I Can't Remain Silent

I Can’t Remain Silent

By Jill Jenkins

As an educator the fate of children is a responsibility I have always taken seriously.  During the past week the images of children snatched from their parents arms and incarcerated in cages and finally internment camps across the nation without the parents sickens and angers me.  Even though Donald Trump has provided some reprieve by signing his order, a grandmother who crossed legally with her granddaughter she is raising was separated because she was not the girl’s mother.  The cruelty to parents and more importantly children has left me speechless, but no more.  I cannot sit immobilized in disbelief. I cannot remain silent and neither should other teachers across the nation.

Since historically, the holocaust offers us an opportunity to see how separating children from their parents impacts them. I think many of us know people who were in hiding or in concentration camps during World War II.  Some of us know people who were interned in camps like Topaz also.  Internment of any kind causes Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome in children, but especially those separated from their parents.   For example, my first husband’s family migrated to the United States from Holland where both of his parents had been hidden during World War II.  His mother, Elly, was hidden separate from her parents.  After her father was sent to a concentration camp and the family had been picked up by the Gestapo a couple of times, questioned and released, her mother gave both of her daughters: Elly, ten years old, and Rachel, four years old to the resistance. Elly and her sister, Rachel were hidden separately; as a result, for five years Elly never saw her mother or sister. One dark night a stranger escorted ten-year old Elly to train.  At the train station she met another stranger who escorted her to house.  It wasn’t until Elly was in her mid-sixties that she was able to remember that at the first house, she was hidden with a four-year old girl, the same age of her sister.  Both girls cowered in fear as they heard the Nazi going house to house rounding up Jews and shooting.  In terror, the four-year old dashed from the house.  When Elly heard the Germans shouting, the child’s screams and the blast of rifle fire, she knew the girl’s fate.  The psychological pain caused from being separated from her family and terror of the events she suffered affected her forever.  Elly had difficulty flying because the sound of engine before take-off reminded her of her time in hiding traveling from one safe-house to another.  As a nurse, she was often picked up by the Maryland National Guard and driven to work during ice storms; the uniforms and trucks brought back memories of the Gestapo picking up her family and led to panic attacks. After five years of hiding, Elly then 15 didn’t recognize her mother.  In a great sense, the period of separation resulted in a loss of bonding that was difficult to recreate. Her cousin, Jeannette, who had been in hiding on a farm during the war told me even the sight of the uniforms and high boots of Utah Highway Patrol Motorcycle Police gave her heart palpitations and difficulty breathing. 

My former husband’s father, Louis, was in hiding with his parents in the beginning.  The family hid behind a fake wall whenever visitors came.  During the high holidays, Louis father was allowed to listen to services on the radio.  On Yon Kippur, there was a loud banging on the door and loud voices yelling in German, Louis and his mother hurried to the hidden wall, but his father was too far away to reach the wall and jumped through a window and ran.  Louis and his mother listened in horror as a German Shepherd Dog attacked his father who had jumped a fence into a neighbor’s yard.  When I was helping Louis compile his memoirs, his wife told me that each time he recalled his childhood; he had terrible nightmares and would awaken sweating and screaming. The horror of being forcibly separated from a parent or the result of ruse is heard in the recorded sounds of the children weeping and calling for their parents in the detention camps.   The United States, a nation built on the idea of the value of each individual is inflicting the same long-term pain on innocent children crossing the border.  

The psychological effects can negatively affect the choices and behavior of these children.  In Jerzy Kosinski’s semi-autobiographical book, The Painted Bird, the children who are recovering from both their time in hiding and the horrors of the concentration camps, turn to violence and derail a train because they are filled with such wrath. Although the current administration wrongly believes that all illegally migrating people are members of dangerous gangs, he maybe leading these children into the hands of modern-day Fagins.  Children join gangs because they feel unsafe and the gangs offer them protection.  Children join gangs to fulfill a need to belong.  Children join gangs to replace a family they have lost.   Children who have been separated from families feel vulnerable and they will not lose the lost security.  Children who have been separated from families feel alienated and alone and that loneliness will not be dissipated over time.  Children who have been separated from families will forever feel their families can be snatched away.  That insecurity can lead children to the violence of gangs.  They will be angry and the younger they are during that separation the less ability they will have to express that anger. 

Experts have innumerate the many physical illness these children will be susceptible to, but as educators we have seen what psychological abuse does to children. We are a country of due process.  These children are not being given due process. People will say that these children are dangerous and the government is looking after our safety, but I know that is not true.  The number of students who I have taught coming from these country have been amazing students.  Victor whose arms were burned off as his family threw him from a window of an apartment building while escaping a coupe in Columbia.  Abel who was the brightest member of my debate team was seeking political asylum from a country in Central America.  All of my refugee students have struggled through horrible ordeals to come to America, but when they arrived they were bright, students who were polite with a strong work ethic.  Just the kind of people America was built by.  Stop the madness.  Children are not political pawns. They should never be treated cruelly and suffer such irreparable damage. We should no longer be silent.  We must speak for the children.

Cultivating Healthy Faculties and Staff

Cultivating Healthy Faculties and Staff

by Jill Jenkins

As a gardener, I understand the importance of balancing fertilizer, water and sunlight to create a beautiful rose garden.  As a gardener, I understand the vigilance that is required to keep the plants protected from insects, blight and fungus, but as a former educator I cannot understand how state and district administrators are blameless when fewer college students are choosing to become teachers, more teachers are leaving the profession and those who are staying are demonstrating in the streets. As in other industries, cultivating the talent of employees takes not only resources like money and benefits, but also a fair amount of fertilizer, water and sunlight.  By that I mean, treating employees honestly and fairly, keeping commitments and supporting them emotionally through stressful situations.  A blog that I recently read by Seth Nichols “Why Teachers Are Walking Out,” seems to support my observation.  In his blog, he compares teachers to abused housewife who abandons a relationship only after a cumulative effect of years of abuse.  He exemplifies this position with the many hours of unpaid work teachers willingly provide before and after contract hours, the countless resources and supplies they purchase with their own funds and the barrage of abuse they endure from parents, students and the media.  Finally, after years of endurance, educators like the abused housewife, walk out. 

For the most part, I agree with Mr. Nichols article.  An abusive spouse will often “string” a spouse along with half-truths and empty promises offering hope for improvement where none exists.  Similarly, teachers are often duped by promises made by district or state administrators.  For example, when I was teaching, the district technology administrator offered teachers “a free I-Pad and a $200 stipend after completing a six week training in the summer.”  Teachers flocked to the workshop only to discover what they meant to say was  “the use of an I-Pad provided the teacher remained at the same school in the district and a $200 stipend after the teacher completed the six week summer workshop, twenty hours of workshops during the school year and created a teacher web-site to the administrator’s satisfaction.  Many teachers completed the summer workshop and stopped.  They felt they had been hoodwinked.  I persevered.  Even though I already had a web-site, even after the district administrator rejected my new web-site creation three times and  even after I called a specialist to show me what I was doing wrong, I persevered.  Despite that, the damage was done.  I was angry and felt the district had misrepresented the class.  Like many incidents, this was not enough to make teachers quit, but the lowering of morale from a serious of insensitive, miscommunications adds to the likelihood that those who can retire early will and those who can transfer to another field will also.  Morale is important, not only for maintaing a teaching staff, but also for attracting them.

Abusive relationships are often characterized by a lack of commitment on one person’s part.  Healthy relationships require the commitment of both involved.  Nevertheless, educators are dependent on the whims of state legislatures for financing. This often creates problems.  For example, some years ago the state legislature decided that having two reading specialists in each school would be advantageous. These specialists could continue teaching and train their faculty in incorporate reading across the curriculum.   When my principal approached me and asked me if I would be willing to commit to three years of training, once a week from 4-7 P.M. at a school 30 minutes south of my school, I agreed.  In exchange for my time, I could look forward to small increase in salary when the training was complete and $200 stipends each six months during the training.  After persuading my aging parents, to pick my then ten year old daughter up from her school every Wednesday, feed and care for her,  I car pooled weekly with a collogue for the training.  The classes were valuable, but after two years, the state legislature eliminated the funding.  The state was not committed.  Only the teachers were committed, so the program ended   Even getting paid our last stipend took over a year.  The teachers were disappointed and morale was again low. During the course of my career, many programs and curriculum were discarded after teachers spent hours of their own time developing lessons, and materials.  The teachers were rarely consulted or the effects of the decision considered.  The actions and lack of commitment on the districts or state’s part affects the morale of teachers and thus their attrition.

Teaching is an emotionally draining career.  Not only do teachers spend their own time planning lessons, grading papers and communicating with angry frustrated parents, but also the emotional trauma of students’ lives affects the educators who listen to them and help them sort it out.  As a teacher, I heard about physical and sexual abuse, murder, parents who were arrested or deported, parents who were killed, and had students who committed suicide, murdered or assaulted others. Some of my students suffered other disasters. One entire families burned to death. Some were killed in car accidents.  Police officers who are not as emotionally close to the public they serve are offered counseling and time off when they witness some emotionally draining event, but teachers are not.  Teachers need to be given skills to deal with the emotional stress of teaching.  As a teacher I joined a gym, went bike riding with my daughter and walked my dog.  Many teachers are given so many extra-curriculum responsibilities, that they do not have time to de-stress.  Some districts tell teachers to put the district web-mail on their personal cell phones, so parents can contact them 24/7.  First, the district is not offering to pay the cell-phone bill and it is unwise and unhealthy for teachers to be at the beck and call parents 24/7.  This is causing teacher burnout.  Healthy, happy teachers are more effective.   School district need to recognize how overloading teachers emotionally is counter-productive.

According to ”Study Utah Has High Potential for Teacher Turnover and Shortage” by Kern C. Gardner Institute, “40% of Utah educators who started in 2011 were no longer teaching in Utah classroom at the end of their fifth year.”  If school districts and the states are serious about keeping teachers, improving benefits and pay is a start, but consider communicating with teachers honestly, keeping promised commitments and providing resources and sensitive decisions to the emotional stress teachers face. Preserving a health teaching staff is like sustaining a health garden.  Plants require sunlight, water and fertilizers; teachers require good pay, and benefits.  Plants require protection from strangling weeds and insidious insects; teachers require protection from insensitive district communications that misrepresents facts or requirements; the assurance that legislators and school districts will keep their commitments; and the resources and support to cope with the stress related to teaching.

School Stinks

School Stinks

by Jill Jenkins

I recently visited my former school to celebrate the retirement of two of my favorite people.  When I opened the door, not only did I note that my former classroom was gone to facilitate moving the school office to the front of the school, but also that the building reeked with the pungent, sour odor of 1500 sweating adolescents.  In the wake of the recent school shooting, the school had been transformed with one main door that opens into an office, so visitors are forced to check in before having access to classrooms.  Logically this seems like a wise choice since anyone carrying an AK-47 would have to confront the school secretaries and administrators before blasting any innocent students or teachers.  The secretaries and administrators are some tough cookies for any would-be assassin, but it was the smell that would have sent any miscreant running.  The brick building was built without windows like a giant warehouse.  When I taught there, the classroom doors used to have a small rectangular window filled with wire that ran vertically above the door knob, but these have been replaced with windowless doors.  For further protection, the teachers are required to keep their doors shut and locked to keep any rifle-toting criminals from having access to the forty or so students in each classroom. Unfortunately, this significantly reduced the air-flow in the building.  The walls of each classroom are covered with carpet to absorb sound, but they have absorbed far more than that over the 30 years of the school's existence.  Every year 1500 boys and girls entering puberty run through the halls rubbing their sweat covered skin over the carpet leaving behind their rank essence.  The school's air conditioner and heater have feebly attempted to filter the stale air, but quite inadequately.  Like any pig or turkey farmer, I became nose blind to the smell when I taught there.  (There were advantages: I was thinner then because I never had an appetite and I couldn't wait to shower when I got home. Maybe subconsciously I was more aware than I thought.  Even then, many teachers, I included, tried a variety of solutions including plug-in air fresheners in our classrooms, but the fire department banned them.)  I started to wonder that if in our attempt to keep students safe from intruders are we exposing them to the health risks connected to the bacteria growing in that carpeting or extreme depression from "loathsome smells and shrieks like mandrakes torn from the earth" (Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet).  Maybe school just stinks. 

I proceeded down the hall to the library (excuse me, Media Center) to join what was left of the faculty where I spent over 20 years of my career.  The halls were darker than I remembered perhaps because the area that used to be office had windows on two sides that were always brightly lit.  Those windows had been bricked in and contained three classrooms whose dark doors were closed.  Although there were photos on the top of the walls of former 9th grade classes (too high for my eyes because I am only five feet tall about the height of the average 7th grade student), the halls looked bleak and depressing.  I wondered if these dark, colorless halls might be contributing to the unusual number of suicides that have occurred recently among teenagers.  The place was depressing me. According to research "The Impact of Light and Colour on Psychological Mood: a Cross-cultural Study of Indoor Work Environments" by Kuller R, Ballal, S, Laike T, Mikellides, B and Tonello G ,  

       "The results also indicate that the use of good colour design might contribute to a more positive mood.

       It is suggested that in future research light and colour should be studied as parts of the more complex              system making up a healthy building." 

The foul, rancid odor flowed after me down the hall and I began to wonder if I needed another shower before I congratulated my old colleagues.  The prison-like atmosphere and the over-crowded classrooms made me wonder if the psychological effects could contribute to a desperate teenager.  Maybe school just stinks. 

Working with this faculty was a real treat.  Faculty members took a team approach on everything.  If a student had a problem, his teachers shared ideas to help him overcome.  Departments worked together on curriculum as well and technology, reading and writing skills were developed in a cross-curricular method.  For example the librarian and the Language Arts Department (that's the English Department) tested and checked with each child to guarantee that each read books on his/her individual reading level. Each classroom provided the student with ten minutes of reading at school and communicated with parents on reading charts that each student read two hours each week at home.  Computerized tests determined if the student had comprehended his/her book.  As each book was successfully completed, we teachers rewarded the student with both verbal recognition and small piece of candy, continually encouraging him/her to achieve his/her individualized reading goal based on his/ her reading level. At the end of each grading period, each student who achieved his/her reading goal was recognized in his classroom and sent to the media center where the librarian personally rewarded each student with a certificate and rubber ducky.  She snapped a picture of the student wearing a crown or holding a ducky and posted it in the library for all to see. The halls were filled with pictures of the students reading. "Reading is Duckie," or at least it was.  According to the librarian, those programs have ended.  Cross curriculum projects between Language Arts Department and the Geography or the Science Department were common and the projects were displayed in the halls. Students used computerized writing programs, computerized testing programs and created movies and presentations in the computer labs for cross-curricular projects.  These projects have also given way to test preparation.  Although I was happy to see old friends and everyone hugged and talked about the old days, I was sad to see what has become to my old school.

For all those designing schools to maximize student safety, while placing a safety portal with school offices and resource police at the front of the building is a great start, there is more to think about.  Preventing a child from becoming a maniac murdering his peers should be goal number one.  Schools need to be pleasant places, not prisons.  Providing students with a clean, well ventilated, well lit and brightly colored space will help create a lively, healthy environment.  For all students school is a home away from home and each student needs to feel like an appreciated member of the community. Remember students are malodorous, messy creatures, so use building materials that are easy to clean.  Don't put carpet on the walls. Use insulation in the walls to dampen sound from room to room.  Provide colorful display areas to show students work and display happy pictures of the students in the school.   Designing safe school building is only part of the answer.

The school atmosphere is important.  Keeping the school clean and well lit will improve health and moral for the teachers and the students, but encouraging teachers to work together and find ways to recognize students' achievement will make students feel more loved and appreciated.  Even as another school shooting occurred today in Texas, think about ways of preventing others by using training teachers to identify behavior or signs that a student is troubled.  Observing changes in student behavior and referring student to social workers, counseling staff or school psychologists can prevent depression from escalating into disasters.  Changing our focus on making all students feel safe, appreciated and loved is a good start.  Schools do not have to stink.  Instead make them smell like school spirit and make every student's education a positive one.