You know the saying, “You can’t teach old dogs new tricks?” Well, I am getting very close to being an old dog. I hope I will always be open to learning something new though. It may be a new way to teach, a new way to learn or a new way to look at the world. I am not going to let myself get stuck in a rut if I can help it.
This past weekend was the Oklahoma Press Association annual convention. I have been lucky enough to go to a number of conventions and they have always been informative, but this year I learned quite a bit more than previous years. I learned what a trooper my daughter Alexandra Prater is. I learned that I do not express my appreciation for the team we have at the paper. They are not only good at what they do, but they are invaluable to us and our communities. They have given more to us on a daily basis than anyone, including me, will ever understand. Allie Prater, J.D. Meisner, DeAnna Mddox, Sapphire Smith, Chris Reed and Justin Fincher are the heart and soul of Cimarron Valley Communications.
There are many other things I learned and the most important one to all of us is, “Are you asking the right questions?”
We all know that this is an election year. How can we not know? Signs litter the landscape trying to get our attention. We all want to scream at the politicians who fill our mailboxes with fliers. Fliers that we don’t read. Fliers that end up going into the trash before we even leave the post office. We have people we do not want to talk to knock on our doors begging for us to vote for them. Political surveys arrive in our text messages and emails like ants at a picnic. And worst of all the insufferable television ads that speak to us like we are all a bunch of morons who are not able to make intelligent decisions. Ads that don’t tell us anything but invade our lives, bringing a new level of misery and negativity to a world that would respond better to positivity because life is hard enough the way it is.
You may be asking what this has to do with the convention and learning something new, well it should not come as a surprise, but I am about to tell you. That’s my M.O.
At the convention I was privileged to attend a candidates forum. People from all walks of life who are running for political office were there. Ok, that is not really true no matter what they say, most of these candidates are privileged and know nothing about how we, the peasants of the world, really live. Talking one on one with these people taught me so much. I walked around the room for two hours because I wanted to try to speak to each candidate.
The first thing I learned was that most of them hate each other. When one of the other candidates enters their bubble they puff up like a cat about to enter a fight. For the most part they have all forgotten what most of us were taught in preschool. They do not know how to play nice. It is beyond their ability and mentality. We the voters are able to look at a large number of these candidates and know they road rage when trying to get from one place to another. I myself can just imagine the language they use as they aggressively drive down the freeway and someone is going slow in the fast lane.
Second, I learned that a large number of these people are so far removed from the real world that they cannot for the life of them hold a conversation with most of us. They stumble over words worse than my 6th grade students who have to get up and present something in front of the class. In my mind I was silently saying, “Use your words! If you are not able to communicate on an intelligent level how do you propose to conduct yourself with dignity when you get elected to the position you are running for?”
Just in case you didn’t know, English teachers are very critical about communication or the lack of communication skills. Get it together guys! If you want to represent me, learn to communicate with me on a one to one basis.
Third, the shaking hands and kissing babies thing is a no go for me. The plastic fake smiles of the political boys and girls that slithered around that room on Saturday was enough to turn my stomach. All I wanted to do after leaving that room was wash the stink and slime off of me. There was no amount of hand sanitizer that could fix that experience.
Another thing I learned was many of these people have no earthly idea what they are talking about. We have all heard what they want to accomplish and why they think that they are the best man or woman for the job they seek. I asked a lot of pointed questions. I did not want to know where they stand because they have thrown that in our faces for the past year. What I wanted to know is why they chose the causes that they say they stand behind. And what they would do to accomplish those tasks.
Many of them could not explain why they think law enforcement needs our support. Why education in Oklahoma is where it is today. Why is health care and health insurance so messed up? One question I asked over and over is what do you bring to the table that your opponent doesn’t? I was told over and over how the opponent was not qualified. There were very few that could tell me why they were qualified for the position.
This brings me to the most important question in my mind as a teacher, a parent and a grandparent. Who is the best candidate for the job of State Superintendent position? There were five or six candidates for that position present. I spoke to each and every one of them.
I had some very specific questions I wanted answered.
How did the education system get to where it is now?
How will you address teacher retention?
What can you do to improve the morale of educators in Oklahoma?
What can you do about social promotion?
Do you know what No Child Left Behind is?
What followed No Child Left Behind?
What was the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965 and how did subsequent acts improve on it?
Trick question here; What is the main federal law that governs K-12 education?
What is the main cause of financial waste in Oklahoma?
What power does the Oklahoma State Superintendent have over any of these issues?
Do you know where the ultimate power over these issues lies?
How do you think you will represent the state of Oklahoma better than Ryan Walters did?
Since I started teaching in 1993 I feel like I know the answers to this pop quiz I put in front of each of these candidates. I was taught by my dad that if you want to know the truth about something you should know the answer before you ask the question.
Every single one of these candidates failed the pop quiz. Not one of them could answer any of the questions comprehensively.
What I learned is that as far as I am concerned there is not a single one of them who should be in charge of the education our children or grandchildren receive here in the state of Oklahoma. I learned that some of them do understand the severity of the problem but can’t say how to fix things. Not only that, they do not even understand how we got to where we are. Wouldn’t it be fair to ask them what caused the problem and expect them to know the answer?
The states, districts, teachers and kids are at the bottom. We are not just at the bottom of the barrel, we are the bottom of the barrel. The snowball only rolls downhill so far. Those at the top are willing to push that snowball off the cliff and when it falls apart blame us for their failures.
Where is the top you ask? The top is the United States Legislature. Oklahoma’s players on the varsity legislative team are Senator James Lankford and Senator Alan Armstrong (whoever he is). On the JV team we are represented by Kevin Hern, Josh Brecheen, Frank Lucas, Tom Cole and Stephanie Bice.
Those are the teams that have failed our students. Laws need to change and the only ones that can change those laws are in Washington D.C. Federal law controls what we do in education. State school boards and state superintendents only decide how that state will apply the federal law to local entities. District Superintendents and school boards take the mandates from the state and apply them to their district. Site administrators make sure that staff and teachers follow the federal law, the state mandates, and the district’s interpretation of those mandates.
What do teachers and students control? Nothing.
As a teacher I can hug my kids each day. I can keep a cabinet full of snacks and ramen to make sure they have something to eat. I can teach what I know if I am given time. I can keep my mouth shut about things I cannot change.
Students are herded into a box with four walls. They are told how to act, how to learn and how what we are doing is for them. They do not control anything.
Do you know who holds the true power? It is YOU! The voters. The parents. The grandparents. YOU can change what we do because YOU can vote. You can ask the questions and decide who is going to represent us in the best possible way, and then you can vote.
I am not going to ever tell anyone how to vote. Just vote!
And if you get a chance, tell every politician to stop sending those darn flyers. They annoy me.