Lifestyle?

I have several thoughts to get off my chest.

I read a comment today that expressed one's anger that "idiots" like me are zombies as a result of this "entertainment age" and confuse gay marriage as a civil right when it is really a lifestyle choice, not a right.

I took exception to this and replied directly. This post is not an attempt to run away and hide expressing my disgust amongst a safe, agreeable audience. I opened myself up for the inevitable backlash by publicly addressing his opinion with my counter.

I get easily irritated by the tired, worn out and short sighted opinions of people like this that seem to think gays and lesbians choose to be gay like one chooses to follow sports or a particular genre of music or career field.

I realize I am not gay. Therefore, my opinion is just that. Those who oppose my view can then question the validity of what I write. But I know, love and associate with enough people who are homosexual to have an educated point of view on this topic.

In addition, I have a line of logic that I believe is strong enough to support my stance regardless of my knowledge or lack thereof in terms of one's motivation or cause of being homosexual.

Let me start with this for an attempt at a point of comparison. I hear a good bit about how it is hard to be Christian these days. From what I understand, it is because it seems as though the majority of our generation questions Christianity. It is very trendy for people my age (although not as trendy as tattoos) to claim they are "spiritual" and not "religious." Religion is poo-pooed on. Christianity seems to be the biggest target.

I agree. That is difficult. It gets old to constantly defend your belief system and something you hold dear. Constantly having to defend your religious theology can feel as though you are being persecuted.

But nobody is dying on a cross here. It is not illegal to worship. Nobody in government is threatening to take your rights. Despite people trying to keep religion out of government decisions, it is not the same as taking your right to worship.

It is separation, not elimination.

How does this relate to my issue that homosexuality is not a lifestyle choice? Stay with me.

Gays are unable to "marry." Bullies feast on kids that are gay or even slightly resembling the mannerisms of someone who is gay. "Gay" is a common insult. Many times you read horrid stories of kids or even adults getting beaten because of their homosexuality.

Christians marry. It is called a wedding.

You never hear someone verbally assault another by calling them a "christian!"

Bullies will beat on anyone. I recall hearing "Jesus boy" numerous times when people found out I transferred from a Catholic school to a public high school, but that was never difficult to shake off. It never persisted like some of the abuse I witnessed others deal with that were mistakenly perceived as gay or, in some cases, accurately.

Most of the ridicule I am speaking of is the the type that permeates through our normal conversations or opinions though. For instance, the common use of "faggot" or "that is so gay" even when not directed to someone who is gay.

When I compare the two, I would say it is MUCH harder being homosexual than Christian. It is inconvenient being openly Christian when you hear people's snobby attitude towards your theology. Whereas it is straight up painful to be gay.

Your religion is ultimately your choice. You may be born into it, but you can choose to leave Christianity.

I did.

But I can't stop being straight. I can't make myself not attracted to women. I'm sorry. It is how the equipment works.

The same goes for being gay. You can fight it all you want. I know some who have. They fought it for decades. They tried very hard to force themselves to be straight and conform. The truth will ultimately win. It shall set you free I guess.

Again, why would anyone choose to deal with this ridicule and internal struggle? Why would you choose to be an outcast? Why would you choose to live a "lifestyle," as some call it, in which your rights are limited unless this is a trait in which you have no choice?

There is nothing "cool" or attractive about it, contrary to the belief of those ignorant people who think gays feel like there is.

Assuming being Christian is so difficult, being gay is much more difficult. So why would one want to work so hard to live this "lifestyle" if this wasn't who they were naturally?

Too many people get caught up in the extreme, wild depiction of gays that the mainstream media loves to parade in front of us and don't realize that the vast majority are common, everyday people.

This creates an idea that gay marriages are going to be flamboyantly dressed men with dildos and other provocative items all over the place screaming in high pitched lisps flaunting themselves in every one's face. While I support these people's rights to join in union as well, this is not what gay marriage is about.

Not to me.

It IS a civil right. These people DO have a right to share the privileges others do in union. We are not talking about marrying animals or children who are unable to conceptualize this yet developmentally. This is two consenting adults.

They deserve the CIVIL RIGHT to join in union legally. Period. Point blank.

Get over it.

I bet in less than a decade most people won't even think about it and wonder why we made such a big deal about it in the first place.

Merit Pay Is A Fraud!

Here in Ohio there is a good bit of political chatter regarding teacher pay and how it is playing a significant role in the economic problems of the state.

John Kasich, the governor, along with others believe that the current system of paying teachers based on tenure is out of date and also contributing to the overall "failure" of our public schools.

There are valid points being made from this camp. Many times their concerns or ideas are logical.

How is a teacher motivated to improve themselves or work hard if they are ensured to get a raise every year or three years or whatever the steps dictate within their district's salary schedule? If their pay was based on performance, they would work more and work harder to earn more pay.

Money rules after all.

There are a number of failing schools and plenty of statistics to show our students are not performing as well as those in other countries. This does not bode well for the future.

Naturally, the blame then should fall on the people responsible for our students' education: the teachers. Teachers are the front line.

But there are good teachers out there. We all hear the stories and have had experiences with the good ones. So these teachers deserve to be paid well. It is the bad teachers that should be paid less or leave teaching all together. It is necessary to improve the public schools where it counts.

Therefore, merit pay has been introduced where teachers are not paid on experience but on some scale that is determined by their quality.

Sounds great. Sounds fair. Sounds logical.

If this was business.

The question is: how is merit determined?

The answer up to now has been: state standardized test scores.

Instead of whining and complaining and ranting on and on about how education is not business and cannot be measured the same way, I will provide an example to demonstrate my point that merit pay based on test scores is unreliable and invalid. Ultimately, it is unfair.

I have been teaching for 13 years. When I started the test scores were absolutely awful with 10%-20% of our grade levels passing.

Over the following decade, our scores increased. But they did not increase at the pace the federal government required according to No Child Left Behind. So our school was labeled as a poor school like most urban schools.

This past year I have taught at a different school with a better history of test score performance. Here 70%-80% of our students are passing the test.

My personal numbers have consistently been comparable to the school in general where I teach. So at my old school, my numbers were low. Now, my numbers are much higher.

I am the same teacher. I have taught much the same way at the new school as I have at the old school.

Obviously, you never teach the same way year to year exactly. There are always adjustments from one year to the next as you try to improve your weaknesses and teach to your strengths. Every class presents different challenges and needs and reacts in different ways. Therefore, you never teach the same way. Even within a school year you will find yourself changing how you do things.

Despite these adjustments, I am the same teacher. I am more comfortable teaching math than reading. I have more success using cooperative learning groups. I have good one one relationships with many of my students. I can relate to my students well. I use these things to my advantage every year.

But my test scores are drastically different from one school to another.

So merit pay would be determined less by what I do and how I do it and more by the location in which I teach.

There are teachers teaching in low performing schools that are just as good and working just as hard (usually harder) as teachers in high performing schools.

This is just the beginning of this argument. We also need to examine how this reality will not attract good teachers but push them away. If improving our public schools is truly our goal, than merit pay can not be part of it if test scores are the tool we use to measure this merit.

Teachers are critical components of education. I do not argue this one bit. We need to do our part to perform better. Ineffective teachers need to leave the profession or improve.

But we are not effectively attacking the public school problem by keeping the focus solely on teachers when the real reasons run much deeper and outside the walls of the schools themselves.

Merit pay is only valid if there are enough factors determining the merit because there are so many factors determining the effectiveness of a school.

Stories from Room 5

Teaching provides me with a wealth of experiences I could blog about. Unfortunately, I have not taken advantage of it. Every class I have ever taught has had its share of stories and funny, heart warming, thought provoking, scary or sad moments.

This year in particular has been a ton of fun. I look back now and regret missing the opportunity to share the lessons I learned and situations I lived through.

But I have two anecdotes that popped in my head that I think you would find interesting.

First, we had a student this year who introduced the class to the term, "salty." I have heard it before and in somewhat different contexts or uses, but these guys were apparently hearing it for the first time and it quickly became a room five catch phrase.

At its first inception, it was used in an effort to taunt. Seeing this I figured I had three choices as to how I would go about handling it. No way was I going to allow mean spirited taunting in my room. I especially wasn't going to allow this to creep in and disintegrate the positive vibe I had established and we all worked so hard to maintain.

Option one was to address it to the whole class and use it as a teachable moment regarding taunting and bullying and handling oneself with class and humility.

Option two was to pull the student aside and address the issue with him privately warning him and setting the coming discipline should he decide to continue the behavior and then go from there.

Option three, a bit more unconventional but appropriate in my mind due to the relationship I had with the class and knowing their personalities, was to turn it around on our good friend who introduced this term to us and make it a joke.

I chose option three. Instead of empowering him with a tool to anger other students, create attention towards himself and give him control of the word, I used it back at him. I knew he would roll with it because I knew him. Despite his questionable behavior outside the classroom, he kept himself out of trouble in the classroom and he had a great sense of humor and could take a joke with you. So I knew he would handle better than other, more sensitive students.

As I expected, he loved it and soon he and I would go back and forth with this term. I would purposely challenge him within our lessons and when he was correct, I got "saltied" myself.

I can take a joke too.

Meanwhile, rather than daydream or cause trouble, he was more motivated to pay attention in class and be ready to "get me."

Win: Mr. Huey.

So the class then joined in. At first I was worried this would take a life of its own, but other than a moment here or there, the class as a whole did not become consumed with it and its humor separate from the lessons.

Now that the whole class would use it and was able to handle it, the taunting aspect was diminished. The power of the word was neutered. And I did have that discussion about how we were not going to use it to taunt or make each other feel bad. We were only going to use it playfully. I led by example dishing it and taking it.

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The beauty of this class was that they presented great challenges for me. They were using what we were learning and taking it to the next level.

When we covered fractions, decimals and percents in math, they were amazed at how I could take almost any fraction with numerators and denominators under 100 and find its percent equivalent in my head to the hundredths place. They would do it on paper and try to beat me. We did this earlier in the year with large multiplication problems.

Anytime they beat me, (they on paper, me in my head) I was showered with "SALTY!" I smiled and played along. I beat them and showered them right back and they loved it.

In reading, I could hear them in groups proving answers by finding support in the text or looking various reference books to prove their accuracy.

It opened the door to debates regarding some hot topic issues allowing me to introduce how many times problems or disagreements don't have black and white answers that we can "salty" someone with. Many times, we have to deal with gray areas. And many times we don't have an answer but only a guess....just a better supported guess than another. So you have to do your homework to have the best support.

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This leads me to another cute story.

One of these moments of challenge they were so sure they were correct that they said I had to give them each a Jolly Rancher when they proved me wrong. I, in turn, said they all had to get me a 3 Musketeer bar when I proved them wrong.

No way was I going to hold them to that but I played along for the fun of the moment. I would have paid up though if I was wrong. Jolly Ranchers are the prize of choice of the class as a reward. I had a whole bag of them available at moments notice.

But I don't make bets with students. I motivate them.

Well at the end of the year, one of my two girls in the whole class shows up in the morning with a grocery bag. With a big smile she says, "For you Mr. Huey."

When I opened it, there was a bag of mini 3 Musketeers bars and a homemade card decorated in markers wishing me a "Happy Summer." Inside was a nice note about how much she enjoyed this year and how appreciative she was of my teaching.

What makes this the most meaningful is how the school year began for her. She started the year fresh from her home country learning English on the fly with a family doing the same. She was the ONLY girl in the class until late September. She was one of the younger students in the class.

It was an overwhelming start in an overwhelming situation for her and she would come home crying every night. But she showed up every morning, worked hard and never complained.

The progress she demonstrated was phenomenal. She did an amazing job and adjusted better than I think I ever would have. I would have wanted to quit countless times had I been in her shoes. Maybe she wanted to as well, but quit was something she did not do.

Seeing that letter and reading that she enjoyed the year was a very, very cool thing to see. I get to teach her again next year and I am eager to see how much more she grows now that she can start the year without having to make that same major adjustment as she did this year.

It is one of those things that makes teaching a wonderful profession despite the pay and amid all the political firestorms and negative banter about us.

You can't put that in a one word adjective to describe teaching. It goes deeper.

It is one of the many "stories from room 5" that I was able to enjoy this year.