Author: mathdreads

After teaching public school in Texas for three years, I now realize that although slavery has been outlawed for over a century, it didn’t cease to exist. It merely transformed itself first into the plantation-style management of Texas prisons and then infected the public school system with the implementation of No Child Left Behind in 2001.

Creative, experienced teachers such as myself were deemed no longer qualified to teach subjects we had been teaching for over years if we did not have a university degree in that subject. I managed to escape the initial wrath of NCLB for a few years by accepting a math position at a school in Egypt. After teaching two years there, I taught math and science at two Mexican schools for three years.

By the time I attended another international teaching job fair in February 2006, the NCLB infection had finally spread to foreign private American schools and international schools that were accredited through American agencies. Although the accreditation process is voluntary, schools with the best reputations are accredited to show that their educational program and facilities meet a certain standard, which becomes a matter of public record. In order to charge rich parents top dollar, and pay foreign teachers competitive salaries, private schools outside the States must be accredited and maintain their status.

Therefore, heads of schools and principals were reluctant to interview me for math positions since I was a licensed science teacher who had taught science for only three out of eleven years. Fortunately, I had learned of this bias before going to the job fair and knew to market myself as a HS science teacher.

Although a principal at a school in Colombia had contacted me to schedule an interview for a middle school math position, I had made up my mind to retire from teaching MS since I could not visualize myself going through puberty with middle school students another school year. Nonetheless, I interviewed with that school since I’d only arranged three other interviews–the fewest number of interviews I’d attending international teaching job fairs.

With a tremendous stroke of good luck, the first offer I got was the one I wanted: the IB Biology position at an American school in Honduras. Not only would that position give me current HS science experience, but the school would pay to send me to IB training in New Mexico prior to the upcoming school year. I was in heaven! (Of course, my ego was further inflated by receiving job offers from the other three interviews as well.)

I taught in Honduras for three years during which time, the American economy had started its downward spiral. Yet, after eight years of teaching outside of the States, I was ready to return. Plus, my family had pretty much ordered me back now that we’d just elected our first Black president; so, in their eyes, my self-imposed exile of Dubya’s reign was over.

Realizing that I’d return to the States as a virtual foreigner no matter where I set roots, I researched the best cities for jobs, housing and singles. I narrowed my choices to three cities: Chicago, Boston and Austin. After further research, Austin looked like my best chance to set down roots. I moved to Austin in July 2009 and although I didn’t have a job, I was optimistic and used the unstructured time to work on three paintings in rotation along with three novels.

By mid-August, I started to feel disappointed that I was missing the sweet first week of school when everything was shiny and new. By the middle of that week, I interviewed and accepted a HS science position with the Austin Independent School District. By the end of my first week on the job, I seriously questioned how in the hell I could have overlooked the fact that this wonderful city was a part of Texas.

For the first time in my 14 years of teaching, I did not have the creative freedom to teach the way I wanted. I had to abandon most of the wonderful things that I’d done at other schools, which had made me such a hot commodity in the international teaching market.

To my horror, we science teachers had to use the exact same lessons for 80% of the time, which did not include all the assessments, each with their own acronym. So, for less than 20% of the time, I could teach lessons that I had created or as I referred to it “go off script.” In reality, I hardly ever took the time to write my own lessons since I would not have had the time to use them between the common scripted lessons and the constant pressure to assess the students.

The first year at any new school always puts me in survival mode. So my second year at an AISD HS, things were marginally better. At least I knew all the assessment acronyms. And unlike my first year, I did not have to teach my classes in two different rooms, shared with three other teachers. Although my teaching creativity was still bound by 80% of scripted lessons and invasive assessments, I had the pleasure of decorating my classroom with the cloth from the different countries where I’d taught or traveled through. It was only a small window of freedom, but I took it.

After my second year, I realized that although I felt very controlled, my students were just a technological breath and a few civil liberties away from being enslaved.

Imagine, if you will, a system that regularly judges if students meet a certain standard. If enough students fail to meet the standard, then resources are taken away from a school rather than augmented. With fewer resources and viable alternatives, these students become disenfranchised and eventually find themselves entangled with the judicial system.

Yet kiddie jail is the old model. The new and improved model, which I predict is only a few generations away, won’t need to sequester nonviolent youth. Once the efficiency of the never-ending cycle of assessments improves, resources can be channeled to nurture those youths who have the academic aptitude to succeed while spending less on those who show no promise for higher learning. In this case, higher learning means beyond an elementary education.

Both groups of students can be tracked and when the inevitable happens to the lower tracked students, they can only bargain for shorter incarceration time by agreeing to have a chip implanted. No more ankle bracelets! Chip implantation is the wave of the future. With an embedded chip, the troublesome  youth will no longer be visually stigmatized, but still be monitored.

Before you can say “invasion of privacy,” chip implantation will be touted as the efficient means to keep track of adult criminals, criminalized students and any other undesirables in our society. A few generations will pass and soon, the innocent will also be implanted for their own well-being just like receiving vaccines. At any time, those same chips that keep Americans safe and criminals tracked, can be used to prevent individuals from entering certain places or even crossing borders.

Neo-slavery will not rely on the color of one’s skin, but rather the content of one’s character. And the horror will start from the systemic assessment and data collection of public school students with the system’s arbitrary determination of how high the score must be in order to pass. We’ve already begun the process of putting young people on the auction block. Their collective test scores are reported publicly. The only thing that remains is to evolutionize the old “playground to prison pipeline” into the “crib to chip cyberhighway.” 

Try as I might, I cannot rid myself of all superstitous beliefs. This past week, my reoccurring superstitous belief of bad things happening in threes manifested itself. In actuality, there were four things, but one has already been remedied while the other three remain.

The excited energy of returning to school has been drained, dealing with physical, emotional and situational stresses. I’m amazed at how so few things can redirect my optimistic, creative energy and seep into the recesses of my mind when I’m asleep and bring me back to a waking, unrested state.

The first stressor came as soon as I attended my first meeting with a new group of colleagues. Although I’m teaching at the same high school this year, it’ll be a radically different job description.  I was very excited about the opportunity to do something different for my fourth year at the school. Again, I don’t want to believe in “signs,” but as soon as I entered the room, but before being seated, I felt a sharp pinch on my right foot.  I looked down and saw a small black speck, which I assumed to be an ant, but in retrospect, could have been a tiny spider.  Either way, I slapped it, killing it, but my foot itched and swelled around the bite. Such a tiny, pervasive annoyance that was temporarily relieved when I when home and put a topical solution for bites on it.

The second stressor came Tuesday when the man who I was absolutely crazy about turned down yet another invitation to hang out with me. At that point, there was no mistaking the writing on the wall. I’d felt recently that things had been lopsided in terms of attraction.  Instead of suggesting a “raincheck” date, I just fell on my sword and texted him that I’d see him when our paths crossed again. He reminded me that he didn’t sit still in one place for very long. Ha! I’m a busybody too; so I know how convenient it is to hide behind a busy schedule and secret my free time.

The third stressor came Wednesday after the first science department meeting. I discovered that the teacher who’d been hired for my old teaching position, had broke her contract and accepted another position at a different school. In a logical world, that should not have affected me. At my school, however, the powers that be decided that I would temporarily resume my old position until a suitable replacement was found and that my new positition would be temporarily filled by its former teacher! I still prepped feverishly for my new five different classes, but I was furious that I would probably not be the teacher greeting my students on the first day and perhaps the first week of school.

So, later that day, with an inflamed itchy foot, slightly broken heart and angry mind, I attended my usual bikram yoga class. I usually appreciate the intensity of the heat helping to relax my muscles for a deeper stretch and sweating out toxins, but with as much physical and mental stress that I’d walked in, I especially needed to purge my body of poisons.

Two years ago when I’d resumed my bikram yoga practice, I’d agonize nearly the whole 90 minutes and there were postures I absolutely hated. I’ve come to enjoy the experience and Wednesday’s class proved to me how three different ailments, one physical and two mental, could be alleviated. I emerged from class feeling sensational–my optimism had returned and no itchy, swollen foot!

Friday, after finishing the last of the five sets of lesson plans, moving furniture around, and jettisoning unneeded things from my classroom, I received a call from the woman who I’d been hired to replace, telling me that she was ordered to report to my new classroom and I was to report to my old classroom. This time around, I walked into bikram with sore muscles and an agitated mind. Once again, I reemerged with such a big smile on my face that a fellow yogi commented at how good a practice I must have had.

The next stressor came Saturday. I’d been having a very good day with a basic capoeira class in the morning and then two tango classes in the afternoon.  I make it a point to work my butt off at school Monday-Friday and take the weekend off.  The only school-related thing I chose was buy some highlighters. In the parking lot, I was in line, waiting for a car to finish parking when the heavily tinted station wagon in front of me suddenly backed out and slammed into my car.  I was stunned and had unfortunately hit the horn too late.

We got out of our perspective cars and my heart sank to see such a young adult behind the wheel. I had the right state of mind to take a picture of her temporary tags, which included the VIN and I took a picture of the make of the car.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of her driver’s license.  She wrote down her name, phone number and told me that her insurance was State Farms, but she didn’t have the insurance card in her car.  I was so discombobulated that I gave her my card and asked her to email me her insurance information, but I didn’t get her email address in return.

After talking with my insurance, I was informed that not all the information that the young woman had given me matched.  In other words, State Farms wasn’t going to pay for a claim if I couldn’t get the correct information.  I just hope that that young woman taps into whatever sense of budding adulthood and take responsibility for her actions. At this point, my insurance is going to run down the VIN, but I don’t know what else can be done.

Two ironies here: 1) her temporary license expires on my next birthday and; 2) I’m a week away from paying my car off.

Thank goodness I made a commitment to continue attending bikram three times a week when school starts. I original felt that I needed that to heal my lower back. Now I know I need to heal my spirit as well.

I’ve been reading quite a lot lately about the various forms of oppression that we women face as research for my latest novel, The Adventures of Infinity and Negativa. Although I’m only going to focus on how a lack of education, a lack of birth control and a lack of income oppress women, I’m beginning to see that the first oppressive situation is the biggest of them all.

When females lack education, they are more likely to be viewed by society as mules, who should toil from sun up to sun down on menial tasks that neither require nor stimulate intellectual thought. When society has the expectations that certain women are only good for such menial tasks, then it does not value educating such young women. As a matter of fact, the tendency is to think that the act of educating such young women a waste of resources–with time also being included as a resource.

Outside the States, in some of the most conservative developing countries, such young women are kidnapped and forced into prostitution. Many times, the local police are aware of the brothels that kidnap, beat, and drug young women, but the attitude is that they are the poor, uneducated girls; so it’s OK. Moreover, some condone the practice because the forced sexual enslavement of this perceived undesirable population of young women means that the desirable population of young women (at least middle class and educated) will remain virgins upon marriage. Males can satisfy their sexual desires with prostitutes instead of enticing the desirable population of young women into sex, which would shame her family.

As the universe tends to do when I’m researching a topic, a related workshop presented itself.  Walking into this workshop, I wanted to contrast how young women are trafficked in the States.

One of the first things that I learned was that pimps did not have to cross international or state lines to be considered “trafficking.” I also learned that “teenage prostitution” did not exist by definition since the age of consent federally is 18 and statewide, there is a range of 16-18, depending on the state. The most devastating fact I learned was that the average age for young women to be sexually trafficked in the States is 13.

In the States, young women are recruited to and from school, at women’s battered shelters and virtually any place where the pimps can have access to girls who are at risk. Again, the younger and less educated a girl is, she is at risk of being categorized as an undesirable. If the girl comes from a chaotic home where her parents physically and verbally fight, one or both parents are addicts, then being taken care of by a pimp initially seems better.

Pimps, who are much older, shower the at risk girl with attention, gifts, compliments and eventually have sex with her. Then, once the girls are emotionally attached, that’s precisely when the pimp will flip the script and put her on the street. The biggest lie is that by soliciting herself for money, that she’ll help him save up enough money to eventually marry her and they’ll live happily ever after.

For my book, I’m only focusing on prostitution as it occurs in Honduras, but the common thread of this form of oppression is, by one method or another, young uneducated girls who are poor are at the greatest risk of being trafficked. The universality of this theme sickens me. As a teacher, I’ve discovered newfound motivation to make sure the females in my classes stay plugged into school. Not only are they less likely to be trafficked, but statistically they are more likely to have fewer children and those children will be better cared for by their educated mother.

As a writer, I see it as my duty to bring about the global double standard that is continuing to plague women. I now know that it was an absolute blessing to be born to middle class parents from a developed country that values female education and insures my rights to control how many children I bring into this world and secure income and property.

I’m not sure if just one book will do, but at this point, there are so many issues that are beyond the scope of my current work in progress.  Not only do I need to address the three oppressive situations that I’ve previously mentioned, but also the whole double standard concerning female sexuality. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me.

In an effort to meet more people, I started checking out the weekly Meet Up listings that I receive every Monday.  Confirming what I already knew about this lovely city known as The Live Music Capital of the World, there are so many interesting people and things to do…now reading
Meet Up, I know about even more things that all happen at the same time!

Just for shit and giggles, I decided to hook up with the “dinner and a movie” group this Saturday to watch the latest Batman movie. A few days later, every media source were competing with one another to break the latest exclusive angle on the mass murders that occurred at a midnight showing of Batman in Aurora, CO.

Years ago, I used to teach at a middle school close to that mall, but of course, the media didn’t care about the schools that were closest to the mall. Instead, some chose to show a map with the mall and Columbine High School highlighted, which was the last location of such horrific mass murder.

One of the differences between the two incidents was how much technology has advanced. In addition to several cell phone calls to 911, there were digital images, tweets, texts and good ol’ fashioned eyewitness interviews on camera. Law enforcement did its best to respond to the incident, including urging the media not to hype the situation and encourage copycats, but honestly, the amount of planning and preparation that Holmes underwent cannot be readily copied.

In addition to feeling sympathetic to the family of the murdered movie goers, I became angry that once again, some nutjob legally purchased weapons of mass destruction and killed and injured many people within minutes.  Granted, I’m not a gun owner and I have next to no hunting skills with any implements, but I fail to understand why the average private citizen needs the type of fire power that allows hundreds of bullets to be sprayed in minutes. No hunter, novice or experienced, would carry such a weapon, but it seems to be the legal weapon of choice for the mentally unstable.

Despite my efforts to meet new people, I forgot that I needed to arrive at least 30 minutes prior to showtime and ended up watching Batman by myself. Nonetheless, I’m thankful that all the drama and violence occurred on the screen. Plus, I was proud to be among a full house of people who did not allow fear of copy cats keep them away from enjoying life.

I’ve had such a productive week, I’m amazed that only a week has passed! I took the positive energy from last Sunday’s writers roulette and channeled into the new search for some “raunchy writers” for the upcoming “Expressing Your Wild Side” roulette.

I attended an open mic, a romance writers’ social, an art opening, a milonga and several tango classes.  All the while, I’ve been handing out flyers to people and leaving them places in visible places.

I even got the bright idea to contact two businesses that I thought would do well, given the theme. All-in-all, I’ve been thinking out of the box to build up the event. One thing I’m surely going to miss when school starts up in the fall is the flexible schedule that I have to do everything that I need to get done in a humanly pace rather than feeling stressed with a million things to do.

This upcoming week, I plan to pay one of the potential vendors a visit since I know the manager’s going to be present. I’ll have to call the other vendor, just to make sure that she received my email with the vendor information. Plus, there’s at least two open mics that I plan to visit.  I like the idea of seeing people perform and recruiting the artists who I want.

I’m also going  to meet a friend for a light dinner then try out a modern dance class.  Of course, I’m going to drop off flyers along the way. These days, I’m always thinking of the roulette and ways to improve it. I think I’ve got the basics covered and I even have my first submission. I’ll be doing very well if I can have all of my writers lined up during the next two weeks.  Although the first show went very well, I want to nuture it into something spectacular.