Today a relative and his long-term companion were finally able to get legally married in Indiana. How exciting and joyous this news is! I can hardly sit still today, I am so excited!
Allowing ANYONE to get married - civil unions - has been a long time coming, and though there will probably be bumps along the way, there would seem to be a growing acceptance of the variety of ways human beings may express love and commitment as a civil right. I am very content to know that this is finally happening.
I've often wondered how people can say such awful things about the ways in which people are different from one another. I can't say I understand how one way is simply the right one, and another is deemed not. I do understand that some cry out for religious reasons, but I would argue their indignation comes from fear, not religious zeal. How does being homosexual affect someone else anymore than my green eyes do? That is what it boils down to for me.
And if one believes in hell, what difference does it make if a group of people go there rather than heaven? And why is it up to one group of people to decide what is the right way to get there and which is not? Believe what you want to believe of course, and you should be free to express it. It does not mean that your expression should infringe on others beliefs. Isn't that why so many came to this country in the first place? To escape persecution?
I wonder how being homosexual, asexual, heterosexual, transgender, or any other label really impacts others. It isn't like one group recruits for another after all, and what someone chooses to do with another consenting adult in the privacy of their own homes is of no business of mine. I find that there are wonderful, creative, thoughtful, spiritual, caring, loving, energetic people in all walks of life, in a variety of human forms that seem to have little to do with their sexual orientation. Being a good person, father, mother, sister, brother, friend, colleague, or partner is an expression of the heart and soul of a person. Who we are should be judged by the way in which we treat others in this world in my book. That is the way I would prefer to be evaluated, so why would I not believe all people should be evaluated by what is in their hearts and actions in this world?
I have known people in my life that are just awful human beings. We were talking about a few today, and I wondered aloud to my husband why these middle-aged women in particular thought it was alright to be rude, mean - and really in some ways bullying - to the 21-year old me. I forgave them long ago, but I trust the universe has plans for their past behaviors. They do not fall in the group I mentioned above, but they went to church every Sunday and were heterosexual. And awful human beings at the time.
These are all random thoughts, and I am rambling I suppose, already defensive about my happiness for two people we love. My point is we are each given a life and we have to navigate our way through the world. For some of us, we are given privilege and rights simply by being born with various abilities, a certain color, gender, sexual-orientation, or socio-economic status that others are not. I would hope that each of us would take a minute to think about the ways we might have advantages that others have never had as a result of these things. These are not rights - they are a result of our birth, not a choice. Holding onto those privileges seems to be the focus of our society rather than acceptance, tolerance, and love. Those are the values I thought were most important.
Brings me back to this happy day. Two people I love dearly were finally given the opportunity to marry each other and declare their commitment in public. They are a great couple, and each makes the other a better person when they are together. They have someone to share the day with, their joys and sorrows with and that should be what everyone has the opportunity to have in their lives. I have shed a few tears of joy today thinking of the day they were finally able to have together. We love them dearly, and hope that others will be just as happy for them as we are!
Friday, June 27, 2014
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Professionalism and the Future of Teachers
I hit a wall today hard. With a loud thud. I feel a little like a caged animal, trapped without realizing I had stepped into the cage, and struggling to find a way out. So here's the story, but here is the background first.
When I came to North Carolina, I finished a Ph.D. in Music Education at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. That entailed a 6-hour test over music theory and history to get into the university (I passed and didn't have to take remediation coursework). I had to take a written comprehensive examination that required three 8-hour days, nine questions, and about 60 pages of words. All out of my noggin, not using any resources. Then I had to go in front of a committee for my oral examination. I passed with distinction. I wrote a dissertation, and I passed the oral examination/presentation required as my final hurdle. I was hooded in the fine month of May, 2011, graduating from UNCG.
I started teaching at ECU in the Fall of 2011, and was required to pay the $55 for a NC Teaching License in order to teach teachers how to teach. Okay. I can do that. I have 27 years of teaching experience in Indiana, a life license there with a Master's degree and 28 hours past my masters, PLUS now the doctorate. I have papers, if not the pedigree, to do the job. A formality, right?
Here's the catch. The state of North Carolina has determined that I must take 7.5 CEU's every THREE years and pay $55 to renew the license, and I am not considered a 'teacher''. I am only allowed to teach teachers. No, wait, there is 'good' news! I can be considered a REAL teacher, if I take the Praxis II for music and if I pass. Then I can have a license that requires me to turn in 7.5 CEU's every FIVE years, and pay $55 to renew my license. Over the course of the time I intend to teach, that is about $210 the state will have collected in 'fees'. Hmmm...
Might I say, that I am not only humiliated, exasperated, but also insulted. Insulted that politicians think they know better than someone who has spent a lifetime in education, how one might best do the job. When I heard I would need to pass the Praxis II, I thought of the written driving tests. Just because you can pass one doesn't mean you should be on the road driving. I have been 'driving' as an educational expert for a while now, and that should count. My experience should be respected. My degree, from an institution in the same state, should be respected.
I am not upset that I would need certification of some kind. Nor that I have to renew it. I am upset that if I keep the license without being a "real" teacher, I have to take MORE courses (CEU's) to do so. Why? Doesn't my degree buy me something? How about all the time I have spent in the classroom? I need to be policed as a beginning teacher the entire time I am teaching in NC? Doesn't anyone get this?
What other profession allows people from outside the area of study to determine what is best for certification for entry into the profession? Do beauty schools have electricians determining licensing? Do doctors allow plumbers to set the standards for practice? And would plumbers want musicians setting their practice standards? When will educational professionals be allowed to determine what is best for them? Why should a university professor take the same test as an undergraduate preservice teacher in order to be licensed? Haven't they been tested enough? We have rules set by the National Association of Schools of Music, with guidelines for accreditation
I am angry. And I know that it is only a test, and I could take it and shut up. But that doesn't solve the problem of treating teachers, and in this particular breath teacher-educators, as consummate professionals. I have given time, energy, and the better part of my life to this career. I don't think I need to prove anything to anyone for a piece of $55 dollar paper that says what my degree already says. I can do this. I am doing this. And if we don't stand up and fight for this, when will it change? Taking any test, and continuing to PAY to do my job is ridiculous. I have been tested enough and I am done with this nonsense.
There is my wall. Thud.
When I came to North Carolina, I finished a Ph.D. in Music Education at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. That entailed a 6-hour test over music theory and history to get into the university (I passed and didn't have to take remediation coursework). I had to take a written comprehensive examination that required three 8-hour days, nine questions, and about 60 pages of words. All out of my noggin, not using any resources. Then I had to go in front of a committee for my oral examination. I passed with distinction. I wrote a dissertation, and I passed the oral examination/presentation required as my final hurdle. I was hooded in the fine month of May, 2011, graduating from UNCG.
I started teaching at ECU in the Fall of 2011, and was required to pay the $55 for a NC Teaching License in order to teach teachers how to teach. Okay. I can do that. I have 27 years of teaching experience in Indiana, a life license there with a Master's degree and 28 hours past my masters, PLUS now the doctorate. I have papers, if not the pedigree, to do the job. A formality, right?
Here's the catch. The state of North Carolina has determined that I must take 7.5 CEU's every THREE years and pay $55 to renew the license, and I am not considered a 'teacher''. I am only allowed to teach teachers. No, wait, there is 'good' news! I can be considered a REAL teacher, if I take the Praxis II for music and if I pass. Then I can have a license that requires me to turn in 7.5 CEU's every FIVE years, and pay $55 to renew my license. Over the course of the time I intend to teach, that is about $210 the state will have collected in 'fees'. Hmmm...
Might I say, that I am not only humiliated, exasperated, but also insulted. Insulted that politicians think they know better than someone who has spent a lifetime in education, how one might best do the job. When I heard I would need to pass the Praxis II, I thought of the written driving tests. Just because you can pass one doesn't mean you should be on the road driving. I have been 'driving' as an educational expert for a while now, and that should count. My experience should be respected. My degree, from an institution in the same state, should be respected.
I am not upset that I would need certification of some kind. Nor that I have to renew it. I am upset that if I keep the license without being a "real" teacher, I have to take MORE courses (CEU's) to do so. Why? Doesn't my degree buy me something? How about all the time I have spent in the classroom? I need to be policed as a beginning teacher the entire time I am teaching in NC? Doesn't anyone get this?
What other profession allows people from outside the area of study to determine what is best for certification for entry into the profession? Do beauty schools have electricians determining licensing? Do doctors allow plumbers to set the standards for practice? And would plumbers want musicians setting their practice standards? When will educational professionals be allowed to determine what is best for them? Why should a university professor take the same test as an undergraduate preservice teacher in order to be licensed? Haven't they been tested enough? We have rules set by the National Association of Schools of Music, with guidelines for accreditation
I am angry. And I know that it is only a test, and I could take it and shut up. But that doesn't solve the problem of treating teachers, and in this particular breath teacher-educators, as consummate professionals. I have given time, energy, and the better part of my life to this career. I don't think I need to prove anything to anyone for a piece of $55 dollar paper that says what my degree already says. I can do this. I am doing this. And if we don't stand up and fight for this, when will it change? Taking any test, and continuing to PAY to do my job is ridiculous. I have been tested enough and I am done with this nonsense.
There is my wall. Thud.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
The 3 AM Demons
As it would happen, I need to go into work this morning for the first time this semester, but at 3:15 AM, I awoke and haven't been able to lull myself back to sleep. This used to happen to me every so often as a young adult, and truly doesn't happen much anymore. Usually when it does, there is some over-riding reason for the anxiety I awaken with. I feel the anxiety physically and yet feel a need to sleep, like it is a bad dream. To get back to sleep, I try to visualize placing the problem in a box and closing the lid. Usually it helps. This time, I couldn't place a finger on what to put in the box, and visualizing myself getting in became problematic and rather Freudian. So I made a list.
Here were my worries as I recall:
I suppose that some of these worries have real weight. Money matters, family, facing your own mortality. All are serious issues, but at three in the morning, they become this blob of anxiety. Then there are professional line items. Not sure there is much I can do about NAfME or whether or not my comments at NCMEA were odd or interpreted differently than I intended, but the fact that I can't wrap my mind around the sense of the mileage claims has really stuck in my craw. Perhaps my son-in-law can explain that one to me.
Finally, the itchy skin that kind of comes and goes. I really need to let a medical professional look at it again because the online stuff can be way too freaky to wade through and might create further worry. It better not be chocolate or coffee causing that. That would just be mean.
I am pretty darn sure most of us are anxious about things and are awakened by a list of anxieties occasionally. The 3AM Demons I usually call them, and I wonder if there is a research study detailing why that happens and if early man suffered from them as well. Did I kill that animal fast enough or did it suffer? Really, does the cave need to be bigger and need more fire pits? Can I get a replacement on our bear rug soon, or is this going to be another ten-year ordeal? And how about my contemporaries that I admire? And do famous people worry about things the same way or more famously and fabulously? Or do those folks have anxieties in a different vortex (or would that be vorti)? And now that I am thinking about it, why do we call this blast of polar air a vortex again? I didn't listen very well at all yesterday when Al explained it I know now.
How do you cope with your demons at 3AM? Do you visualize a place to tuck your problems or anxieties away for later? Is there a trick I am missing? Right now, I am thinking warm milk and a soft blanket curled up on the couch with a cat on my lap might help keep them at bay so I can get some sleep. After all, I need to be up in two hours!
Here were my worries as I recall:
- The polar vortex. I was actually dreaming about it. And Scotland.
- I am not a grandparent yet. What if I am not good at it?
- I think I might have sounded arrogant at my first NCMEA meeting. Or pessimistic. Or I don't know how I sounded. But I should worry about it apparently.
- Is my best friend from college back from visiting her daughter in Scotland? Where is she?
- My courses for next term. Just because I get anxious before I teach.
- Life insurance policies. I cancelled our big ones but how much is enough for us?
- Travel woes. Will I be able to save the money, and find the money, to go to Brazil for the International Society of Music Education Conference in July? I applied for two sessions to present. Was that a mistake?
- NAfME - why did you take the researchers/higher educators away from the practitioners? That really upsets me on so many levels.
- My children. Just because I can.
- The far right politics of NC that have irritated my liberal sensibilities beyond belief.
- Being reimbursed 30 cents a mile when I drive for over 100 miles to visit student teachers. But I get 56 cents a mile for 99 miles. And is that one trip? total miles? why did it change? who is the committee that sent that down through the college of ed? I am so confused on why that is fiscally sound. Or necessary.
- Itchy skin. It may have been the initial reason I woke up.
I suppose that some of these worries have real weight. Money matters, family, facing your own mortality. All are serious issues, but at three in the morning, they become this blob of anxiety. Then there are professional line items. Not sure there is much I can do about NAfME or whether or not my comments at NCMEA were odd or interpreted differently than I intended, but the fact that I can't wrap my mind around the sense of the mileage claims has really stuck in my craw. Perhaps my son-in-law can explain that one to me.
Finally, the itchy skin that kind of comes and goes. I really need to let a medical professional look at it again because the online stuff can be way too freaky to wade through and might create further worry. It better not be chocolate or coffee causing that. That would just be mean.
I am pretty darn sure most of us are anxious about things and are awakened by a list of anxieties occasionally. The 3AM Demons I usually call them, and I wonder if there is a research study detailing why that happens and if early man suffered from them as well. Did I kill that animal fast enough or did it suffer? Really, does the cave need to be bigger and need more fire pits? Can I get a replacement on our bear rug soon, or is this going to be another ten-year ordeal? And how about my contemporaries that I admire? And do famous people worry about things the same way or more famously and fabulously? Or do those folks have anxieties in a different vortex (or would that be vorti)? And now that I am thinking about it, why do we call this blast of polar air a vortex again? I didn't listen very well at all yesterday when Al explained it I know now.
How do you cope with your demons at 3AM? Do you visualize a place to tuck your problems or anxieties away for later? Is there a trick I am missing? Right now, I am thinking warm milk and a soft blanket curled up on the couch with a cat on my lap might help keep them at bay so I can get some sleep. After all, I need to be up in two hours!
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