?

       She blinked. "Why do you have so many dogs?"

    "They are my cousin's, she's staying with us. I had to kick her out to bomb the house, she works from home." I tried to stuff as much exposition as possible into a few simple words, hoping my vocal inflection and  state---dogs and leashes binding me to the spot---would convey my perturbation. 

    She looked me over. I was in a tank top, oversized pants  and had not showered. I could not move due to the leash restraint wound around my legs. Togo thought I was a sled, and was trying to pull me.  Paco was in the crook of my arm, hanging by his head, only, as I only had one arm-the other hand was holding the leashes. I smiled at my nice neighbor who was standing barefoot with her mail in her hand, looking quite concerned. 

    She blinked again, I assume to clear either her head or the shit show in front of her. "Where is your cousin?"

    I replied at full volume, yelling over the sound of  three dogs snarking at each other as they simultaneously would around my legs, and shifting Paco in the crook of my arm,  "She went to lunch because I said I could handle this." 

    She paused. "How can I help?"

    She put on her shoes and tracked down George as I put everyone in the back yard, then began calling for Houston. She brought George back to the yard and I thanked her profusely, asking if I could buy her a car. She smiled, but that concerned look never left her eyes. 

    I clearly was not capable of handling this.

            Scene.