Lend me your ears

I’ve been thinking a lot about mental health issues lately.  Issues of all levels, not just severe, diagnosed conditions.  Things like anxiety or feeling low or lonely can affect our lives as much as an official disease.  And because it’s undiagnosed, or “not that bad,” we don’t get the help we need to work through it and become healthy again.  I know that people more well-read than I have addressed this, and better than I will.  This is on my mind, though, so it’s time to hurl words into darkness, and wait for the echo.

Mental health care should be part of our basic system.  We have a pediatrician as children.  As we grow up, we transition to a practitioner who cares for teens, and then adults, and we see them each year for a checkup.  We have a dentist, who we see twice a year.  What would our mental health look like if when we were young, our health care included a mental health professional who we visited once a year for a checkup?  If we were feeling unwell, we would make an appointment just as we do with our doctor for a sore throat or our dentist for a toothache.  It would go a long way towards removing the stigma of mental health care if it were an everyday event – your annual appointment.  Then if something went wrong with your mental health, you’d have someone to see right away.  You’d already have a relationship with a professional, and would be more likely to get the help you need.

In the meantime, we’re struggling with our issues, with no one to talk to.  But wait, say your friends, you can talk to *me!*  If you’re struggling, you should reach out to me!

So much to unpack there.  If my mental health is compromised, so is my ability to “reach out.”  But I can’t expect my friends to be mind-readers, right?  And I am a damned good actress when I want to be.  Many of us are really good at hiding our pain.  Even if they notice something’s wrong, what is my response?  I’m fine.  Really.  But thanks for asking.

The messed up thing is that I know so many people who really just need someone to talk to, someone to listen to them.  What keeps us from doing so?  Well, we don’t want to be a bother.  Don’t want to burden someone with our issues.  And yet, if a friend needed us to listen, we wouldn’t hesitate – we’d be there to listen.  We’re willing to give to others what we are not willing to accept for ourselves.

Being vulnerable is scary.  For everyone.  If I show vulnerability, and you do not, then I feel like I’m at a disadvantage.  I “owe” you.  We’re not on even footing.  Whether this is accurate is beside the point – it’s how so many of us respond.

If you truly want to be there for me, please share a little of yourself as well.  If I feel like I’m only “taking,” I won’t tell you my troubles.  I’ve had friends, when confronted with this reality, tell me that they don’t want to talk about themselves.  Here’s the thing – if you won’t trust me with your thoughts, I can’t share mine with you.  Reciprocity in friendships is important, in all areas.  If you truly want to be a friend, allow me to be yours as well.

Whose Conscience?

Last, but by no means least, courage – moral courage, the courage of one’s convictions, the courage to see things through. The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It’s the age-old struggle – the roar of the crowd on one side and the voice of your conscience on the other. –Douglas MacArthur

Yesterday, I read this article in the Huffington Post.

Take a second and read it before you continue here.  I’ll wait…

President Obama has said that regardless of moral conviction, a business cannot deny coverage of essential services to its employees.  This article specifically refers to birth control, and the Catholic Bishops objection to it.  I first linked to the article on my Facebook page, stating that I agree with Obama’s decision.  “Primacy of Conscience” is cited in the article as a valid argument when Catholic women choose to use birth control.  The doctrine of Catholicism has a mandate to follow one’s conscience, and this would include health care choices despite official papal rulings.  A friend challenged the article, however, citing concerns about the primacy of conscience of the bishops involved.  If they object to birth control, doesn’t that trample on their rights to require their institution to offer it?

What about that?  As the title of this blog post asks, “Whose Conscience?”  What happens within a group or a country when one side has a conflicting view from the other?  In the U.S. Congress it means either nothing gets done, or the majority ruling party rams the legislation through without regard for other views.  Then how do we, as families, as cities, as a country come to terms with these conflicting views?

I like to read the responses to such internet articles.  I try to keep an open mind and understand the thinking behind each poster’s comments.  I also try to find the time to look elsewhere for other viewpoints.  For example, this article from the Rockland County Catholic Coalition sees the issue much differently than the Huffington Post article.  One of the things this particular article says is that the health care law will force citizens to purchase contraceptives against their will.   Here’s a link to the NYTimes editorial page, with letters for and against mandating birth control in all insurance policies.

With so many viewpoints, how does one tackle such an issue?

What if the issue were something other than birth control?  Birth control has become a moral issue in our country, which is something that is a bit foreign to me.  The Catholic Church states that birth control is immoral, and condemns it.  As I see it, preventing an unwanted pregnancy is a positive thing, as is the safeguarding of women’s health through such methods.  I’m showing my bias here of course, but I see birth control as a greater good, and family planning as well.  It is also interesting to me that a majority of Catholic women use birth control.  Some articles put it at 90% or even up to 98%, though I don’t have a study to support that number.  As I read many articles today, I found it interesting that the Protestant denominations had the same views as the Catholic church until 1936.

Let’s use the example of public schools.  If we follow the argument presented by the opponents of requiring coverage of birth control, in that it’s wrong to tell a religious organization they must follow the law with regards to health care, then it would stand to reason that a teacher whose conscience told them that they should tell students about the Word of God must be allowed to do so.  This, however, goes directly against our constitutional mandate that no religion can be promoted over another.  I suppose the argument might be made that since these schools are a public institution, then we’re talking about different standards.

The institutions in question in the HuffPost article serve the general public, and also employ the general public.  They take public money, and have a secular purpose.  Religious entities are exempt from the healthcare mandate.  Do these factors change the discussion?  If an institution takes public money, should it be required to follow the law that others do?

Back to the question…  Who gets to decide?  Another argument I’ve heard is that if you don’t like the coverage provided by the employer, then get a new job.  This is another tough one for me.  I’ve heard a similar argument made about sexual harassment in the workplace.  Don’t like it? Don’t work there.  Health care and sexual harassment aren’t the same issue, and perhaps someone will take offense to their comparison, but I find it disturbing that both issues primarily affect women.

My daughter says that the it’s not the bishops’ place to make the decision.  The decision should lie in the hands of the women whose lives access to birth control affects.

Birth control has been equated with abortion in many of these arguments.  I find this offensive.  To tell me that preventing a pregnancy is the same as terminating one is ludicrous.  That statement could of course lead us to the argument about when life begins.  Is a potential life the same as fully birthed human being?  I’d like to see birth control be discussed on its own, without turning up the controversy dial by playing the abortion card.  Linking the two obscures both issues.

As I’ve been reading today, and trying to form a more coherent and cohesive opinion on the matter, I’ve come to believe that there is no way for me to find compromise with the position the Catholic Church has taken.  I am a firm supporter of women’s rights, women’s healthcare rights included.  I believe that each person has the right to do with his or her body as he or she wishes.  I believe that no one else, including religious entities, have the right to make such decisions for us.  Birth control is legal, and any woman who wishes to use it must have access to it.  Any woman who chooses to not use it also has that right.  I also believe that sex for pleasure and not procreation is also a human right.  The demonizing of human sexuality is baffling to me.  Women are still fighting to be recognized as fully human and fully deserving of rights, not just in other countries, but here in the U.S.  The media promotes and portays women as worthy only as sexual objects.  We have a long way to go.  And the battle over birth control is only a symptom of a much greater conflict.

I’m still struggling with this.  I have my opinions, but also know that others feel as strongly in opposition.  I respect the rights of others to hold opinions differing from mine.  How do I come to terms with how another person’s beliefs affect me personally?

If men got pregnant, there would be safe, reliable methods of birth control. They’d be inexpensive, too. —ANNA QUINDLEN, Living Out Loud

The acceptability of birth control has always depended on a morality that separates sex from reproduction. In the nineteenth century, when the birth control movement began, such a separation was widely considered immoral. The eventual widespread public acceptance of birth control required a major reorientation of sexual values. —LINDA GORDON, The Moral Property of Women

The birth control pill, to a great degree, made possible the (hetero)sexual revolution. Yet those who developed oral contraceptives did not intend their work to promote what the majority of Americans at the time called “promiscuity.” Doctors generally refused to prescribe the pill to women who were not married; the Supreme Court did not rule this practice unconstitutional until 1972. —BETH BAILEY, Sex in the Heartland

Merit Pay – A Teacher’s Perspective

“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.”
— Jacques Barzun

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
— Henry Brooks Adams

First, a definition – Merit: The quality of being particularly good or worthy, esp. so as to deserve praise or reward.

Merit pay for teachers has become a hot issue around the country.  The general argument goes something like this:  Teachers should be financially compensated according to their merit, meaning they should be paid based on how good or worthy they are in the classroom as it relates to the teaching of their students.  Many current teacher contracts contain language about pay that has three major components.  First, there is a base salary, which increases based upon years of service.  Each district defines those steps.  In my district, it increases annually up to year 13, then doesn’t increase again until year 20, and then again in year 27.  Second, there is an education/degree component.  A teacher with 5 years of teaching experience and a Bachelor’s degree earns less than a teacher with 5 years of experience and a Master’s degree.  The third component is the annual percentage raise overall.  The base salary, and therefore yearly steps and education, is affected according to the amount negotiated in each contract.  This is where you hear that the teachers got a 2% raise or took a pay freeze, which would amount to 0% in a given year.  In good economic times, this annual percentage raise might be 4%, and in poor times it might be 1% or even zero.

The merit pay issue states that teachers should not automatically get paid more just because they have survived another year in the classroom, nor should they be paid more because they have a more advanced degree.  The argument typically goes on to propose that teachers should be evaluated and compensated based on such items as test scores, student achievement in the classroom, and student and parent satisfaction.  I take issue with many of the items in the merit pay argument, and the purpose of this essay is to address those issues.

First to the issue of testing, and using standardized test scores as a means of teacher evaluation.  Standardized tests have been created to measure student knowledge at a given point in time.  In no way were they created to evaluate teachers.  Part of the argument goes that if students score well on such tests, their teachers must be good, and if not, their teachers must not be doing their jobs.  This is a false assumption.  It has no validity in from a scientific perspective.  Variables in this ‘experiment’ are not controlled.  Standardized tests do not serve as a measurement of a single independent variable, as a research study or experiment must.  In a well designed study, one would make a statement of hypothesis as follows:  “The achievement of students depends upon the effectiveness of the teacher.”  In this statement, the dependent variable is the student achievement.  This is our measured variable.  The independent variable is the one that the researcher manipulates (or in this case, identifies and observes) as to its effect on the dependent variable.  Teacher effectiveness would be our independent variable.  In a valid trial, this is the only thing that is changed or studied.  All other variables are held constant, or at least accounted for.

The emphasis on the teacher as the sole reason for student success or failure is full of difficulties.  Nowhere in the equation is consideration for the socioeconomic status of the students.  Student home life is ignored.  Parent education.  Size of family.  Classroom size.  Education of parents.  Student ability or disability.  Expectations at home.  Substance use.  Amount of sleep.  Breakfast.  Video game usage.  School resources.  Whether or not the student works after school.  Extracurriculars.  The list goes on and on…

Ask any teacher, and she or he will tell you that it matters whether students come to us ready to learn.  They will tell you that the child whose parents are not involved in their education are less likely to do well.  Teachers know that poverty affects students far more than anyone in our country is willing to admit.  Hunger, lack of sleep, the necessity of working after school to make ends meet – all these are the effects of poverty.  It is not a coincidence that schools in wealthy communities do better on standardized tests.  Many suburban school children have parents with the financial means to give them the ‘extras’ and who are very likely college educated.  Homeless children have a significantly more difficult time in school, for what I hope are obvious reasons.

This does not mean that these students cannot learn.  Of course they can.  Ignoring, however, the challenges to that learning process and blaming those challenges on teachers is unfair and frankly, ludicrous.  Some researchers have put home life factors as high as 70% of what accounts for student success.

Another issue with such tests is that of comparison.  If a student were evaluated on growth, the testing would be more valid.  Currently, it is a set score that schools and teachers must meet.  For example, if 75% of students do not meet a certain level, then the school is a failure.  Nevermind the possibility that you have students who improved by 25%, even despite the difficulties I’ve previously mentioned.  Let’s just ignore the fact that a certain student has never ever attempted the short answer questions in the past, and this year’s teacher has been able to encourage this student to at least try.  No credit is given to the teacher who actually kept a certain student awake three days in a row, when he or she would fall asleep in class at every opportunity.  Or that this boy or girl actually volunteered to answer a question, when he or she had never spoken before.

Standardized tests are big money for the companies that create them.  They have a vested interest in continuing this testing culture.  As our government, both at the state and federal levels, continues to put bandaids on our schools, the testing companies come up with more and more ideas on how to “fix” our schools.  High stakes testing at the beginning of the year.  Midterm tests.  Exit exams for each and every course taught, not created by teachers based on what material they’ve covered in class, but created by those big businesses to sell to the schools.  If our country were to ever suggest that testing is not an accurate way to evaluate students or teachers, the pushback from those companies, and the politicians who are lobbied by them, would be enormous.  Money talks.

Often, there is an argument made that the United States has fallen behind other countries in student achievement.  We are failing our students.  I challenge you to take a look at the studies cited in such arguments.  In the U.S., we educate *every* student, regardless of ability, wealth, or specific aptitude.  Take a look at some of the other countries in the database.  Many of them siphon off students who show less academic promise, sending them instead to trade schools.  Another variable often ignored is relative time in class.  We’re often compared to China and Japan, countries which have significantly longer school days and sessions.  If we are to be compared to other countries, it must be on even ground, with all variables accounted for.  Even something as simple as the prestige and importance of education makes a difference.  Somehow, in the U.S., teachers have become the villains, where in other countries they are respected.  This certainly makes a difference in the support for and efficacy of the schools.

I find the evaluation factor of “student and parent satisfaction” to be extremely disturbing.  Certainly, a student or a parent has a right to object or complain if a teacher is ineffective.  This is the responsibility of the administrator, to monitor his or her staff to be sure that all members are performing their duties effectively.  My issue with this factor is the idea that we will send out surveys to parents and students, and the results of such surveys will be part of an official evaluation.  I have had students in my classroom over the years who were absolute hell on wheels.  Nothing I tried seemed to work with them.  I am a teacher who does not tolerate disrespect, and has high expectations for my students.  As teenagers, there are times when my students don’t seem to understand that it is because I believe in them that I expect so much from them.   I sometimes have students who flat out don’t like me.  If you were to ask one of those students to evaluate me, they would give me a failing grade.  Does that mean I’m a failure as a teacher?  I’ve been fortunate enough to have several of those hard cases come back and apologize to me for their bad behavior in class.  “I’m sorry for being such a pain,” they’ll say.  “I know it didn’t seem like it at the time, but I really learned a lot from you.  Thank you for not giving up on me.”  I’m grateful for those few students who have come back.  It gives me hope when I’m dealing with a particularly difficult student.  I just keep in mind that I’m making a difference, even when it looks like I’m not.  If we go back to the testing issue, this is another factor that will never show up on any standardized test.

In times of a struggling economy, attacks on the public sector are common.  This seems to be due to the perception that “we the taxpayers pay their (police officers, fire fighters, teachers) salaries!”  In truth, we pay the salaries of EVERY worker, in some form or another.  The goods we purchase, the services we pay for, these things pay for the salaries of all workers.  Our government is fond of promoting “job creators,” those businesses that will save us from ourselves.  I think we lose sight of the fact that those jobs will only be created if the demand for the goods or services they provide is there.  It’s easy to put the blame for the economy on public servants.  They are easy targets, and instead of realizing that they are the foundation of our communities, we look to them for a ‘quick fix’ in economically difficult times.

Teachers put a lifetime of energy and commitment into our schools and our students.  They deserve just compensation, and also a fair method of evaluation.

“An understanding heart is everything in a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough. One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feeling. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.”
–Carl Jung