The Frustrated Teacher

Friday Cartoon Fun: What About The Post Born? Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Fri, 25 May 2012 11:22:10 PDT

Sharon Higgins (The Perimeter Primate) Explains Oaktown Poverty -- It's Not Due To Shitty Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Wed, 23 May 2012 21:39:19 PDT

One Response to Nextset

Nextset is the screen name of a frequent commenter on the Oakland Tribune’s education blog. You can read his postings after almost any entry at http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/. This is a modified version of my response to him on April 8, 2008.

Nextset: I will admit that I agree with a few of the things you have said over time. I am interested in the history of Oakland and its demographic changes and would like to get your perspective on something.

I have learned that a few Blacks (some free, some enslaved) came to the Bay Area for the Gold Rush and in the years that followed. After the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, more Blacks settled in Oakland because it was the terminus for the railroad. A substantial number of Black residents were connected to train work especially via the Pullman Company (the biggest single employer of African Americans in post-Civil War America). This was high status work for African Americans at that time.

In 1940, Oakland’s African American population was 8,462. Things changed during WW II.

Henry J. Kaiser needed laborers for his shipyards so he recruited many of them from Texas,Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. For instance, I have heard that a large number of Black folk in Oakland have family ties to Monroe, Louisiana. I have also been told that these laborers were some of the Deep South's poorest sharecroppers. Like most immigrants and migrants, they came to California seeking better opportunities.

By 1950, Oakland’s African American population had soared to 47,562.

When WW II was over, ships were no longer needed so the shipyards began to close down. Like most big American cities, Oakland had other industries for a time, such as food processing and auto manufacturing (we were called the “Detroit of the West”). Most of those blue-collar jobs had evaporated by the early 1960’s. Oakland then ended up as home to thousands of Black folk, with few familial accumulated assets (materially or educationally), who could not find work because there were just not enough jobs available.

From what you have written, your “…parents, grandparents and great grandparents were educators going back into the 19th century.” In fact, your relatives “…were among the 1st black teachers in the East Bay public schools.” You have also said that your parents “…had professional degrees for over 2 generations.” Your family assets also included living in a home in El Cerrito that was “nicer and more expensive” and higher on the hill than those of the blue collar whites living nearby. It also sounds like you have a successful extended family since you have revealed that you have “several relatives working in the banking & medical industries.”

Undoubtedly, those many generational and familial assets contributed to your success. How might that contrast with the experiences of the descendants of African Americans who arrived in the Bay Area later than yours, who were poor and uneducated and had few assets, or none at all? Are you saying that their current predicament is simply because of their low IQ’s?

A 14-year-old boy today may have had intelligent and hard-working great-grandparents (b. circa 1919) who moved to Oakland in 1943 from Louisiana to work in the shipyards. Unfortunately, their son, the boy’s grandfather (b. circa 1944), would have had a much more difficult time finding work upon graduating from high school in 1962. Despite difficulties finding regular, adequate employment, he might have still produced a son (b. circa 1969).

That son would have been 18 years old in 1987 at the height of the Crack Epidemic which lasted from about 1984 to 1990. Having experienced weak mentoring from his father and with few prospects for legitimate employment in sight, we can speculate how that young man may have been tempted to make money, or to feel better for a time. And when he was 25 years old, he may have produced a son of his own – thus the existence of the 14 year old boy of today.

So, by the time the great-grandson of a couple from Louisiana was born in Oakland in 1994, no male in his family had been steadily employed for at least three generations. Because the unemployment has been so widespread for so many years, it’s very likely that few men in his neighborhood have ever held a legitimate job, either.

This situation is why a "street" culture developed and has taken hold. It is also why the Underground Economy, simply an alternative system of producing income, thrives so vigorously in these neighborhoods. Guns are just a tool of the trade for the men who work in this non-mainstream economy.

It took about four decades of societal neglect for life skills that have been traditionally transmitted by fathers to sons — about being a steady mate and a good provider — to float away from these family groups. Those vestiges of a bygone era that were perpetuated for many generations are now nearly absent from the bodies of knowledge held by families today.

As for the traditional family unit, the short term effect of long-term unemployment on a marriage is always intense stress for the family. Eventually, the idea of marriage would be rendered completely irrelevant for a social group experiencing multi-generational unemployment. Isn't this exactly what has happened?

Despite their dabbling in the Underground Economy, I would also imagine that today's men who have little knowledge about how to go about being productive members of mainstream society may feel a level of despair and lack of purpose that contributes to substance abuse, pathological levels of anger, carelessness about life, etc. These feelings provide nourishment to the “street” culture.

During the ten years of the Great Depression, unemployment climbed from 3.2% at the beginning of 1930 to 24.9% in 1933. It only took four years for our nation to muster the political will to create the Public Works Administration and other programs. What would have happened to mainstream American society if high, widespread unemployment had been sustained for over fifty years?

According to a 2006 New York Times article, “The share of young black men without jobs has climbed relentlessly, with only a slight pause during the economic peak of the late 1990's. In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless — that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts. Even when high school graduates were included, half of black men in their 20's were jobless in 2004, up from 46 percent in 2000.”*

With one subgroup suffering from such high levels of unemployment for decades, and with such incredibly disastrous social consequences affecting us all, why has there been such meager Federal response? And how realistic is it to now expect our public schools to bear the burden of rectifying the effects of such immense damage to this current generation?

*Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn, Erik Eckholm, March 20, 2006,

Wednesday Bonus Cartoon Fun: Too Big To Fail, Too Small To Succeed

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Wed, 23 May 2012 09:03:55 PDT

Wednesday Cartoon Fun: Red Or Blue? Edition: Updated

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Wed, 23 May 2012 09:12:02 PDT

TFT Interviews Jersey Jazzman Sunday!

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Tue, 22 May 2012 14:26:26 PDT

Tuesday Cartoon Fun: Keep It Up Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:11:13 PDT

Tuesday Cartoon Fun: Gay Jobs Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:28:32 PDT

For Mom: Updated (Reposted)

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:48:58 PDT

Happy Mother's Day!

This was originally posted on election eve, the night Obama won. I feel the need to re-post it because mom's words--and mine--were so heartfelt at the time. I have become skeptical, but mom and her new love, Bill (a great guy, a former Chicago organizer, professor, and worthy of her) are still so hopeful--even in their seventies.

And since it's mom's birthday today I thought a little history of her was in order, again...

She was born in Kansas in 1933--the enlightened daughter of less enlightened parents, younger sister to a less enlightened one. These people are my maternal family. They didn't go to church, they worked hard for whatever they had, and they were tacitly racist. Not my mom.

My mom had dreams. She dreamed of being an actress, a singer, a director, a producer, a mother, a grandmother. She dreamed of the real world where people deserve respect, no matter their container. She fulfilled those dreams, not to the height she may have hoped, but she achieved them all with grace, kindness, thoughtfulness, and hard work.

She still dreams. She is a dreamer. She dreamed her way into my Jewish father's heart, and presto! here I am, 45 years later, her Jewish, atheist, teacher, blogger son.

Mom is a force. She raised 2 sons, and very nearly 2 granddaughters. She fairly recently buried my dad, and too recently, my big brother. She watched as her sister delved deeper into religious intolerance, ignorance, and prejudice. It made mom stronger. She is the strongest person I know.

She was a Hillary supporter until it became apparent that cause was lost. Barack's blackness never made an impression. She's as far from racist as one can be. She looks into your heart to find out who you are. She became an Obama supporter easily.

She spends her time nannying (for money, she ain't rich!) and organizing her community. She hosts dinner-discussions with the neighbors who don't quite understand how this feisty little woman can bring people together so easily, so lovingly, so gently, and with such focus; she invites local legislators to join in on these meetings--and they show up! She IS the neighborhood. Her neighbors tell me so every time I go up to see her. She knows it too. She's focused, purposeful, driven.

Last night, in her newly adopted home in the pacific northwest, she was out with the revelers as Obama became president. She called me around 9pm near the drum circle, much like a child would call out with joy, to share in her feeling of inclusiveness, and wonder, and satisfaction as she participated in her city's eruption of relief and hope.

If there is another mom out there like her, I don't believe it. She wrote this because she had to. She doesn't hold in her feelings, especially when they are feelings of hope and joy (and she has a thing for words):

In a park in downtown Chicago, in November, the night was cool and comfortable. On the stage, accepting the decision from the people of the United States of America to be their 44th president was a tall, slender black man with the voice of an orator. What, in this picture, would you draw an ironic? All of it, right? It would seem that the stars were aligned to make this particular moment in history hopeful and filled with promise. “Yes we can!”, shouted the crowd, “Obama”, on the next go around…tears rolling down cheeks, eyes bright with disbelief looking up at this smiling, Lincolnesque man on the stage, turning and waving, turning and waving, and as we gaze, forgetting all the disappointment and frustration of the last 8 years we gently place on his shoulders the hope that he will perform miracles. “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it”. Abraham Lincoln: February 1850

I have faith! I believe, with all my heart that we citizens of this country have a man, now our president, who will act to restore our respect, heal our wounds, inspire us to new heights, and do no harm. He will carry out his mandate and urge us to sacrifice for the good of what is needed. We can do that…we’ve done it before! He won’t ask us to walk through fire, but whatever he asks, we won’t do it alone. Obama will be right there beside us, our general, with the mud on his shoes and the fatigue on his face, encouraging us, “just a little farther, just a little more, we’re almost there”. I am so proud to be alive at this moment in history. Vive l'Amerique!!
This, dear readers, is the essence of what happened last night. Hope leading to the desire to work hard--real hard--to see that hope realized. My mom knows what's ahead. She'll be working hard, like she always does, to make the world worthy of her, all the while wondering if she is worthy of us. She is. She'll do the all the work she can. Will you? Will I? Hope. Realize the hope!

Donald "Duck" Dunn, R.I.P.

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Sun, 13 May 2012 11:42:28 PDT

As a member of Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Famers Booker T. & The MGs, Donald "Duck" Dunn was house bass player at the legendary Soul/R'n'B label, Stax, where his meaty playing helped define one of the most distinctive and enduring sounds in popular music. Among the timeless recordings Dunn held down the bottom end of, are Respect, Dock Of The Bay and I've Been Loving You Too Long, by Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett's In The Midnight Hour, and Hold On I'm Coming by Sam and Dave, not to mention sessions with Neil Young, Eric Clapton and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Dunn kept the classic Stax sound alive and kicking as part of The Blues Brothers Band. Originally hand picked by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd - the Jake and Elwood characters in cult film, The Blues Brothers.

duckdunn

Maurice Sendak, R.I.P.

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Tue, 08 May 2012 10:13:28 PDT

Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83 and lived in Ridgefield, Conn.

NYT

These Are Your Kids....On Books

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Fri, 04 May 2012 08:30:20 PDT

Wednesday Cartoon Fun: Which Tribe? Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:03:08 PDT

I Am Working On A Project

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:51:57 PDT

For the last couple months I have been working on a project that has taken all my time and energy. If it pans out I will be ready to deliver some high-quality early childhood education for some under-served families. I am very excited about it, but it leaves me little time for blogging and activism.

I am still here, and still working to end "deform" it's just that I am busy, so less active.

Interjection: My 9th grader son told me this morning that he opted himself out of the test this week. He simply refused to take the test, as The Bartleby Project suggests. He makes me proud, that awesome son of mine.

Also, if the project happens I will be affiliated with a 501c3 so you can all deduct the many donations you will make to the project, and feel good about your donations.

If this project happens --and I think it will-- I will be revealing my true identity as well. I have a couple blogger friends who have done so and it makes life easier. As soon as I am sure of the project reaching fruition I will have no need for anonymity.

So, forgive my absence recently. Press on. I am watching!

Details as they emerge.

Levon Helm, R.I.P. Updated

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:49:57 PDT

Woodstock's Levon Helm, who was as much beloved for his salt of the earth integrity as he was for his earthen voice and in-the-pocket drumming, died Thursday afternoon in New York.

Helm was surrounded by friends and family, including his wife Sandy and daughter Amy, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. There will be a memorial service, but details have yet been finalized.

recordonline.com

Update: This from Charles Pierce is worth a read:

It was a hot summer night very long ago, when my career in this racket was brand-new and distinctly alternative. I was in a beneath-the-sidewalk joint in Harvard Square called Jonathan Swift's, and I was listening to Levon Helm play with the Cate Brothers, who were formidable players in their own right, and old friends of Levon's from Arkansas. We were all deep into the howl of the evening when it occurred to my friend and I that we were enjoying the show so much that we really ought to buy Levon a beer. So we ordered one up, and the waitress brought it out to the stage and Levon took a long pull, looked down at the two of us, touched his drumstick to his forehead and said, "Thank you, neighbor."

It was what they were all about, Levon and the rest of The Band, in 1968, when the country was coming apart at the seams. Nothing was holding, least of all Mr. Yeats's center. There were tanks in Prague and there was blood on a balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. The traditional American values of home and family and neighborhood were being fashioned into cheap weapons to use against the people who saw the death and gore as the deepest kind of betrayal of the ideals that made those values worth a damn in the first place. The music was disparate and fragmented; the Beatles were producing masterpieces that they couldn't or wouldn't take on the road. Brian Wilson was long gone, spelunking through the canyons of what was left of his mind. Jim Morrison, that tinpot fraud, was mixing bullshit politics with kindergarten Freudian mumbo-jumbo and his band didn't even have a damn bass player. Elsewhere, there was torpid, silly psychedelia. The British were sort of holding it together, but, in America, even soul was coming apart. Nothing seemed rooted. Nothing abided. Nothing seemed to come from anything else. The whole country was bleeding from wounds nobody could find.

h/t Doug Noon

Dick Clark, R.I.P.

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:56:15 PDT

Dick Clark, the music industry maverick, longtime TV host and powerhouse producer who changed the way we listened to pop music with "American Bandstand," and whose trademark "Rockin' Eve" became a fixture of New Year's celebrations, died today at the age of 82.

ABC

Tuesday Cartoon Fun: Hooker Bilking Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 09:19:52 PDT

Welcome, Townhall Folks!

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 22:33:28 PDT

Nice to see you here! Let's get going with Kyle Olson's tweets that he thinks you don't need to see over at your right wing rag (read from bottom to top--start at the bottom):

Kyle thinks he gets to choose how his tax dollars are used. And in a way he can, by voting. But he doesn't get to pick and choose on a daily basis or on a whim, that's not how economies of scale work, and that is the purpose of a "tax base" to spread the cost over many payers.

What you folks on the rabid right hate is the left, who you identify as commies, latte drinkers, teachers and other folks who care for others and who, in your simple minds teach your kids to be pussies, or something. We don't. We help them learn to think, unlike their right-wing, indoctrinated, ignorant parents who think the left is a cabal organizing to turn Americans into sniveling pussies, or something. Not really true. Pussies tend not to kill people, and we on the left, who are in control of government right now, seem to kill really well, so relax; we kill too, just like you Nugent folks.

Kyle would like to think he is an adult. As you can see from these lame tweets, he is not; he's sort of juvenile and simple, and frightened of a real discussion on public airwaves. He also thinks Click, Clack, Moo is a subversive union tesxt meant to indoctirnate young children. Yeah, right. Ever been in a classroom with little kids and read to them? They don't think of it that way. They think it's funny cows can type. It's you and Glenn Beck who find subversive nonsense in a cute little children's book.

So silly.

Come on Kyle, do my radio show, or FOX business news with me or Pete. Don't be afraid. We won't make you gay or Jewish. And, given the attention you're giving me, it seems you want to engage with me. Let's go! I am ready! Are you?

Feel free to comment here, folks, since you can't at Kyle's (who's the pussy?).

This Is Post 3002

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 01:28:51 PDT

Is that a milestone? I've posted three thousand times. Plus 2. Minus a few from Dave.

Never mind. Sorry.

Saturday Cartoon Fun: Congratulations Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 01:02:04 PDT

Michigan Boots 40 Teachers -- Occupy!!

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:57:36 PDT

Mid-year teacher layoffs in Pontiac shock

hundreds of elementary students

Join educators, parents at press conference Friday afternoon while laid-off teachers pack up their classrooms

PONTIAC, Mich., April 13, 2012 — On Wednesday, nearly 40 teachers in the Pontiac School District were informed they were being laid off.

Effective today.

Set aside the fact that this ignores contract language the district previously agreed to with its employees.

Set aside the fact that this move is happening in light of gross mismanagement of the Pontiac School District by administrators who are under criminal investigation for financial malfeasance.

Set aside the fact that the lives of educators – those laid off and those left behind – are being turned upside down with 48 hours of notice.

Look only at Pontiac’s students and the effect this is going to have on the final 45 days of their school year.

Elementary students – from kindergarten through 6th grade – having to move classrooms, leave classmates, and adjust to new teachers…all with just weeks to go in the school year. Instantly skyrocketing class sizes – up to 32 in kindergarten and up to 39 in grades 1 through 6.

The Pontiac Education Association invites the media to a press conference at one of the Pontiac Elementary schools affected by these layoffs. Please, come to see firsthand the impact these mid-year cuts will have on students, parents, educators and the community, as laid-off teachers pack up their classrooms and leave after just two days notice.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Friday, April 13 at 3:45 p.m.

(immediately after school dismissal)

In front of Owen Elementary School

1700 Baldwin Ave., Pontiac, Mich. 48340

(just south of Great Lakes Crossing Mall)

“The mission of the MEA is to ensure that the education of our students

and the working environments of our members are of the highest quality.”

Some Blog Weirdness, Updated

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:50:01 PDT

Do you see 2 rectangular outlines that are completely out of place here near the top and left side of the blog? If so, how do I make them go away? I did nothing. I haven't dealt with the template in a long time.

Why the weirdness?

Update: I'll tell you why the weirdness; it was all the Facebook Like Boxes. Blogger knows this is an issue but can't fix it. The only way to fix it is REMOVAL. So they've been removed. They still exist on their dedicated page which can be found under the Title banner of the blog --Facebook/BTR Links.

It's Passover, So I'm Being Lazy

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 20:29:53 PDT

That's not the only reason for the lack of posts.

I have been incredibly busy with a new project that is sucking all my time and energy, and I love it all.

I can't really give you any details other than to tell you it has to do with children, early childhood education, background knowledge, and bunnies. There's much more, but that's really the best stuff right there, don't ya think?

The project is prospective right now, but I have a feeling it will be made real. If it becomes real I will be able to realize a dream.

Some of the details, once revealed, will surprise you, impress you, and make you jealous, but in a good way. Regular readers know me and my 'bent' and I can tell you, this thing fits me perfectly. I just need to make it happen. I can, I have support, and I WILL make it happen. And it will be awesome, for not only me. I have the shivers.

So, I am very happy, busy, excited, but still broke. I don't really care though. All will become good. Soon.

Thursday Cartoon Fun: Strip Search Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:02:15 PDT

Students Need Parenting To Succeed

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:45:30 PDT

Watch this short video of a grandmother's dedication to the education of her grandchild, then tell me how anyone can put the onus of "educating our kids" solely on teachers. Please.

Jim Marshall Of Marshall Amplifiers, R.I.P.

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Rich) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:54:41 PDT

James Charles "Jim" Marshall, OBE (July 29, 1923 – April 5, 2012), known as The Father of Loud or The Lord of Loud, was an English businessman, and pioneer of guitar amplification. His company, Marshall Amplification, has created kit used by some of the biggest names in rock, producing amplifiers with an iconic status. Marshall received an OBE honour for "services to the music industry and to charity". Marshall has been listed as one of the four forefathers of rock music equipment along with Leo Fender, Les Paul and Seth Lover.