Shabam School

I've been playing with Windows Movie Maker. This is the first movie I made with it. I think I'm going to upgrade and install Ubuntu Studio in another partition of this laptop, so that I can make cooler videos, but I think it is fairly good considering that I didn't spend a whole lot of time on it, and WMM is kinda limiting.

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Today I got my first experience at a lockdown. The bell rang, and I looked up and thought, that is an odd time for the bell to be ringing, then I thought, that is a long bell, then I saw other teachers ushering kids back into classrooms and it dawned on me. My cooperating teacher came back into the room and we got the kids into the corner.

Neither of us thought much of it. There was a lockdown drill scheduled for 1pm, and it was 12:50. They just started a little early. Then after a few minutes we started to wonder. At a little after one, I thought, wait, the drill was for tomorrow. Checking the schedule, yep, the drill was scheduled for tomorrow. She checked her email, nothing reported.

Then I started to worry a little. I looked over at the big windows facing the common area. The shade was drawn... mostly. I went over and pulled it down the last few inches. I'd moved a cart in front of the door to partially cover the window, but there is still the side window. We got some posters and covered them and the door window completely. Still no emails or any information. The kids were getting restless. I can't blame them.

They were sitting next to the bookshelves, and one student had already picked out a book and started reading. After the others got books we peeked out the font. Our vice principal was talking with a couple of the teachers. My cooperating teacher went and spoke with him, getting an update. We were still in lockdown. There had been a shooting. After she got the update, I told the students what we knew, had them return to their seats and continued teaching. I skipped the rest of the nutrition lesson I had started and went into the math lesson. I kept it simple with some fraction cards. They had made them before, but were having so much trouble with fractions, we thought it would be a good idea to do it again. We will use them again later.

Things were a little hectic, but all in all, I feel that I handled myself fairly well. I was trying very hard to hide my nervousness. I was not worried about safety so much. I figure that with the police around the school, we were fairly safe. You never know what a scared gangster with a gun will do, but I thought we were secure. But I wanted to make sure that my students felt safe. They were scared, and had the right to be. What could I do to keep them calm and safe feeling?

At the time, I thought it was in the neighborhood. It turns out that our staff called the lockdown THEN informed the police of what they saw. It is scary to be working in one of the highest crime areas of Portland. Things like this make me wonder if I really want to work in this kind of population. If I think about it for long I know that I do. I think I can make an impact on the lives of these students. I really do love them and I want to impact them in good ways. It is scary some times, but God places us in scary, it is up to us to make it better.

I was on the bus yesterday when a young black man got on. After flashing his transfer he heads toward the back. When the driver called him up to look at his transfer again the young man was obviously upset and appeared to be thinking it was due to his skin color. I was on that bus for another 30 minutes, and the driver did not ask any other passengers to verify their transfers. There were several other young black men that got on, but they all had passes, not transfers.

Was it racism? Or was the driver honestly just verifying that ticket? I don't know, I'd have to watch the driver for a lot longer and see how he acted toward other black passengers compared to white passengers. Was the young man justified in his feeling that it was likely racism? Yes. As a white man, I have never been asked to verify my transfer. When I was younger and less honest I had used old transfers, and the drivers never checked. Why could I get away with it and this young man who had a valid transfer had to verify it was valid?

It is my white privilege. As a white man, I enjoy certain privileges that a black man, unfortunately, does not. This is a sad truth of American society. Us white people dominate the country, so all the others in the world have to work harder to get anything. I've never had my transfer double checked. I've never been followed around the grocery store to make sure I was not shop lifting. When I've gone to job interviews, I've almost always had white interviewers who would see me as an equal and not be biased based on my skin color.

Whenever I write articles that point out flaws, I like to have some ideas about what we can do about it. I have a few ideas, but I'd really like others to chime in here. Race relations can be a hot topic, so if you comment, comment on ideas, don't attack the person saying them.

We cannot change the system overnight, but there are things we can do. Being aware of white privilege is a first step. I'm not going to shed my skin and don another color, but being aware that I get certain privileges that my neighbors do not allows me to see when it happens. When I am aware of it, and can see it happening, then I can say something about it. If I happen to work somewhere that a highly qualified black applicant is denied employment, I can ask why. If I see racism occur, I can ask why. If I'm a bus driver and I want to check someones transfer, I can ask myself, "am I checking it because he is black, or because I need to check it?" If it is the earlier, then I can admit my mistake and move one. If it is the latter, then I have the right to check it.

In this example, I used a black man. This can be extended to any non-white. A person of Middle Eastern, Asian, Hispanic or Native American heritage can also be discriminated against. Women are discriminated against. Homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, and every other non dominant group can be discriminated against. Being aware of it is a powerful tool in fighting against it.

In the classroom, white privilege exists just as much as elsewhere. If you are a teacher, do your white students get called on more than your students of another color? I'd love to have someone observe my classroom and tally up which students I call on. We can then see how it works out. Do I call on students of a particular group more than others? I don't know. I hope not, but I'm sure I have some hidden biases that I'm not aware of. I'm also sure that my non-white students deal with racial issues regularly. Issues that I cannot begin to understand, but need to be understanding of.

Some web sites on the issue of White Privilege you might find useful in exploring this issue:
http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc598ge/Unpacking.html (A classic article on the subject)
http://understandingrace.org/cs/blogs/race/archive/2007/01/08/9.aspx
http://whiteprivilege.com/
http://drickboyd.blogspot.com/2007/02/experiencing-white-privilege.html

During the summer, it is important for teachers to take some time to do what they enjoy. Teaching is a difficult career that requires a lot of patients and concentration. If we a burned out, then we cannot do our jobs, out students suffer, we suffer, the whole school and community suffers. Please take the time to take care of yourself. Have some fun.

I love to garden. Every day, weather pending, when I get home the first thing I do is get Emma and head to the garden. It gives me some time to do something physical to burn off some of my frustration and I get to spend time with my little girl (Emma is 2-1/2). I love my time with her. She loves being with daddy, but she also loves to garden. She has a little hand shovel and comes over and helps me dig. She pulls up weeds, and usually I catch her before she pulls up anything she shouldn't. It also gives mom a break after a long day of taking care of a 2 year old.

This summer, I'm planning on spending a lot of time on the garden. I, unfortunately also have to work. That is, unless I get a lot more traffic to my sites, increasing my income from the advertisements. I'm also going to spend a lot of time working on my sites. I really enjoy web development. I particularly enjoy it when others enjoy what I do.

In the garden, I'll have tons of veggies. Some of which, I only have a few seeds for, so will be growing them more to collect the seeds for next year than I will be to eat them. Mostly I'm talking about bean seeds here. I love my beans. I'm also seeding grass and weeding all the beds. I'm not sure I'll get everything I have planned finished this year. I never seem to, but I'll work hard at it and enjoy it. I'll be blogging all about it on my other site.

For work, I'm not sure what I'll do. I'll probably end up doing some contract work in computers. If I don't find anything there, I'll hopefully get something in education. I do need to find something though, as grad school is expensive and funds are being used quickly.

On the web site. I have a lot of plans there as well. Trying to get them up and making some money is part of why I'm up at 11pm writing articles and such. I will be creating a bingo card generator this summer. This generator will allow you to create time bingo cards, as well as other bingo games. I will write more about it when I am further along.

Tell me what you plan on doing. How will this help you to detox and get back into the flow of things when school starts. Are you doing stuff that you enjoy? I sure hope so!