On the schedule for this summer is a long dreamed about road trip. It's an idea that has been banging around in my head since I was a kid and back in January while discussing any upcoming travels with The Lovely Wife she said I just need to do it. So I'm getting ready to do it. For this particular adventure, my weapon of choice will be my trusty Africa Twin. It's taken me all over Arizona and some of the surrounding states, but now we are going just a bit further. 3000 miles further. (4828km for those of you outside 'Murica.) I've been picking up stuff here and there for the last month or so and have been spending a lot of time on Google maps. What really made it real very suddenly is what arrived a few weeks ago. Donuts. Hoops. Rubber. Tires. The tires I wanted for the trip can be hard to get so I ordered the early on as they are kinda' important. Of course the got here in no time at all. Preparations are in full swing now! I hit the road in a bit more than two months.
Where am I going? Stay tuned. 😁
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The GED program I teach at received a “memo of concern” last month from the state because for some strange and inexplicable reason, our enrolment is down. (It couldn’t possibly have something to do with a global pandemic. Nope. No connection there at all.)
You hear it all the time. "All 'yall jus need ta suck it up and stop wasting time and money on dumb shit! Once ya do that 'yall be rich in no time!"
Others respond with how the system keeps people down. Does "The System" really keep people poor? The last few days here in GED land shed some light on just how systemic being poor is. Student one is talking about having to quit classes with just one test left to pass. The reason? Thanks to our honorable republican governor shutting down the extended assistance programs they had to get a job. Now, many will say welfare is bad and people should get a job. I can see some merit to that argument, but stop and think for a moment about what job can a person without a diploma get? I'll tell you. Minimum wage. Constantly changing work schedule. If you are lucky your hours will be consistent. Odds are they won't. Chance for promotion or advancement: next to none. Chance for losing your job: high to certain. Student two tripped on a section of damaged sidewalk. To add insult to literal injury they also dropped their phone. They spent three weeks laid up due to this injury and couldn't contact or participate in online lessons until they replaced the phone. Student three has a certificate for a well paying career but can't get hired because they lack a GED. The state has a program that can grant a GED equiveillance for training and experience. Out of eight points needed the state only grants one for a professional level certificate. Non of these examples are the end of the road. And yes, on a one by one basis they can be overcome. However, all of these examples do illustrate a system that at best creates more obstacles to climbing out of poverty. From locking people in low paying jobs, to crumbling infrastructure that disproportionally effects poor people, to options that are not really options at all, "The System" does actively continue to create new barriers as well as reinforce currently existing ones. As these barriers pile up breaking the cycle of poverty becomes a Sisyphean task. As to all the self made types out there, it is amazing how many of them got a cheap loan, somebody gave them tools, they had free access to materials and a place to store them... The list goes on and on and the more you look the more you realize most of them have never experienced real backbreaking poverty. But they sure do like to tell people they have. The Lovely Wife said to me the other day, "Why do we need teachers if everything is available on the internet?
It's a fair question and it got me to thinking. After that thinking I came up with a single word answer: context. Part of the GED test here in Arizona (and a few other states) is a civics test. It's basically a How Well Do You know The United States trivia test. Seriously. One of the questions is "What is one thing Benjamin Franklin is famous for?" Answer: "Oldest member of the Constitutional Convention." As a teacher, I bring relations and connections to the trivia. Trivia is knowing who Susan B Anthony is. Context is discussing the decades of fighting, the truly nasty opposition, and the social issues of the movement. Context is connecting that movement with the women that didn't want to go back to being housewives at the end of WWII. Context is also knowing what to ask. Context is creating the situation where the student comes up with the question. Recently I put up live feed of a volcano in Iceland. A student asked isn't it cold there? This opened up a conversation on what makes a volcano hot, how we can capture that heat for energy production, types of rocks and more. Another reason for have teachers is helping others sperate the proverbial wheat from the chafe of all that information on the internet. After all, just because it's on the web doesn't make it true and we have seen the results of less than critical thinking on "facts". To sum it all up, I like to think of what I do not so much as teacher, but rather inciting curiosity. My jam is setting up a place where people can come and explore and ask questions. Talk about things and see stuff they may have never thought of. And to show them how they can find information It's been a bit since my last dispatch. Mostly because not much is happening. Our winter break got extended due to Covid. (Big Surprise, right?)
One issue that we have been discussing here lately is internet access. Specifically low income education based programs. One wall our students have been hitting is that yes, there are many programs out there for low income students that need access right now, but there is a catch. You either need to be in college or have a child in the local K-12 system. This creates what is commonly referred to as a hole. And it is an unfortunate hole because it can continue the cycle of poverty that many adult education students are trying to break. Think about it. You have a two year old in your house. You need a GED to advance at work, but you can't because the one job you managed to get does not pay enough to cover your bills and reliable quality internet. Thanks to the pandemic, all the GED programs are online. You can't improve your situation making it harder to provide for your child. That child now has a harder time escaping the very poverty that you are trapped in so the circle keeps on rolling along. It's this type of thing that people that love saying "Well why don't they just get a better job!" have absolutely no idea exists. This situation is a great example of how adult education is the Korean war of education. It's still going on, everybody just forgets about it. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what education will look like post pandemic lately.
It seems to go without saying that more and more parts of the education puzzle will be moving to online instruction and student teacher interactions. In the ivory towers of the computer salespeople and the political wonks this seems to be a good idea. In the more well-off suburbs of the nation this also seems to be workable. (Other than reluctant parents that don’t want to spend all day with the children they chose to have. But that’s a rant for another day…) Down in the trenches things look a bit (OK, a lot) less rosy. The program I teach with focuses on people that are at the bottom of just about everything. A world of online education looks like this to them. View 1. One student dropped their phone recently and they do not have the funds to repair or replace it. While this student does have access to a computer at home, that computer is not connected to the internet. View 2. Another student had to pawn their computer to pay rent last month. View 3. Most of my students do not have a computer at all and the phones they have are generations behind. Some are lucky if they have a flip phone. View 4. Of those with smart phones, most are on throttled and/or pay as you go data plans. A single two hour live online class session could wipe out their access for the month. View 5. They may have a computer that is internet capable but live in an area with little to no internet service. All this is not to say that computers are evil and online education is impossible. Computers are merely tools. Tools can be very useful, but as great as a hammer is at driving in nails, it still hurts when I hit my thumb with one. We cannot blithely move forward with the idea that everyone has the same educational opportunities as we shift more and more to a system that does not have equal access for everyone. This is even more important to consider with GED students. By not having an educated piece of paper that offers career flexibility, GED students are somewhat by definition on the lower end of the economic scale. They are locked into whatever low paying job they can get. This offers a reality that sees internet access not as a necessity, but rather as a luxury. This sub-existence is something that many cannot conceive, let alone empathize with. This nation is currently looking at building a new education system that requires internet access as a backbone to travel on. Presto, you now have a two-tier education system that guarantees those in poverty remain there. As with most issues with education, it is a complex issue that most everyone hopes will just go away. I don’t have any solid answers. I do know that not having the conversation will not make the problem magically fix itself. As some of you have figured out by now, I am a teacher. Specifically, I teach GED for a court probation office. In other words, I am teaching in a small corner of a small world.
It is a corner and a world that most people know very little about. That's why I'm starting a new section of The Occasional Ravings called Dispatch from the GED Front. I hope to update it more often, and unlike my usual ravings that cover a wide range of topics, Dispatch will focus on GED stuff. Things like how government policies directly effect my students, things that keep me coming back to teach, and who are my students? To start with, what does the average GED student look like? Well, they look like you. I have students from poor families, well off families, and no families. I have young students. I have old students. I have motivated students. I have lazy students. Students that struggle with school as well as students that find school easy are in my classes. As I am teaching in a probation office, most of the students in my class are here because they were told to. Of these, some have a magical moment where they realize what attending GED classes can do to their future. I also have students that are looking for a better life. One of my favorite reasons for being one of my students is one of the many variations I hear of "I want to show my kids that education is important". Last year one of these students in my class not only celebrated the high school graduation of their child, but also got to brag about said child getting a full scholarship to the local state university. This is but one of the many stories from my classroom that I intend to share. Stories that illustrate the power, and the frustrations, of adult education. Stay tuned! The 2020 election is all set to smash spending records with the bill closing in on 11 billion dollars. That’s 11 with nine zeros after it.
This rising cost is one reason why some continue to call for campaign finance reform, specifically to limit how much money a candidate can raise and where they can raise it from. This is obviously not working. I respectfully submit the following idea for election funding. Step one: Remove all limits. Yes, yes. I hear you. Unlimited election funding gives the rich a disproportionate voice in elections. I agree. However, all attempts to limit this purchase of a louder voice have been thwarted by the very people that continue to purchase a louder voice. Let’s stop beating that particular dead horse. Let the candidates raise as much as they want. Go for it. Grab that all mighty American Dollar. However! A percentage of all money raised must be donated to a charity or cause of the candidate's choosing in the jurisdiction of the office he or she is running for. I propose a sliding scale with city and county elections at 15%, state level elections at 25%, and federal level elections at 50%. This accomplishes two things. First, it redirects a bunch of wasted money towards something useful. Second, it provides the voters with insight to what the candidate truly feels is important. After all, we can talk about all sorts of things, but it is all meaningless if you aren’t willing to actually pay for it. Step two: No fund raising or add buys until three months prior to the election date. Candidates are elected to do a job, not to campaign. Step three: No more war chests. After every election any left over money all candidates have will be directed to paying down any outstanding public debt in the jurisdiction the candidate is running. Should that jurisdiction have no debt, the money will go to a fund meant for maintaining public infrastructure. Again, lets put that money to something useful. Step four: Apply these same rules to any and all special interest groups, PACs, and individuals that chose to raise money for and/or directly lobby for or against a candidate, proposition, or law. Any group or individual that spends money to sway any election or law accepts these rules. Any group or individual that advocates that others should send money to a candidate or political group also accepts these rules. And yes, that goes for churches as well. You want to stand on the street corner and shout about your favorite law or lawmaker to anybody that will listen. Go for it. The second you accept money to do so, or tell others they should send money somewhere, you are now a part of the system and subject to its rules. So how do we keep track? Simple. We let the candidates police themselves. At any time during the election any person residing in, or group operating in, the jurisdiction of the office in contest can call for a public audit to be completed within one week of request. Should the audit find any issues with the numbers, either by accident or on purpose, that candidate pays all costs related to the audit and forfeits the election. Full stop. No wiggle room. No margin of error. If there is even a hint of something off, you are done. (After all, anyone in office will have control of public money, so an ability to keep it straight is very important.) Any delays by the candidate will be taken as admission of guilt and the election and all remaining funds will be forfeit. This goes for groups and individuals not running as well. If a group campaigning for or against a law or candidate has a problem with the books, the candidate or law they are supporting forfeits. If it is a campaign against a candidate or law, that candidate's opponent forfeits or the law passes. Should the books come back clean, the person or group calling for the audit must pay for all cost incurred by the candidate or group relating to the audit and they are barred from calling for any further audits until the next election. Any person or group that calls for three audits in a row that find nothing will be barred from calling any audits in the future. I think it's worth a try. I’m somewhat torn on my reaction to recent bouts of Republicans coming out against Trump. Things like the Lincoln Project are encouraging, and I want to say, “Welcome to the party!”
But then my knowledge of history kicks in and I want to say, “Really!?! This is a step too far??? Why are you surprised by this? Are you really that oblivious to all the bright neon signs that have been flashing in your face for decades?” Make no mistake, the Republican party has been on the road to Donald Trump since the mid-sixties. For those of you that forgot, the mid sixties was a period of great social upheaval where Jim Crow was challenged and the Civil Rights bill was passed. Southern Democrats, collectively called Dixiecrats, were not happy with this. So, when Republican Barry Goldwater ran on a platform against the Civil Rights bill and won votes in the south, Republican leadership took note. While Goldwater lost with this view, Richard Nixon took up the mantle of states rights and did eventually end up wining. It was called the Southern Strategy. It was the on ramp to Trump Highway. (It begs the question which is worse; to have a racist people in your club and expel them, or to look at those expelled racist and go after them in the name of power?) Saint Reagan continued the trend by going after all the welfare queens. They just happened to be black. 1988 saw a reinforcement of the idea of the out of control criminal, who just happens to be a black man for some reason, when Republicans attacked the democratic candidate with Willie Horton. Republicans even do it to their own as seen in the attack on John McCain for supposedly having an illegitimate black child. (cue shocked gasps and pearl clutching) And of course we can't forget the ever popular war on drugs. This old chestnut banks on the image of the African American neighborhood overwhelmed by drugs pushed by, purchased by, and taken by black people. (White people do drugs too, but they go to rehab. Non white people go to jail.) But it’s the corruption that is the real problem with Trump! Um, anybody remember Iran Contra? (The principal of which is currently a respected Republican pundit.) How about savings and loan? The Republican party has also gone a long way to normalizing politicians that swing more towards the, shall we say, less than bright side with the likes of Dan Quayle and Sara Palin. The economy! See Reagan, Bush, Bush II... Trickle down, once accurately called Voodoo Economics by Bush Sr. when he ran against Reagan for the 1980 nomination, has never worked, yet Republican presidents and legislatures run to it every time. Which brings us back to Donald Trump and the Republican “rejection” of him. Do not forget that members of the Republican party continue to support him. The Republican party rubber stamped his corruption when they chose to reject impeachment with statements like he’s learned his lesson. This is why I really have a hard time with Republicans that suddenly see Trump as a problem. There is absolutely no sudden when it comes to the actions of Donald Trump. He has a long and documented trail of everything that these enlightened republicans now seem to have an issue with. Where was the Lincoln Project when Trump came out with ridiculous statements like Mexico will pay for the wall? Was George Conway asleep when Trump told a gold star family to shut up? How are you possibly surprised that a person that brags about grabbing them by the pussy ends up having problems relating with and to others? This is why I say spare me your outrage and posturing. As long as Trump is the only part of the Republican platform you are speaking out against, will not change a single thing in the Republican party. It's almost as if the real problem Republicans have with Trump is that he is saying what they are thinking out loud. This morning I investigated an online high school diploma at work that turned out to be fake. Looking at what the student bought in to, I thought I'd do a quick list on things to look out for when selecting a school.
The website in this case, Stanley High School, is set up to hook people and can look legit. Lots of pictures of smiling students, official sounding terms like accreditation, and a nifty seal complete with a Latin motto are plastered on every page. This helped convince the client to spend over $200 for a useless piece of paper. So what are some red flags to keep an eye out for?
There are some real online schools out there, that is what makes this a difficult issue. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much digging to find the truth. |
Step inside the mind of me.Hi. Welcome to my little electron of the internet, where you will find random comments about whatever pops into my mind! Previous mumblings
December 2021
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