The Diary of a Mad Public School Teacher Read online

  As reported, of the top fourteen cities, public schools with more than 50 percent dropout rate are the following: second, El Paso (88 percent); fourth, Dallas, San Antonio (75 percent); sixth, Houston (72 percent); tenth, Austin (60 percent); and thirteenth, Fort Worth (54 percent) (1996 research).

  It should also be known that the governor of Texas is not like other governors. She/he has no power aside from signing or vetoing bills and nominating people for state boards and commissions.

  The governor doesn’t have a cabinet. He doesn’t write the budget. The governorship is mainly ceremonial. The lieutenant governor presides over the state senate, chairs the board that writes the budget, and is more powerful than the governor, according to Nicholas Lemann of The New Yorker.

  As Begala sums up, “The Texas governor can provide a moral example, and Bush loves to give pious, pontification lectures about just how moral he is. One of W’s favorite applause lines is that he will ‘restore honor and integrity to the Oval Office.’

  “When I first heard it, I figured he was referring to the terrible lack of integrity his father showed by lying to the country about his role in the Iran Contra affair. [sic] But then my Bushie friends told me he was referring to the fact that President Bill Clinton had an affair and lied about it. Now, I think having an [sic] affair and lying about it is wrong. But I also think selling deadly missiles to the Ayatollah and lying about it is wrong.”

  Oh yes, President George W. Bush, our education president. Right. I think I need to take two Extra Strength Tylenol.

  David A. Hancock

  Chester

  Science Teacher Free to Experiment with Ideas

  To the editor:

  I appreciate Steven Goden’s letter (The Sun Press, June 28) that states, “Science teacher fails at logic, open-mindedness [sic].” It definitely stimulated some reflective thinking.

  I will simply say that when it comes to political and educational philosophy, I have a penchant to be ostentatious and pedantic. I think there is no direct correlation between political and scientific thinking (except for politics in education.) [sic]

  I also think that when it comes to science, I do possess logic, reason, and open-mindedness. Just ask any of my five thousand students whom I have attempted to teach and inspire during the past thirty-three years.

  Again, we all have opinions, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with opinionated, biased, demagogic diatribes when it comes to politics, education, and philosophy.

  In response to the comment about Texas governors Ann Richards and Mark White, they had a more cooperative legislature as Democrats than George W. Bush when education reforms were passed and implemented, to the best of my knowledge. If I made a gaffe in facts, I stand corrected.

  If Goden has any doubts about my professional ethics or teaching, he may come and visit anytime.

  David A. Hancock

  Chesterland

  Republicans Prove Point

  Donald Nichols’s “disgusting letter” to the editor responding to David Lange’s “disgusting column” reminds me of John Stuart Mill: “Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people—it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”

  I was going to stop with this quote. However, I thought of Maggie Kuhn’s quote, “Speak your mind even if your voice shakes.”

  Donald Nichols and his servile minions should ruminate on the following to elicit some cognitive dissonance, hopefully.

  Don’t believe everything you think. Question reality. Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Liberals treat dogs like people, while conservatives treat people like dogs. If conservatives are so patriotic, why do they keep sending our jobs overseas?

  I think, therefore I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh. Give Bush an inch, and he thinks he’s a ruler. Somewhere in Texas, there’s a village missing an idiot. Support the troops: impeach Bush. Vote Democratic: The a—— you save may be your own. Eat tainted meat, breathe poison air, drink nasty water, help only yourself: vote Republican. Minimum wage for politicians. Nation of sheep ruled by wolves, owned by pigs. If only closed minds came with closed mouths. The problems we face will not be solved by the minds that created them.

  “Everyone seems to be hacking away at the branches of evil while no one is striking at the roots” (Thoreau).

  “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people” (Admiral Hyman Rickover).

  “Error of opinion may be tolerated, so long as reason is left free to combat it” (Thomas Jefferson).

  OK. So what’s the panacea to our human relationships? Read and think carefully. Are you ready?

  We live in a world of events, and our lives are affected by these events because of the way we see them. This is also true of human beings. People are to us the way we perceive them. Our perceptions are based on qualities that we are not happy with in ourselves—qualities that we use as a means of making a judgment.

  As long as you see someone as a problem, you must remain in these circumstances, so you can be right about him or her. It’s only when you are willing to allow people to be as they see themselves, without your judgment, that you can free yourself from these circumstances.

  Something is missing in today’s dialogue of public policy which tends to escape our logic and reason. Maybe humorist P. J. O’Rourke is trying to tell us in his excellent, insightful libertarian book Parliament of Whores, “that God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.

  “Democrats are also the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work, and then they get elected to prove it.”

  David A. Hancock

  Chester

  Republicans Prove Point!

  Stimulating Reproach

  After a couple of months of travel-leisure and recreational therapy (retirement is nirvana) as well as a respite and sabbatical from letter writing, it’s time to get back to business.

  After some catatonic and didactic musings, I need to respond to Thomas Keck’s June letter, “Haters of President.” I really did get a “Keck” (equivoque intended) out of his perspicacious perceptions. Let’s face it—we all talk and write about nouns such as people (small minds); places, things, and events (average minds); and ideas (great minds) in regard to Admiral Rickover’s quote “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”

  He then says that he hopes that I do not go off the deep end like my fellow colleague and friend of Patriots for Change, Elliott Berenson. I’ll just leave this nonsensical nonsense at that.

  Maybe most of us are educated beyond our intelligence. For enlightenment, read any of Howard Gardner’s books on intelligence, especially Five Minds for the Future.

  However, Mr. Keck is on target with “Nepotism at Kenston.” I personally observed the “miscreants of the corporate oligarchy” (a.k.a. board of education) choose this behavior several times during my thirty-five-year tenure as a public school teacher.

  Kenston School District proves the wit and wisdom of the literary legend Mark Twain when he said, “In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”

  Enough said. Except for this, I’ve always enjoyed reproachfulness directed toward me since kindergarten. It stimulates my endorphins and neurotransmitters.

  David A. Hancock

  Chester

  Medicate to Educate

  The perceptive and accurate observations by Susanne M. Alexander—Letter to the Editor (PD 5-25-00)—“Why are There so Many Hyperactive Diagnoses?” in reference to overprescribing Ritalin and forcing children into structured, inflexible schoo
l environments and crowded day care centers is right on target about finding creative alternatives to medication.

  There seems to be a positive correlation among drugs, behavior, and violence in public schools. All the recent instances of school violence has taken place in public schools—not private schools. I wonder why? Very simple: public schools reflect society—private schools reflect selection, segregation in general, and isolation from the real world as well as a very different school climate in terms of student behavior, motivation, attitudes, and academic achievement.

  There is an immense difference in what is and what is not tolerated in a public school and what is and what is not tolerated in a private school.

  The children who “needed Ritalin” (which disrupts growth hormone production, impairs mental function, and does not improve learning and achievement—just what adolescents need!) in order to control behavior and make them obedient, conforming, and quiet in the public school classroom usually do fine in private school. There is substantial evidence that many classes of psychiatric drugs can cause or exacerbate depression, suicide, paranoia, and violence. Ritalin and the amphetamines (stimulants) are very similar to cocaine in terms of how they affect brain chemistry and function. Eric Harris was taking Luvox (antidepressant prescribed for obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is in the same class as Prozac) at the time he committed ten murders at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on 4-20-99. It has been recommended that maintaining patience, tolerance, and guidance with children who underachieve is a far more positive action than medicating them.

  According to Peter Breggin, psychiatrist, in his books Toxic Psychiatry and Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications, many psychiatric drugs often cause the very problems they are supposed to correct. All this talk about biochemical imbalance is pure guesswork. Research in no way bolsters the idea that psychiatric drugs correct imbalances. Psychiatric drugs are spreading an epidemic of permanent brain damage. Someone once asked, “What’s the difference between an adult and a child? The adult is on Prozac, and the child is on Ritalin.”

  David A. Hancock

  Chesterland

  Brain Drugs Hazardous

  I would like to strongly encourage everyone to read Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Health by William Glasser, MD, a psychiatrist who has never prescribed a psychotropic drug.

  Dr. Glasser, the father of reality therapy, maintains that when we are diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder, such as depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disease, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, and treated with brain drugs, we become one of the millions of geese who lay golden eggs for the multibillion-dollar brain-drug industry. There are big bucks in brain drugs.

  “This industry, which masquerades as mental health’s best friend, generously funds a variety of groups and activities that promote mental illness and brain drugs. Examples of this funding are lucrative research grants to psychiatrists who can come up with supportive research, plus psychiatric conferences; liberal grants to mental-health associations that vigorously support mental illness and brain drugs; large grants to patient-advocacy groups that do the same; and millions of dollars to fund high-powered public-relations firms to promote the ‘new drugs’ to cure ‘mental illness’ and to persuade the media to report these cures.

  “The last thing the psychiatric establishment and the drug companies want is for you to get the idea that you can improve your own mental health or help your loved ones to improve theirs at no cost to yourself.

  “We are led to believe that if we have psychological problems, we are ill; all we need to get our mental health back is a pill. There is a further price we risk when we take strong brain drugs; many of them harm the brain and cause real mental illness.”

  As Thomas Szasz, author of The Myth of Mental Illness, says, “Giving oneself an addictive drug is a crime; receiving it from a government agent called an ‘addiction specialist’ is a treatment.

  “If a person ingests a drug prohibited by legislators and claims that it makes him feel better, that proves that he is an addict. If he ingests a drug prescribed by psychiatrists and claims that it makes him feel better, that proves that mental illness is a biomedical disease.”

  David A. Hancock

  Chester

  Teachers Can’t Educate Kids Who Refuse to Learn

  To the editor:

  Let me save the central office administration some time dreaming up a teacher evaluation form that links teacher instruction to student performance/achievement.

  As a public school teacher for the past thirty years, I can say without a doubt that teaching is a hard job (and rewarding) when students make an effort to learn. When they make no effort, it is an impossible one. Despite our hard work, we are confronted daily with increasing numbers of students who are difficult to manage, and even with our best intentions, we are able to do little more than serve as custodians.

  However, there is still employment in the United States for the 60 percent who do not learn in school. In fact, low-paying service jobs are proliferating at a much higher rate than high-paying jobs that require an education. Therefore, we are not “a nation at risk” as predicted in 1984.

  Let us do the same for doctors that the central office administration of the Cleveland Public Schools wants to do with the teachers and link doctors’ pay (evaluation) with the health of the patient (even though the patient has or continues to practice unhealthy behaviors).

  Past Superintendent James Penning of the Cleveland Public Schools was right when he said that teachers should not be penalized for factors they cannot control, such as student attendance. What about student motivation and attitudes?

  Oh well, I hope that all my students have high intrinsic motivation and good attitudes. If they don’t, I can have a sanguine feeling that I am not to blame.

  David A. Hancock

  Hancock is a nature studies / science teacher at Heights High School.

  Improving Instruction Isn’t Enough

  In the Plain Dealer editorial, “The Quest for the Test” (in reference to Ohio’s high school proficiency tests), the following statement was made: “But the testing, and the public humiliation and attention it brings, should be powerful incentives for improving instruction.”

  It has been my experience during the past twenty-four years that improving instruction does not improve academic achievement just like improving medical school instruction does not improve a person’s own health.

  Educational reform in terms of outcome-based education works. Many educators have been teaching problem-solving, critical thinking, and cooperative learning for years. We are getting away from memorization (the lowest level of learning) and stressing comprehension, application, analysis, and evaluation.

  Learning boils down to what William Glasser, MD, author of The Quality School, once said, “We learn 10% of what we read [for the first time], 50% of what we both see and hear, 70% of what is discussed with others, 80% of what we experience personally, and 95% of what we teach to someone else.”*

  David A. Hancock

  Chesterland

  Students Need More Than Miracles

  Superintendent Richard Boyd, with a halo of “ivory tower” philosophy, challenged 115 new teachers to educate students without always having the supplies, equipment, and technology. Boyd is sounding like a great majority of superintendents who have not taught living students in a classroom for decades or maybe have never been classroom teachers.

  I would love to hear a corporate CEO, hospital administrator, etc., say to his or her staff, “Just do your work, provide quality service and care, etc., without adequate supplies.”

  Here we go again. When all is said and done, more is said than done, adding excess carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. (Global warming!)

  Patricia Smith (the Dick Feagler of the Boston Globe) said, “It really does
not matter who the superintendent is—it could be Barney the Dinosaur.”

  What does matter are the attitudes of the human beings inside the school building, support services, and the physical environment.

  Boyd also said that kids will give you what you expect. “If you expect little, they are going to give you a little; if you expect a lot, they will give you a lot.”

  This is somewhat true for the majority. However, in my twenty-seven years of public classroom teaching experience, it has been my observation that there is no teacher, no matter how skilled, who can teach a student who is apathetic, shows indifference, or simply refuses to learn. And we are getting more and more of these students in public school. Then society blames the system for not producing intellectual scholars. We need to remember that we are not dealing with assembly-line, factory-model products. We are dealing with living human beings (even though it may seem like the living dead for some) to develop their minds for the benefit of society. It has been said that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

  All humans need to remember the famous ten two-letter words: “If it is to be, it is up to me.”

  David A. Hancock

  Chesterland

  Opposite of Progress

  Let’s keep it laconic! Or should we say pithy? In reference to our immigration imbroglio, debacle, or quagmire that seems to be insidious, harrowing, and discombobulating with prevaricating and obfuscating canards, the statement below simply reflects the following:

  “What is the opposite of progress? Congress! Welcome to the United States of Mexico.” And—“mission accomplished!” As Gary Larson, artist of The Far Side cartoon, said, “Adios Amebas.” (Amigos) handwritten note

  David A. Hancock