Rainy Mississippi Meditations

I started my day today as I usually do, Froot Loops and coffee and social media.  Stella and Chewie were happily throwing each other to the living room floor.  Much needed rain was falling outside.  It should have been a peaceful moment.

Then I clicked a link to a news story and read the comments.

How long is Mississippi going to insist on being backwards?  Why is it that in every possible pursuit we continually and seemingly enthusiastically race toward the prejudiced, the intolerant, the exclusionary, or the corrupt?

We wonder why people leave and never return.  I have so many loved ones - friends, family members, former students - who have made their lives across the country or across the globe not because they wanted to leave family but because they could not have a future here or simpy be accepted for who and what they are.  Our best and our brightest are the very ones we are driving away.  The ones who could do more and better go.  As long as this continues, what hope is left?

I love this state.  I believe now as much as I have in the past that she could be something great.  Her leadership, though, seems stuck in the 1950s.  I can understand why.  It is undoubtedly very comfortable for them there.  They are undisputed masters of all they survey, fat and sleek and able to slip the hand into the till at their leisure.  Who wouldn't love a system in which all the toys belonged to them alone?

Leaders are called to be more.  They have been called to put the welfare of the state as a whole first, have stood before a God they only pay lipservice to during the elections and sworn oaths to do so.  What they don't seem to recognize or honor is that leadership is full of sacrifice - sacrifice of self for the right, sacrifice of the leader's good for the good of all.  Instead, they have made a private club of it and employed a "let them eat cake" mentality toward the rest.  I wonder if they forget the lessons history has to teach about how well that worked out for the originators....

I suppose the leaders are not alone in their fault, though.  Somehow, some way, the electorate chose to put these people in places of power.  Despite the fact that they never change, we continue to put some of them in office over and over and over....  Maybe they are giving out a temporary boon, a paved road, a cleared "situation," a business favor between "friends."  Maybe we, too, need to stop accepting a short-term grab-and-go and begin to look down the road at what is right for everybody, to do what is right for those who will come after us.

I still believe - foolishly, perhaps - that change is possible.  After all, if nothing else happens, the system will collapse on itself and change will happen in that way.  I'd like to think instead that my fellow Mississippians will come together and try to gain control of this before it has to be broken completely and reset to allow for proper healing.  I think we may be very close to that point.

PD

My administrator showed up outside my door two weeks ago and asked/told me to co-lead a PD session with one of my colleagues to be a part of our staff development day .  She and I started putting things together the best we could.  We tweaked and edited.

Then, two days before we were to present, the great grumbling began. There is nothing like knowing you're going to have to stand up in front of a room full of your peers who are angry at having to be there.  As time ticked away, I had a migraine.  Both of us had nightmares about technology failure, general rebellion, the usual meeting horrors.

Friday finally came, and by that point, I just wanted it all to be done.  We presented for our first group, and I gradually saw the grumpy faces smooth out some.  They asked some questions, tried out some of the strategies and apps we were presenting.  We gave away candy and Dollar Tree door prizes as a part of the demonstration of some of the tools.  When we finished up, they walked out with smiles.

Fifteen minutes later, we did a second session, and much the same pattern repeated.  I wanted to collapse when it was all over, but we made it through.

While I didn't volunteer to do the PD Friday, I still tried to do something I would want to attend.  My biggest fear was that the other teachers would think Jayne and I were saying, "Oh my GOD.  We are SO FANCY.  Be like us."  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  She and I just put together things we'd found to be helpful and told them how we'd used them.

I don't know if they will ever use anything Jayne and I put together for them, but I hope at least they weren't still angry at having to come.  I am the Queen of Not Liking Meetings.  I understand.  Too often, our PD winds up being an overpaid and condescending consultant or someone who has a PowerPoint and reads every line.  Teachers have so little time and so much that needs to be done that I think we are grudging of every second.  We don't mind coming to something that helps us do better for our students, but when a presentation is clearly a way for someone to practice the time-honored art of Covering One's Backside or Padding One's Bank Account, we don't tend to respond well.

What happened Friday is what I believe good PD should look like:  peers sharing.  We could all share things that have been tested out with our kids on our campus.  We could all point out apps that had been run with our technology filters in place and our WiFi connection providing the hookup.  We could avoid the problems that come with being the first person to do something.  Together, we could be stronger.

It would be nice to think Friday was a first step in this process.  I suppose only time will tell.