Saturday, January 06, 2007
We Speak in a Whisper - Dedicated to today's educators
We speak in a whisper,
Afraid to be heard;
When people are near,
We speak not a word.
Alone in our secret,
Together we sigh,
For one smiling day to be free
The words and music were written by Oscar Hammerstein II in order to depict the devotion of two slaves for one another under the onerous rule of an egotistical king. The two slaves wish only to express their love for one another but are forbidden because their class and cast do not permit them such a right; their right is to remain silent and express contentment with being kicked by their ruler.
Today these words are found within the walls of public education. We teachers speak in whispers, afraid to be heard. We discuss the administrative policies in ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) dictate that we either pass our students with at least a C or be tortured with endless reams of paperwork from marking period to marking period. We recognize that the only interpretive support given to ESOL students is Spanish. The students void of flesh and bone translators usually progress far more quickly in their second language because they have no translator safety net. We speak in whispers because we know our history. We know that WWII was won by people with Spanish last names.
We know and can only whisper the letters FTE, monies given to schools due to numbers…how many special needs students do you have? You go count them, and get those numbers high, because for every needy child we will give you money. Encourage parents to put their children into these fruitless ESE and ESOL programs with sympathetic ears…parents feed off of sympathy and understanding. Once they have signed their child into a program it will be virtually impossible to get them out, and then the community colleges can feed off of them when they graduate. It’s all good. Shhhh! Whisper. Mainstream students? Who cares? They are fodder or our next political representatives!
When people are near, we silence ourselves and move on to another area, separately. We must not be seen together again for some time. We must, or pay the consequences of freedom of speech. We must not tell the public that not only are the children before us the products of extreme negligence by their producers, but that their offspring depict the parents’ disrespect for us with their parroting of rude comments that were once confined to public transit toilets. We must not tell that many of our students are put to sleep with Nyquil, (even though they haven’t any cold symptoms), and then pumped with that chocolaty drink Yoo-hoo, or its lighter versions Coke and Pepsi in order to reverse the effects of the previous resulting in a schizoid behavior.
We whisper knowing that security, the responsibility of the administration, is nonexistent. The children are not fools. They are quite wise and have all the time in the world to watch as their administrators talk endlessly with each other during “security duty.” They watch, and are instantly able to see that there is no security, and wander halls during times that they are supposed to be in class, using their cell phones, hooking up with friends, calling their parents, and just plain ganging up. Did that just read, “calling parents”? Indeed it did. Even though parents know that their children are not permitted to use their cell phones in school, they actually encourage their children to call them throughout the day. It is not unusual to take an MP3 player away from a student, have the student ask for a pass to the bathroom, (one cannot deny the student their right to the bathroom – ever), and before the student returns to the classroom have the telephone ring with the parent demanding the return of their angel’s very expensive MP3. Two questions: 1) If it is such a cherished jewel, why is it in school? 2) Why are parents encouraging the blatant breaking of school policy?
We whisper knowing that acts of violence are brewing and that there is only one dedicated security dean for thousands of students, the others are all sitting on their golf carts, sharing entertaining stories of yester-year, or hiding out in the back of some storage space until their assigned security duty is complete.
We are afraid for our students; our children, for we know. We know that some students will succeed because they have respect for themselves without the cell phone or the IPOD to make them appear important. That’s what those toys are for; nothing more. Accessories that one feels the need to have on display 24/7 are only there to give the appearance of self importance. Parents who have no respect for themselves produce likewise children. Parents accessorize with cell phones, laptops, IPODs, etc., and their offspring can only do likewise for they only know what they see.
We are afraid for our students for equally we realize the corporate game that surrounds us in the tourist state that is designed to entrap students into believing that they’re graduates, with scholarly academic talents when they are but drones designed to earn minimum wage, and work in theme parks, on touring buses, at cash registers, in hospitality/hotel/motel businesses, etc. These students will also be sacrificed in wars or fill our corporate prisons. To a prison owner each prisoner is a huge dollar sign, and to drug testing companies those prisons hold many rats/prisoners for their tests….do not be cruel to animals!
We speak not a word because we are not permitted to say, “The emperor is naked! He is wearing nothing!” When our children come to us after 12 or 13 years of a grueling and drooling education and ask; “Why am I to shell out $50,000 to a college for a diploma and spend (what appears to them an eternity) to pay it back when all I will earn is a pittance sum?” We cannot say, “Because college is a business and it is our job to pump you full of college glories when we know that college did little or nothing for our purse. We know that only “the chosen” are groomed for the glory….we have the right to remain silent because we are only teachers; i.e.: the janitors who clean-up after parents who never really learned to think and see no need for their children to do more than program the remote control! Look honey how smart our darling is. Look, our remote is programmed. We have produced a genius!
Welcome to the sound bite generation. They can only absorb that much information in a 60 minute period because television has raised them juxtaposed dysfunctional environments that claim normalcy. (It is told that every now and then there are meetings of normal parents who need only to meet at a small outside bistro table for there is no need to rent a hall with numbers so few.)
Shhh! Teachers, please!
Let them sleep off their lack of self-respect.
Let them believe a little longer that they have a chance to be the next superstar sports figure, or premier music generator, or movie star, or even president of the not so united states of North America. Shhh!
We speak in a whisper,
Afraid to be heard;
When people are near,
We speak not a word.
Alone in our secret,
Together we sigh,
For one smiling day to be free
The words and music were written by Oscar Hammerstein II in order to depict the devotion of two slaves for one another under the onerous rule of an egotistical king. The two slaves wish only to express their love for one another but are forbidden because their class and cast does not permit them such a right; their right is to remain silent and express contentment with being kicked by their ruler.
Afraid to be heard;
When people are near,
We speak not a word.
Alone in our secret,
Together we sigh,
For one smiling day to be free
The words and music were written by Oscar Hammerstein II in order to depict the devotion of two slaves for one another under the onerous rule of an egotistical king. The two slaves wish only to express their love for one another but are forbidden because their class and cast do not permit them such a right; their right is to remain silent and express contentment with being kicked by their ruler.
Today these words are found within the walls of public education. We teachers speak in whispers, afraid to be heard. We discuss the administrative policies in ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) dictate that we either pass our students with at least a C or be tortured with endless reams of paperwork from marking period to marking period. We recognize that the only interpretive support given to ESOL students is Spanish. The students void of flesh and bone translators usually progress far more quickly in their second language because they have no translator safety net. We speak in whispers because we know our history. We know that WWII was won by people with Spanish last names.
We know and can only whisper the letters FTE, monies given to schools due to numbers…how many special needs students do you have? You go count them, and get those numbers high, because for every needy child we will give you money. Encourage parents to put their children into these fruitless ESE and ESOL programs with sympathetic ears…parents feed off of sympathy and understanding. Once they have signed their child into a program it will be virtually impossible to get them out, and then the community colleges can feed off of them when they graduate. It’s all good. Shhhh! Whisper. Mainstream students? Who cares? They are fodder or our next political representatives!
When people are near, we silence ourselves and move on to another area, separately. We must not be seen together again for some time. We must, or pay the consequences of freedom of speech. We must not tell the public that not only are the children before us the products of extreme negligence by their producers, but that their offspring depict the parents’ disrespect for us with their parroting of rude comments that were once confined to public transit toilets. We must not tell that many of our students are put to sleep with Nyquil, (even though they haven’t any cold symptoms), and then pumped with that chocolaty drink Yoo-hoo, or its lighter versions Coke and Pepsi in order to reverse the effects of the previous resulting in a schizoid behavior.
We whisper knowing that security, the responsibility of the administration, is nonexistent. The children are not fools. They are quite wise and have all the time in the world to watch as their administrators talk endlessly with each other during “security duty.” They watch, and are instantly able to see that there is no security, and wander halls during times that they are supposed to be in class, using their cell phones, hooking up with friends, calling their parents, and just plain ganging up. Did that just read, “calling parents”? Indeed it did. Even though parents know that their children are not permitted to use their cell phones in school, they actually encourage their children to call them throughout the day. It is not unusual to take an MP3 player away from a student, have the student ask for a pass to the bathroom, (one cannot deny the student their right to the bathroom – ever), and before the student returns to the classroom have the telephone ring with the parent demanding the return of their angel’s very expensive MP3. Two questions: 1) If it is such a cherished jewel, why is it in school? 2) Why are parents encouraging the blatant breaking of school policy?
We whisper knowing that acts of violence are brewing and that there is only one dedicated security dean for thousands of students, the others are all sitting on their golf carts, sharing entertaining stories of yester-year, or hiding out in the back of some storage space until their assigned security duty is complete.
We are afraid for our students; our children, for we know. We know that some students will succeed because they have respect for themselves without the cell phone or the IPOD to make them appear important. That’s what those toys are for; nothing more. Accessories that one feels the need to have on display 24/7 are only there to give the appearance of self importance. Parents who have no respect for themselves produce likewise children. Parents accessorize with cell phones, laptops, IPODs, etc., and their offspring can only do likewise for they only know what they see.
We are afraid for our students for equally we realize the corporate game that surrounds us in the tourist state that is designed to entrap students into believing that they’re graduates, with scholarly academic talents when they are but drones designed to earn minimum wage, and work in theme parks, on touring buses, at cash registers, in hospitality/hotel/motel businesses, etc. These students will also be sacrificed in wars or fill our corporate prisons. To a prison owner each prisoner is a huge dollar sign, and to drug testing companies those prisons hold many rats/prisoners for their tests….do not be cruel to animals!
We speak not a word because we are not permitted to say, “The emperor is naked! He is wearing nothing!” When our children come to us after 12 or 13 years of a grueling and drooling education and ask; “Why am I to shell out $50,000 to a college for a diploma and spend (what appears to them an eternity) to pay it back when all I will earn is a pittance sum?” We cannot say, “Because college is a business and it is our job to pump you full of college glories when we know that college did little or nothing for our purse. We know that only “the chosen” are groomed for the glory….we have the right to remain silent because we are only teachers; i.e.: the janitors who clean-up after parents who never really learned to think and see no need for their children to do more than program the remote control! Look honey how smart our darling is. Look, our remote is programmed. We have produced a genius!
Welcome to the sound bite generation. They can only absorb that much information in a 60 minute period because television has raised them juxtaposed dysfunctional environments that claim normalcy. (It is told that every now and then there are meetings of normal parents who need only to meet at a small outside bistro table for there is no need to rent a hall with numbers so few.)
Shhh! Teachers, please!
Let them sleep off their lack of self-respect.
Let them believe a little longer that they have a chance to be the next superstar sports figure, or premier music generator, or movie star, or even president of the not so united states of North America. Shhh!
We speak in a whisper,
Afraid to be heard;
When people are near,
We speak not a word.
Alone in our secret,
Together we sigh,
For one smiling day to be free
The words and music were written by Oscar Hammerstein II in order to depict the devotion of two slaves for one another under the onerous rule of an egotistical king. The two slaves wish only to express their love for one another but are forbidden because their class and cast does not permit them such a right; their right is to remain silent and express contentment with being kicked by their ruler.
# posted by Bite Me Kissimmee @ 7:38 AM 
