And what happened then?
I live by myself, mostly, by choice. I know I talk all the time about the weird things that happen on dating sites and how women seem to be “after the bad boys”, so I am glad not to play that part; however, while being true, it doesn’t explain it all.
We live in a fairly cruel society. This isn’t a piece on the paparazzi or rumors particularly. It’s an article about me, how I feel, and how society has influenced the ways I choose to be.
I spend a lot of mornings now, since my stroke and loss of my teaching job, browsing the net for news items. News has never been something I have enjoyed until recently. Now, I check email, check my blog, then when I am bringing up my Xfinity email, I am presented with a few articles and incentives to read them. Those lead to others and, often, it is several hours before I look up and realize the day is half-gone and I have been perusing the net for news.
I have many times also simply done a “Google” on a word or phrase and bounced around from there. I can go from reading about bagels to which government agency may be influencing my television preferences by winter. It is not without a pattern; however, that pattern changes almost daily.
All of the previous info was to bring you to an understanding of what I read today and its influence. I began with a few cute short articles, saw one on governmental security, and headed into seniors buying cars and how we change oil too often.
Then, I started reading the meatier articles. I read Edward Snowden and the NSA:
While this didn’t particularly surprise me, I was surprised that they could even know this well enough to write the article. We either have a very smart government who only lets us know what they want us to pick on or … well…you get the idea.
From that, I saw an article on Fibromyalgia:
I watched this because one of my close relatives suffers from this syndrome and I wanted to understand it better, especially since I have chronic pain now, too.
I watched the video, and then chose another when that one was done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfu7SDCrLrg&feature=player_embedded#t=1s (language!)
This woman was angry at the medical field (especially) for not understanding her fibromyalgia and the intensity of the pain and what it could do. She was very angry that she was treated often with indifference or even ignored at times. At least, you KNEW, she was ANGRY!
After that, I studied an article about a new book on desire:
And then, I read about Kate Winslet and the fathers of her three children:
Finally, that led me back to an article about a high school running coach who was let go because he touched a student inappropriately:
The article was well done and from a young woman, I believe, in her late 20s who was on that team and was still feeling a bit responsible that the coach didn’t serve time, or, at least, was still a coach somewhere.
This is where I stopped. Having taught middle school special needs for almost 5 years before my stroke and going back almost for 1 year afterwards, school things interest me. This one hit home for a variety of reasons, one of those being fear. Yeah, fear. Any male teacher in today’s school that is not, at least, a little afraid of his female students, I think, is off a bit, if not his students, then their parents. We are a “fire-happy” education system today and that should worry a lot of us. I have read so much about the problems of engaging students, widening your coverage of testable materials, and all that other study stuff that, often, it seems to me we aren’t told much about the problems of being in a classroom of 12-16 year olds.
I am not trying to take away from the young lady in the last article I mentioned. There are, I am sure, a lot of teachers and coaches who do things horribly wrong to the students entrusted by parents into their care. It’s very hard to blame the school (though they do) when a background check may show nothing about how that person was treated as a child or how they have treated their own children. It is difficult to believe some of it because it seems so widespread a problem. However, it also seems a problem because the nature of the beast is that many teachers are with students of the opposite sex who are just beginning to get into sexuality.
One of the scariest things I ever read was not a horror story (I like those). No, it was a part of a book on special needs children and they were talking about just children. I don’t remember the name of the book, but the idea was that most children in the 11-15 age groups (close to that) have very active imaginations and CANNOT distinguish between reality and their own imagination decisions many times.
Does that not scare you? Doesn’t the idea that a child could have an idea about you that has no validity in reality, but that they have imagined it and so TRULY BELIEVE it to be so, scare you? I always treated my students with respect. I always believed them until there was sufficient reason to disbelieve them. I was also a good judge of the truth. But, if a student truly believes some story they have imagined, how am I supposed to judge that? If they believe, they will tell it as the truth and it should sound like the truth. Oh, I know that there have been times when it was so ridiculous because of what I knew happened that I could tell, but still…
This is what held my attention today. This is what I decided to allow myself to dwell upon so that I could pass it on to you. I fully found myself believing this young lady who said her teammate had been touched by her coach. Now, the tape recording would have been (and was) a big factor in that belief, but the truth is most school administrations are scared enough of being closed down or, at least, sued that they have elected to, often, overreact to students’ accusations of molestation. This is an opinion, I know. And, it may have little real-life bearing. However, it is a thought. It is and should be something that is, at least, taken into consideration when a person’s career and often life (as defined by years in jail) is hanging in the balance.
Yeah, I know, just an older guy who used to teach and is now at home with time to think on these things. I understand how you might just drop this whole idea and shake your head going, “Scott, you have lost it, Buddy.” Maybe, but it is a pressure that teachers (all, but mostly male) have to live with. It’s something not covered in pay nor in retirement benefits.
I had you do a poll at the very beginning of this article. Now, that you have read it, has it influenced the way you voted? Why or why not?
To those of you who worry, but are not part of the problem, I commend you for teaching under pressure. For those of you who are a part, I hope Karma exists…
Namaste,
Scott
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