In the many years of my teaching… I realized October was one of those favorite months for children…We had our daily routine down; teaching those essential, required learning activities…And now by October, I could add those creatively fun activities through art, writing and play, centered around this glorious sceason…
I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers” ...
~ L. M. Montgomery, “Anne of Green Gables”
Art by S. Hee…
In the challenges of Today, our precious children are dealing with so very much…I must acknowledge and admire the teachers and essential staff that are still providing them those creative activities that are characteristic of October’s Magic…🎃
God blessed you with a strong spirit. You laugh, even if sometimes you are sad. You’re loving and giving, even if sometimes you’re exhausted. Your motto is: What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. You never give up, and that’s what makes you truly strong …
Having had a challenging childhood; losing my mother at seventeen… having that strong spirit has been such a blessing…
Being told by those I needed to rely on, their telling me that I couldn’t…
Gave me that passion to move forward…
I was told as a freshman in college I didn’t belong… My test scores were not the best…due to testing anxiety…
I proved them all wrong… Receiving a Bachelor’s in Education… Master’s in Administration and Post graduate work in Counseling Education…
Making a promise to my mother before her unexpected death, I was to go to college…
Working so very hard … Starting out as a young, married mother, living on very little; loans, grants and food stamps… just to do it!!
Complicated with health issues throughout my life, and raising my daughter alone without my family, made my spirit even stronger …
Hearing those painful words that I did not belong, nor would do it… left me always having to prove myself…
And so deeply appreciating those dear and special people in my life who I do believe were sent from above...
One being, my very dearest friend and colleague Mary Towers, who I believe, was sent by mother… because, she was about that same age as what my mother’s age would have been, always giving me that comforting feeling like I felt with my mother, a loving heart and wisdom…We team taught together from 1975 to 1984 , remaining friends until last year when she died at 103…She was such a beautiful, blessing and inspiration…
There have also been those special professional mentors that recognized and celebrated my talents their advocacy ; colleagues, principals, county school personnel and superintendents…
One of whom awarded me a paid sabbatical for one year to work on a graduate level School Counseling Program, attending the University of Florida…
Another special mentor was a dear college professor in Elementary Education, who gave me an assistantship, teaching students in a college level seminar and monitoring their field placements at elementary schools in our district…
Opportunities and setbacks… throughout these years… has characterized my journey… Still advocating and volunteering, along with my teaching, in community programs that advocated for children…
Retiring on my thirtieth year, unsure of my future, due to health issues… A teacher’s pension and little savings does not last…Even losing everything…
I was to start over…Taking the Florida Teacher Exam; taking an online class for recertification…
My blessed county hiring me back … And that blessed assistant principal, who professionally knew my past… We were colleagues together at my previous school, appreciating my talent… Advocating for my being hired on the spot, by the principal, giving me a chance…
I began again at 58… Teaching first grade, at a diverse elementary school…This was to be my most challenging role as a teacher, due to lack of funding and that divisive political climate, yet my most rewarding teaching experience… Teaching from 2007 to 2015…
And this was where my voice got louder… speaking out for our precious children….
When retiring, again, my grand finale…
One of those special principals who recognized my spirit and talent to our young faculty as a teacher... They should aspire to become...
All my passion for teaching , volunteering, and advocacy for speaking out …
I felt I would be that teacher for all our precious children to inspire … Never to Give Up…
When I began teaching in 1972…My voice was strong and hopeful…We were making strong strides in educating all children… We were now integrated, making our schools inclusive; federal programs…
I was even traveling 90 miles a day, just to teach at what was once an “all black school”…And even involved in Head Start and an Early Childhood Preventative Curriculum Program…for high risk first graders…We had opportunities and hope …
Then, as years went by, and politics was influencing our public schools with a republican agenda, that by the 90s, there was an emphasis on privatization, developmentally inappropriate curriculum and over testing…
My teacher voice was becoming extremely frustrated… I always did what I was supposed to do…Most of my colleagues, and I being apolitical…
Still trying to teach, and giving my all, in spite of the consequential slow dismantling of our public schools, especially over these years since the millennium…My voice became loud… always doing what was expected…
However, since my retirement…My voice is strong…
I must speak out for our precious children and my dear former colleagues and wonderful support staff…
We must not accept this divisive political agenda as the norm… Our precious children…are definitely not getting the best education and we have a teacher shortage!!
As I do so very often, especially dealing with the educational issues of the day…. Almost ten years have passed since my retirement… Devoting thirty-eight years of my life for our precious children… I must continue advocating for our precious children…
Reflecting, As politics became more intrusive in our public schools…Teaching had become so much more of a challenge… It was never ever about the children…They were our Hope…
Politics interfering…with such blame, because of such a divisive political climate; thus creating schools with less revenue, less regard for educators; being blamed for the wrongs in education….. We were always the scapegoats because children were not learning…
That was and very much still is the rhetoric of the day….Lack of funding and the promoting of vouchers and privatization… And now in this present day of the utmost challenging issues; adding book bans…schools being unsafe, a non inclusive curriculum… child isolation, and a drastic shortage of teachers…
However, even through it all, I so believe …. having always held on to our precious children…that Hope…
Being that teacher of young children those thirty-eight years, My passion for teaching, I believed was my calling…
I felt it was my role to create a safe; loving and accepting classroom… Hoping to instill within my precious children that motivation to do what was needed for their desire for learning…
As I drew upon, from my own challenging, personal life… I was better equipped to empathize with many of my children’s own struggles…Yet, not enabling, nor making excuses…
They could do it….I spent a great deal of effort reaching out to their parents…Many very busy…Even making home visits…
Follow your Dreams…
Empathy, and not enabling … Fostering an independent spirit; ware part of that emotional support…I wanted to equip them with strategies to succeed… that I myself used…I did not want my children to give up…
So here we are today… Teacher shortages, book bans… schools without the necessary resources… etc…
Are we going to accept this as the norm? We are better than this…We must want better for our precious children…
Having such an authoritarian governor, who uses our precious children as pawns for his own greed for power and control…
My heart is filled with worry and frustration for our precious children, teachers, and staff…Yet, I feel many of us, especially here in Florida are willing to speak up and vote!!
Jill reminds me all the time that teaching is not just what you do, it’s who you are.
So as educators head back into schools and classrooms across the country, I wanted to say: Thank you.
Thank goodness for our Educational Unions for Support!!!
Ron DeSantis is a disgrace. It's not shocking that his extreme, hateful, and unpopular policies have made him a failure not just as a governor, but as a politician at the national level.
In these most challenging of times, our parents have to bare that burden of responsibility for providing that much needed love, guidance and support for their child’s future of happiness and possibilities..
Thus, hopefully relying on our schools for that assistance; essential programs for support with a strong, safe, nurturing environment, and a developmentally appropriate, inclusive curriculum so their child will feel empowered to find their path to succeed…
Moreover, I as a teacher was able utilize, from my own childhood an empathetic spirit, coming from a challenging home environment…
Back in those fifties when I was only five … My life drastically changed…My parents divorced…
I was then raised by a single parent; my mom…Having an older sister, who was developmentally challenged…I was put in charge… Looking out for “me and my sister”… With the careful eye from our caring neighbors…
My mother needed to work 9 to 5…And I, just a second grader had to get myself ready for school each day…I was referred to as a “latchkey child”…Crossing a busy Miami street without a crossing guard, nor the safety of cross walks…just to get to school…
It certainly was not easy…Yet, I made it to school and home, each and every day…
To reach my children, I would share childhood stories….
My young first graders, eyes wide open , understood and appreciated my personal story…
I wanted them to know I loved them, and believed whatever their situation was…They could be strong enough to find their way…
Strength
Is removing your kids from a toxic environment,
Not learning to live with it “for the sake of the kids.”
I do not recognize our state anymore… Florida’s children are being targeted by such fascism…We must keep speaking out…for our children…
And #VoteBlue for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris…in 2024…
Shekinah Hall reviews a students presentation on black change makers in history during her AP African American History class on Tuesday, March 29, at the McLain High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma…
Florida Board of Education approves new Black history standards that critics call ‘a big step backward’
By Nicole Chavez, CNN Updated 5:22 PM EDT, Thu July 20, 2023
The Florida Board of Education approved a new set of standards for how Black history should be taught in the state’s public schools, sparking criticism from education and civil rights advocates who said students should be allowed to learn the “full truth” of American history.
The curriculum was approved at the board’s meeting Wednesday in Orlando.
It is the latest development in the state’s ongoing debate over African American history, including the education department’s rejection of a preliminary pilot version of an Advanced Placement African American Studies course for high school students, which it claimed lacked educational value…
The new standards come after the state passed new legislation under Gov. Ron DeSantis that bars instruction in schools that suggests anyone is privileged or oppressed based on their race or skin color. DeSantis has used his fight against “wokeness” to boost his national profile amid a national discussion of how racism and history should be taught in schools…
The new standards require instruction for middle school students to include “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,” a document listing the standards and posted in the Florida Department of Education website said…
When high school students learn about events such as the 1920 Ocoee massacre, the new rules require that instruction include “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.” The massacre is considered the deadliest Election Day violence in US history and, according to several histories of the incident, it started when Moses Norman, a prominent Black landowner in the Ocoee, Florida, community, attempted to cast his ballot and was turned away by White poll workers.
“Our children deserve nothing less than truth, justice, and the equity our ancestors shed blood, sweat, and tears for,” Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said in a statement condemning the new standards. “It is imperative that we understand that the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow were a violation of human rights and represent the darkest period in American history.”
We are proud of the rigorous process that the Department took to develop these standards,” Alex Lanfranconi, director of communications for the Florida Department of Education, said in a statement, noting the standards were created by a group of 13 educators and academics.
It’s sad to see critics attempt to discredit what any unbiased observer would conclude to be in-depth and comprehensive African American History standards. They incorporate all components of African American History: the good, the bad and the ugly. These standards will further cement Florida as a national leader in education, as we continue to provide true and accurate instruction in African American History,” Lanfranconi said..
The Florida Education Association, a statewide teachers union, called the new standards a disservice to students and “a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history since 1994.”
“How can our students ever be equipped for the future if they don’t have a full, honest picture of where we’ve come from? Florida’s students deserve a world-class education that equips them to be successful adults who can help heal our nation’s divisions rather than deepen them,” Andrew Spar, the association’s president, said in a statement. “Gov. DeSantis is pursuing a political agenda guaranteed to set good people against one another, and in the process he’s cheating our kids. They deserve the full truth of American history, the good and the bad,” Spar added.
How do we expect our precious children to do better than we, when they are the focus of such divisive rhetoric from our governor, Ron DeSantis, manifesting into such critical ramifications impacting their school experience…
Book bans, negative labels on those that are considered different, over testing, and no real restrictions on gun safety…
What happened to having fun at school, learning,art,creativity, music and play…
Teachers of today… especially here in Florida are struggling with such a divisive political climate…
From my own reflection, just eight years ago… before retirement…Teaching was quite challenging, yet…I believed in hope for a better day for our precious children…
Our classroom was that loving, safe place…My class was that beautiful representation of diversity… Learning was that essential component to success..
And moreover, my children wanted to learn … It was my job to provide a developmentally, relevant curriculum…
Parents were essential…We were a team…Our school wanted our parents to be involved… Programs and volunteering were a part of the day…We so appreciated our parents…
Janis Sexton...Teacher...Advocate 