What is a Whamster?

My first year as a librarian, my assistant left less than halfway through first semester with a torn rotator cuff in her shoulder. I was by myself in a midsized middle school and I’d never been in a middle school before. I also had never been a librarian before. I was pretty clueless myself and needing help to do heavy lifting, massive shelving, gathering textbooks. I was learning everything from scratch and generally making it up as I went along. In that fashion, I muddled through fairly well (although some teachers who remember that first year might have a different opinion) until late April. Then it was time for textbooks to be returned. Okay, this was a huge hairy bearish deal. I had to pick up the textbooks from all the teachers, get the textbooks checked in, and, worst of all, get all those books down three flights of stairs to the “dungeon” — our basement textbook storage room. Also, the whole time this was to take place, I still had classes coming in to check out books and do year end research projects. I had NO ideas on how to get it all done alone.

That was about the time a young boy named Tim and a young girl named Summer showed up in the library bored, finished with a test one day, and wanting to help me. They were regulars in the library already and I knew them to be pretty reliable, so I gladly accepted their offer. The rest became the stuff of legends and spawned a continuing tradition. Every spare minute they could find or weasel out of their teachers, they spent in the library helping me. The two of them worked harder than a couple of galley slaves from that scene in “Ben Hur.” I never could possibly have imagined two eighth graders could do all that they did, lots of times without me directly supervising. Still, even though I wasn’t always right over their shoulders, the two of them didn’t mess up a book the first time. They got all sixty-three blue gagillion textbooks checked in, CLEANED out (I didn’t even ask them to do that), sorted, ordered, and put away in the Dungeon in two short weeks. In all that time and during all those unsupervised trips, I never once had a teacher complain to me about their behavior.

Well, while they were schlepping carts up and down the halls and toting stacks of books up and down steps, they got noticed a good bit. I called them my library helpers, but one of my ELA Goddesses (we had an all female ELA faculty that year) started calling the two of them “Mr. Wham’s Whamsters” and the name just stuck. They also helped me do inventory and get the shelves straightened up for the next year. Unfortunately, they both were eighth graders, so I lost them after one year. I missed the two of them mightily . . . still do. Tim used to stop by on his bike every now and then to check in a load of books “just for old times’ sake” but then he discovered all young mens’ first love — a car — and I don’t see him so much anymore.

Luckily, the next year, I got Chris as my assistant and Lord knows he was (and is) amazing to say the least. Still, we discovered that textbooks were still a bear for just two people. Then, a few students showed up and just like Tim and Summer, they threw in to help out at a time when I really needed help. I called them “My Whamsters” whenever I sent an email about getting books back and once again, they did yeoman’s work getting the textbooks back and put to bed for the summer.

So a Whamster is someone who has helped me in the library, not as a library helper or as part of a class, but out of the kindness of their hearts and a desire to do something for someone else. I’ve had many Whamsters over the years and I couldn’t get all the things I need done if I didn’t have them. They’ve always shown up, just in time, when the work needed doing.

Well, last year, I missed about six weeks with an ailment and Chris had the library to himself. Just like I was that first year, he was overwhelmed. Now, he hit upon the idea of recruiting Whamsters, which was something I’d never considered. By the time I got back on my feet and back to school, he had a force of about six or seven students running the library like a well-oiled machine. These youngsters changed the announcements on the computer scroll, shelved books, cleaned computers, read shelves . . . they were little junior librarians. I told Chris I should just go on back to bed and let him and the Whamsters run the place.

He didn’t think that was funny.

So this year, he and I actively recruited a group of students for the first time. I sent out “try out” letters and about forty five students took the time to fill out the application packet, answer a short test, and talk to me or Chris for a bit about why they wanted to work in the library. At the mention of “work” about half the applicants fled like scalded cats. The rest stuck around and we selected seventeen of them to be this year’s Whamster Corp.

Looks like we’ve got some great ones in this bunch as well. One tremendously welcome addition was our seven sixth graders. They’ve been extremely enthusiastic about coming in before school and at lunch to help with the library chores. With a little luck, maybe I can hang on to them all three years!

So, my Whamsters are part library helpers and part library mascots. Looking back, I don’t know how I’d have made it without their willing help over the years. My only hope is that I’ve been a good role model for them and that they have good memories of the library. With any luck, maybe the seeds of future librarianism have been planted in one or two of them and they can carry on the Whamster tradition in their libraries. I can only hope . . . and try to keep my feet washed! 🙂

Today is Veterans’ Day.  This day is set aside to honor those who have given their time and their service to protecting and defending their country. Some have given more than that . . . they have given their limbs, their eyes, their peace of mind. Some have given what President Abraham Lincoln called, “The last full measure of devotion,” their very lives. Today our men and women in arms are fighting shooting wars in two countries and those wars are not popular among all people. If you disagree with our country’s reasons for fighting these wars, in fact, if you disagree with anything the government of the United States of America does, that is your right. I have watched several videos on that greatest and most reliable of networks, YouTube.com, where men and women have shown catagorical disdain for this country, our government, our leaders, our flag, and those of us who they term “flag-waving patriots.” Once again, this is their right. I am compelled to remind each and every one of you — Democrat, Republican,  Independent or Other; Gay or Straight; Black, White, Red, Yellow, Tan, or Multicultural; Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Atheist, or Other — ALL of you owe your right and freedom to disagree as well as every other right you have and freedom you enjoy to the men and women of the armed forces past, present, and future.

If you disagree with the wars they fight, that is your right, but please — I beg you — please do not allow your distaste for why they fight to discolor your opinion of who they are and the service they give. They did not choose their wars, but they chose to serve and they deserve our respect and honor for that reason if for no other.

My school honored our veterans with a beautiful ceremony earlier today and as part of that ceremony the winners of an essay contest about “Why Veterans Should Be Honored” read their essays before the assemble student body and guests, guests that included several veterans. Many of those present and I were touched by the sincerity and the power of their words. I have obtained their permission to reprint their essays here each in its entirety. The essays are verbatim and uncorrected and I think they are amazing.

The Sacrifice We Should Honor by Rachel L. 7th Grade

“Huge flags billow slowly, their huge folds settling on the air, half-heartedly riding the wind before falling back on the pole that holds them. They stand sentinel over thousands of white crosses, watching over the ones at peace that are below them. But why are they there? The answer lies in the cloth of the red, white, and blue flag. It stands for the freedom the individuals who lie below them won. The ones who are alive know this; the ones who survived the terrible bloodshed understand this well.

‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’ John Kennedy spoke these words that have rung throughout history, stirring emotions in everyone. Soldiers especially take these words to heart. Freedom is what they fight for and they ignore their own safety as they struggle onwards towards the goal of peace and justice for all. Their patriotism is touching and inspiring to all who do not take this freedom we are blessed with for granted.

We should honor these soldiers, and those who survive to come back home. America is built on their blood, sweat, and tears. Without our veterans, America would have collapsed long ago. Veterans are the warriors that have carried the burden of America on their backs.

Although some veterans might not be physically hurt, their minds bear burning scars that haunt them the rest of their lives. Still others are physically wounded, with missing limbs or terrible wounds caused by shrapnel and bullets. They they have to live out their lives, with a disfigurement to remind them of the price they paid to preserve the freedom of the country they live in. We need to take special care of these people who have seen the horrors of war.

Too many people in our country complain about unimportant things, while soldiers overseas are dying to give them that freedom to complain. The very people they fight for often ignore the ones who come home, the veterans. We should honor these men and women who so openly throw themselves in combat to protect our freedom and our lives. Think about it. You never know if the person you see on the street or in a hospital is a veteran that saved your life.”

Why Veterans Should Be Honored by Rachel K., 8th Grade

Veterans are much more than just citizens of America. They are national heroes of America. Veterans sacrifice everything to fight for our freedom and safety. They care so much about us that they are willing to fight for their country.

Veterans should be honored because they sacrifice their lives for us. These soldiers are brave and strong enough to enter territories in which the conditions are beyond our imaginations. The men and women of the army are prepared to die for their country on behalf of freedom.

Veterans should be honored because they are forced to leave their families behind. A family soldier could have died in the war with their family clueless. Some soldiers are afraid that everything will have been changed by the time they make it back. This is one of the most tragic reasons.

We should honor veterans because of the terrifying and heroic experiences they have had. Some soldiers were captured and held captive for over five years. They have suffered major injuries, abuse, starvation, and many have died. These are only a few things that veterans could have suffered from during captivation. Only the bravest people are willing to go through these harsh obstacles for our country.

Veterans cared enough about each citizen in the United States to go to war and try to make peace. Soldiers have embraced their ability to serve and to honor. They work hard enough to try to make our country the best and safest it can be. How would you like to have been a great hero for your country, and not be recognized? Veterans only ask for remembrance, is that so hard to give them?

I hope that every American citizen will honor and appreciate every veteran with the highest and up-most respect that they can offer. These soldiers deserve all of the honor and remembrance that we, as Americans, are able to give.

I appreciate these two young peoples’ sentiments. I’ve known some to say that we shouldn’t fight. I agree that we shouldn’t always fight, but sometimes . . . well sometimes the only way to get people, especially bullies, dictators, and tyrants to listen is to fight. Always, ALWAYS remember that it is not the soldier, sailor, or marine’s decision who, what, when, or where he or she fights. Anytime lives are on the line, disagreement will follow. Some of you might even be interested to know that, even after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the vote to declare war on Japan was not unanimous.

What I’m saying is not every threat to our country is as real, as obvious, in the public mind as the Kaiser’s Germany or Hitler’s Nazis or Tojo’s Japan. No matter the threat, however, our men and women in uniform go to meet it. Each and every one of them swears an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against ALL enemies” They do not have the luxury of deciding who that enemy is. So please take time today to say thank you to veterans you may know because you need to remember, “if you can read this blog, thank a teacher and if you are FREE to read this blog, thank a veteran.”

Wash your feet y’all 🙂

Semper Fidelis

First, I’d like to thank everyone for your kind wishes and prayers. We laid Aunt Betty to rest in a little country church cemetery Tuesday amidst an explosion of fall color and sunshine. She always loved Elvis, so we buried her with her favorite picture of him and played his recording of “How Great Thou Art” at the end of the ceremony. I think she’d have been pleased.

Now to business. I don’t comment much on politics because I am most determinately apolitical. Republican or Democrat, man or woman, North, South, East, or West makes no difference to me. I am apolitical for one reason . . . no one POTUS, Senator, Congressman, or Supreme Court Justice is going to fix what’s wrong with this country by himself or herself.

So, to all you McCain zealots who are weeping, wailing, and gnashing your teeth, GET OVER IT. He lost and he was a lot more gracious in losing than many of his supporters can claim to be. If you are so disgusted with the election results, do what I see so many cute buttons and bumper stickers suggest — move to Canada. Just make sure you stay there. Also, in the spirit of egalatarianism, to all you Obama zealots who are holding parties and dancing in the streets, GET OVER IT. He won and that means exactly nothing. The economy is still in the tank, our boys and girls are still dying across the sea for nothing, and I don’t have one dime more in my pocket today than I did Tuesday morning.

I will bow before the weight and majesty of the history made Tuesday; however, and give my heartfelt congratulations to President-Elect Obama for finally reaching one of those mountaintops that Dr. King spoke of so eloquently so many years ago. When it comes to the ugliness of race relations in America, I view Barack Obama’s election as POTUS by such a healthy and unquestionable margin the same way Sir Winston Churchill viewed what would be called World War II when he heard of the German defeat at El Alamein in North Africa, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” The scourge of chattel slavery persisted on these enlightened shores for 246 years and the stain of Jim Crow bled through another 102. While the election of the first man of color to arguably the highest office in the world is an admirable step, one step cannot — will not — erase 348 years of shackles and nooses, blood and bondage, segregation and degradation.

Now, despite the history involved in this election, I can’t help but feel that, once again, I and those I serve in my position as librarian are still not being represented. We have yet to see “our guy (or gal)” mount the podium to give an acceptance speech after winning the Presidency. I firmly believe that I nor any of my descendents, will ever see that day. In order for me to feel like the person in the Oval Office represents me, a poor man or woman would have to get elected and that is never going to happen.

I want a President who knows what it feels like to be hungry because the month outlasted the money. I want a President who knows what it is to sit in the dark and swelter in the Southern summer night heat because Mama had to choose between the light bill and antibiotics for an illness. I want a President who knows deprivation in his or her bones . . . natural-born deprivation. Certainly Senator McCain knew the horrors of deprivation deeper than most of us ever will as he sat in the Hanoi Hilton all those years, and I do not dare make light of his suffering, but the fact remains that he left a silver spoon on the table to enter the military and he picked up that silver spoon as soon as he finally returned to America and even though he was defeated for the Presidency, he’ll still eat his soup with that silver spoon until the day he dies.

Just a casual glance down the list of Presidents will reveal precious little in the way of poverty. Instead, the list reads like a litany of properous farmers, lawyers, and businessmen. Basically, with no disrespect intended to any who hold, have held, or will hold the office of POTUS, I want a President who doesn’t take a pay cut when he or she takes office.

I want a President who, in this technologically advanced 21st Century, still has to use an outhouse when he returns to his Appalachian home. I’d like a President who has two children by two different “baby daddies” and Air Force One is the first plane she’s been able to ride in. I want a President who went to public schools K4-12 preferably somewhere along the I-95 Corridor in South Carolina or on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota then went to a community college for two years to save up for a STATE university. I want a President who knows by experience and not pollsters what it’s like to be a common person.

Of course, people in Hell want ice water; so as Daddy always said, “Want in one hand and spit in the other and see which one gets full fastest.” (Actually, Daddy didn’t quite put it that way, but it’s a family friendly blog, I hope)

None of those hypothetical people will ever be President, however. The third biggest lie in the world, right after number two’s “I promise I turned that book in already” and number one’s “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” is “Even YOU can grow up to be President.” No you can’t because if you are reading this blog, you are most likely in the wrong class of people to be President, and in this case, class has little to do with race, religion, or politics. It’s about educational birthrights.

Two books that every person who works with children should read tell the story of those birthrights. The first is Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol and the second is Literacy with an Attitude by Patrick J. Finn. Kozol strips bare the differences in education that students receive based solely on the luck of the draw and in this case, the draw is where they happen to have been born. Meanwhile, Finn, in his book’s preface, powerfully enumerates the reasons for the inequality. Simply put, we live in a dualistic society of the governors and the governed. I’m willing to bet my paycheck for a year that if you are reading this blog, you are not only one of the governed but you are training (notice I didn’t say “teaching”) the next generation of the governed.

Please understand, this isn’t about some conspiracy theory dreamed up by the tinfoil hat crowd where the whole world is “really” ruled by the Illuminati, Tri-Lateral Commission, Skulls&Bones, or the Bilderburgers. This is real life where millions of students are withering on the vine and all the time people are jumping for joy because another rich, impeccably well educated globetrotter has been elected President. The only difference this time is skin color (an important difference, to be sure, but still).

I’ve seen several blogs with “Dear Obama” messages about what their authors want the new President to do. My request is simple and I’d make it of any new President — black, white, pink, or green. Leave the press corp, leave the entourage, leave the glitz and glamour of DC, leave all but a couple of the Secret Service folks and go on the road incognito. Meet some people who aren’t at a rally. Sit in classrooms in schools with holes in the ceilings. Spend a week in some inner city projects talking with crack dealers and gang lords. Go up in the hills and spend some time with people whose way of life hasn’t changed in a hundred years (but, um, you might want to take a few extra Secret Service guys when you make that trip).

The long and the short of it is I’m jaded and cynical when it comes to politicians. I’ve seen so many promises made to get someone elected that were broken as soon as the hand came off the Bible that I don’t know if I’ll ever believe in anyone anymore. I’ve endured Presidents who were Paris Hilton celebrities with IQs to match. Maybe the wind is finally changing. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to play wait and see. My political heart has been broken too many time by people who said they represented me and mine, but who have no idea what it’s like to live in a trailer. Here’s hoping it’s not all hype.

Now take the signs down, put your copy of Wednesday’s newspaper up on eBay for the kids’ college funds, but most of all . . . don’t forget to wash your feel y’all 🙂

This isn’t a library related post if you’d prefer to skip it.

Today was the first day of a nice four day weekend. Budge and I planned to do a little housework, do a little yard work, and do a lot of nothing. That all came to a screeching halt with one phone call today at 3:00. I may have never said this, but I hate telephones and cell phones especially. Of all the inventions ever invented, it is the telephone that allows the wide instantaneous spread of misery better than all others.

I had a splitting headache today, so I was taking a nap when the phone rang. I heard Budge say, “Oh God. We’re on our way.” I sat up blinking to the news that my great-aunt, the woman who had babysat me as an infant until I started kindergarten, was dead. She was 70 years old, my Granny Hughes’ baby sister.

She’d gone “to town” to get some money out of the bank from her Social Security check. On her way back home, as near as we and the police can piece together, she got turned around at a new cloverleaf and instead of going down the on ramp to the highway, she went across the intersection like the layout USED to be and went down the OFF ramp. We’ll never know if she realized her mistake or not.

She got to the bottom of the ramp and shot across three lanes of traffic before a young girl driving an SUV stuck my aunt’s mini-pickup truck at full highway speed and slammed it back into the barrier wall between north and southbound lanes. My aunt, who was always a small woman and sat too near the steering wheel as small elderly ladies often do, was not wearing a seatbelt and the steering column and steering wheel itself crushed her chest as the airbag that was meant to save her life instead detonated into the side of her head with the force of a baseball bat. She was killed on impact. The young girl, blessedly, suffered only a broken leg, but I can only imagine how the mental trauma of this accident that she in no way could have avoided will haunt her the rest of her life.

My aunt was a widow with one daughter who is four years my senior. I was always viewed more as a brother and a son than a nephew. Therefore, it fell to me to take my cousin to the hospital to first positively identify her mother’s body and then to say goodbye to the only remaining relative in her immediate family. I don’t know how many of you have had the experience of standing in a morgue. Shows like CSI and its offspring don’t really portray the utter hopelessness, the complete lack of warmth in a holding room when you see a loved one, vibrant and smiling just a few hours before, wrapped in a sheet to hide body trauma lying cold, grey and lifeless on the stainless steel table. I don’t know how many of you have had to listen to or maybe even utter that most heartrending of cries, “Why?!” The question for which even Christ on the Cross received no answer.

The last seven hours have been a whirlwind of phone calls to other elderly aunts and uncles as well as to their children, cousins barely remembered from long ago play times on the “home place”. The phone, that demon with a bell or a ringtone, never ceased its macabre music for long at a time. I was able to see my cousin safely to her home where I left her in the care of a trusted family friend. When I spoke to Sis last, she was slipping into the blessed bliss of a tranquilizer and that for the best. She bore up well under the shock of the day, but as any doctor will tell you, the pain of an amputation is always least when it happens. The next day will reveal the beginning of the agony.

Then I had to turn my attention to Mother who has now lost three of the dearest people to her in less than six months. Then there is Granny, my aunt’s sister, whose growing dementia keeps her from understanding that the sister she held closest in love has been taken away. How do you explain to one in her second childhood that one of the most important members of her first childhood won’t be by to sit on the couch and watch Family Feud while eating forbidden ice cream with her anymore?

I keep returning to the theme of poverty and its effects and this is another example. I am by far the best educated member of my family. I’m the only one on Mother’s immediate side with a Master’s degree (or even a BA, for that matter) and one of just a bare handful who finished high school. The family’s perception of me is one of dependence. In times like this, for whatever reason, the family turns to me for guidance and advice as if having a limp piece of paper on the wall somehow has given me better insight into how this off-kilter world runs. In times of death or crisis, I am asked for answers that I do not have, but I must provide some measure of comfort. It is expected.

Also, a fact that many, even those like Cathy-Jo, who are closest to me may not know, is that I am an ordained minister. I’ve never been to seminary, but I do have my ordination and license to preach and perform the offices of the church from two separate ordaining bodies. I am the minister of my family. Even though they attend a myriad of different houses of worship, my late grandfather was the one who was called upon for ministry to the family and with his passing, that responsiblility has fallen to me. I confess that since his passing, I have been in a crisis of faith the likes of which I have never experience nor even imagined, but which is very real nonetheless.

For now though, I must push aside my questions and my agony of uncertainty to take up an agony of a different type. I must do what I feel unable to do and provide my family with comfort and direction over the next few days. Tomorrow, Sis and I will meet to make final arrangements at the funeral home where the last two years have seen me all to frequently a visitor. She has no one else to help her and so I must, even if I feel I cannot.

I have tears of my own to shed for this beloved lady who has been taken from us so abruptly, but just as I could not grieve for my grandfather until I had seen my mother through the crisis, so to must I bear up grief again and somehow shepherd Sis through this unbearable time. It never ceases to amaze me how people are capable of doing what they cannot do when it must be done.

So Tuesday, while the rest of the country watches television and huddles in tense expectation for an election that, regardless of its outcome, will be historic; as many of my colleagues make their way to the annual education technology conference, I will be, once again, standing before an open grave attempting to provide a channel of peace that I myself do not feel because it must be done.

I ask two boons of you all. First, remember my huddled and bewildered family in you thoughts, but second and more important, take a moment tonight or tomorrow at the latest to call some family member or friend whom you have not seen in a while or with whom you have some petty disagreement. Make things right as much as it is in your power to do. Don’t let another sun set without clearing air or reconnecting with a loved one. I do not say this as fearmongering, but from my heart . . . you never know what conversation, hug, or argument you have with someone will be the last. Keep that in mind, my friends and acquaintances in the blogosphere and believe me when I say I hope that it will be a long time before any of you receive one of those calls.

I hope you will all forgive my ramblings. It has proven to be a long and trying day. Tonight, I’ll let each of you decide on your own if you want to wash your feet or not.

I have a confession to make to all of you out there in the blogosphere. I think it either relates to my previous post about growing up in poverty or it’s a result of some of the negative life experiences I’ve had. Maybe if Ms. Payne reads this, I hope she has some insight that I lack, but here goes. I have an unhealthy, almost pathological, some may even say suicidal lack of respect for authority of all facets and flavors, but especially for supervisory authority. I don’t respect “offices;” I respect people. Period. For instance, I would crawl through Hell in kerosene overalls for my present principal, but I’ve had other supervisors earlier in my life that I wouldn’t [insert colorful, but Biblical (at least in KJV) word picture of bodily function here] on if they were on fire. As the Apostle Paul puts it, I am not one to “suffer fools gladly,” even if I don’t think myself particularly wise.

That is bad enough. Unfortunately, I am also a horrible poker player (Daddy was a great one, but that’s another story). What I mean is I have an impossible time trying to keep from showing obvious disdain toward someone I don’t much care for, especially if that someone happens to be in a position of authority over me. I don’t necessarily mind being told what to do, but I am extraordinarily sensitive to how I’m told what to do.

Here’s the essential problem as I see it. Management is made up of two types of people. On the one hand are born leaders. These women and men exude confidence, vision, and control. They will be leaders no matter what they choose to do or where they choose to do it. If a born leader like I have in mind ended up on a chain gang, he or she would be a trusty within a month and working for the warden within a year.

Born leaders have followings because people believe in them. They inspire. They calm. They care, or do a really good job of acting like they care. On the other hand are those who are not born leaders but who have risen through intelligence, hard work, or possibly Machiavellian guile to a position of authority. These leaders rely on their position for their authority. They are not naturally inspiring and they completely lack vision. All too often the only way they can answer the question, “Why?” is with “Because I said so and I’m the [assistant principal, shift supervisor, President of the United States or whatever]. These people expect respect but have little in the way of getting it or earning it.

When I was in the classroom teaching high school English, I always gave out a single sided sheet of my expectations for my students on the first day of class. They were consistently amazed by #3 “I do not expect you to have any respect for me until I have earned it from you.” That blew them away. Now I’m not saying I’m a genius or anything, but I am a realist and I’ve looked around enough to know that the days of being respected because one is an adult or teacher or anything else are long, long over . . . if they ever truly existed. Respect does not come from a tie or heels and hose any more [although I FIRMLY respect most any woman who can wear heels and hose all day on a Monday night Parent Open House in August, but I digress].

I told those juniors and seniors I taught that if I couldn’t earn their respect, they had every right in the world to diss me. That bothers some people, but it’s the way the world works. Sorry if some of you don’t think it’s fair. To you I must say what I’ve told more than one student in my time in education, “Fair is a place where you go to ride rides and eat cotton candy until you puke.” Life, as the great man said, is not fair.

Now, all that rant leads to this. I had a fire hydrant day today. That means I was the fire hydrant and not the dog. First thing, I’m hit with email being down. If you want to see the truth in human nature, don’t put people on an island with no food or water, put them in a school with no email. Then I have a teacher who has found a great lesson using the Internet only to discover that all the links showing examples of propaganda are YouTube videos and YouTube is blocked for students in our school so her students wouldn’t be able to complete the exercise. Well, they can now because I downloaded the videos and got them into a usable form for her, but that’s a post for another time.

In the midst of all this, a member of the “School Leadership Team” comes in to my office at 9:30 and says, “Has Chris [my assistant] burned the video of our presentation to DVD yet?” Okay, the day just got interesting because this is the first I’ve heard of a DVD.

In any event, a person is in the office waiting for this DVD and it’s VERY important. I won’t go into detail, but apparently it’s pretty much a life or death situation to the Leadership Team so, apparently, it’s a life or death situation for Chris and me. Anyway, I find out that this all-important DVD was plopped in Chris’ lap at 9:00 this morning. No deadline given, no instruction, no nothing. Just “we need this put on DVD.” Fast forward to 2:00 this afternoon. The DVD is still not done because it’s freaking 45 minutes long. That means it took 45 minutes to capture, 45 minutes to edit, 45 minutes to transcode, and 15 minutes to actually burn to a DVD. The SLT “didn’t think it would take that long.” Perhaps that’s because no one on the SLT bothered to ask the doofus who usually makes the DVDs (that’d be me if you aren’t keeping up) how the process worked. Oh yeah, and I had those annoying students to check books out to and help with computer questions. Imagine that. Meanwhile, Chris is working on the DVD with limited success.

2:00 an A.P. walks in and asks, for the fifth time today, “when’s the DVD going to be ready?” Chris and I told her we didn’t know; it was transcoding then.  She left angry and I later apologized because she’s actually usually very kind to me and it wasn’t like it was her fault. I can’t really say it was anyone’s “fault.” Fifteen minutes after the A.P. leaves, the original  SLT member returns and wants to know when the DVD will be ready.

Folks, I’m not proud of this next fact, but it is a fact: I can go from zero to full redneck in about 4 seconds. I did. In spades. We had been hounded all day about a problem we did not create that was TERTIARY to any teaching or learning going on in the building. By the time she left the library and I sat down at my desk with a splitting headache and that awful coppery adrenaline taste in my mouth I hate so much, heated words had been exchanged (which, thankfully, I later apologized for). Then, as the cherry on the top of this poop pie sundae of a day, Chris and I went up to the studio to find that the DVD would not burn to disc. The studio burner was DVD+R and all the DVDs we had were DVD-R. We are already “behind” in a game we didn’t even know we were in and the ball we were playing with just blew up.

At that point, I did all I could do. I laughed out loud. Chris thought I’d lost my mind. I transferred the video files to my 16 GB flash drive and went to my computer. About halfway through the second burning attempt, my principal herself appears. She is a born leader, remember? She’s calm. She’s smiling. She wants to know where the DVD is. I point to my computer and tell her it’ll be ready in 54 minutes. She stopped smiling for a bit. It was already 4:30. I assured her now that I was handling it, everything would go fine. She reluctantly agreed to leave after I begged her to just let me finish what we’d started. I finished the DVD in the 54 minutes. It worked perfectly and we tricked it out with a cool label and jewel case we’d made. I made a copy to keep at school and on my way home, I dropped the other DVD off where it needed to be. Problem solved. Why? Because a true leader who didn’t know squat about how to fix the problem turned the problem over to someone who did and got out of the way after a positional leader had hovered all day and couldn’t make the thing work any faster. As I explained to my principal, “I can do a whole lot of things, but I cannot change the laws of physics and I cannot alter the space time continuum.” The DVD turned out perfectly though. Isn’t all well that ends well? I dunno.

Moral of the story? I don’t know if there is one. In no uncertain terms, I certainly don’t advocate being as much of a jerk as I was to my A.P. OR the other SLT member. I guess if I have a point it’s this: don’t be a doormat. If you don’t stand up for yourself, no one else will. Remember to show respect to those who earn it. They’ll have your back later on most likely. Also, push to be in the loop in everything. That way, you don’t get blindsided. Most of all though, remember — they can kill you, but they can’t eat you. Stand your ground and do what you get paid to do, which is be awesome 🙂

Don’t forget to wash your feet, y’all.

This isn’t going to win me any friends in my chosen profession, but anyone reading this blog or who knows me personally will realize that’s never been a big deal. If I was just a little bit easier to get along with and used just a tiny bit more tact, I’d probably be making a lot more money doing something much easier, but what fun would that be. Someone has to go through life kicking fire ant mounds and throwing rocks at wasps’ nest and since it seems no one is lining up for that job, I may as well be the one.

Having said that, here’s the sentence that will likely get me banned from librarianship for life . . . I’ll be the Pete Rose of media centers. School librarians are unnecessary in more schools than they are necessary regardless of how much we want to think otherwise.

Oh my gosh, I’ve sent a tremor through the Force now. Since I’ve tied myself to the stake, I may as well stand the course. Here’s what I mean. Under the present educational paradigm, which worships at the altar of testing with all the zeal of a new convert, school librarians aren’t needed because few teachers have time to come to the library and still “cover” all the standards needed for the almighty AYP garnering or losing TEST (cue ominous music).

Now I know that people out there can bury me in copies of Information Power and the vaunted Colorado Study by Keith Curry Lance and I’m not going to argue. I’m not going to change my point of view, but I’m not going to argue either. See, we all want to believe that libraries are essential to the school. We all want to believe that we librarians can help improve test scores. We want to believe in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus. Unfortunately, belief counts for nothing in education.

Fire will burn you whether you believe it or not. Water will drown you whether you believe it or not. Stand in front of a train and shout “I don’t believe in you” and they will bury what they can find of you in a Ziploc baggie. The hard fact is that, once again, under the present educational regime, testing is king. Specifically, testing in ELA is king and testing in Math is the co-regent. Libraries don’t contribute MEASURABLY to either discipline. Sure, we can teach phenomenal lessons in research skills, information literacy, and comparing information sources. Unfortunately, none of that is on THE TEST (cue the Vader music.)

I know people will argue this and write me ugly comments and maybe emails, but research skills and information literacy as they are defined in sacred library Scripture like Information Power ARE NOT ON A STATE BUBBLE IN TEST! You simply cannot reduce the art of research to a multiple choice question and if you can, it won’t take an MLIS institutionally trained, card carrying ALA member to teach it. ELA teachers can do just fine and it will take fewer minutes out of prime instructional time if they do. All libraries, or rather the computer labs formerly known as libraries, are good for in this educational climate of winner take all testing is for providing a place to boot up drill and practice software masquerading as video games.

Now, I made all those audacious statements to get everyone’s attention and now that I have it, what smart cookie out there can tell me the point I’m trying to make? Do we need to get rid of libraries in order to focus on better testing? Wrong, you go to the back of the class.

What I’m trying to say is we need to quit wasting energy fighting FOR libraries and redirect our energy fighting AGAINST testing as the end all and be all that it is now.

Folks, I’m not making this crap up. I know what the books say and what “the studies” say. I know what the “advocates” say. Then I know what I SEE when I walk in to my so-called underperforming middle school every day. I see a slew of students who cannot READ on anything that approaches grade level. What good is trying to do a “Non-Bird Unit” research project going to do their teachers? That time can’t be spent in the library. It has to go towards remediation in basic reading skills. My ELA teachers can’t come to the library except to check out books for Sustained Silent Reading because they are MANDATED by our administration (who are very supportive of me, by the way) to cover every standard in the state guide just so we as a school can at least say “well, they’ve ‘seen’ everything that will be on the test.” To ensure this happens, each teacher has a copy of his or her subject’s standards turned into a pacing guide with a checkoff system for each standard taught.

I heard that gasp and see those shaking heads, but if I’m lying I’m dying. It’s the truth with my hand up.

The spectre of AYP is causing administrators all over my state to LOSE THEIR MINDS. The apparent dictate is “all that matters is that damn test.” Therefore, the mindset has become “raise test scores AT ANY COST.” One of the costs is the expanded research project of any kind, bird unit or no bird unit.

Y’all, this breaks my heart on many levels. First, my heart goes out to my principals who are getting so much pressure from the top to raise test scores or find new jobs. I ache inside for the teachers who are having to abandon many of the techniques and much of the content that they enjoyed teaching and THAT REALLY MATTERED so they can devote more time to remediation, “covering” standards, and slowly burning out in the process. Most of all, however, I feel the pain of a generation of students who have been born into one of the richest periods in educational potential in all of history and yet are forced to bend all their energy to passing one god-forsaken test in one week of one month of their year.

I realize this may not be a problem in affluent districts where the students come to school reading and who have vast educational resources at home, but it’s an elephantine problem in Title I schools and other poor districts that are serving the underfunded, underfed, and misunderstood. The students who could benefit most from a rich educational experience complete with extensive library activities like I see modeled every year at conferences are the fartherest behind THE TEST measurements so they have to pay for what they did not seek to purchase by being force fed test taking strategies and rote skills that will help them pass THE TEST while at the same time burning out at the roots ANY love of learning and literacy they may have had at one time.

So, to close, libraries aren’t needed as long as THE TEST is all that matters. So, if you are dead set on advocating for something, please, quit begging the legislature for a million dollars for more books for students who can’t read. Instead, focus all the letter writing and representative calling on overthrowing the dictatorship of THE TEST and free our students to learn again.

One quick thought before the main post: I’m getting comments on this blog from people I never imagined would ever know I existed, much less would ever correspond with me. Now, that is incredibly humbling for one thing. For another thing, it is the best argument I can ever put forward for blogging in the classroom as teachers and as students.

Now, to work. As I’ve said before, I learned almost all I know about computers from my F-I-L who basically co-opted me as an indentured servant after I started dating his daughter. He and I spent many hours and miles riding around between jobs in an old ’88 red Ranger mini-pickup and in those times, he imparted wisdom to me. Some I managed to forget but some has stuck with me. This post is about one that has stuck. It is not original with Dad so it’s certainly not original with me. If anyone knows the “owner” of this model, let me know and I’ll gladly acknowledge them. He called it the Triangle Theory of Production.

Basically the model says this: “For any job, three possible areas of production exist. They are Quality, Cost, and Speed. Whoever commissions the job must pick two, and only two, of the three areas at the total exclusion of the third. No matter how hard one tries, one cannot have all three.”

It shakes out like this. You can have something Fast and of Quality, but it won’t be Cheap. You can have something Cheap and of Quality, but it won’t be Fast. You can have something Fast and Cheap, but it will have dubious Quality. So y’all see how it works. Unfortunately, in lots of the jobs Dad and I did, the owners of the businesses would want all three. It doesn’t work that way. It just can’t, and one day on my home from the library I was chewing over memories like cud and that conversation with Dad popped up. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how appropriate it was to education AND how little people followed it in attempt to have ALL three legs of the triangle.

Here’s one easy example from the library . . . searching. When you teach students to search on the ‘Net, they get to pick two legs. Let’s say they pick a straight Google search. That’ll be Fast and it’ll be Cheap (free, as a matter of fact), but the Quality in most cases will be lacking. If you teach them how to obtain good Quality from Google, it will usually come at the sacrifice of Speed. So you’ll get a Quality search that is still Cheap, but now isn’t Fast.

However, if you teach the students about subscription online databases that you’ve purchased for your library or that maybe your state has purchased for you (we have DISCUS here in SC and I think Georgia next door has Galileo, but that may be wrong), they get two different triangle legs. In this case, they get a Speedy search for information of good Quality, but it isn’t Cheap. It may not cost the student anything and it may not cost the library anything, but since these statewide database purchases are paid for with tax money, we all pay in the end. Not that I’m saying that’s bad. I just think it’s important for us to remember another universal model all educators should know, namely “There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.” (post for another time)

This model also applies in Spades to any equipment purchases we make. In my own library, we were contemplating buying a “letter folder” for the school. This is a wonderful machine that does the ungodly mindnumbing work of folding flyers and such. Looking through the catalog, I saw the same old story. We could get Cheap and decent Quality, but it was SLOOOOOWWWW. One page at a time. Now, if we wanted to maintain the Quality, maybe even improve it slightly, Speed would go up, but Cost would skyrocket. We’re talking a jump from low 3 digits to middle 4 digits in price. The model holds up pretty well.

Now for the esoteric and since I’m not really good at esoteric, hopefully this’ll make sense. I feel in education that the powers that be have too often made the mistake of grabbing for all three triangle legs. Politicians want an educational solution that is Fast, Good, and Cheap. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. The area I see it most in is assessment.

Multiple choice test, for example, are loved by politicians. Some examples include our state’s late and very unlamented Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test, universally called the PACT test, which is redundant, but hey. Now PACT was mostly a MC test. Sure, it had a writing component and some short answers, but at the heart it was a MC bubble test. Those tests are Fast (of course, speed is relative since we never get the scores before October) and they are comparatively Cheap (again, relatively speaking). What they are NOT, as much as people want to cling to the hope that they are, is excellent Quality. A one size fits all MC test doesn’t give as much information about a student as most teachers would like to have. At best, we get a snapshot when what we want is time lapse video.

BUT, if we developed one of those time lapse video tests or, even better, ditched tests all together in favor of more authentic assessments, we’d get better Quality, but we’ll either give up Speed of grading altogether or the Cost will be astronomical. So, we muddle along in the status quo.

So, what’s the answer? I’d be a fool to say I knew when all I am is a librarian in a podunk school in the middle of BFE, but I do have a bit of an idea. We need to urge our policy makers to take this Triangle model to heart. The one non-negotiable needs to be Quality. If politicians are going to insist on a single test to define what goes on in the classroom (which I DISPISE the THOUGHT OF, but I’m bending to a reality here) then we need to do pick the other Triangle leg to stand on. If Cheap becomes a must, then people at the policy making and the policy implementing levels will HAVE to discover that precious and long dead treasure called PATIENCE. It’ll take time to develop a good program that comes in relatively Cheaply. On the other hand, if we leave Patience to Guns and Roses and pursue the Speed that so defines our culture today, then taxpayers will have to be prepared to come off the hip, because developing a really good test in a short time frame WON’T be Cheap.

Now, do I know what’s going to happen? Heck yeah, NOTHING. Inertia is a deadly force, especially in education. Still, it is nice to think about what could be, now isn’t it?

Don’t wash your feet, y’all 🙂

Today is Blog Action Day 2008, which is when a bloggers around the world focus on one issue with the hope of attracting attention to it and, maybe, changing it. This year’s topic is poverty and few topics in this world or the next get my attention and raise my ire more than poverty. I’ve been there and done that.

Let me start by clarifying that last statement. I’ve done poverty, lived in poverty, BUT, my poverty and the poverty this post will focus on is “American Style” poverty. What that means is I’ve never lived in a garbage dump scrounging rotten fruit for food like a pack of children I have pictures of in Guatemala City, Guatemala. I’ve never walked down a street naked because I literally did not own any clothes like some of the children my former pastor saw on the streets of Mumbai, India. In America, our HOMELESS, the bottom of the economic ladder, are STILL exponentially wealthier than MILLIONS of people across this world. Poverty “American Style” is a dream to MILLIONS of Indians, Chinese, Latin Americans, Aboriginal Australians, Africans, and countless, countless others in the Third World. Let’s keep everything in perspective.

Having said that, the knowledge that others in the world are far more miserable than you is ice cold comfort to a five year old child whose father has abandoned him and whose mother is desparately trying to keep herself and her son fiscally afloat with a tenth grade education, a textile plant job, $125 a week salary, and $20 per month child support. That was me in 1977. I’ve endured lights being cut off, phones being cut off, and groceries being one bag with bread and peanut butter. I still love peanut butter to this day, but I will not touch ketchup. If you ever eat a ketchup sandwich on stale bread, not because you want to but because you have to, you might develop a similar loathing.

From the time I was in K5 until the summer between my eighth and ninth grade years, we moved all over Hell and half of Georgia (technically, it was South Carolina, but it doesn’t sound the same). We lived with my dad’s parents (hey ladies, how many of you would live with your EX-INLAWS?), my mom’s dad, my mom’s cousin, some family down in Columbia . . . we just sort of bounced all over. Finally, my dad’s parents decided I needed a stable place to live so the summer before I started high school, they bought us a 1964 Fleetwood Special mobile home.

Nota Bene: I’ve lived 95% of my life in a trailer. Please remember that if you are around me at a conference and decide to make a remark about “trailer trash.” We TT don’t appreciate those who don’t know what it means to be TT calling us TT.

Anyway, the place was a palace to us. It was 15’x50′. No heat, no central air. We had a window unit and a kerosene heater that we couldn’t use because me and Mama both had asthma. I remember more than one January morning contemplating if I really wanted to get out from under the covers in my bedroom when I could see my breath and make a dash for the unheated bathroom. I’ve got a jillion stories about that place and those times, but I’ll save them and try to keep this post on target.

Poverty is a crippler. For example, people look at you differently once you get labeled white trash. I was in all honors courses in high school, graduated second in my class, was a National Merit Semi-Finalist, had a measured 140 IQ, made a 1380 on the SAT when that score actually meant something, blah, blah, blah . . . I was a smart kid. Still, I remember being treated a little differently because I was almost always the poorest person in the honors classes. I also remember my AP English teacher glaring at me the night of graduation and saying, “You don’t deserve HALF the honors you’ve gotten! You’re trailer trash and you’ll never amount to anything.”

Pardon my French, but she was damn near right.

I was the first person in my family, both sides, to graduate high school with 12 grades. Everyone else in my AP classes kept getting letters from colleges. They had everything planned out. Several were legacies at this school or that university. Everyone kept asking me where I was going. I told them I was going to work after Senior Week at the beach, if I survived Senior Week (again, a story for another time). I had no idea how to apply to college, how to pay for college, or why I needed college. I didn’t understand the mindset. It wasn’t that Mama didn’t value my education — she did. She was, and is, insanely proud of me. She was just too busy keeping a roof over my head and food in my stomach to worry about a college fund.

So, twenty years later I have an AA, a BA, and an MLIS. I work in education. I drive a Honda Element. I still live in a trailer. Not a double wide either. See, here’s the thing, and before you criticize me, email me and I’ll tell you stories I don’t have time or space to tell here, a part of me never left that 15×50 unheated trailer. If I ever get to meet Ruby Payne in person, I swear I want to walk up to her and kiss her right square on the mouth because the books she wrote for professional development are like my life story. Case in point, no savings. People from poverty don’t save, they spend. If you save it, it may get gone.

That’s a hard mindset to break. I still haven’t really broken it. I still have an extreme dislike for people I perceive as “being rich” or “acting rich.” I am very uncomfortable in ritzy social settings because I have no idea which fork to use and I feel everyone is watching me. Growing up, we used one fork for every course . . . the beans and the franks . . . and more times than not it was plastic. I will never consider a job at a school that serves an upper class population. I’ve been looked down on my whole life; why the blazes do I want some kid’s lawyer daddy and doctor mama looking down their nose at me at a parent Open House?

I’m not proud of my impoverished roots (although I am damn proud of my mama for keeping us going when she could have left me with my grandparents and gone out and had a life . . . my mama was a fine looking woman) but I can’t get away from them no matter how hard I try. Part of me goes to work every day with the sole purpose of proving that teacher on graduation night wrong.

Look, I’ll try and wrap this up as best I can. I shouldn’t have even tried posting about this topic because it is way to raw and viscerally emotional for me to deal with outside my therapist’s office. But since I have, here’s my point: it is extremely hard for a child who doesn’t know what, if anything he’s going to eat for supper, or where he’s going to lay his head, to give a tiny little damn about your pretty planned collection, your shiny computers, or your “book learnin'”. A girl who has to keep house and her three younger siblings while her mother works (or parties, you never know) is going to be a Child Left Behind no matter WHAT the godforsaken federal law says. You can’t expect a child who has to act like an adult, basically BE an adult, to settle down and do what you say just because you’re older than him or her.

Final thought . . . poverty is brutal, even “American Style” poverty. Thousands of your kids are living in that brutal poverty RIGHT NOW. If the economy tanks worse, even more kids will be there. Homeless and hopeless is a Hell of a way to live for anyone, but it’s almost insurmountable for a child.

Yeah, I got out . . . or did I?

Once again . . . poverty is BRUTAL and ALL CONSUMING and ALL AROUND YOU.

What are you going to do about it? Yes, you, reading this blog entry.

Congress won’t do spit, the President either. NO CALVARY IS COMING for these children.

What are you going to do about it?

I love my job and I love the teachers I work with, but my interaction with them as a librarian has produced some sidesplitting episodes over the last four years. Well, last night, Budge and I went to a small get-together at one of my teacher’s homes. Ben and his girlfriend were in attendance as well. Ben is the subject of two of my favorite stories about being a librarian. Both happened his first year as a teacher and my second year as a librarian.

These two stories are the unembellished, unvarnished truth. I can’t make anything this good up.

First, Ben came to me the second day of school, which was a workday, with a stack of posters and such to laminate. Now I come from a high school background and we didn’t laminate nearly as much as the lower grade. I quickly learned my first year that the more laminate on hand, the better. Middle school teachers would laminate the students if they could get them through the rollers and heat shoes.

Anyway, Ben has all this stuff to laminate and I’ve got a million other things to do, so I tell him the machine’s been on all day so it should be heated and ready to go. I know lots of librarians don’t let teachers do their on laminating, but I just figured reasonable, college educated people should be able to run something as simple as a laminator. It’s a pretty foolproof machine. Of course, a wise man once said that anyone who calls something foolproof usually underestimates the creativity of the average fool.

So all is quiet for about ten minutes. I can hear the laminator running from my office where I’m getting stuff ready for the first days. Sounds like all is well. Then I hear, “Uh oh.” Folks, you run into lots of situations where you don’t want to hear, “uh oh.” Doctors’ offices, car repair shops, and children’s birthday parties are some that come to mind. To that list add the laminator room.

I walked in and the machine was running strangely. I could tell something was wrong but couldn’t put my finger on it until I realized the laminate was UNDERNEATH the table and moving. Then I saw what had happened. Ben had run a poster through, but didn’t feel it was thick enough or some such. No problem. I have people double coat stuff all the time. What Ben did differently (and God alone knows what thought processes were involved) was he reached under the machine and pulled the poster through and up to the rollers and ran it again WITHOUT CUTTING IT FROM THE ROLL. The result was he literally laminated the laminator. Plastic and poster had wrapped every roller and heat shoe and semi-melted into a goopy stringy mess. I think if the poor boy hadn’t looked so confused and sad, I’d have run HIM through the laminator. As it was I ran him off, cut the machine off to cool, and went to sharpen my scissors. It took over an hour, many swear words, and two razor blades to get everything straight and unwrapped. Ben no longer laminates his own stuff.

This next one is even better.

I was in my office when I waved at Ben who was going into the copier room. He hadn’t been in there more than five minutes when he called me. I recognized the note of concern in his voice and went to see if I could help. He was standing in front of the copier holding some transparencies. He told me he’d run two transparencies through the machine, but nothing had come out the other side. I asked him for one of his sheets. It confirmed my worst fears . . . plain acetate write-on film. I wanted to cry since that kind of bone-headed move wasn’t covered under our service contract. BUT WAIT . . .

Ben looked at me, then at the plastic now fused around the fuser of the copier and said, “well, that explains the other two machines.”

Here’s the good part. Ben had gone to the OTHER copier room on the other side of the building and tried to run his “transparencies” through the copier in that room. Nothing had come out. Either time. Ben has very high self esteem, so he was certain he’d done nothing wrong and the machine was obviously defective. So, he proceeded to the LOUNGE to use that copier. Again, two tries with the bogus transparencies, two goose eggs in the hopper. Did I mention Ben’s self-esteem?

So, when he came to the library, Ben had already SHUT DOWN every other copier in the school. Did I mention Ben had FIRST PERIOD PLANNING, or that this was MONDAY? I looked at Ben and asked, calmly as I could, “Ben, why didn’t you come ask me or someone else when the FIRST machine didn’t make your transparency?” He said, “I thought something was wrong with the machine.” When I asked, “And the SECOND machine?” He said, “Same thing.”

For a long time, Ben was forbidden to use the copiers. I cleaned up an old spirit master machine, put it in his room and DARED him to come near a Mita machine. I still have two “butterfly” shaped pieces of acetate in a cup on my desk from that incident. I show them every year on the first day of new teacher training . . . along with the $1500 repair bill — $500 per copier.

I am happy to report that Ben has become much more technologically savvy. This year, with great trepidation, I checked out an ELMO P-10 document camera and a really nice InFocus projector to him. So far, students say he is doing great with both. He’s enrolled in the next SmartBoard training class, so we’ll see. I swear though, if he writes on that SmartBoard with a permanent marker I will not be responsible for my actions.

Six years ago this month, I got fired from the greatest teaching job I ever held for taking a stand. I was put on paid suspension then had a hearing before the School Board and when all was said and done, I was out of a job and mighty nearly out of a career. I worked odd jobs and lived on student loans for two years trying to support Budge in college and keep a roof over our heads. We lost pretty much everything but our home and one car. Bankruptcy and a rock bottom credit rating still haunt us today. Suffice it to say that this little grey duck isn’t worried one whit about the current financial meltdown . . . blood and turnips, you know.

The details of my stand aren’t important, but it basically involved me taking a tack counter to my supervisor’s. I thought I was right and in possession of the moral high ground. She thought I was wrong and in possession of an insubordinant attitude. The board agreed with her.

So, I tell you all that to ask you this: How far are you willing to go for what you believe in as a librarian and an educator? For example, we just celebrated Banned Books Week across the country. Had a lot of traffic on the listserv about displays and thoughts about intellectual freedom in general. People told war stories and gave their two cents about this challenge or that censorship attempt. Still, no one mentioned the unmentionable — what do you do when the challenge goes farther than you intended?

Let me cut to the chase. Are you willing to LOSE YOUR JOB because of a stance you take on intellectual freedom? Is the First Amendment so dear to your soul that you would risk unemployment for it? Think hard before you answer. This is the education field we’re talking about here. Say what you want, but for most of us, it’s not what you know, but who you know that gets you the interview that gets you the job. If that wasn’t true, the best qualified candidate would always get the position, not a nephew of a niece’s son’s best friend. You get fired, even if they don’t go after your certificate, it’s a long road back to another school. Principals talk just like we do. Administration has its listservs just like us librarians. They will know about you.

Do you want to be labeled a “boat rocker” for fighting the removal of Annie on my Mind from your library shelves? To get another librarian job after getting fired, you’ll have to have references. Where are they going to come from? “Um, Mr. X, I know you just had me fired and all, but is there any way you could write me a good recommendation for another job?” Oh yeah, and before you trot out that tired old horse about “They can’t blackball anyone . . . it’s illegal,” just remember this old fact . . . there’s the recommendation that the supervisor writes down in a nice neat paper trail and then there’s the recommendation the same supervisor gives over the phone when his buddy two districts over calls him about this librarian who worked at his school and now wants a job.

How exactly do you plan to hide that gap in your resume’? Mine looks funny. “English Teacher — 1994 to October 2002” followed by “Local Delivery Truck Driver — ”

Here’s how this thing looks. This is the dirty story; not the nice pretty version ALA wants to put out of their Office of Intellectual Freedom. You take your stand against censorship as you see it. You go to ALA for help because the board is threatening you for causing such a fuss. (For the two of you on the back row who didn’t know, small town Southern school boards DO NOT like a fuss) ALA sends legal help. Legal help your former friendly colleagues view as “outside agitators.” You and your ALA lawyer put up a good fight, but in the end, you lose and you get fired. You go home without a job and the ALA lawyer goes back home with his pay from ALA.

You lose your income. You lose your insurance. Single moms? I know a lot of you in education — how are you going to pay for that sixth grader’s constant ear infections? Lots of doctors won’t even talk to you on the phone if you don’t have insurance. Sure, you could do COBRA, but I think anyone who can afford COBRA premiums doesn’t really need to work anyway. Ever lost your house? I did when I was a kid and my dad left me and Mama. Foreclosure is ugly when it leaves the nightly news and camps out in your former living room. Explain to your children why they are losing their individual rooms and their nice back yard to go live with Nana and Papa and you all have to share your old bedroom with the bubble gum pink canopy bed. You know, the one you swore after college you’d never sleep in again?

Guys out there? Think you’ll have it any better? Sure, you could get a construction job easier than the ladies could . . . if any construction firms were hiring. Oh, and those jobs don’t have insurance either. You ready to live off your wife’s check? Ready to face the in-laws who probably don’t like you much anyway?

I don’t want to be pessimistic or alarmist. I value intellectual freedom — to a point. I also value a roof over my head and a decent car to drive. ALA may be great at providing advice, but they are lousy at paying your utility bills.

It’s easy to sit back and play love seat lawyer when it’s not your bacon in the fire. What happens though when your principal walks in tomorrow and hands you a book that “someone in the community” wants off your shelves? By all means, follow your procedures and policies. Have all the forms ready that you want.

But what if he says, “The school doesn’t need this publicity. Take the book off now.”

You going to fight? How hard? Sure, you may not get fired outright, but principals have ways of getting rid of “boat rockers.” You ready to see your budget slashed? Ready to move from a flex to a fixed schedule again? Ready to have new duties? There are a hundred ways for an administrator to make your life so miserable that you’ll leave. But where are you going to go? You willing to drive two hours one way burning $4.00 gallon gas to get to a district that needs you bad enough to overlook the baggage?

Say what you want to, but don’t say it can’t happen. If push comes to shove, how firm is your stand?