"If you loved your job, I doubt you'd be investing this kind of time degrading mine"

A friend sent me an amazing post yesterday written by a fellow art teacher, Brandi Martin in Illinois concerning the recent rise in animosity towards teachers. I cannot urge you enough to read it, it is quite on mark with the rage a growing number of teachers have come to feel. I'm including just one sample from the post to make you click here and go read it personally.

"So do it. Reduce my pension. Make me poor, since I don't qualify for Social Security. Make my medicine unaffordable. Make my raise contingent upon proof that my art lessons somehow improved state math scores. Continue firing at my feet to see how long you can make me dance. It still won't change the fact that life did not work out as you planned and you're now a bitter little turd. AND I will STILL f******love my job, because I am rocking this for all the right reasons. After you take every tool and incentive and support away from me, and millions like me, you won't suddenly have anything great that you don't already have. And then you will be terribly disappointed to find out that this isn't a scam after all. Whether decorated or destroyed, inside every school we run on something you can't legislate, isolate, measure or destroy. Much to your inarticulate all caps despair.

It's love, dumbass. If you'd bother to volunteer at the little school down the street you could have a sample. I won't even tell the kids what you wrote about their teacher."

Reclaim the Dream Weekend...

Nora is painting her sign....

Luke chose a peace sign.
It was a HOT day....I heard an observing Tea Partier say, "where are the flags?". Does one have to wear the flag on every part of their body to be a true patriot?
It was a beautiful day.
The minute we took a break in a shaded area....Luke collapsed on the grass.....
A fire truck had water!! yum!! what fun!!

Nora was asleep throughout the entire rally....when we got home she was all ready to chant, we felt really bad that we let her sleep through the whole experience.
Luke and dad cuddling...


I love my boys....

my wise hubby....

Is a Religion Ever Right To Outlaw Love?

Anyone who knows me personally or through this blog knows I am an avid supported of the Palestinian cause. I try to read other blogs and independent news reels about this issue because I so very much feel they've have had to endure so much suffering and continue to do so today. In my readings I ran across a blog called Diary of a Muslim Girl and in her most recent post she mentioned how there is a gay rights group in her university with one Muslim member. She ends with sharing that for "a Muslim to actually go and join the group and promote homosexuality while doing so is something that seems a bit iffy" for "homosexuality is condemned in Islam." 

While I greatly appreciate her candor and openness for discussion, I was appalled to read the comments that followed which went along the lines of didn't he know it's not okay or some comment on how watered down the religion has become. The author herself further clarified by saying, "I am completely against homosexuality as well and I am disgusted by it." 

Let's look at this a bit clearer. I always find it interesting that the people that have the most intensely negative feelings about gays (or any group for that matter) have never even associated with anyone from that group personally. I say this because to come out and say, "disgusted" is a bit strong. If I were to say, " I am disgusted at ________ (fill in your group here) " that would seem strange too. Wouldn't it?

I can only shed light on my personal views on the purpose of religion and/or spirituality in my life. But I strongly believe that if it's outcome is hatred, separation and a general "warrior" approach to the true nature of humanity...Then I'd dare say it's being used to separate, and therefore not served right. I understand that in the great spectrum of all the wonderful religions of the world there are some that may be more prescriptive in nature than others....do this, not this, no to that, boys here, girls here...etc. But no matter how prescriptive our religion may be, shouldn't our instinctual ideas and inner voices of what is truly important, right and solid also play even a small role in determining right from wrong? or are we to just be on automatic for the rest of our lives. If so, then why give us free will, why give us reasoning?  

In my heart,  love can never be bad; no matter what color, or gender, size....love is love is love is love. 

Now if you want to fight evil and stand for some good, there are some truly dark evils out there for you to tackle...and gays are not one of them at all. For example, I saw this show on Oprah months ago about child molesters who rape children as young as 3-years old and write manuals for other molesters to do the same and publish them online. Every time I think back to what I saw and heard on that show I tremble in my deepest core to think people like that exist. I also saw a show called I Survived where a woman lived to tell of her repeated savage stabbing and beating by three teenagers. People filled with hate and rage are out there and should our focus not be on them? or on how to not raise sociopaths such as these in our society? These are the true haters, for lack of another better word.  On a more powerful yet subtle level, poverty too is an evil.  When people are desperate and without the bare basics, a lot of suffering can come out of it. 

 My question is......in religion/spirituality, can our own interpretation or deeply instinctual ideas come to play?  I think spirituality should ultimately serves my own inner personal  search for god. I also think this argument may go any direction for it all depends on whether you feel the sacred is out there to attain or already within us. I feel it's within us......god is in me and everyone, and as long as love is there to shine the light, it can't be bad. 

Do All Four-Year-Olds Have QUIRKS?

Today as I chased my son Luke, who's 4, around for a picture as he ran and hid deep under an table (picture below).  Just then, I thought to myself that he surely has many odd quirks such as these where he hides when mommy want to take his picture. It's been months since I've been able to easily snap a shot of his beautiful smiling face without having to make some sort of "deal" with him. I wondered to myself as I chased him, "do all 4-year-olds have odd quirks as these?".  What I have learned from these quirky behaviors is that they are short-lasting and not worth fighting or placing efforts into changing; unless of course you want to have high blood pressure.  The best lesson all parents learn through experience, and experience alone,  is that, some battles are just not worth fighting. You might start out with all sorts of neat ideas of hoe you want to raise this child but the child will MOLD you into a more flexible parent in not time; to put it mildly.  Before I had my own children I thought myself very sensitive to other parent's parental-related issues due to the fact that I had quite a few years teaching under my belt as well as a fancy education degree.  Yet, looking back now, I realize that I was often too quick to judge parents on how they dealt with their children's misbehaviors.  Yet life seems to always come full circle in the most ingenious of ways. For now as a parent I experience the reverse situation.   I see and feel the ways in which people without kids are often too quick to judge me in ways I deal with my child. What might seems like to an observer as us allowing Luke to carry on some less-than-pleasant and possibly disruptive behavior is actually a well planned approach on part of my husband and me. As hard as that may be to swallow, I actually choose not to fight some battles. 

 Luke making a face.....did not want his picture taken

He even hid under the table

It does not bother me one bit to see people without kids think of me as doing things wrong.  It's actually a reaffirming situation that shows me first hand that life has all its lessons built into time. In time, all knowledge will reveal itself and everyone is exactly where they should be in terms of their learning cycle. I smile and think to myself, "wait....just wait...."

Testing Prep Filling Up Kids' Minds

I understand the need to make sure all kids do well in school and this being one way to find this out for sure. But to spend a huge part of most days these days doing test prep is not adding to one's learning experience. 

As a mother of children who will most likely be in the public school systems for 12 years, I am very concerned about this issue and know I will be more and more at odds with it as my children get older and ready to take them as well. Kids are not learning anything while they are being prepped for standardized tests; well, except how to bubble in the circles, a, b, c or d and how to eliminate their obviously wrong answers. 

As a person who has always learned best in doing, this type of education would be the death to my creativity.  I would love to see more emphasis placed on schools teaching more self-learning and more meta-cognitive type of projects, where kids become the evaluators of their own work and learning. But this type of learning requires a much higher standard and much more care and dedication on the part of the teacher. But below I created a list of things I would love to see in my kids' schools and am sending this wish out to the Universe in hopes that more and more parents become empowered to take the reins of their kids' education and demand that creativity and pride in one's individual gifts become once again the focus of education. 

I would love my kids to:

1. go to a school where aesthetics was important. Where kids work was smart and beautiful. 

2. go to a school where all adults talk to kids with respect. 

3. a school where the ones in power valued lessons being taught without the use of xeroxes 

4. go to a school where consequences for bad behavior did not include being taken out of gym or outside time. 

5. go to a school were children learned about the larger world....like hey, we are at war....info on elections...etc. 

6. go to a school where no more than 2-3 hours were spent on test prep.....

The print above can be purchase on my online art store site on Etsy.  Would love to hear what you have to say about it. 

Our Day at a Palestinian Rights Rally

My son holding a rally sign

59th street. The Rally ended here. This was taken almost at the end. 

          Our Family went to a Rally today in Times Square in NYC (42nd and 7th) protesting the Gaza Massacre.  Chris and I took our 2 kids with us, ages 4 and 1.5.  Parents out there with kids should know how much work it takes to get kids ready for even the smallest of outings, so this was a huge undertaking.  Of course, with getting ready and frantically trying to find parking we got there one and half hours late.  We were excited to see thousands of people mobilized to march. The powerful and emotion-filled chants were heard many blocks away.  Disappointingly, there were not many people there who were not of Middle Eastern dissent, no Latinos, no African Americans, nothing.  As we walked back to where we parked the car my son carried a huge tall sign he found abandoned nearby with the rally's message in advertised in bright colors.  He proudly walked displaying his sign as curious and confused walkers peeked at it's message. 

           As we walked back the 19 blocks back to our car we were hit with another world, the 5th Avenue shoppers, full of well dressed walkers and general families unfamiliar with the energetic rally just a few blocks away. New York is interesting that way.   My husband Chris who, unlike me, has attended hundreds of similar rallies felt no matter what the numbers are the media would never give it the attention it deserves. Similarly, I left the rally  feeling a sense of sadness at the inaudibility of these passionate cries for human rights for dignity and respect. 

Protesting the Gaza Massacre- Images From Around the World

          Reading the rising casualties in Gaza online is incredibly depressing.  I have chosen to post pictures I found online of protests going on around the world.  Although most of the people around me act and go about their life as if this massacre were not happening, I need to feel connected to other human beings who care about this issue as much as my family does. 

Protests in Madrid 

(Asesinos means "murderers" in Spanish)

Protests in London

Protests in Kiev

Protests in Jordan

 

Protests in Lebanon

Protests in Syria