We Voted. (You Should, Too!)

As a young girl I recall my Daddy getting so frustrated with my Granddaddy when he would talk politics.  Granddaddy followed the party line and he preached it as well, as best I remember, anyway.  

He strongly influenced where my cousins and I attended school just because he disagreed with the county government over where they built a school.  The interesting thing is, the school for that area is now built right where Granddaddy thought it should stand way back when.

Even though my Daddy eventually became much like Granddaddy and followed a party line, early on he taught me to research and learn about each candidate. He taught me to look at years of service and how he/she had voted if they were incumbents. He taught me to look at which committees the incumbent had served as a member or leader. He taught me to become familiar with the issues and weigh the positives and negatives - not just blindly follow a candidate. And I always have.

As I reached adulthood - or what legally was considered adulthood, my Daddy stressed to me how important it is that I vote.  He always promoted the idea that as a woman I could do anything a man could do and when it came to voting, he stressed the importance of taking advantage of that right.  He talked to me about how people had fought and died to give me the privilege of voting.  He talked to me about how women fought to be granted the right to vote. He explained that it an obligation of mine as a citizen of this country to vote and let my voice be heard. He talked about how laws were made and that we relied on the people we elected to make those laws, see that those laws were upheld, and update the laws when needed.

As a result of the influence of these two men, probably, I have voted almost every single opportunity I was provided.  (There may have been a couple of times when I was younger that I didn't vote but I don't recall for certain.) At any rate, I usually participate in early voting or absentee voting.  I'm not a patient person and I don't like to wait in line for anything.  I do it at times out of necessity at the Post Office, the DMV, or the doctor's office or someplace like that but I really try to plan and work out ways that I don't have to wait in line.

This year I was determined to absentee vote by mail just because of all the hullabaloo that has arisen about it and because I wanted to keep my husband and family safe.  So, Mike and I sat down and requested the absentee ballot be mailed to us.  The day after it arrived in our mailbox, we sat down and filled it out and the day after that, we put it in the mailbox at the end of the driveway and lifted the flag to signal the postal carrier to pick it up.  After a few days, I began checking the website to see if they had received and posted our vote. Friday, I saw that they did.  

All of this to say that our government system may be broken in many ways.  We may be living in uncertain times by some measures.  However, if we want to make a difference, we all need to vote.  Early voting is happening right now in most places. Here in Tennessee, early voting is available until October 29.  If you can, I encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity.  If not, just be sure you get to the polls on election day.  

Voting is a privilege that everyone else in other countries might not enjoy. Voting is an obligation to help uphold this country of which you are fortunate enough to be a citizen. Voting is the most important thing we as citizens can do to make our wishes known and see that our lawmakers and leaders recognize that we support them and influence them.

Sign of the Times

I've been remiss at keeping track of my memories of this time.  I'll try to do better.  

Today is Memorial Day and, boy, is it a time to be thankful for those who gave all so that I may live free. Free to make the choice to wear my mask when I go to the grocery store to pick up my groceries that somebody else gathered for me, or to a restaurant to pick up take-out for dinner, or to the garden center to get flowers for my porch, or any other place I might need to go so that other people are protected from whatever I might encounter.  

Wearing a mask is annoying.  Wearing a mask is probably a bit overprotective in some ways when we are outside and six to ten feet apart.  However, I'd rather be overprotective than spread germs.  

It is a sacrifice I'm willing to make and it is quite a small one - especially in comparison to the ones that were made to provide me with the opportunity to make that choice.  

What is Memorial Day?

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

WHY IS THE POPPY A SYMBOL OF MEMORIAL DAY?

In the war-torn battlefields of Europe, the common red field poppy (Papaver rhoeas) was one of the first plants to reappear. Its seeds scattered in the wind and sat dormant in the ground, only germinating when the ground was disturbed—as it was by the very brutal fighting of World War 1.

John McCrae, a Canadian soldier and physician, witnessed the war first hand and was inspired to write the now-famous poem in 1915. He saw the poppies scattered throughout the battlefield surrounding his artillery position in Belgium.

WE HONOR THE FALLEN

We say thank you to those who paid the ultimate price. We will always remember the sacrifices of our nation’s heroes. We are deeply grateful. 

In remembering the fallen, we also honor their loved ones: spouses, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, friends. There really aren’t words to express our gratitude for their dedication, but we do live in gratitude each and every day for the precious gift that they have given to us - freedom.

What day is it, anyway?

I have been so busy and the days seem to run one into another.  I often lose track of what day of the week it is and I almost never know what date of the year it is.  Is anybody else so muddled?  

I thought today might be a rather light one since it is Friday and Mother's Day is this weekend.  I thought folks might be easing up and laying back a little bit.  Nope.  That's not the case.  I started off shortly after seven this morning and wound things up when the sky was beginning to darken.

I wonder what those folks who think testing holds teachers accountable are thinking now?  Do they realize what kind of dedication this group of people have to learning and children?

I have never been more pleased to be a part of the education world than I am right now.  The days might be hard but they are certainly more interesting than they have ever been!

Getting Up To Speed

How many times have we uttered that statement?  Getting up to speed means that you are well-informed about something or that you are moving, operating, or functioning at the expected rate or level.  Gosh! That is a hard goal for me!

I didn't get my usual start this morning.  I was later getting into bed last night and later getting out of bed this morning. That meant I was later being ready to work and later getting down to work and later getting work done and worked later to get things done. Not good.

So, now I'm asking myself if I'm needing the routine of work and interaction with co-workers or if I just had an off day.  Was it because it was rainy after several days of beautiful weather? Was it because it was cooler and I'd grown accustomed to the warm weather? Was it because I'd had some time off and getting back into the routine was not as simple?  Was it just A Monday, Tuesday, Friday?  What day is this exactly?

Why didn't I look at that notification and see that I was supposed to join a Zoom session at ten o'clock this morning?  Then, I wouldn't be scrambling to get all those questions that came in over the weekend answered so I could give the Zoom session my undivided attention.  How did I not know that I was supposed to facilitate the Zoom session at noon?  Why did I agree to participate in a summer PD planning session at one when I was hosting the noon session?  Why did I schedule two more one-to-one conferences after that?

At this point, I think I'd better hit the accelerator or I'm never going to get up to speed!

We're not feeding hogs...or are we?

I remember when I was a young girl that my Daddy often would say to me, "Remember now, we're not feeding hogs."  I had no idea what he was talking about.  I knew we were not feeding hogs.  We didn't have any swine on our farm.  We were operating a dairy farm.  We raised Holstein heifers and milked Holstein cows without a pig in sight.

So, finally one day I asked Daddy what he meant by that.  He said, "Have you ever been to a feed lot?"  I had not.  So, after the morning chores, followed by breakfast, we climbed into the pickup truck to go down to Nashville to get some minerals or a load of corn or some such and Daddy stopped off at a feed lot where they were feeding out pigs for slaughter. 

We got out of the truck and walked over to one of the barns where hundreds of pigs were kept in narrow pens leading down into a lot away from the shelter of the barn.  The smell was overwhelming.  Pigs creating a strong and pungent odor.  The guys working at the feed lot were putting a grain mix of corn and such out for those feeder pigs.  They drove by on a tractor with a mechanical wagon that spit out the grain mix into a trough for those pigs.  Some of the pigs would come running and would dash from place to place lapping up the grain mix.  Some of them would lumber slowly up to the trough and push other pigs out of the way to get a lot of the grain mix.  Some of the pigs came to the trough but didn't get a lot because the other two types kept pushing them away.  Yet others just stayed back until all the other pigs ate their fill and then they came up and licked up the few crumbs that were left. The guys feeding, however, just slowly drove down the long row of troughs and kept the wagon spitting the grain mix out till they got to the end of the barn.  Then, they turned and came back down the other side of the barn to feed the pens on the opposite side.  Once they had finished with that barn, they drove the tractor pulling the wagon on to the next barn and never looked back.

After watching a while, Daddy and I climbed back into the truck and he pointed it toward home.  Once we were settled in and on the highway headed south, Daddy asked me what I noticed.  In my youth, I simply said, "There were a lot of pigs and only a couple of guys feeding them."  Daddy said, "Yep.  What did you notice about those pigs?"  So, I sat and thought and described the way the pigs responded in four general categories.  I was asked, "How do you think each different group produced with that kind of atmosphere."  After thinking a bit, I explained, "Well, those who rushed up to the trough and dashed from place to place got a good bit to eat. Those who lumbered up there and pushed the others away got a lot to eat.  Those who simply came to the trough got a little to eat but not enough to really flourish and those who held back probably didn't gain much weight or grow at all."  Daddy said, "And what was the goal for the pigs?"  I just looked at him like he'd lost his mind and finally said, "I think they were all expected to grow and thrive and gain weight so they can produce a lot of ham and sausage and pork chops."  Daddy said, "Yes, and how do you think our cows and calves would do if we took care of them like those guys were feeding those hogs?" 

That is when the lesson really hit home to me.  We looked at each animal on our farm as an individual who was going to work hard to produce a lot of milk and provide us with a good living.  If one didn't come to the trough and eat well, we took a bucket over and fed her individually so she could continue to grow or so she could continue to produce as much milk as possible.  If one pushed the others away from the trough, we would move her to another place to eat alone so that the ones being pushed away could get more and the push-away cow would not get too much.  If one ran from place to place to eat, we made certain that there was grain in more than one place for her to eat.  We treated each individual like she was special because she was.  She was our livelihood and there were not hundreds more in the next pen to take her place.

Throughout my career as a teacher I have kept my Daddy's lesson in mind.  I haven't been just throwing corn out to the hogs and hoping they produced sausage and ham and porch chops.  I've tried so hard to meet teachers and students where they are and support them and nudge them and encourage them to grow to where the needed to be.

Yet things have changed since schools were closed and we began distance learning.  So very many people needed extra support and needed to quickly grow their digital skills that we have been working for the masses.  This week, especially, I feel like I've been feeding hogs - just taking a bucket and casting the corn into the trough and hoping for the best.

Times

As a team, instructional technology coaches in my district have been responsible for teaching, training, and supporting teachers as they learn, grow, and improve their skills at integrating technology into their classroom. We were tasked to help them understand that technology is simply another tool in their toolbox to support good teaching and learning.

We were taught to offer a high quality product that is a model of the ideal for teaching and learning.  Every I should be dotted and every T should be crossed with precision and as near to perfection as we could get. Most of us have worked hard to set the bar high and uphold those expected standards.

We felt as if we were shouting from the mountain-tops at times and it was simply echoing back at us.  Why? Because the very next classroom that we would walk into to offer support would still be needing so much support, so much teaching, so much training. 

Our job is one where there is never a dull moment.  Tools we use are always evolving, changing, and moving forward.  Keeping up with the newest technology is a daunting task that keeps us scrambling and running at full speed. 

Just when we think we have made a little headway and most everybody has been informed, somebody or some tool comes along to present a new challenge.  Those we have worked with closely have grown and are leading the way for others and reaching out a supporting hand to lift their colleagues up along the way.  Those who chose not to work closely with us continued forward but might not be at the cutting edge.

Then, school was closed and students were told to stay at home.  Teachers were told to provide online learning resources and opportunities for students to continue learning.  All of a sudden, integrating technology and using technology as a tool for instruction is a Big Deal. 

Those who worked closely with us hardly had a bobble.  Those who had not - bobbled a bit.  I have felt like I was shouting from the mountain-tops and there is no echo this week.  There is no echo because there are so many out there who are absorbing bits and pieces.  I'm not shouting anything new.  I just have a new audience who is really listening this time.  Not just allowing me to share information, ideas, and tips this time.  Really wanting to know the information, to apply the ideas, and to use the tips to make things go better.

Times.  They are a changing!