Gunmen Shoot Blanks at Teachers

I came across this story this morning on Twitter. During a meeting at a school in Oregon, two masked gunmen entered the room and started firing blanks at the teachers. The teachers had no warning. No students were in the building during the time. The drill was supposed to see how the teachers would react if a real gunman showed up. According to the principal after this drill, the teachers "failed." Only two teachers would have survived if it had been a real shooting.

I see four problems with this situation (not even mentioning the other two situations mentioned in the article during which students were present).

1. It breaks the trust that teachers have with the administration. As a teacher, after having gone through something like this that my administration has orchestrated as a "drill," how am I supposed to trust my administration ever again? The next time "Code Red" or whatever the code is came over the speaker, even if I was teaching and we followed protocol and got the kids to where they were supposed to be, there would be some part of my brain that would absolutely not take it seriously because I might think that it's just the administration again. I feel like that's detrimental: I wouldn't be trying as hard to keep my kids safe if a gunman came to my room because, while I would be scared, some part of me would think it was "just a drill."

2. It wastes money. Schools have zero money right now. I don't know how much it costs to get two guys (or gals) to dress up as gunman and get guns and shoot blanks for a while, but that is an unnecessary cost. When I was in school we had drills in which the code word was said over the loudspeaker. We would do what we were supposed to do and then after a few minutes, we got the all-clear. That cost no money.

3. It could potentially harm someone. I understand that some experts say that you don't really know how you'll respond to a high stress situation until you're in it. But this seems a tiny bit overdone. If I was a teacher at that school, I would quit. I don't do stress well and I would have easily gone into shock if I had been there. I would have nightmares for weeks. Does the school cover the cost of therapy for their teachers after it puts them through something like that? Does the school cover the cost of an injury that a teacher could sustain if they're trying to get away during the drill (e.g. broken wrist, broken ankle, etc.)? If a school really has the best interest of the teachers at heart, it probably shouldn't put its teachers in potentially harmful situations.

4. If we live in fear, terrorists win. To me this drill seems insanely fear-driven. If I was a teacher at that school (and didn't quit after this) I would be scared all the time. The repeated mantra after the September 11th and the Boston bombings was, "We will not live in fear, or the terrorists will win." But having masked men "shooting" up a staff meeting generates fear! Any time I was in my classroom after that and I heard a quick footstep in the hall, I would tell my kids to get down. Any time someone moved too quickly in my peripheral vision, I would jump. Any time anything weird happened, I would freak out. And the terrorists would win, because we would be living in fear.

We can do better than this. If a principal wants to see how their staff reacts during a crisis, do drills. Change the drills up. Do them during class changes. Do them during lunch. Do them during different classes. But bringing gunmen, even fake gunmen, into a school is not acceptable.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

Teachers: Is Your Personal Life Really Yours?

Sarah Jones, teacher and cheerleader.

Yesterday's abysmal court ruling that gave the BenGal dancer/teacher Sarah Jones only 5 years probation after she had sex with a student made me think about what teachers are allowed to do outside of school. I thought about it and came to a couple conclusions:
1. I would have felt incredibly uncomfortable if I had a teacher in high school who was a cheerleader/dancer on the nights and weekends. I would have felt like she was a role model for me; someone put there by the school board to show me a good example of an adult. There definitely would have been a huge influence on my dressing and actions if I had known she was a dancer, because I would see showing 90% of my body and shaking my boobs and butt to thousands of people both at home and on national television as an acceptable thing to do. "If my teacher can do it, why can't I?" would have been a pretty logical leap for a teenage mind.
2. If I had a child who had a cheerleader/dancer as a teacher, I would be very upset. If I ever have a child, male or female, who has a teacher who moonlights as a slutty dancer in clothing the size of a postage stamp, I would question the school board's decision of hiring her.

In Kentucky, according to KRS 161.164, teachers are not allowed to be part of political campaigns because they don't want the teachers using their authoritative positions to influence students. I spent two hours this morning looking for where the KRS laws mention stripping or dancing while being a teacher and they don't exist, as far as I've found. So, the state doesn't want teachers influencing their students (most of whom cannot vote) politically, but it's fine to influence the students' (most of whom in middle and high school are starting to experiment with sex) sexual behavior . I really disagree with this.

I looked at three Kentucky county teacher contracts this morning: Jefferson, Boone, and Kenton. In all of them, there was some version of this sentence: "The private life of a teacher is not the concern of the School Board unless it affect's the teachers responsibility as set forth in KRS 161.120." In Section 1, Part c of this statute, it says, "Committing any act that constitutes...immoral conduct." Who decides "immoral"? I think dancing/cheering in extraordinarily revealing clothing on weekends is immoral. But obviously, the Board doesn't agree with that, because Sarah Jones was a teacher while she was a cheerleader.

Teachers have long been regarded as pillars of the community. I am a third generation teacher in my family and in my immediate family alone, there are 5 teachers. I see education and teaching as the noblest of professions because there would be no leaders, no engineers, no doctors, no lawyers, nothing, without teachers. It is my opinion that we need to restore the integrity to the teaching profession. Just like a politician's life is not their own (see Bill Clinton or anyone else who has done something in their personal life and gotten destroyed for it), neither is a teacher's life. When you enter the teaching profession, you become a role model for thousands of students. You are teaching the next generation about values, about academia, about social relations, and everything else. Overall, teachers see students more than parents do during the school year. I absolutely do not feel comfortable entrusting my children to people who sell their bodies on weekends (yes, nothing physical is happening, but you're baring your body to the world for entertainment). I don't care if it's "dancing" and some people consider it "athletic" and "not sexual" as I know some of you will respond. It is highly inappropriate for our students to be exposed to that mentality in a public school.

For the record, for those of you who know me and remember that I was a ballroom dancer for a few years and wore incredibly revealing costumes, I would not continue that sport as a teacher. I think that, too, is excessively revealing and too sexual to participate in publicly in competitions on my weekends as a teacher. I know that this is an amazingly conservative view, but the reason I have this opinion is that our children are exposed to so much sexual media all the time outside of school that I feel like school should be one place that is safe from that. Girls especially are so influenced by sex, "being sexy," and working to "look good." School should be a place for academia and not sex or having sex-related distractions, such as an entire class knowing their teacher bares (almost) all every weekend in front of a 50,000 person stadium.

Kids are impressionable. Let's work on giving them good impressions.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

Professional Athletes' Salaries: Too Much?

Professional football is finally back! I am a huge football fan (Go Patriots!) and the offseason feels so long! The US Tennis Open has also been going on for the last couple weeks (Congrats to Serena Williams who won yesterday! Murray v. Djokovic today! Wish Federer was in the final!) and Rory McIlroy just won another PGA Tour event yesterday. Great couple of weeks in sports!

Before you read the rest of this I would like to make it very clear that this is just an observation, I love sports, and I am not disrespecting any of the players I am about to mention.

Have you ever thought about how many millions of dollars professional athletes make?! It's amazing. Let's start with some of the lower paid professional athletes:

• Rory McIlroy won $1.44M yesterday in the BMW Championship on the PGA Tour. The total purse for the BMW Championship was $8,000,000.
• Yesterday Serena got $1.9M for her US Open win. Today the winner of the men's final will receive the same amount. *Quick Side Note: How awesome is it that men and women get the same amount of prize money in the the Grand Slam events?! The Open will have spent $24,054,000 on prize money this year. The Grand Slam events actually are on the lower end of the USTA and WTA tournaments when it comes to prize money. Players are working to raise the purses at Slams so they will be "in closer line with their own tour events in terms of the percentage of prize money."

Those are the sports with athletes who are paid on the low end of the scale when it comes to professional athletes. In the NFL, it's another story. 

• The highest paid athlete in the NFL is Peyton Manning, making $18M this year and having a $96M contract for the next five years. To put that in perspective with another athlete in a different sport, this year Manning will be paid three times the amount Serena Williams has made this year. He will have made 3/4 of the amount of the entire purse of the US Open. To put it in perspective with the rest of the country (median income is currently about $51,000), Manning will make about 350 times the amount of the average worker this year. WHAT?! There is no possible way I can comprehend that amount. Wow.
• My favorite player, Tom Brady, is going to make almost $8M this year (about 150 times the amount of the U.S. median income). His contract through 2014 will end up making him $78,000,000. Again, wow.

These guys and gals play sports. And they are paid amazing amounts of money. While I know that they are paid by the teams (which are private organizations, so it is not our tax dollars or anything paying these players), sports bring a lot of money into cities that have pro teams, and sports are highly valued in our society, the sheer volume of these figures is staggering to me. The fact that these players feel like they deserve these kinds of salaries makes me a little nauseated. 

Wes Welker is a prime example of a player I love who was in contract negotiations this summer who, frankly, disgusted me. He wanted $11.42M this year with a long-term contract because he felt he was worth that much to the Patriots organization. He is now on a one year contract, making about $9.5M this year, and I'm pretty sure that yesterday in the season opener he got a total of 14 yards (fourteen?!?!! Is this a high school stat???) and let a perfect pass bounce off his helmet.

So. It's crazy! I know that a lot of players have their own charities that they've started and they do good in their communities, so that's really great! It just seems like our society values athletes much more than police officers, teachers, and firefighters. I feel like I'm going to get a lot of crap for that comment, but if I'm wrong, then why don't we pay the men and women who keep us safe, educate our children, and rescue our families more money? Should we pay more taxes so we can pay our public servants more? Is privatizing law enforcement and education the answer? I don't know, but just by looking at the figures, I feel like I can say our priorities might be a little mixed up.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi