Trying to Teach

My wife recently embarked on a new career. At 55 she decided that she wanted to be a school teacher. She applied for an accelerated certification program, since she already had a Masters Degree in Media Communications, and was accepted. The course work was difficult and demanded hours of time both during the day and in the evenings. She got assigned to a relatively new and progressive school for her training, or as I called it, her internship. She enjoyed the work and I tried to support her as much as possible. When it came time to take the certification test she thought she was ready, but she did not pass. She was crushed but was determined to pass on her next attempt. She continued to study and participate in professional development programs over the summer. She did pass on her second attempt but her results did not come prior to the start of the next school year. Once the results were in she applied for a position within the district. Here is where things got interesting.

She was given the opportunity to apply for a position at a school located in what may be considered the inner city in her home of Louisville, KY. She talked with the principle who told her that it was a pretty hard my position and that she was looking for a strong applicant to work with the students and the parents. Needless to say my wife is a "strong" African American female. She has raised three girls of her own and had a great experience with classroom control the previous year. She got the job and was very excited about starting. Things then started to fall.

 First the school was downtown and in an area were parking was limited. People informed her that she would need to park in an alley way and that she should be very careful about going to her car alone or staying late. She met with some of the teachers in her group, which was for 3rd graders and asked about support.  Basically she was told she was on her own. The second day she found out that the school did not have a computer for her to use. This really hurt since that was the manner she used to develop lesson plans and worked with children, based on her training. The class had 21 students which she would need to manage on her own. There were no desks, just a few tables. On the third day she actually met her students. The substitute that had been working with them had quit. The students were out of control. You could see that they were not used to any structure  and were not very interested in paying attention. My wife asked for some support and the Assistant Principle came to  her aid. However, she soon saw that he had no better luck with them than she had. There were  fights to be broken up and the day was spent trying to manage the kids behavior versus teaching them. My wife me home in tears. She told me she just couldn't go back and it was just too much for her. We talked and ending up deciding that she contact the principle and write a letter

informing her that she didn't think she could handle the situation there and that it would not be a good match for her as a new teacher .

After this she heard nothing form the school system for a couple of weeks which I thought was strange. What we eventually found out was that when my wife resigned from that position, that the district felt that she had resigned her employment with them totally. This was something that surprised me since her letter and conversations all indicated that my wife wanted to be a teacher, but felt that this assignment was not viable for her or the district. As a corporate executive I find this odd considering all the time and effort that went into training her. Surely the district had openings in other schools that her training could be used? However that is the case. We have a school district with very low graduation rates, poor elementary education scores in both math and science, and that spends time looking at analysis of the situation, but not on addressing the problems. Perhaps it is just the large bureaucracy in the district, or the need to look at a way to improve those schools that are failing, or a lack of parental support, but our schools are failing. 

Teacher like my wife and others that go through schooling to become teachers are disillusioned when they do get hired and have to work in conditions that restrict them. They become more baby sitters or social workers than educators. African American teachers are even harder to find as they feel like the deck is stacked against them even when their hearts and minds are in the right place. The tenured teachers move on without the needed upgrades to their teaching skills and don't want these troubled children that this generation has spawned. Our children are in a desperate downward spiral that starts earlier and earlier. Preschool programs are being cut and effective parenting is at a low level. This is not just and African American problem, but with the poor economy it affects all races.However, it affects those in the lowest economical groups the most.

My wife is still not teaching. She is considering trying to apply at a private or Catholic school district. However, some of her peers have indicated that the district here has blacklisted individuals in the past and blocked them from getting positions in other districts. Why and what this would accomplish I don't know.  She is doing some volunteer teaching assistance at the school she worked at last year with the hopes that maybe something will become available there and the principle would request that she get the position. It is a long shot at best but she does get to work with the children and "teach".

Fruitvale

I just returned from see the movie Fruitvale. It is true story of Oscar Grant, who was killed on New Years Eve 2007 on the Fruitvale Bart platform by the Metro Police, while coming back from celebrating in San Francisco.This film comes out five years later, to illustrate how the life of a black man can be taken and no justice received to fit the crime. I am grateful to the producers including Forrest Whitaker for telling the story. The sad part about it is that at 1:00 p.m on a beautiful Sunday afternoon at a popular Cinemark there were only 4 people that saw the movie. My wife, myself and another black couple.The movie premiered this Friday. I know I saw a few commercials for the movie and it was highlighted on the BET Awards show. So what happened to the people, black and white alike? 

People have forgotten already what happened at Fruitvale, and those that haven't don't want to see the reality of it in a movie. We'd rather watch the Lone Ranger. Will the Trayvon Martin case be the same way? Up in arms by both black and white, but with little action as time passes. They held a tribute for Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale Bart station this new year's day to continue to ask for justice, with a hope that he was not forgotten.

The movie was hard to watch. Not for the reason you might think, but because it was about Oscar's life before the shooting. It is a life we as African Americans have all encountered. Normal life for us is slow and hard. Not always exciting like in the movies. Oscar was twenty two, had been to prison, has a girlfriend and a little girl. Loved his mother, family, and especially his daughter. He is out trying to get a new start but it is not working out. Loses his job due to being late, has the temptation to sell drugs, and is the typical case of a good boy trying to work it out in a hard world. He has learned to be tough when he needs too but if left to his own, he tries to do the right thing.

His girlfriend wants to go to San Francisco after his mother's birthday party to see the fire works. His mother suggest they take the train since he and his friends  may be drinking.All goes well until they are their way back home. Oscar runs into an ex inmate he has had a beef while in prison on the train. The guy starts a fight and the subway police are called. Oscar and his friend get off the train and are held by the police with excessive force. Only the African Americans are detained and the individual who started the altercation, a white individual is never encountered. Many people are there and record  the incident on their cell phones. Oscar pleads his case but is thrown to the ground. As he struggles to get up and not be handcuffed one officer pulls out his gun and shoots him in the back while he is still on the ground.  

The officers that were involved were fired. The officer that did the shooting said that  he mistook his gun for a tazzer. He was going to  tazzer him, but he pulled the revolver out by mistake. These are the people that protect and serve? They don't think to look before pulling a trigger? You don't know the difference between a tazzer and your revolver? That officer was tried and convicted of involuntary manslaughter. He received a two year sentence and served 11 months. Oscar Grant is dead forever and did not need to be.

Marvin Gaye sang, 'brother,brother, there's far to many of you dying. You know we've got to find a way, to bring some lovin here today. Don't punish me with brutality. Talk to me, so you can see 

  What's going on, what's going on , tell me what's going on."

My thoughts on the Trayvon Martin case

Since everyone seems to have thoughts about the Trayvon Martin case I thought I would write mine down. Trayvon Martin is a black 17 year old male who was returning from the convenience store in a neighborhood where his father lived , but he was unknown, on a dark and rainy evening. He was was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, who is part Hispanic and the self appointed leader of the neighborhood watch for this community in Florida. These are undisputed facts.

George Zimmerman was tired of the fact that there had been several breakins in the neighborhood. When he saw Trayvon, walking slowly in the neighborhood with a hoodie on, he assumed that he may be one of the burglars,profiling  him as a criminal immediately. He called 911 and reported a suspicious person walking slowly and possibly up to no good. The dispatcher said she would send someone out and for him to stay in his car and not pursue the person any farther. George was "tired of these punks getting away with this" so he got out of his car and followed the teenager. What occurred next is unknown. An altercation occurred, the neighbors heard some screams for help, a gunshot was fired, and Trayvon was dead.

When the police arrived they talked to George Zimmerman, got his side of the story. He said that he was attacked by Trayvon, they fought, he thought Trayvon was going to kill him by pounding his head on the concrete sidewalk, so he shot him as he was on top of him. George did have some damage to his nose and a wound to the back of his head which they cleaned up. The police also profiled Trayvon as the  aggressor and possibly doing something wrong, even though he was unarmed and only had an Ice Tea and a bag of Skittles which he had bought at the store. George Zimmerman was armed and was only questioned about whether he had a permit for the firearm.

They let George go with no arrest, or further questioning. After the parents were told of the shooting and began to ask questions about how their son was killed walking home from the store, the police said that George was not guilty of anything since it was self defense and he was using their "stand your ground" law as rational for the shooting. The parents and their lawyer along with the help of protesters were able to at least get George Zimmerman arrested and tried for 2nd degree murder in the death of their son. There needed to be some justice and punishment for the death of an innocent person.

There are several thing about this that make it a significant case. Did George Zimmerman racially profile Trayvon Martin because he was black. And while George may not be an outward racist did he automatically consider Trayvon to be criminal because he was black? Sure he did. If this had been a white teenager I would not be typing this.

If the dispatcher tells you not to follow and give you those instructions and you do it anyway, are you not the instigator of anything that happens after that point? Sure you are. If it was a black man who had the gun, wouldn't they automatically be arrested after a shooting, regardless of a permit, which I'm sure George didn't produce on the spot. Sure you would.

Since there are no witnesses to the altercation do we automatically have to take the side of the individual party remaining without any reasonable doubt. Based on the law that is pretty much the case, because even if you believe the person is lying there is nothing but circumstantial evidence to show otherwise.

If Trayvon had gotten the gun away from George and shot him would the same scenario exist? Tryvon, being followed by a stranger on a dark rainy night defended himself when he thought he was in mortal danger. I don't think our justice system would have worked the same way. Trayvon would have been presumed guilty, and without a witness to prove otherwise, the Zimmerman family would have forced arrest and a speedy trial to convict him of something, 1st degree murder, 2nd degree murder, manslaughter, take your pick.

So if you try to detain me and I get frightened and fight back, and I am winning, these stand your ground laws will allow you to protect yourself by shooting me? The law was meant to let you protect your property, your family, and yourself from deadly force. However it is being used, in more cases than not to help white folks kill black folks without punishment. They can simply say that they were scared or threatened.

Even if this case it not about racism. We know that it exists and particularly in the U.S. justice system. It is the fact that the legal system has the deck stacked against us. It is not about justice or what appears to be right, it is about what you can prove and who is making the decisions. In the George Zimmerman case they had an all female jury of five white women and one Hispanic. Where is the notion that a person will be tried by a jury of their peers. There was no connection to an African American, or his only contact witness, a 19 year old friend who he was talking to on his cell phone. It doesn't matter that an innocent black child was killed, they believed the story that was presented to them that he was the aggressor and George had the right to protect himself. So they made the victim the criminal as opposed to the shooter. The case lost before it began.

It is hard for me to rationalize that this death is justified. People say that George Zimmerman used poor judgement but did not commit a crime. If you drink and drive, have an accident, and kill someone you can receive 10 to 20 years in jail. That is also poor judgement, and an accident, but someone has to pay for the loss of life. George used poor judgement when he didn't stay in the car and followed Trayvon. But the legal system says that was not a crime, even though it resulted in a death.

The race issue exist. If you do not follow a police officers instructions or even don't answer their questions, as an African American you are going to be locked up, period, over, and out. If you walk too fast, or drive too fast, you are profiled to have done something wrong/criminal. If you walk too slow and possible be lost or in a place you are not normally seen, you are profiled at up to no good. It is a common practice in America. Our jails are filled with criminals and victims of being in the wrong place. African Americans are given harsher sentences and incarcerated for things that white people can do routinely.

There is a difference between the law and justice. American uses the law against minorities and it is very difficult to get justice. Justice being, doing what appears to be morally right. Will anything be solved by having the injustice to Trayvon on display for America to see? I don't think so. America is a country of talking two steps forward for a while, then one step back. We can have the discussion but until the hearts of men are changed the outcome will continue to be the same.

History

Today I watched President Barack Obama sworn in for his second term in office. Our first African American President now joins the ranks of those Presidents who actually were voting in for a second term. As I watched this event I did  not lose sight of the fact that it was also being conducted on the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday this year. So history is joined between the man who led the civil rights movement and gave his "I Have A Dream" speech on the same platform as our first President of color.

While watching the ceremony and listening to the President's speech I began to think about all the history I have been privy to during my lifetime. Some things I thought I would never see or believed could happen.  Though I was born after the end of WWII I can remember when Ike, President Eisenhower, was elected president and the tales of his military accomplishments. I remember the manufacturing that came with and after the war. There was a big munitions plant in St. Louis, along with car plants, pharmaceutical plants, coal companies, and many more jobs available. My father died when I was eight, leaving my mother with three sons to raise. It was a poor working neighborhood, the few white families moved away and I worked for the Jewish grocery owner on the corner as a kid. 

Then John F. Kennedy years, with the cold war,the peace corps, the race for space. How can I forget when America placed the first man on the moon and how proud we were to beat the Russians. I remember the beginning and the end of the war in Viet Nam. Now years later, under different circumstances and leaders I have witnessed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I witnessed the assassination of several leaders who would have changed the course of history had they lived. When President Kennedy was assassinated did the country feel the same pain as those who experienced the assassination of President Lincoln? How painful it was to then see his brother Robert Kennedy killed while trying to continue a legacy. And during that same period the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, a man of peace and a leader of the civil rights movement.

I lived through the civil rights era of the 1960's. Witnessed the brutality, the struggle for equal rights for all, and experienced the racism that existed. While not in the south, but in Missouri, racial prejudice existed strong everywhere. Busing, housing, schools, and the workplace. I remember and had a change to see great change in history come about through marches, sit ins, riots, boycotts, and then legislature.School desegregation, voting rights acts, interracial marriages, and now something I never thought I would see in my lifetime, a black President.

With so much history behind me, and this is just a small portion, I wonder what is in store for my grand children. What history lies in store for them? Hopefully this inauguration will be the start of their memories and history will be good to them. Perhaps universal health coverage, new energy sources, the advancements of technology will lead the way. I remember the first super computers and how large they  were, and now I can send this message around the world from my phone in the palm of my hand.