Third Monday

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Professor Taboo

Dad’s note – c. 1958

On the third Monday of every January, we remember and celebrate one of America’s greatest civil rights warrior Martin Luther King, Jr. Today I reflect back on a handwritten note my Uncle gave me not too long ago. It was written by my Dad in about 1955-1962 when he was a young man from tiny Alta Loma, TX and headed off to the University of Texas Austin. I never knew this note existed until my Uncle — a close dear brother-in-law to my father — brought it to me and shared its context. It meant a lot to my Uncle because my father meant a lot to him. Uncle Dale and my Dad had enormous mutual respect and fondness for each other. They saw eye-to-eye on many social and political issues of the day. It feels right to share the note here today. It is entitled “Children Learn What They Live” by Dorothy Law Nolte, a popular American writer and family counselor of my Dad’s era. A picture of the note is above.

I remember throughout my childhood all the way up through my senior year of high school, Dad would often tell me that people are not born to hate, not born to kill, and not born to discriminate unless they are taught to do it and surrounded by it. That was not, he would adamantly explain, the definition of true freedom, true liberty, true equality in which our nation was supposedly founded! Furthermore, those three principles do not fully exist if it is not safe for someone here to be unpopular, like Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 60’s. If only one person in society is scared for their life or safety, for merely being different or thinking different, then the whole society IS NOT a free one. It is something less or worse.

It is amazing, probably appalling, that since 1775 and the words of our Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal“, since 1863 and again the same words from our Emancipation Proclamation, since the hundred years of Jim Crow Laws from 1866 to 1965 which after 1776 should have never existed, since the 1900’s and Women’s Suffrage, and then still today in the 21st century, the United States is STILL dealing with forms of inequality and civil rights violations. A foreigner looking in to our shores — with our Statue of Liberty in the foreground — would quite rightly scream, HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!?

To that foreigner I would respond ashamed repeating what my father taught me… “because it is still being taught.” Hate, violence, killing, discrimination, prejudice, bigotry, elitism, and divisiveness are all taught. It starts with the parents and family, then the immediate community, and if unchecked, continues through following generations. It is there at the roots and in those hearts that it must be untaught and the cycle broken.

Happy MLK Day everyone! And please remember the cost and continuing responsibility required to protect our fragile freedom, liberty, and equality for not just a few, or those in distant lands, but for ALL Americans right here within our own national borders! We’ve progressed a bit in 240 years, but we still have a ways to go!

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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Flux

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Professor Taboo

It has been nearly two months since posting last. The other weekend I packed-up…again, and again returned to the DFW metroplex as I’ve done the last three Septembers, to once again substitute-teach in three different school districts while tutoring 3-4 nights a week. I have become a good walking definition of fluid. I’m sure the Lakota Indians, or the Comanche Indians, or any tribes of the Plains which followed the buffalo, would undoubtedly take great admiration in my transience. I know what it means to have mind over matter, but I have learned even more what it means to be a visitor; a grateful visitor.

Continual movement is said to be healthy for the mind and body. Exercise and do it regularly, and you minimize or alleviate many illnesses and recurring ailments. From a purely metabolic, intestinal, or cardiovascular point-of-view, flow is good — very good. In that light, I am doing well. Yet, I miss my time writing and posting here. How then is that good? Why can’t I write and post while driving, moving, teaching for 9 hours then tutoring the last 3 waking hours of the day or while sleeping or eating? Footnote: that was the device of “literary dramatization.” But I hope you catch my point. This will be an update-post, not my usual egocentric cerebral literary stimulation my millions of readers and followers have come to enjoy here — yes, laughing is permitted.

After three summers of moving and fighting to remain determined in my pursuit of full-time teaching-mentoring in one of two fantastic districts, the kinks in my armour are beginning to show. I am questioning whether I should continue pursuing traditional teaching. The pursuit is becoming financially and physically unsustainable. Redirection is inevitable and considering another path and its consequences has been one of many thieves of my blogging time. Though these three years have been mentally and emotionally frustrating, in contrast they have taught me to realize the benefits.

Failure Is Not An Option?

My father raised me to not be a quitter. If you are a regular visitor to this blog, or privileged to know me personally over many years (wink), then you find the previous sentence very ironic. I do. Loyalty, determination, commitment, were all daily lessons; pillars of character that my father lived and taught until July 1990 when he quit. That particular month and year those pillars became further and less defined to me simultaneously. Yes, notice the irony again. Right there is the paradox of life; of how two distinct concepts actually become one harmonious system. If I’ve lost you, bear with me.

What does it mean to never give up? Go down fighting? Have faith all things workout in the end? The answers are typically admirable noble traits taught through the ages, especially in professional sports, used to motivate underdogs. Those battle cries and speeches are well and good, but I have found them to be incomplete. Admittedly, I am growing weary of knocking and banging on assistant principal’s doors only to be told in the end “Thank you but no thank you.” I can hear my Dad’s voice, “do not give up! Do not quit!” Find more doors to bang on! And after my knuckles become blue or bleeding, the question eventually becomes what do I need to do differently, because this horse has been beaten pretty dead.

Why do I keep doing the same thing repeatedly for the same result merely for the sake of not quitting? I laugh, where is the glory in that? Why am I afraid of giving up or failing? In hindsight, I think what I SHOULD actually be afraid of is paralysis! Paralysis to adapt and change. Be more flexible and much less rigid in a Universe of flux! You see, those dramatic motivational speeches and battle cries are for the moment, like a narrow lens, and do not address or capture our origin of fear. If fear, disguised as failure or quitting, is allowed to become over inflated, it will enslave me and influence, perhaps dictate, my decisions. I would imagine that leads to a life of knee-jerk reactions. Sign around neck reads: This person kicks frequently. Stand close at your own risk!

Ugh, not good. Not for me.

The Illusion of “Complete”

In his theory of special relativity, Albert Einstein proved that time as we perceive it does not exist. Events occurring at the same time for one observer could occur at completely different times for another observer. That implies there is really no beginning or no end, just varying observers and various speeds of movement. A beginning and an end are illusions created by our brains to cope and survive in our self-aware world of experiences. All things emerge and all things decay. But all things will change forms. Over a century of science has shown on a microscopic or atomic level all things are moving, emerging and decaying, but they are at speeds and levels unseen by our naked eye. For example, our Sun is burning out, but in our lifetime it doesn’t seem to be. The seven continents are surrounded by seas and oceans, but there were not seven before, and there will not be in the future. Everything is constantly emerging and decaying. Perhaps the above sub-title should not read The Illusion of Complete, but instead The Reality of Incomplete.

Below are some pictures of my current home. Is my life at the moment really that bad?

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At this point I ask myself, what feels better…what gives me more hope and confidence, and less fear? Is it the battle-cry meaning of “Never say die, failure is not an option,” or The Reality of Incomplete? I know exactly what I would choose. One offers potential doom, disappointment, or pain, the other a never-ending story. One is fiction, the other reality. One stressful, the other calming.

In my procession of perspective I have come to realize there is still more, always. My situation is not complete, nor is my development. Is it ever? Is it wise to assume an experience has only a singular interpretation, one ending? Mmm, the paradox and irony continues.

Side-effects of Flux

I did not come from a wealthy family. However, we certainly did not grow up in poverty. This middle ground has afforded me in my later years a simultaneous appreciation for what is had and what is not had. When one is required to move efficiently and often, you soon wise-up to what you really need to live adequately or comfortably, and what you don’t need. You learn what is fluff or extra weight, and what is truly important. Living in an RV for nine months then traveling over 300 miles to live for three months in relative luxury, soon teaches these gratitudes. My current life of embraced gratitudes are sometimes challenged or reinforced when others, with a different value-system, try to convince me my way of life is sub-standard or unappealing. I beg to differ. They’ve forgotten that all things change, both quickly and/or very slowly, both with intent, and just as much for them as for me.

My current occupational pursuits coupled with their illusive rewards, do not tell the whole story. I have found enormous amounts of value and gratitude for what I HAVE discovered, what I have gained. What I certainly know is that my story does not have an ending, and no destiny is set, especially mine. I can either work with it, embrace it, understand it, or I can fight it and be perpetually frustrated, angered, and bitter with myself and those around me. No, I have much to be thankful for.

I choose to be flexible, adaptable within my current means and unknown untapped means! Besides, am I not a visitor here? Am I not ultimately just passing through in this form? With that said and a grin, this is how I choose to end this post:

…To Be Continued

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Summer Time

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Professor Taboo

At last the school year has ended and once again I find myself with a bit more free time. More free to recharge batteries. More free to reflect on what has been done, what needs refining, and what needs more attention in the future. Free for more time to do things I enjoy doing for myself, like more blogging. One summer project I am very excited about and looking forward to this June is watching every single game of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, cheering my two national teams: USA and Brazil!

It is my hope that during these short two and a half months I will be able to post much more often than once a month. With that said, I’d like to ask my followers — if they have not already and understandably forgotten about me — what they would like to know, or what subjects you would be interested in me writing about. The floor is open, the mic is open; let me hear your suggestions or questions. I shall do my best to accommodate… within reason naturally.

I will also do my best to catch-up with my many other blogging friends and their posts who I have unwillingly been absent! My sincere apologies. If anyone knows of a way to add MORE hours to a mere 24-hour day, please, I beg you tell me! I have really missed blogging and reading and commenting with all of you this past school year. Let’s reconnect!

Therefore, of my followers, is there or are there any subject(s) you would be interested in me writing about or discussing? Anything at all. If not, I should be posting with my next topic shortly.

Have a fantastic summer! I plan to!

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You’re Right

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Professor Taboo

The state of meditation is a powerful vessel. A connected state-of-mind and body to dimensional existence is about as meaningful a life as a person can reach; an altered or altering consciousness. But a person cannot reach that point solo. We also need the right surroundings.
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image Vladstudio

Growing up I loved playing my drum-set. In our downstairs playroom I had my 15-piece drum kit setup along with our band’s Peavey amps. Plugged-in to those Peavey amps was my stereo. Through my stereo I played the songs from epic rock-metal bands with more epic – so I thought – drummers. And within moments of beating the skins, high-hat, bass drum, and cymbals…I was there. Much of the sessions I would reach a heart-rate and drive that I could barely hold my sticks from the perspiration. I eventually had to place a fan on top of my bass drum to help cool my frenzied journey. I would reach such a vibrational rhythmic state of meditation that I can only describe as fluid between here and there. My sense of place and time, aside from the rhythm and beat, was lost; oblivious to anything in the house or outside it. It was there that my expression, my place in the moment and in the world, was most creative and most lucid. It was – and to this day as well – my way of belonging.

The years from 1990 to 1995 were the most devastating and most life-changing years of my life. Here’s a summary: My father committed suicide, my girlfriend-turned-fiancé abandoned me and our 2-year relationship without a single verbalized explanation, I was arrested by law-enforcement, I walked out of my wonderful psych-hospital job-career and out of my half-completed master’s program at my seminary, my daughter was born, a 5-month marriage ended, and I moved back to my hometown. Often during those years I sought the solace in the one place I knew I could find it. One song I’d play over and over and over, and behind my drums I’d play along…let go of my nagging thoughts and find my place of belonging. It was the only song, music, and lyrics that would make sense to me where I could find my father and my daughter, both of whom were no longer with me.

I have since learned that finding the place of belonging is sometimes very difficult, even tragic. But having survived it all, I have discovered just how powerful the state-of-belonging and connecting can impact not just a life, my life, but life around us. This is how I’ve equated it in my mind. As the lyrics of the song go…

If you open your mind [and soul]…You won’t rely on open eyes to see

My painful and beautiful journey would not have been possible if I had not had three critical travel-items: my parents and extended family, a creative growth-model of education taught by my father supported by my mother, and then finally love. These three integral parts must continue with us into adulthood. They must evolve and grow in order to best manage in life the inevitable change and unexpected plot-twists!

If you have those three flexing growing components in your life – each illustrated mathematically by dividing 100 into 3 parts – the number cannot be emptied but goes on and on ad infinitum. For me, Fibonacci’s Sequence, or Golden Ratio, would be the counter-part, if you comprehend my wackiness.

The three parts each need more than just the mind or cerebral cortex. They need feelings. They need the freedom of fluid creative passion! Nature and the Universe (Multiverse) already create then modify, refine, then create more and so on like the Golden Ratio. Human DNA, generation to generation, does the same thing. As highly intelligent feeling beings, we have the passions to ignite life. If fortunate enough to have loving, nurturing yet non-oppressive parents and family, then we are given the early tools to ignite a significant belonging life…not just for ourselves, but equipped to provide a general blueprint for others too!

If this parental-family environment is taught throughout the primary and secondary schooling – in other words explained via the table below – empowering the child and adolescent, then the state of belonging can be perpetuated outside of self.

Assuming you are allowed how to think rather than told what to think, then a once very successful American icon spoke these words of enormous spiritual-cerebral wisdom to take on your journey:

“Whether you think you can or you think you cannot – you’re right.” – Henry Ford

If a young mind and heart are constantly denied the means to freely express, create, and recreate, learn and relearn for an eventual greater good, passing on a new fluid blueprint, then it would seem ironically, one becomes entrapped in the past. That is most unnatural. Ford recognized the power of self-actualization learned through and from our environment. In other words, there is a connection between us and everything around us. But there is more Henry – another force that is just as fluid.

Ford’s imparted partial-truth cannot be fully owned without the sticky fuel of feelings and love-ingredients to energize it. There are some things that can’t be taught. They must be realized. Though it had a compass rose, I was given my blank map. The natural aether in the lucid state of vibrant rhythmic meditation is an individual journey…for me discovered during my youth, rediscovered in my darkest hours, and now openly shared in wisdom and passion. It is my primal home away from “home,” where I truly belong.

I swim in it regularly.

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Live Well * Love Much * Laugh Often * Learn Always

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What’s My Story?

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Professor Taboo

image Wikipedia

I was shocked when I read her email. I had never received any type of correspondence like it from any politician, ever! Wendy Davis, who is running for Texas State Governor next year, asked me what my story was. She asked, “What challenges do you and your family face? What issues should be addressed to strengthen our families?” For the last five years her running opponent, Greg Abbott, the Texas State Attorney General since 2002, has been anything but cordial, sympathetic, or hopeful toward me; just cold and impersonal. If there are those who have not heard of Greg Abbott, then my point is made.

Like Wendy Davis, some human beings would take a few minutes to ask questions like, What’s going on with these issues? How did things get to this point? What can we do to improve things? Wow. Imagine that, a politician who wants to know and listen to the nuts-and-bolts of a situation and its causes, its factors from the actual people affected! What an invitation! What an opportunity!

This is what I told her…
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Wendy, I am a two-years unemployed certified 4-8 General Ed, Special Ed (pending) teacher, father of a 2^nd year college daughter, and 12-year old son who live over 300-miles away and I briefly see maybe twice a year. In the summer of 2012 my charter school where I taught – whose student body was 82% Special Needs and a third were wards of the state from horrific homes and circumstances – lost four of its six major funding grants. Education cuts were not only happening nationwide, but just as much statewide. As a result, our school resources were severely stretched or eliminated. These cuts included much-needed hiring of additional qualified staff, aides, and most importantly certified teachers for the increased numbers of Special Ed students coming in from other nearby closing schools AND the result of marketing and attracting more Special Ed students necessary to keep our two meager remaining grants for 2013. The federal and state cuts also meant no annual 2% – 3% pay raises for any current teachers and staff; I was grossing $31,380 per year (or $2,080 a month, or barely $13/hour after automatic child support garnishments) for 60-70 hours minimum per week of work. Need I get into net earnings minus healthcare pay-deductions and cost of living expenses? The math is depressing.

One assessment some schools and districts use to monitor their teacher’s development and well-being, especially those on campuses teaching behavioral-emotional Special Needs students and wards-of-the-state, is a stress-anxiety assessment. At the end of the school year, I scored in the upper 10% at risk; almost “Highly at Risk” for accelerated health deterioration.

My At Risk for health deterioration was compounded monthly by financial and legal pressures from the Texas Child Support Services and the state Attorney General’s Office. During my annual checkup at the doctor’s office, he told me flat-out I need to find a different job; a job where I at least had the time (somewhere in the 24-hours) to exercise and relieve the stress. This was my response to him:

If I quit my job doctor, I only compound my problems. If I fall behind even two months unemployed, the Texas Attorney General’s Office report those failures immediately to all credit bureaus. Sometimes it is less than two months. Most all potential employers today use an extensive background check – especially for teachers – as well as credit checks which are used for financial decisions and interest rates, let alone everything else creditors, lenders, businesses, etc, etc. families, parents, and me, the non-custodial parent, struggle with and fight to stay afloat month-to-month. I don’t know Doc what the answer is. This was his reply: “As long as you understand the health consequences if SOMETHING doesn’t give.”

For the 2011-2012 school year I taught 5^th – 8^th Social Studies, 5^th – 8^th Enhanced Learning Lab (elective), 9^th – 12^th Career Tech (elective), and assistant coach athletics for after-school activities. In late summer my charter school informed me that for the coming 2012-2013 school year, I would have to teach 4^th – 8^th grade Science and Social Studies of which all periods would have 2 or 3 grade levels of the subject in the same classroom. For you readers who are not teachers or familiar with Texas state curriculum and standards, every single grade level in science is a different development module with some crossovers. In Social Studies, 4^th graders cover basic Texas history, 5^th graders cover basic American history, 6th graders cover basic World history, 7^th graders cover more-advanced Texas history, and 8^th graders cover more-advanced American history. The only crossover I would be afforded to ease the 35%-40% workload increase would’ve been 4th and 7th, and 6th – 8th. And as a reminder, almost half of each class are Special Needs wards-of-the-state students. Myself and other teachers had no aids because there was no money to pay for them, and that would be the case again for the upcoming bigger classes for the upcoming year.

As most people are aware, our public education systems have gone through needed reform. Some of it has been successful and improved. However, there is obviously much more work to be done and equalities protected! More importantly, radical state and federal funding cuts only exacerbate the problems and worse put at great risk our country’s future leaders and skilled educated collaborating future government officials and citizens. Public education is not and never has been “secular brainwashing or compromise.” Those speculations are left to individual homes and parents, not public schools. Public education is and has been primarily for those children and adolescents who come from not-so-advantaged homes, even severely impoverished, to have a decent chance of becoming a productive future citizen and not an expensive public liability in prisons, mental institutions, or rehab clinics; all of which require MORE taxpayer dollars in the long run. Yes, a headache can be cured by decapitation (i.e. conservative-pushed cuts), but is it productive change? Is it “economic/fiscal responsibility” on all levels? No.
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I resigned in August 2012. Today, I am still unemployed as a certified General and Special Ed teacher. I spend an average of 12-18 hours a day seeking and completing long extensive applications for teaching positions in districts that haven’t been so severely hit by funding cuts. Meanwhile, each month I receive a cold, unconcerned collection statement from the Attorney General’s Office showing in bold type my higher rising balance plus interest. Like a home mortgage or auto loan, this monthly defaulting is reported to all credit bureaus. Should my arrears reach $10,000 my case will go into the Enforcement Stage and a warrant for my arrest will be issued. DeAnna Shields, a Killeen, Texas web-radio talk show host, student of mental health studies, parent, and U.S. Army Widow volunteer, writes a telling article about Texas Child Support laws from Greg Abbott’s office on CNN’s iReport. Read it here.

Wendy Davis, clearly I am and have felt the detrimental effects of a plunging credit score and unemployment. I wonder how jail time would affect my job search. Thank you so much for asking about my story Wendy! A little digging, a little personal human interaction, a little effort to understand the long-term effect of lawmaking goes a very long way. I really hope next year I will be addressing you as Governor Davis!

Signed,
Unemployed Texas Special-Ed Teacher

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Post-script — “Greg Abbott leads Wendy Davis by single digits” — Politico, 10/2/2013. If you are interested, here is her campaign website: http://www.wendydavistexas.com/

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