Larry Norman (I Don’t Want To Know)

February 20, 2020June 12, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

My wife and I went to see “Knives Out” this past weekend. (Spoiler Alert: It’s REALLY Good.) At one point two of the main characters were sitting in a diner and I heard familiar music playing in the background – music I’d never have expected to hear anywhere outside of my personal collection.

You can be a righteous rocker, or a holy roller, you can be most anything.
You can be a child of the slums, or a skid row bum, you can be a corporate king.
But without love, you ain’t nothin’ – you ain’t nothin’ without love…

It was “Righteous Rocker” by Larry Norman. Larry FREAKIN’ Norman in a mainstream movie full of name brand talent 40 some years after his musical peak.

Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of him – most people in this century haven’t. He was a major influence in some very specific circles and a minor figure in rock’n’roll in the late 1960s and 1970s, but hardly a household name outside of those worlds. Norman was the original “Christian Rock” guy. Long hair, leather jacket, steeped in the blues and psychedelia, he was horrifying parents and confusing pastors long before Stryper, Steve Taylor, or Daniel Amos were old enough to tour.

Gonorrhea on Valentine’s Day – and you’re still looking for the perfect lay.
You think rock’n’roll will set you free, but you’ll be deaf before you’re thirty-three.
Shootin’ junk ‘til you’re half-insane; broken needle in your purple vein.
Why don’t you look into Jesus? He’s got the answer….

I came across my first Larry Normal album – on vinyl, of course – in a small Christian music shop and book store in Tulsa back in the late 70s or early 80s. It was a live album called “Roll Away the Stone (And Listen to the Rock),” and I couldn’t resist. He looked completely unhinged, and I’d never seen anything like that in Jesus music before. Upon taking it home and playing it, my world was shaken even further. The mix was raw, like it had been fed from a few mics straight into grooves with little concern for revision or refinement. I was in rock’n’roll heaven.

Er… as it were.

Eldridge was a bad man – at least that’s what the people said.
But Eldridge, he was only working out all the things they put inside his head.
Just a little peace and quiet was his one desire –
But it never came, ‘til something set his soul on fire…

Over the years I bought more Larry Norman albums, and later CDs. I never had everything, but I had plenty. Eventually he fell off my regular playlist and I lost track of his career until I read somewhere that he’d been in medical treatment and wasn’t entirely healthy. In February of 2008, he died of something heart-related. When I read about it, I cried.

That’s only happened with a handful of people I’ve never actually met. It doesn’t always happen even with those I have. He was a big deal to me.

See, Norman’s music in many ways got me through high school and some really weird years afterwards. He was a big part of surviving my divorce and navigating my subsequent religious disillusionment. His songs remained a consistent reference during various outbreaks of crashing and burning throughout the years. He impacted my musical tastes more than I realized; my current love of Sirius/XM’s “Underground Garage” station still reveals tracks to me which clearly influenced songs he’d written or musical devices he employed.

In some cases, I suppose, it’s possible that they borrowed from him.

Mama killed a chicken – she thought it was a duck. She put it on the table with it’s legs stickin’ up.
Papa broke his glasses when he fell down drunk – tried to drown the kitty cat, turned out to be a skunk.
You gotta watch what you’re doing, don’t you know? You gotta know where you’re going…
Do you know?

Here’s the messy part.

I’d picked up from various interviews with other artists here and there that Norman was apparently a rather difficult person to work with. I had a few friends much more plugged into that world than I was, and they indicated on different occasions that he had a reputation as unreliable and a tad bit deranged at best and hypocritical and manipulative at worst. I learned that he’d divorced his first wife and that his second had originally been married to his close friend, Randy Stonehill (another successful Christian music guy from back in the day).

Apparently, pretty much everyone else at the collective “Contemporary Christian Music” slumber party either didn’t invite him at all or stayed on the other side of the room and whispered when he went into the kitchen for more dip.

I wasn’t certain that he was actually evil, but perhaps it was just as well I’d never actually met him or been otherwise connected. There’s a reason we avoid getting close to our heroes, after all.

I’ve been shot down, talked about, some people scandalize my name…
But here I am, talking ‘bout Jesus just the same.
They say I’m sinful, and backslidden – that I have left to follow fame…
But here I am, talking ‘bout Jesus just the same.

A year after his death, a documentary was released purporting to fully expose his corruption and deception and the like. “Fallen Angel: The Outlaw Larry Norman” certainly had an impact – it got people across Christendom talking, especially those involved in or attached to the strange world of Christian music. Whatever else he was, he managed to remain a polarizing figure in death as much as he’d apparently been in life.

A few decades ago, I’d have wanted to watch it, even if I found it uncomfortable or disappointing. I’d have researched it a bit to see how much of it was considered accurate by those closer to the situation, or what sorts of responses had come from Norman’s circle of friends and colleagues. Heck, I’d probably have taken an emotional position and projected it passionately into the void for fewer than eleven people to hear.

But I didn’t.

I wasn’t interested in watching it. I didn’t want to know how much of it was true, what was false, which parts were exaggerated or a matter of perspective. It’s not that I don’t care at ALL about the truth – I do. I just don’t need to know this PARTICULAR set of (presumed) facts. They’re secondary to what mattered to ME. Hearing more about who he pissed off or which musicians felt betrayed by him is right up there with knowing his blood type or whether he paid his taxes on time. They probably matter, but they won’t change anything, so why bother?

I chose not to care.

Last night I had that same old dream – it rocked me in my sleep.
And it left me the impression that the Sandman plays for keeps.
I dreamed I was in concert, on the middle of a cloud.
John Wayne and Billy Graham were giving breath mints to the crowd.
Then I fell through a hole in Heaven; I left the stage for good…
But when I landed on the Earth I was back in Hollywood.
(Rats.)

I think of this sometimes when I watch people I care about ignore the obvious signs that their marriage is in trouble or that their child is depressed or addicted or violent. It’s not a matter of judging anyone – just an observation at how easily we choose to ignore what we don’t wish to see. Maybe it’s a sign of our affection. Maybe it’s out of fear. Maybe it’s simply a matter of convenience.

I can’t imagine it harms anyone else for me to love Larry Norman whether he was a difficult person to work with or not. Honestly, even his theology is pretty secondary to me – I knew it was pretty out there even when I was 17 and blinded by my fascination and affection for everything he did.

It’s a bigger deal if we refuse to see things or accept them in our relationships. We may have a responsibility to intervene, if not for them, then for those they might hurt in the process. These can be tough calls to make – the balance between unconditional love and accountability.

This sort of willful blindness is dangerous, however, when it comes to educational leadership, or political power, or corporate influence. It’s not essential that I know personal dirt about my superintendent, but it is important that I critically examine his or her claims to legitimacy and whatever track record they bring to the discussion. I don’t really need to know about whether or not a candidate smoked weed in college or cheated on his wife, but it matters whether or not she’s using her position primarily for personal gain and at great harm to her constituents.

I’m still trying to sort out to what extent I care about Chik-Fil-A’s position on blood diamonds or the Salvation Army’s theology regarding marriage. I know those things matter – but I also know I like chicken sandwiches and feeding poor people. Plus, I’ve been on the receiving end of the WHO-IS-THIS-DEMON-SPAWN-TO-SPEAK-OF-YOUNG-PEOPLE?!? approach, and I didn’t care for it.

But the fact that someone makes me feel good, or that something they’ve said or done gives me warm toasty insides, doesn’t automatically cancel out the potential harm they’ve done or are doing to others. A nice bump in my retirement account or a few positive stories about less federal regulation shouldn’t offset, well… you know.

I still don’t want to know the details of Larry Norman’s personal life or business dealings, but I do worry about the role of confirmation bias in the rest of my choices – politically, socially, even at school. I see others in such blatant avoidance of important, destructive truths, and it seems to be the opposite of everything I believe as an educator.

Then I remember my love for Larry Norman, and I sort of understand.

Sort of.

Backstage, I cross the middle ground – curtains up and house lights down.
I sing my songs, I try to pass my heart around… and sometimes afterwards, people think I tried to put them down.
They feel so bad inside, it doesn’t matter what I say; I hope tomorrow they have a better day.
We’re all so trapped – we need release. We need Your strong love and strange peace…
Bring us Your strong love and strange peace.

Blue Serials (2/15/20)

February 15, 2020June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

This week’s Blue Serials largely features blogs and other online sources which have absolutely no need of a signal boost from me. Still, if they’re going to be so narcissistic as to create great content that’s not shared here FIRST, I should at least have the right to abscond it and use it for my own glorification.

Plus, these are all, like… really good pieces. So there’s that.

Doug Robertson, aka “The Weird Teacher,” has been particularly shiny recently. If you’re not familiar with Robertson, he’s an elementary school teacher with blue hair, a motorcycle, and a love of the kind of music that used to frighten Congress in the 80s. He’s also the author of not one, but THREE of the best education-related books ever written – and I say that as a guy who’s not a big fan of many education books.

I’d already made a note to myself to talk about “One of Those Years” before I realized that, like Lay’s potato chips, you can’t read just one:

You can say, “It’s been one of those years.” And no one at work will question what you mean. Every single person gets it. Every single person at your school has had “one of those years.”
Like, you don’t often realize it right away. Maybe it was just a weird September, some years start weird. And October felt a little funny. November is always strange. And December doesn’t count, December is always screwed up. But suddenly it’s the end of January and things still haven’t settled in? Oh…oh hell. It’s one of those years, isn’t it?

Doug has a gift for being alarmingly transparent and genuine without awakening up the Cheese Monster the rest of us seem to spawn whenever drifting into honest reflection. His humor cushions the rawness – is founded on it, in fact – and yet he lacks the sort of cynicism and bitterness I can’t help but radiate whenever I’m being genuine about, well… anything.

In other words, you should read the rest of “One of Those Years,” whether it’s for you at this very moment or not. Eventually, one way or the other, it will be.

Speaking of cynicism and bitterness, I was pleasantly appalled to discover that before I managed to finish loving one of Robertson’s posts, he’d made another I couldn’t ignore. I had to read it twice – once to enjoy it, and once to ask myself honestly whether or not it applied to me.

Don’t worry, though – the results are in. I’m clean. Mostly. This week.

From “Hiding Behind Bad Jokes”:

Let’s clear something up right now: Putting “Satire” or “Funny observations” {in your bio} does not absolve you of the responsibility of being coherent and responsible in your education tweets. For every anonymous education account that tweets well there are a dozen that are terrible at it.
That’s right, friends and readers- this is a blog about education twitter. Strap in.

As someone who used to have standards and convictions of my own, I appreciate Doug’s fearlessness and candor. It’s all founded on what’s best for kids, even when sometimes that’s because it’s best for teachers as well. He’s always relevant, even when he tries to confess that he’s not, and his posts – like his books – are both poignant and funny, even when they hurt because they’re too damn true.

If it sounds like I have a Twitter-crush on The Weird Teacher, I suppose I do. It’s the 21^st century, kids – COME AT ME.

You can join the crush at hestheweirdteacher.blogspot.com and on Twitter by following @TheWeirdTeacher. It’s totally worth it, but remember – I saw him first and he probably loves me best.

The Learning Scientists is (are?) new to me, although clearly they’ve been doing this awhile and have a pretty good idea what’s what in terms of pedagogy, child development, and online color scheme choices. Peter Greene at Curmudgucation shared this particular post, and despite his blog having approximately 18.4 million regular readers (including, I hope, every last one of you, my Eleven Faithful Followers), it seemed worth sharing again – just in case you missed it.

The post is called “Learning ‘Useless’ Things in School is (Usually) NOT Useless” – a theme near and dear to my heart. I’m pretty sure a month is shaved off my life every time a student whine-asks, “Why do we have to KNOW this? When am I ever going to need to read, write, think, or otherwise demonstrate understanding and reason in REAL life?!?” or some variation thereof.

Apparently, I’m not alone.

The practice you received using mathematical formulas in primary school likely makes you faster at solving problems that involve mathematics in “real life”. You are also likely better able to understand complex situations that involve math (e.g. political arguments regarding economics). While you may not whistle a tune on a recorder as an adult, those musical lessons helped you to be able to pick up a different musical instrument, enjoy a complex piece of music, or just appreciate the fact that, even if you don’t like the music, Tool is made up of extremely talented musicians.
The challenge facing teachers is to prepare a diverse set of students for later situations that are not only varied, but likely different from ones we can even imagine in our current time. As technology rapidly changes our world, our instructors are set with the task of attempting to make students ready for whatever that future world will throw at them. I would argue that teaching broad knowledge is the best way to do this. Those 8-year-olds could have any number of future professions and future situations. One of them might even take their kid to an aquarium as an adult. Teaching broad knowledge in the only way to prepare students for the broad world they are going to encounter.

And the people said… “Amen!”

Imagine living in a society where the most basic facts and reasoning had ceased to be a factor in political policy, or in which we no longer valued efforts to genuinely understand the world around us. It would be, what’s the term…?

Oh, yes… “GREAT AGAIN.”

You can “Amen” the Learning Scientists yourself at www.learningscientists.org/blog and on Twitter at @AceThatTest. I’m certainly going to.

Three Teachers Talk is NOT new to me, although the actual number of teachers “talking” through the site is closer to three dozen (or maybe three zillion) these days. If you’re a middle school or high school English teacher, or any teacher of anything at any level, actually, and you’re not reading 3TT regularly, well… you’re doing education wrong and probably ruining all of your students.

Shana Karnes is one of THE “Three” in the title, and her musings on “The Rollercoaster of a Teaching Career” are not to be missed. And, unlike a literal rollercoaster, you’re VERY unlikely to throw up at the end…

The truth is, teaching is an unsustainable profession if we don’t give ourselves permission to curate. When I was brand new, single, and 21, I relished the fact that I beat the principal to school every day. I loved spending 12 hours in my perfectly-lit, freshly-painted classroom.
But now that I have children, a home, and a slew of other responsibilities to care for, I have to curate. I may not have the most Pinterest-worthy classroom in the future. I may not have the neatest classroom library; I may not sponsor three clubs; I may not volunteer to be on all the committees. But I will be able to do the work I love, which is having a life that allows me to take my daughters to soccer practice and read my students’ fascinating essays from the sidelines.

Karnes writes concisely and honestly while maintaining a degree of eloquence that leaves my innermost regions trembling ever-so-slightly. You’ve no doubt read about and discussed amongst yourselves the oft-dismissed need for teacher/real-life balance before – but you haven’t read it quite this way before.

Let’s get on that, shall we? And while you’re at it, keep up with TTT at threeteacherstalk.com and on Twitter at @3TeachersTalk. You can also follow Karnes at @litreader.

Finally, there’s this provocatively titled piece from the Hechinger Report – another Curmudgucation recommendation and another organization new to me (but remaining new no longer): “Dress Codes Are the New ‘Whites Only’ Signs.”

Damn. Are they TRYING to make Tucker Carlson fling rage-spittle onto our screens?

Upon actual perusal of the article, however, what we’re really talking about is the banning of blackness – particularly black hair styles – in the name of institutional dress codes. It’s a defiant bit of writing, and part of me wants to challenge the underlying anger or question the connections made by the author, Dr. Andre Perry.

The problem is that he’s right about all of it – so that kinda renders any discomfort on the part of the reader their problem.

Those who would have us return to a period of legal segregation don’t need to bring back signposts to separate us when they can discriminate in other ways, simply on the basis of how we look, how we dress, and how we wear our hair.
When dress codes reinforce white norms, being black becomes a violation…
DeAndre Arnold has attended the Barbers Hill Independent School District his entire life; in high school, he grew his hair into locs. However, before winter break, the principal of Barbers Hill High School placed DeAndre, a senior, in in-school suspension and told him that he would not be able to attend classes, prom, or even his graduation, because his dreadlocks violated the dress code. To notify DeAndre months before graduation that he was being suspended for his hair doesn’t make much sense, but racism isn’t logical…
In response to news stories about the school’s decision to suspend DeAndre, the Barbers Hill Superintendent tweeted that it’s important to hold black students to high expectations, implying that dreadlocks are linked to bad performance. Except hair has nothing to do with academic standards or college readiness. The frivolous use of this dress code to prevent students from graduating is about exerting authority over and controlling black people. Black people should not, cannot change themselves to fit white norms.

Keep up with the Hechinger Report at hechingerreport.org and on Twitter at @hechingerreport. You can find Dr. Perry on Twitter at @andreperryedu.

That’s it for this week my #11FF. There’s still time to Share the Love as a guest blogger this month or suggest blogs, articles, or other online content you believe other educators might find useful, encouraging, or maddening. Email me at [email protected] and let me know what’s on your mind.

I also have a few things I’m offering on Teachers Pay Teachers – the infamous Blue Cereal document activities exploring the Underground Railroad and the Oil Boom (but not at the same time, because… chronology) and my resource book “Have To History”: Landmark Supreme Court Cases. Not trying to get rich off of any of them, but Grandma needs cat food and Grandpa needs a left shoe.

Relationships

February 13, 2020June 12, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Good morning. Welcome to our first back-to-school faculty meeting. We have several important items on the agenda today, then we’re going to fill the afternoon with pointless activities we found online because the district says we have to professionally develop until at least 3:00 whether we need it or not.

As some of you know, we had a bit of unpleasantness last spring which we’d like to avoid happening again this coming year. A teacher who is no longer with us crossed a few boundaries and before you knew it, we were leading off the local evening news – and unfortunately it wasn’t for our horrible test scores this time.

With that in mind, I’d like to draw your attention to the pink handout in front of you. These are some of this year’s revised guidelines for teacher-student interactions. I won’t read it all to you (it’s not PowerPoint), but I would like to point out a few highlights.

First and foremost, no touching. If you need to get a student’s attention, use your words. If you wish to encourage them… well, it’s best if you avoid that altogether. Some of you have fallen into a very bad habit of putting a hand on a shoulder or patting a student on the back as you walk by. You may intend this as an innocent gesture or believe that young people need some sort of positive physical contact in their lives, but the risk is simply too great.

This also applies to handshakes as they walk in the door, whether you’re in clear view of dozens of other faculty members or not. Also, several of you have asked about student-initiated contact. Sometimes when a student sees a favorite teacher from last year, particularly if they were an important presence in their world and they haven’t always had that sort of attention or concern from the adults who should be paying attention to them, that student will come up and try to side-hug or even fully embrace that teacher.

After the situation with Mr. Barnaby last year, I’m afraid this is absolutely unacceptable and may lead to dismissal. What’s that? Oh, the “alleged” situation. I don’t know why we have to call it that. Parents were angry on social media – what more proof of actual wrongdoing do we need?

Anyway, back to the pink handout, just below the cute cartoon with the teacher in the dungeon. What should you do if you recognize that a student is approaching you for a possible handshake or hug? Well, you have several options. One is to make eye contact, extend your palm forward, and firmly pronounce, “No! No No No!” If this doesn’t work, we recommend moving away at whatever pace necessary to avoid physical contact.

Question? Yes – breaking into a full run at the approach of any affectionate student is not only permitted, but ideal as long as you avoid contacting others in your effort to flee.

Don’t forget to keep shouting “No!” We’re teachers; we want them to learn from every situation. With that in mind we’ve also placed small, conveniently-sized mace sprayer-thingies in your mailboxes, although these should only be used if other efforts to avoid human connection are unsuccessful. They are NOT to be used as a “team-building” activity during your monthly PLC meetings, as occurred in one department last year. I’m pretty sure Mr. Barnaby was involved in that episode as well, come to think of it.

The second thing I’d like to point out are the communication guidelines we’ve instituted. Teachers should absolutely avoid connecting with students on social media in any form. We’d prefer you not communicate with the world around you at all – at least not about anything of substance. You may post recipes or pictures of student activities with all names and faces blurred out, but nothing personal, political, social, or humorous. No matter how benign, there’s a chance someone in the community will find it and erupt in faux outrage, convinced that if you’re sharing it on Facebook with a small group of select friends, you’re probably brainwashing minors with it all day, every day, because that’s what liberals do.

If you wish to have political opinions, prefer one sports team over another, promote American values, or like your grandbaby more than someone else’s grandbaby, maybe you should have thought of that before you became an educator. We’re not here to connect what we teach with real life or present ourselves as involved citizens. This is school.

New this year are the guidelines governing interactions within the school day. It’s come to our attention that a number of students have been approaching their teachers with issues not directly related to the curriculum. Sometimes these conversations seem benign enough – “Have you seen this movie?” or “Did you hear what happened to that celebrity, so-and-so?” Other times, though, they involve their personal lives, their hopes, fears, families, friends, relationships, goals, strengths, weaknesses, or other completely inappropriate topics for school.

If a firm stare and verbal warning doesn’t dissuade these inappropriate interpersonal interactions, you should immediately refer them to their school counselor, who will give them a career survey to complete until they forget what they were wanting to talk about. As with the “touching” issue above, feel free to run away screaming “No! No! No!” until the student is sufficiently re-engaged with that day’s assignment.

I suggest explaining to them how that day’s lesson correlates to state standards and maybe remind of them of how much better their life could potentially be in 10 – 20 years if they succeed in your class today. Whatever their personal issues, that should pretty much address them. Who doesn’t want to be successful a decade or two from now?

For anything more serious than movies, books, or music, call the 800-number we had carved into each of your desks over the summer. This will connect you with an overworked federal agency tasked with getting you out of these conversations. While technically this number is intended to be used for reporting suspicions of abuse or concerns about violence or suicidal behavior, we recommend using it every time a teenager brings up a recent breakup with their boyfriend, sounds worried about their ability to do well in school, expresses sadness or confusion related to difficult circumstances at home, or exhibits any other emotion not directly related to that day’s assignment.

State law mandates the agency investigate, which in turn automatically alerts local police, the fire department, child services, local media, the PTSA’s Facebook Group, the federal housing authority, and at least one associate producer working for Maury. Until they arrive, it is essential that you refuse to respond to or otherwise discuss with this student anything on their mind or hampering their ability to focus on school. You are NOT a trained counselor. It’s not as if simply listening and showing you care is going to do anything. I’m sure you mean well, but the risk is simply too great. (Remember Mr. Barnaby.)

The final section I’d like to discuss on your pink handout involves lesson planning. We’re going to start asking you to submit written lesson plans for approval at least one week in advance each week. It’s come to our attention that some of you – and I’ll confess that the English and Social Studies departments are particularly culpable here – have been making explicit or implied connections between subjects you cover in class and events going on in the community, the U.S., or the world today. This is simply unacceptable.

We are not here to manipulate students into thinking or feeling the same way we do about current events, and the only way to safely circumvent any gray area on this is to avoid doing anything intended to make them think or feel at all. Our legal counsel has suggested we leave thinking and feeling up to their parents, clergy, or therapists in order to shield the district from potential culpability. It’s best they not connect with you, that you don’t connect with them, and that nothing you say or do in class – however well-intentioned – connect with anything happening in their lives outside of school or the real world around them.

It’s simply not our place.

Alright, that’s it for the pink handout. Any questions?

Good. Let’s take a short break and when we come back, we’ll be looking at the green handout – “The Importance of Relationship in Learning.” They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care, amiright?

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Blue Serials (2/8/20) – Social Media Edition

February 8, 2020June 12, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Happy chocolate-covered stuff!

I suppose this is – by default – the Valentine’s Day Edition of Blue Serials this month.

I’ll be honest. This is NOT one of my favorite holidays. It seems contrived and completely driven by guilt, expectations, and consumerism. It also makes it REALLY hard to get into any decent restaurants for several days before and after.

I mean, I’m glad you’re SO IN LOVE, people – but I was wanting an apple pecan salad, dammit!

Since it is the time of the year for celebrating dysfunctional love, however, I will be offering you a few Blue Cereal-approved love songs, each with a tainted twist. Don’t worry, however – there’s still plenty of education and educational news to discuss this week.

Are You Sure That’s How Karma Works?

A high school principal in Camas, Washington, is in hot water for a Facebook post made in response to news of Kobe Bryant’s death:

“Not gonna lie. Seems to me that karma caught up with a rapist today,”

Ouch.

Principal Liza Sejkora of Camas High School (Go Papermakers!) was put on leave and later resigned, despite having deleted the post once she learned how many others had died in the crash.

In response, students at the high school organized a walk-out, which was apparently approved by administration as long as they agreed to stay in the building while leaving. Nothing is more “public school administration” than asking students to go through the motions of socio-political engagement without actually doing it. It’s like letting them cut school as long as they do it in class and keep up with the work assigned that day and don’t disrupt others, or having students work together to develop classroom rules and policies as long as they end up with the same 12 already on the laminated posters from last year.

In the district’s defense, they were partly concerned about the death threats and promises of retaliatory violence against the school due to Sejkora’s comments. The only thing more American in the 21st century than social media outrage is the predictable number of people who want to literally kill you and everyone you know for it – and tell you about it, repeatedly.

But hey – good people on both sides, amiright?

Whatever the school’s safety concerns, it turns out you simply can’t control the moral outrage of small-town white teenagers who are practically Canadian. They left the building anyway and milled around just outside for a bit.

Turns out was pretty cold, which kept indignation to a minimum, but they nevertheless took a few minutes to chant “Kobe! Kobe!” and wave an American flag in order to demonstrate their reflective analysis of the complicated dynamics of the situation and explore the tension between the First Amendment and the realities of public school policies and politics.

It’s a legitimately complicated issue, although the moment the community outrage machine was activated, Doctor Sejkora’s fate was sealed and neither statutes nor reality were of concern any longer. Plus, she should have known better. Setting aside whatever Kobe Bryant did or didn’t do, is it genuinely possible to pay the slightest attention to American politics, entertainment, and industry and still believe that doing horrible things to people – even sexual assault – might hurt your power or prestige?

There’s far more risk of being demonized and losing your job over the faux outrage of a few teenagers and their bored parents. I’ve watched it happen too many times. It’s surprising I haven’t grown cyncial or bitter over it.

Are You Sure That’s How Twitter Works?

Doctor Sejkora isn’t the first educator to find herself in trouble over social media posts. The only truly surprising thing is that teachers still don’t recognize when they’re putting themselves in precarious employment circumstances. And it’s not just the few who are against rape – it covers the political spectrum:

A Fort Worth, Texas, teacher was fired just this past June for multiple Tweets petitioning President Trump for assistance. My personal favorites were “Anything you can do to remove the illegals from Fort Worth would be greatly appreciated,” followed by her home phone and cell numbers. She apparently didn’t understand how Twitter works – what with it being so new and unknown and barely used in 2019 – and believed her tweets were private merely because they were addressed to @realDonaldTrump. “I need protection from recrimination should I report it to the authorities but I do not know where to turn… Texas will not protect whistleblowers. The Mexicans refuse to honor our flag.”

It’s weird that there’s no record of him stepping up to help her. He’s usually so loyal and self-sacrificing for those who throw themselves on the fire to support him.

In Clark’s defense, the President can say whatever he likes on Twitter without repercussions. Then again, he was born rich, white, and male. Georgia Clark is only one of those three – and thus, her actions have consequences. Still, it’s a wonder she doesn’t have her own show on Fox or a post in the President’s cabinet by now. Maybe I’ll tweet them about it and see what they can do…

Are You Sure That’s How Catholicism Works?

It’s not just public schools. A teacher at Bishop England High School was let go – not by being fired, but by simply not having her contract removed – for her passionate defense of a woman’s “right to choose” on social media.It turns out Catholics are traditionally pro-life. Who knew?

She in turn sued the school for violating her First Amendment rights, despite having signed a contract agreeing not to do stuff like that.

Teachers accepting jobs at Bishop England sign contracts agreeing to speak publicly and to act in accordance with Catholic beliefs, regardless of whether they are Catholic, to aid in the “intellectual and spiritual development of students according to the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Roman Catholic Church.”

Oops. And all the times I just clicked “I Agree” so I could move on with my life…

Are You Sure That’s How MySpace Works?

The examples of educators getting in trouble for social media behavior are endless, and it’s not a new issue. Seems to me it was somewhat more understandable a decade ago that many teachers were unclear what they could and couldn’t get away with on social media. As reported in this 2010 article from the National Education Association, the problem goes back as far as – wait for it – MySpace:

The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch ran an exposé entitled, “Teachers’ Saucy Web Profiles Risk Jobs.” One 25-year-old female bragged on her MySpace site about being “sexy” and “an aggressive freak in bed.” Another confessed that she recently got drunk, took drugs, went skinny-dipping, and got married.

Come on, who HASN’T done those things and bragged about them publicly? I, for one, am totally a freak in bed, and most of my marriages have resulted from drug-induced skinny-dipping. That doesn’t mean I’m not an excellent model for young people.

As a Blue Cereal public service, here are a few general guidelines to follow, although details may vary depending on your district and the political leanings of your community.

It’s generally frowned upon to suggest you’d like to murder a teenager with a sniper rifle.

Don’t suggest that your gay kids are perverted by a sin that spreads like cancer.

Videos of yourself pole-dancing naked are probably a deal-breaker, but pole-dancing in exercise clothing as part of workout trend is still a gray area.

Also unclear is the status of topless selfies texted to a colleague who later shares them with students. Since this is not a problem if you’re a dude, should it be a problem if you’re a babe?

It’s a DEFINITE no-no to vent publicly that a bunch of 5th graders can suck your ****. (Who knew?)

This one’s for administration and the community. Shocking as it may seem, not every random rumor or scandal involving a teacher is true. Sometimes teenagers and their parents just love cranking up the community outrage machine without having actual facts or caring that much about reality. On the other hand, schools are supposed to prepare young people for real life after high school, and doing this certainly fits that description.

Are You Sure That’s How Russia Works?

It’s not just in the U.S., it seems. A teacher in Russia this past year was forced to resign after pictures surfaced showing her in a swimsuit and an evening gown (although not at the same time). Oddly, the evening gown was the less appropriate of the two, given that she’d just competed in a swimming competition – something they apparently frowned upon in Russia?

Here’s the most interesting bit, however:

After the story made headlines, Russian educators, both female and male, launched a flash mob posting their photos in swimsuits, underwear and sportswear under the hashtag #teachersarehumanstoo, to defy the hardline approach.

Are You Sure That’s How Blue Serials Works?

OK, I confess – we really only covered one recent education news story this week. It ended up leading to a kind of “theme,” if you will. Still, I hope you found it both enlightening and inspiring.

If not, please rant about it using obscenities and such on social media. Don’t worry – you have complete First Amendment protection no matter what your profession or what agreements you’ve signed. I’m sure of it.

If you have education news to share or want to write a Guest Blog Post anytime in the month of February, this is your chance. Just email me at [email protected] and let me know. You COULD win a rare #11FF Lunch Box for sharing the love!

Blue Serials (2/1/20)

January 31, 2020June 12, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Presidential Resurrection

It’s been a weird 2020 so far in education news. As I’m sure you’ve already heard, President Trump announced that starting now, he’s going to allow students to pray in public schools if they so choose. He’s also going to institute a system whereby religious student organizations can meet on school grounds, as long as schools grant that access equitably to all Christian denominations. He’s calling this policy, “The First Amendment.”

This announcement was met with some bewilderment by the segment of the U.S. population with a basic understanding of government and history, since the President is proudly taking credit for constitutional guidelines which have been more-or-less set in stone since the early 1960s. A few Supreme Court cases have tweaked the details along the way, but at no point in U.S. history have students been forbidden from praying at school.

Nevertheless, students partaking in this year’s “See You At the Pole,” a religious gathering on school grounds which has been occurring annually since the 1990s, will no doubt take a moment to be thankful that they’re now REALLY allowed to pray at the flagpole, as they’ve been doing since the 1990s without interference by local or state authorities. There are also rumors of other organizations sprouting up, perhaps involving students who are already natural leaders in their high schools – maybe some sort of “fellowship” of Christian athletes or whatever. It’s even possible some young people may speak openly of holidays like Christmas or Easter without floggings from their socialist, government-sponsored atheistic teachers who until now have lived only to oppress them for loving Jesus.

Although not addressed specifically in the announcement, students of other faiths will presumably still be expected to quietly take their excused absences on religious holidays and not speak openly of such things. They should stand respectfully and pretend to pray along during student-led school invocations over the intercom at football games, because that’s true religious freedom. Let’s face it – if they didn’t want to pretend to be Christians, they shouldn’t have joined the band or bought a ticket to the game. Don’t come to church if you ain’t gonna pray! (And by “church” we of course mean “public school events.”)

Red Letter Days

All snark aside, those mocking or criticizing the President for once again taking credit for something he had nothing to do with are missing the larger point. Yes, he’s playing on the perpetual fear and insecurity of opulent white evangelicals who essentially run the country socially, politically, and economically, but are nevertheless somehow convinced they are its most persecuted demographic. Yes, he’s taking credit for jurisprudence which has guided church-state policies since before he was faking injuries to avoid military service or founding a political career on his insistence that no black guy could REALLY be American enough to become the President. None of that is new, and thus none of it is news.

What IS news is that THIS President just announced that his administration will be FOLLOWING ESTABLISHED CONSTITUTIONAL LAW in something! Soak in that for a moment. He’s agreeing to follow existing statutes enshrined through longstanding practice.

It’s damn near revolutionary.

Sure, he’s taking credit for them being there in the first place, but who wouldn’t take that trade? Imagine if he were willing to issue similar guidelines regarding, say… the Emoluments Clause? Or the 14^th Amendment? I’d gladly line up to snag one of the 43 souvenir pens used to sign an Executive Order decreeing that all men are henceforth created EQUAL and shall be endowed by their President with certain UNALIENABLE RIGHTS, if that’s what it takes.

And none of it would have been possible if Donald Trump hadn’t single-handedly defeated the British at Yorktown (WITHOUT the help of those stinky French). It’s why he wrote and starred in the original, superior version of Hamilton – the one with an all-white cast and all the best songs. (Who can forget Burr celebrating his murder of Hamilton with the showstopping “Good People on Both Sides”? Doubt me if you wish, but DT has the original Broadway programs with his face on the cover hanging all over his golf course clubhouses to prove it. #fakenews #snowflake #althistory)

More Flies With Honey

The President isn’t the only one breaking old ground recently. A report in the Journal of Educational Psychology offers a stunning revelation:

Students have better focus in class if teachers praise them for being good rather than scolding them for being bad, according to a new study.

Apparently researchers spent three years monitoring over 2,500 little people in 20 different schools in order to arrive at this breakthrough. One can only hope that in another decade or two they’ll discover that students focus better if they’ve had breakfast and that teachers are more effective if they know stuff about their content area and have taken a methods class or two.

Then again, perhaps instead of criticizing these researchers, I should find something about their work to praise and hope it improves their performance…

Always In Motion Is The Future

Someone receiving lots of positive reinforcement recently is Wolf Cukier (a name I couldn’t make up if I tried), a 17-year old high school student who recently did some interning with NASA. Also, he discovered a new planet on his third day there.

“I was looking through the data for everything the volunteers had flagged as an eclipsing binary, a system where two stars circle around each other and from our view eclipse each other every orbit,” Cukier said… “I saw a signal from a system called TOI 1338. At first I thought it was a stellar eclipse, but the timing was wrong.”

Well, yeah – any fool could see that. The only logical explanation for the, um… TIMING issue, was that a planet was causing, you know… the STUFF they were seeing on their THINGS.

And it wasn’t just ANY planet…

NASA’s planet hunter satellite TESS had discovered an exoplanet orbiting two stars instead of one… The announcement of the circumbinary planet prompted comparisons with Luke Skywalker’s home world of Tatooine in the “Star Wars” movie series, with its bewitching double sunsets.

The problem here is obvious. If we’re finding Star Wars planets but setting up a Star Trek-themed “Space Force,” how will the two ever interact? You can’t send Captain Picard to destroy the Death Star – it would violate the Prime Directive. If we insist on maintaining this paradox, we should at least strive for internal extra-terrestrial consistency. Instead of modeling the new Space Force logo after the Federation of Planets, whose entire belief system is antithetical to the deepest convictions of our current ruling class (meaning they’d explode if they came in contact), it should echo something more faithful to actual 21^st century American values:

(If this means nothing to you, ask a friendly nerd.)

In any case, there’s no word yet on whether or not Wolf Cukier will be leaving his studies to pursue his dreams of becoming a Jedi.

The Icing on the Cake

Wolf and any other students receiving enough positive reinforcement to see them through to graduation should be careful about how they celebrate. Cakes using Latin apparently don’t have the same executive protection as students carrying Bibles.

A grocery store in South Carolina censored a graduation cake which was supposed to say, “Congrats Jacob! Summa Cum Laude Class of 2018.” The mother tried to explain that in Latin, the phrase means “with highest distinction,” but the good folks at the grocery store bakery were having none of it. They may have overlooked “cum”-related shenanigans by Quiet Riot and the Cars in the 80s, but fool me THRICE? Shame on you!

Clearly there are still battles to be fought in the ongoing War on Etymology.

A Reason For Setting My Sites…

That’s it for this week. “Share the Love!” Month has officially begun! Let me know what news, blog posts, or other edu-information you think should be shared with the rest of the Eleven Faithful Followers next week. Email your links or posts to BCE@BlueCerealEducation and win an #11FF Lunch Box!