Awesome meets Disappointing

I saw Styx for the first time in 2007 and was amazed by the band's energy, especially Tommie Shaw parading around the stage with his long blonde hair and skinny jeans looking like a teenage girl from my view on the grass. My wife surprised me with tickets to the Styx-REO Speedwagon concert this year while I was attending a conference in Salt Lake. I joined my good friends Atlee, Danielle and Brett, who came done from Logan. Once again the band was awesome, from Foolish Young Man to Grand Illusion to Crystal Ball to Come Sail Away to Renegade, it was well worth the next day's heavy eyelids through the morning's four-hours of seminars and the concluding keynote speaker.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself (even through Speedwagon's set of deep tracks before they finally played Ridin' the Storm Out), but I have to say I saw something that disappointed me. No, not the hundreds of boozed up fans of all ages screaming and slurring together verses of 'Man in the Wilderness' or the Tom Arnold look-alike getting stoned out of his mind sitting behind us, or the fact that the 50+ year old booty shaker fifteen yards in front of us wore out after Speedwagon and left the concert wheezing in her husband's arms during the intermission. No, what really got to me was the healthy young kids in front of us aged somewhere between 18-24 who were singing, dancing and having a great time, but also smoking.

I guess I really have been sheltered in Provo, and even out here in Roosevelt at teaching at the behavioral unit where most of the kids smoke or chew or both. Now those 'kids' at the concert weren't that much younger than me-the concert was a present for my 26th birthday, but I was still surprised and disappointed to see young people passing cigarettes around for a puff. Only about 20% of Americans smoke today, which makes sense seeing that people who smoke live 13 years less than those who do not smoke (all stats from the CDC). It ruins quality of life and life expectancy, so why start, right? Well people still do--every day about 3,450 youth under 18 smoke for the first time and 850 begin smoking on a daily basis.

As a health educator, I feel great disappointment when I see young people smoking. One statistic that shocks me is that nearly 30% of adults with high school degrees or less smoke compared to just 9% of college graduates. So there's something about education that keeps people from smoking. It's not surprising because, the more educated you are the more likely to know that your life expectancy is greater by not smoking and life insurance is cheaper, as well. But it's odd because college graduates are more likely to be able to have the discretionary income to afford such an expensive habit, and those who do not have degrees are more likely to be employed in jobs requiring physical labor, which is made more difficult by smoking. Quite the paradox, but the powers of addiction and the influence of peers and parents is greater than that of a health teacher or a schoolwide scare campaign or Red Ribbon Week or a couple of PSA's with statistics like the one's I've thrown out there. Without solid, loving efforts in the home to keep kids on track to reach high goals, youth will engage in risky behaviors.

The moral of the story-don't believe in the grand illusion of tobacco use or what fun is had in renegade behaviors--you're fooling yourself and you don't believe it, killing yourself and you won't believe it. Don't let life end too early, be smart, don't even start.

The Rising

Ten years ago the tragic events of today inspired Bruce Springsteen to write some incredible music dedicated to the victims and heroes involved in the cowardly attack against innocent people. I've been listening to that album--'The Rising'--all weekend. I highly recommend the whole album, especially the songs, "You're Missing", "My City of Ruins", "The Rising", and "Into the Fire". These four sum up the feelings of sorrow and resolution felt in every American's heart that day. The common theme is right in the album's title--to rise after being beat down. In "My City of Ruins" he sings, "Rise up!" and "With these hands I pray for the faith Lord, I pray for the strength" and in "The Rising" the chorus goes, "Come on up for the rising, come on up lay your hands in mine". And the chorus of "Into the Fire" (specifically about the firefighters) is a prayer that "My your strength give us strength, may your faith give us faith, may your hope give us hope may your love give us love." Again, I would highly recommend listening to these songs. If not to rekindle the feelings we felt after the events of 9/11, to cheer up the heavy hearts we are all feeling in our current day and age.

Yes, ten years following the disastrous terrorist attacks on our country we seem to be falling apart all over again. Faith in and approval of our political leaders is much lower than it was in 2001, and it seems that we are running out of hope. Have we fought terrorism. Yes we have. Are people afraid of terrorism? More than they were Sept. 10, 2001, but less than they were Sept. 12, 2001. Terror is not our number one priority anymore. We even caught Osama bin Laden this year, but even that wasn't enough to lighten everyone's spirits through this time of economic turmoil. What we need now is a rising. The media is painting a dismal picture of the future and the people are buying it. Honestly, it doesn't look good, but it didn't look too great ten years ago, either. So I think we need to follow the same recipe for success in raising the nation's spirits.

1) Go out and buy a flag and fly it-the first part of having faith in the future is to at least look like you do.

2) Listen to The Rising-Those lyrics have the same power for us now. Did we feel beaten the week following 9/11? No, we felt like we could take on the world (and we did, sort of). We felt like Toby Keith did when he sang "The Angry American," we felt like Bruce in The Rising.

Will these solve our economic crisis. No, but they should make us feel a little better about things. I listened to "Into the Fire" a lot when I was looking for a job, and it did make me feel better about the situation. Some nights I would listen to "My City of Ruins" and that would make me feel better about going to bed after a day filled with applications, rejections, and no new leads. It's hard to go to bed without hope. 'For if ye have not hope ye must needs be in despair' (Moro. 10:22). Sometimes I woke up feeling like the song "Empty Sky" but got out of that funk because I knew "The Rising" would come and "a dream of life comes to me like a catfish dancin' on the end of the line." This is the dream that we must learn to dream again. It is the American dream, but it can only be brought to pass by a rising.

The Miracle of Getting a Job

I don't normally blog about my life or the spiritual experiences that drive it, but this week I got a job that was clearly provided by the Lord. So as an answer to President Uchtdorf's challenge to "use your hands to blog or text message the gospel to all the world" I have decided do so now.

I applied for a biology teaching job in Roosevelt, UT and they called me for an interview, but we were camping so we had to schedule it on a different day than they wanted. Courtney and I were really excited and I worked extra hard preparing for the interview, but when I called the day before, I found out they gave the job away already. The asked me if I had any math background and I told him, "No" because, well, I didn't take a single math course in college, but later that night I found myself writing the principal an email, telling him how awesome I'd be at teaching math. So I interviewed for the job two days later and it went really well. I felt really good about it and--despite my lack of proof of my math proficiency--I thought I would get the job. Nearly a week passed, however, with no word from them, so I called the principal to see what was going on. He said that I beat out the other 20 Utah applicants hands down, but they were interested in seeing a few of the out of state applicants in person, which would be on Tuesday, and he told me that they would call me after the interviews so I could make my case for hiring me. I started the next day (Thursday) preparing to take a practice math teaching exam (called the Praxis) so I could show them I was proficient in math. Friday I got a call from Jerome High School asking me to interview for the biology teaching position over there and heavily hinting that they wanted to straight up hire me. Well, I took my practice test and passed the Utah passing score by 6%, and we drove to Jerome after church on Sunday. Monday morning I had the interview, and I hadn't been home an hour when they called to offer the job to me. I asked for a day to sleep on it, but really I just wanted to hear about the Roosevelt job. Tuesday came and the principal phoned me with the sad news that I did not get the job. BUT apparently the assistant superintendent who was in my interview was really impressed with me and wanted to contact me about another job in the district. He called about 20 minutes later and had me on speakerphone with the principal of their alternative school (the school where kids who behave poorly go). The job would be teaching math and science to kids at this school and perhaps even starting a basketball program. Just to let you know, earlier I substituted for an alternative high school and I absolutely loved it. After that day I wanted to teach at a place like that more than anywhere else. So they ended the call and five minutes later they called back and offered me the job. I took it, of course I did. So here are some of the little miracles:

1) We knew we were supposed to move to Roosevelt from the start. It was a strong spiritual impression that both Courtney and I felt, so I kept doing all I could do to get hired there--for as we learn from Nephi, "it is by grace that we are saved, after all that we can do." I knew that it was only through a constant, faithful effort that God would make up for what I lacked. (Which is also the reason I applied for every job I could this summer)

2) I didn't make it to the biology interview. If I had, I wouldn't have gotten that job and maybe wouldn't have even applied for the math position.

3) There was a math position open. It wasn't even posted online because it was their third round of interviews, they were still interviewing original applicants.

4) They needed a football coach. A big reason I was considered was because I could coach the football team. If not for that, I wouldn't have been given the time of day.

5) The assistant superintendent was impressed by my interview, so he pursued hiring me for the alternative school job. The interview went really well, but it was hard to judge who was skeptical of me and who wasn't.

6) I was offered the Jerome job. Without the Jerome offer I wouldn't have been able to push them to make their decision about me the same day. They wanted me to come in and interview and drag it out over another week, which would have been torture.

7) I actually think this job is the one I would prefer over the other 200 I applied for (and I didn't even apply for it)

So this is going to be awesome. This week has been yet another revelation to me about the power of fasting and prayer (which I had done the last two Sundays with the purpose of gaining the faith requisite to bring to pass the miracles necessary to get a job). I had told Courtney a number of times, "It's going to take a miracle for me to get a job," and as it turns out it took at least seven--I don't know what else happened that I'm not aware of.

This experience reaffirms what I already knew--God and Jesus Christ love us and that if we ask our Father for bread he will not give us a stone, but will give us even more than we asked for. I just read Elder Bednar's conference talk and I have a testimony that revelation and blessings come line upon line, but he who is patient and has faith will eventually receive God's blessing.

Education reform brought to you by The Hands

I was recently reading a friend's blag post found here: http://spyewtsrfat.blogspot.com/2011/07/edu.html. He gives some pretty good ideas of how to reform education. Being a friend of his who is not counted as one of the education majors who is "dumber than a box of hammers" I gave him props and submit my own few ideas (I wrote this as a comment on his blag first, but decided to post it here, too):

1) Pool all resources so as to eliminate disparities between all schools. They do this in Canada and it works out great. Of course the nature of people in Canada seems to be to agree to pool resources and make equal treatment available whether it be education or healthcare. The problem with doing this in the states is the whole 'local control' idea, which is a really big thing (especially in Utah) and I don't see it happening.

2) Cut administrative costs. Some of these school districts are enormous and have a huge bureaucracy (Thus New York public school's leading the nation spending $17,000 per pupil). This can be cut for sure, but I think the larger problem lies in the number of small school districts. Example: Wyoming has 48 school districts for their 87,000 students. There are 33 school districts in America with larger enrollments than the entire state. This is obviously a problem caused by the extremely small population density of Wyoming, but it exists because of people'e feelings for local control. People can't seem to get over their desire to control the education of their children, yet complain when they see the results stacked against the world. You know why the Asian Tigers lead in education? Because the state controls education and the parents push the kids. The difference is that A)our parents either forget that their kids may need to not participate in 14 extracurriculars in order to appropriate sufficient time to their studies or forget to do the whole parenting thing altogether and B)our bureaucracy is open to pretty much anyone these days, whereas in Asian countries it is a highly respected position that requires-you guessed it-a high score on a state mandated intelligence test. Which brings me to..

3) Teachers need to be required to perform some sort of professional development, and I'm not talking about showing up to a conference or a meeting and counting up hours. It should require advanced college classes and research and a portfolio. Right now re-credentialing is done online and costs, like, $100 depending on the state. More should be required. Also, in order to get an endorsement teachers are required to pass an ETS administered tests (although some states have their own because they think they're more special or should have more local control), but the scores required by states are all about 70%. That needs to be upped.

Plumbing Fail

I tried using a drain snake to unclog our bathroom sink. Little did I know the J-pipe had the structural integrity of a wet paper towel. As you can see, the snake did not make the turn, but went straight through, uncovering yet another problem for me to fix. I think it may have been the original fixture (circa 1950). As I tried to unscrew the IP later the pipe twisted in half, cutting my thumb in the process. But I installed the new pipe and flushed the clog out with drano and a hose, as per the instructions of my landlord (who is 80 and doesn't want to spend money on a plumber to come fix it), so now all is well.

State Reciprocity

The term "state reciprocity" is used by universities to describe a degree or license awarded that is recognized by other states as well. Most schools claim to award teaching licenses or certificates that are recognized by nearly every other state of the union. So with my certificate from BYU I've been applying for jobs all over the country, including 19 states and the District of Columbia, not to mention a job in Calgary, which was both my first application and my first rejection letter (no one promised reciprocity with other countries). I thought expanding my horizons would give me a better chance at getting a job, and at first that idea held true. My first real interview (not a screening interview) was with a school in Wellton, Arizona--a town known for its massive feed lot and more recently, for a psycho shooter that drove into Yuma. The interview went well and the principal explained the licensing process I'd go through upon getting the job. It was easy-take a few ESL courses and teach for a year, then apply and BAM, it would be mine. Well, I didn't get the job, and my count is at 132 jobs I've applied for, and among the rejection letters/emails, most have been from out of state schools. I didn't think anything of it, but then I had a screening interview with Phoenix Union High School District. The interviewer asked me if I had started my application for an Arizona teaching credential. I answered "Why pay over a hundred dollars for something I only need if I actually get a job?" He answered that every teacher in the district must hold and Arizona teacher's license at the beginning of the school year. So much for state reciprocity.

The idea of the state having control over its education system is based solely on the founding fathers failing to enumerate public education as a power of the federal government. It would take a constitutional amendment to create national control of public education, and that's not going to happen anytime soon. That's because even though everyone in the country believes that we should provide free public education to all children we must A) stick to the constitutional verbage written by the founding fathers (who did not believe in national education--except for Thomas Jefferson) and B) localize control of what our children are learning.

Local control is one of those phrases that gets a lot of use and a lot of respect in education policy circles. This makes a lot of sense to me because funding for schools is locally based, so the control is locally based. Funding does come from the federal government, but the bread and butter of every district is local. States try to standardize things and streamline their programs, which creates this whole mess regarding teacher training reciprocity, not to mention high school education reciprocity.

But this is the reason for public education. Any nation's public education is built for a single purpose, which is to indoctrinate the youth of a nation with the culture of the governing class. However, because our national government is handcuffed from controlling education, the indoctrination includes the fundamental beliefs of the predominate culture of the state and in some cases even the areas of school districts. In America we created public education to perpetuate the idea of the American Dream (one's ability to succeed in "attaining the fullest stature of which (he or she) is innately capable, and be recognized for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position). That is the only common stream in the education system--anyone can succeed (We might also compare this to the myth of the medals in Plato's Republic, but that's a story for another time). Our education system lacks a common thread because of the need for state and local control, breeding the indoctrination of state and local culture, not national culture. This organizational fault is part of the reason we see so much disparity between states and between urban-rural-suburban schools. Because the curriculum and teacher credentialing standards are different from state to state and district to district the education of students from one state or district to the next will be inherently unequal.

So ending this on a slightly different vein than I started, I would like to say a word about winning the future: it won't happen unless we centralize our educational system. It's the only way we can properly work together as a nation to meet the changing needs of the American workforce. But there are two reasons this will never come to pass: 1) Conservative interpretation of the Constitution and the difficulty of creating an amendment empowering the federal government to provide public education and 2) America is not a 'melting pot' as much as it is actually a grocery store. Yes, there are a variety of cultures here, but they are--for the most part--compartmentalized into different regions and even different areas of cities and towns. Therefore the predominant culture within the district will beg/cry/fight for its right to push its agenda (strong words, I know, but it is what it is) on the children in its jurisdiction, and it will do so under the assumption that it is what the parents want and what they believe is best for their children--regardless whether or not it is what is best for the country represented by the flag to which they pledge allegiance every morning in the classroom.

Curse of the Amish Friendship Bread

A couple of weeks ago Courtney's visiting teacher came during the day when she was asleep. I answered the door and took from her a wrapped up piece of bread, a bag filled with gooey stuff and page of directions. When Courtney shared the bread with me I decided that it would be worth it to squish the dough every day and add the stuff to make the bread. As the days passed Courtney made fun of me for doing it, and I understood why. This is ridiculous. How could passing on such a taxing recipe possibly make someone think you want to be friends? It seemed like punishment to me. In fact, I decided not to pass it along as per the directions, but to just bake the whole eight loaves myself and give them away. Besides, there's no telling how long this had already been passed on, and how rotten that milk was. I thought I was doing our friends a favor by saving them the hassle of the ten day process and just baking them a loaf of bread.

Great idea, right? Well...

You know those chain emails that say "if you don't pass this to ten people then a baby seal will get clubbed by Dick Cheney" that you always delete? That's sort of how I felt about this bread, but a baby seal actually did get clubbed by Dick Cheney. I misread the directions and got this as a result:

Those stinkin' Amish cursed their stupid bread recipe. I was going to stop the chain and I was the baby seal that got clubbed. It tasted alright, but the texture was similar to bread pudding, which I cannot handle, so I threw both loaves and the other starter mixes out because my proportions were off.

(In the future, I'd be more than happy to try again Amish friendship bread, but I'll plan on perpetuating the stupid recipe instead of taking matters into my own hands)

The System is Broken

"The system is broken." That's what they've told us recently, at least. It seems to be code for, "We don't have any money to fund public works, so we're cutting budgets, restructuring and blaming it on 'problems' in the system that we were too lazy to fix before." We've heard it about immigration, the BCS, collective bargaining in Wisconsin, and the most popular target--education. Some of these claims are true--the immigration situation is ridiculous, as is college football's method of finding a national champion, as is the public paying for the equal benefits and retirement plans of uneducated careerist bureaucrats and members of the most underpaid and consistently educated profession in America--teachers. While I do not believe the education system is 'broken,' I do believe that parts of it are, and that few or none of these parts are being addressed by state legislatures. I started three posts in the last two months about various problems I have with some states' new education plans (particularly Idaho), but they were all filled with bitterness, Idaho election results and budget histories, and Glen Beck-esque conspiracy theories about Watson on Jeopardy! being the new computer overlord of Idaho--and I don't really want to subject anyone to any of that.

This post is about something in education that recently made me thing, "The system is broken." I read about it a year and a half ago in the first chapter of Goodlad, Soder and Sirotnik's 'The Moral Dimensions of Teaching.' The problem dates back further than I'd care to research, but in 1961 it was amplified when Yale hired C. Vann Woodward with the highest salary for a professor in the country and was not required to teach at all in his first year. To many of you who have been to a university lately, this may not surprise you--part of being a professor is doing research. In fact, they are required by the university to get published in order to stay on faculty. We've all had professors who were awful, horrible teachers, yet were kept on staff because of their amazing research. Even in schools of education the faculty is not filled with highly-experienced teachers who have been hired because they were rock star teachers. It's filled with Faustian academics who research high up in their ivory towers, then come down to classrooms where they lecture to future teachers, preparing them to do a job they've never done themselves.

I was lucky enough to have as the supervisor for my major someone with years of experience as a teacher, who was sought out by the university to get his PhD and teach for BYU. One of the faculty members on the hiring committee told me that a principal once told him that my professor was 'the best teacher he had ever seen in all his 30 years in the school system.' I believe it, too. He was a great influence for me to be a teacher and taught me more than any of those learned sages of research in the McKay School of Education. I thought that this professor of mine was so awesome that I wanted to do what he did--get pre-service teachers pumped and prepared for the careers n teaching ahead of them.

So it was to my great surprise and delight that on a visit to his office in January, he told me the university wants another supervisor for the major, and that he wanted me to get my degree and come back to do the job. I recently talked with him about choosing graduate schools and degrees. He told me to get a master's in statistics to go along with my doctorate to reinforce my research skills. I've applied for a lot of jobs teaching social studies because health teaching jobs are so hard to find, and he told me not to worry because I have an undergraduate degree in health and all they care about is research anyways, and they're just looking someone who can do that, has a PhD and is willing to do the job. I was shocked. Here I thinking that he was sought out and hired because he was one of the greatest health teachers in the Utah valley, and here he was conceding that his expertise wasn't even why he was hired for the job--it was because he was willing to go to school and get the training to be qualified to do it.

So I came home excited for graduate school, but also disappointed because the system was broken. Universities don't want the best teachers to prepare teachers, they want researchers who will get the name of the school printed underneath their own name in academic journals. I began to worry about whether I'll be a good enough teacher to feel that I warrant the job for which I'm preparing. Since my realization about the lack of professional teaching experience in teacher preparation programs I've wanted to research the problem, but now I feel like I'm already on the road to becoming one myself. It's very possible that I'll never get the chance to teach health. States such as Idaho are making it an online course in order to cut costs (yeah, I know, totally picked the wrong teaching major, but the fact that it was the shortest teaching major really should have been a clue). But even if I teach Utah history for five years I can get this job because I'll have my undergraduate degree, my student teaching experience and a few years of in-classroom teaching experience.

Well, anyways, no use worrying about this when I can't even find a job in the first place...first things first.

Jerry Sloan's Final and Greatest Influence

I've been waiting for Jerry Sloan to step down for years. I remember when I came back from my mission, seeing Jerry Sloan and thinking it was his frozen corpse hauled out into the coach's seat. Then I saw him explode on a referee in the third quarter and get T'd up, at which point I realized that he was not actually dead. He made a great run with the Jazz, and was an NBA legend (despite never winning a championship). In fact, if it weren't for Michael Jordan he might have been the greatest Chicago Bulls player of all time and have two rings with the Jazz (probably just one, though, I don't see them beating Bird's Pacers in 1998-that team was awesome). He was a great coach, in fact I highlight the season after Stockton and Malone left when he just about coached his team led by Andrei Kirilenko and Matt Harpring to the playoffs as his greatest accomplishment, and had a great run, but he ran out of gas and couldn't handle it anymore. He was there for 22 years and only had one losing season. The only other coach in the NBA with more than 10 years with his current team is Greg Popavich (in his 15th). Pop's been there since the second half of 1996, and in his first draft acquired Tim Duncan, who he's ridden to four championships and a career .678 win percentage. Pop's ability to adjust to changes is a subject for another post (his ability to coach the Spurs, with their stars in decline, to an amazing 44-8 start this season is incredible), right now let's just focus on this: long tenured coaches with a single team are not the norm. Not in the NBA, not in other professional sports. Sloane resigning , like Bobby Cox retiring after 20 years at the helm of the Atlanta Braves, marks the end of a great run filled with winning seasons, hall of fame players and lost championships. It is the end of an era.

Today I was driving back from a doctor's appointment and heard the cheers of

Egyptians ringing out on NPR celebrating the resignation of their

leader. Hosni Mubarak did not plan on being a dictator, but did an excellent job at it for 30 years. After weeks of

quiet, civil disobedience by the Egyptian people, yesterday Mubarak tried to convince his people that it was a good idea for him to stay in power, while delegating powers to the Vice President. This is what Joe Paterno has done for years, and it has served him well, as he has been the head coach at Penn State for 44 years, and lucid for 38 of them (Just kidding! Long live JoPa!). Well, unfortunately for Mubarak, the people didn't take to that idea well, so he went the way of Bobby Bowden, who was forced to retire from his position at Florida State after 35 years.

And so Mubarak is at a Red Sea resort contemplating the future, looking back on the fantastic run he made as the 'democratically elected' president of Egypt. I'm not sure where Jerry Sloan is, but he's probably going through the same contemplative practice. I wonder if he sees what I see. I wonder if he sees a president at his home in Cairo watching Sportscenter and seeing an aging man give a speech about his stunning career, announcing its end, and repeatedly stating how much he has been blessed. He thinks to himself, "I have been blessed. I have done much good for this country. We are better now than we were 30 years ago. Maybe it's time." And he calls the vice president and tells him to announce his resignation. That's what I see.

And there you have it, Jerry Sloan influences Hosni Mubarak to step down as president of Egypt. Just think about it, it's not that much of a stretch.