My very gorgeous son is SIX! Below are some photos from his photo shoot, when his dad was here, and his sixth birthday party. This is just one good looking kid! And we had a great party with Aunt Ryan and the green apple TMNTs. Guppy ate one of the apples, though, which was supposed to be him, so we replaced him with a green pepper! It was hilarious!
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"Net cost to the state, zero. Net impact on our future? Priceless."
There was an article on NPR about Tennessee offering a "free" community college education to its residents. This is one of those articles that makes me ask way more questions then it answers. Made the wheels spin. Forgive me for being cynical, but I don't see this program as the magical "free education" that it's being described as. When something seems too good to be true, you should stop and ask questions. These are just some I had, off the top of my head. 1. "Pretty soon, going to community college in Tennessee may become absolutely free. Republican Gov. Bill Haslam unveiled the proposal in his annual State of the State address this week." OK, so why would a Republican offer something like this, that is usually a Democrat issue? The fact that NPR called out that the governor is a Republican was one of the first things I noticed. 2. "Haslam is trying to lift Tennessee's ranking as one of the least-educated states." What kinds of implications does "least-educated" bring with it? That the residents are dumb? That they take low-paying jobs, and do not have the workforce they need to compete on a global scale? That because the residents can't take high-paying jobs, the tax base is low? 3. "Haslam told state lawmakers he'll tap into a mound of excess cash generated by the state's lottery. Roughly $300 million would go into an endowment.." So, is there a larger amount of lottery revenues in TN because of the lesser education levels? Lottery tends to follow low income, from what I'm aware. People who are well-educated don't waste their money on the lottery like less-educated people do. So, as the education increases, does the lottery revenues decrease? Does this plan take that into account? 4. "Net cost to the state, zero. Net impact on our future? Priceless," So, where had that lottery money been going prior to this plan? Who is that money being taken from, and who is it being given to? How does this huge sum of money follow the governor, the Republicans, or benefit the players involved? Or hurt the people who it's being taken from. I refuse to believe that there isn't an agenda behind all this money shifting. Someone is benefiting, and someone is being hurt. I want to know who. I know this is political, I just don't know how it's being played out. 5. So if the students who were previously going to public or private universities now go to community colleges, are they going to be better prepared to move into their colleges after two years in community college? How many new community colleges are going to be created? Who creates them? Who is profiting? By "stealing" the students away from public and private universities, and funneling them into community colleges, are the students really being educated "better?" Where are the professors who will teach in community colleges coming from? Are new jobs being created for professors? Or are jobs just shifting from one higher ed institution to another? 6. Is this proposal just essentially creating a 13th and 14th grade for students? Will students be failed from these programs if they really can't keep up with the work? Will there be standardized tests for these students so that we know if there is value being added to them getting this "free education?" How do we monitor quality? Students now essentially go to community colleges to "breeze through" their gen ed classes, and keep their GPA up. They transfer in, and are unprepared for academically rigorous programs. So, are we keeping the kids dumber, longer? We are just extending high schools, which aren't even doing their jobs currently. We are rewarding the dumbing down of education with more dumbed down education. 7. How does this impact jobs? Now that the students who graduate from high school and immediately enter the workforce are now being taken out of the workforce, does this provide more jobs in TN that weren't there before? So it frees up the jobs these kids would have taken, so that unemployment will decrease? Does this make the numbers for TN look better? Scores political points? Or are we trying to employ more community college people, tech support people, librarians, janitors, building maintenance, etc? Is this just a shifting of people, so that we can get better jobs numbers in TN? 8. What if the public and private colleges and universities find that students go to these two year programs, and then transfer into university less prepared than if the students had been in the four-year college or university all along? What if TN is creating LESS well-educated juniors in college? I can see the scenario play out like this: Previously, a kid goes to University of Tennessee right out of high school to become an engineer. They go through U of TN intro English, Math, Science, and gen ed classes. As they persist through each level - freshman, sophomore, junior, senior - they are immersed in the program, and know what the expectations of the program are. They are advised well by the department, and someone is keeping track of how well the student is doing. The student is in one place, that university, so the continuity and flow is monitored. In four years, that student graduates with an engineering degree, and the hiring firm knows what they have when they hire an engineer from the U of TN. The new way, the student graduates from high school, and lives at home while going to free community college. The student is surrounded by his high school friends, and takes gen ed courses with his buddies. All these kids have different things they want to major in, besides engineering, when they get to "real college" in two years. No one is really advising the student on how to become an engineer, because most students won't go on to "real college" when they get their two year, gen ed associates degree. The student finishes two years, and goes to transfer to U of TN, and is now expected to take engineering specific courses, all of them, in his junior and senior years. He isn't academically prepared, and flunks out after one year. Now, we have lots of kids who can't do real college courses, because they haven't been academically prepared. I can see how this LOOKS positive, from everyone's perspective. It seems like free college. It seems like better preparation. To me, I don't think so. I think this gives TN essentially a "holding pattern" for students, to keep them out of the minimum wage job market, and then dumps them into university, where they will either fail, or need four MORE years of school, to actually get them up to par with prepared students. What about students who don't want to go to community college, and want to spend all four years at U of TN? Will U of TN create a new pseudo community college to collect the lottery funds, and keep the students on their campus? I can't see how the U of TN would just give up EVERY student to a community college, and be ONLY a "last two years of college" program. It seems this person agrees with me: "Catherine Leisek of the National Council for Higher Education says that money could make all the difference. "Students who are scholastically prepared for university will be pushed into a two-year system possibly, because of the money," Leisek says." This article created so many more questions for me, and obviously for the people who read the article, so I'd like to ask, "What is the agenda here?" Mythical Beasts, a Six-Year-Old, and Bill Nye – Why Are We Still Debating Evolution vs Creation?2/8/2014 Anyone on social media in the last week has been inundated with articles about evolution versus creation. One very famous scientist, Bill Nye, the Science Guy, debated the founder of “The Creation Museum,” Ken Ham. Nye defended the science perspective, that the Earth is billions of years old and life evolved very slowly via evolution, while Ham described a Young Earth perspective, that the Earth and everything living on it was created by God in 6, 24-hour days and is 6000 years old. In the course of the debate, Ken Ham first claimed that the word “science” has been hijacked, and that things that are now observed in the natural world could have been different in the past, because none of us were there to see God creating everything. Ham says that since the Bible says Earth was created, we should accept that as historical fact. Bill Nye was very detailed in giving evidence for science’s version of events, that every living creature is a descendant of a previous ancestor, and that the fossil records corroborate this. Nye also described how evidence of the biblical flood is not present in the way animals and plants are dispersed throughout the globe, and that a ship the size the arc would have been an engineering marvel, or scientists who described the conditions that would have been necessary for an arc to hold and feed animals for that length of time would have made the voyage impossible. Whether you believe in the creation story, or you understand the scientific theory of evolution – your mind was probably not going to be changed by the debate. If you are pro-science (and I am very pro-science, as a Biologist at a large, research university) then the words of Ken Ham were probably maddening – every point Ham made came back to “You don’t know that. You weren’t there. But God was there. We have the Bible.” Ham made assertions, not based on evidence, and made them sound like any reasonable person should just get it. Don't understand something? God did it. Can't explain that? God did it. Every possible question, Ham had an answer for, and started with that answer in mind. He looked cool, calm, and confident, with his one answer that explains everything. Nye used scientific evidence like a pro, discussing ice cores, radio-dating, trees older than Ham thinks the Earth is, Neanderthal skulls, and the fossil record. Listening to Ham explain it all away – complete rejection of the data, explaining that historical science is different than observational science because God says so – was enough to make you throw the screen across the room. How can someone like Ham get it so wrong, we scientists wonder? My son Matthew, who is almost six years old, has a book at home that we sometimes read at night, called “Mythical Beasts.” Described in the pages of this book are creatures like the kraken, a beast so large that 14th century Vikings mistook its tentacles for small islands. These fishermen were known to search for whirlpools left by the kraken to fish over, where the catch would be plentiful. It has been suggested that giant squid, octopus, or whales may have been what were mistaken for kraken, or the water activity may have been over undersea volcanic activity. The legend of the kraken persists today, not just in pop culture and depicted in movies like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, but in Norwegian and Greenland culture. How could people believe in such a creature, which has been easily explained by the filming of the giant squid in its natural habitat? The kraken is one of my favorite mythical beasts. My son enjoys the chupacabra, which was a beast I heard a lot about while I lived on the Mexican border. This creature is said to be like a vampire, sucking all the blood out of its victims. The name literally means “goat sucker” in Spanish. I always pictured a rabid, hairless dog – but in some pictures it looks like an alien or deformed rat. Biologist Barry Connor examined the chupacabra carcasses, and found that they were actually coyotes with an extreme case of mange. As late as last week, chupacabra carcasses were examined in Houston Texas, and were determined to be a hybrid species of coyote, wolf, and domesticated dog. But just uttering the word chupacabra can instill fear in people, especially children who might be taunted by a babysitter or sibling, “If you don’t go to bed, a chupacabra might get you!” Despite the evidence scientists have been able to offer, often proving that these stories have logical explanations, there are people who will continue to believe the story, because of its implications. In the case of the biblical flood – the soul is at stake. If presented with two options – either “believe” science, OR believe in God – which has the biggest implications to the average person? Yeah, it’s that heaven or hell thing. The debate is often phrased so that if you believe the science story, you are damned to burn an eternity in hell. If you were that child, sitting in a classroom, and you were told that if you didn't believe in the biblical flood, you would go to hell, you’d be scared to death! And since we begin telling these biblical stories from a very young, Sunday School age, you can guess which story sits in a person’s mind. Who is this science teacher to come along and say the Earth is billions of years old, when what you've been told from the moment you can remember is that the Earth was created by God in six days, 6000 years ago?
So, as a Biology teacher, I've run into the student who has told me, “I don’t believe anything you say. I’m only in this class because I have to be. I believe in God, end of story.” Even answering all their questions cannot get them to “change their minds.” (This is one of the best articles I’ve read about challenging creationists’ questions, but the title is a bit inflammatory) Over the years, I’ve run into probably a hundred versions of this very statement, even from fellow science teachers! I’ve had moments when I’ve seen fellow scientists call Christians flat-out stupid. I’ve seen scientists' exasperation when “no, 6000 years. Bible says so.” is repeated as “proof.” And in all of my readings on how to make people understand evolution as “very gradual change over time,” I know that all the evidence I provide will not FORCE a person to give up their SOUL – so I’ve had to become an ally, instead of the enemy. I am a scientist who believes you can both be a faithful Christian, and an educated scientist, because religion and science are two different, but not incompatible, ways of knowing about our world. I would like to implore to scientists that they understand the worldview of Christians, and stop giving them such a hard time. Keep calm, science on. I am upfront with my students that I believe in God. I am also upfront that I believe that science is the way we know about the natural world around us. And then, I go on to teach about the nature of science. I discuss how the Galapagos and Hawaiian island chains were formed. I describe how scientists have studied DNA and genome sequencing, what homologous structures are, how fossils form, how we know how old fossils are, and the science of embryology. I also describe how science works – that we take all the evidence, and use it to formulate an understanding of how the world works. Religion is an entirely separate way of knowing – it starts with an end in mind, an all-powerful God – and works back from that. I personally have had moments in my life that make me “know that God exists.” I have no doubt in my mind. I have faith. My faith does not interfere with my science, and my science doesn't interfere with my faith. In fact, I think one compliments the other. When scientists freak out (which was something that Bill Nye did not do, which is impressive) we alienate Biblical believers from ever understanding science, which hurts science. By making creation the forbidden fruit, we make it something to cling to, and reject science over. What is the harm in believing in God? What is the harm in believing in the kraken or the chupacabra? There is none. Believing in God gives spiritual guidance to Christians’ lives, and the teachings of Jesus are a moral guidance. Believing in the kraken reminds Norwegians of the power of the ocean, and to be responsible fisherman. Believing in the chupacabra keeps little children in line, listening to their parents. Religions have been used throughout the history of man to guide the actions, both good and bad, explain the soul, describe where we go after we die, and explain how we should act towards our fellow man. Whatever your religion, I, as your teacher, should respect it. And you, as my student, should give me the respect to understand how the discipline of science explains the natural world. So, why should science be taught in schools, and religion be taught outside of school? There are a multitude of religions. There are even variations of major religions – some Christians say you can be pro-choice, some take objection to homosexuality, Young Earth creationists say the Earth is only 6000 years old – and I’m sure the same is true for Muslims, Jewish people, Buddhists, Native Americans, etc. Religions vary by region, by denomination, and by culture. Scientists would never openly attack a Native American in the classroom - so why do we do it to Christians? Pick up an intro to Biology textbook. There are virtually no introductory Biology texts that give any credence to creationism, because creationism is not science. Even though university research scientists may believe in God, they are not teaching God as science, because that is not how science works. The fact that there are middle school science teachers and high school Biology teachers – like Ken Ham, who was a high school science teacher – that are teaching creation as science, indicates an alarming problem in education. There is an entire group of science teachers who cannot differentiate science from religion. How can a science teacher not understand enough about the natural world and how science works, to give supernatural phenomenon credence in a science class? That would be analogous to your Biology teacher warning you not to cheat on your test, or a chupacabra would suck out all your blood in the middle of the night. Mythical beasts do not lend themselves to sound science. If you teach one supernatural story to your students, then you have to teach them all. And imagine what a nightmare that would be. How would you feel if public tax dollars were spent to introduce your child to Pagan, Wiccan, or Heathen creation stories, or to the Greek creation myths (think Zues, Gaia, and Choas) as scientific fact? Some people said it was a bad idea for Nye to debate Ham – it makes it look like there are two equal sides debating – and there aren’t. Just because Ham found five “creation scientists” to make youtube videos, doesn’t mean there are an equal number of evolutionists versus creationists. There are plenty of scientists who believe in God – some of the most faithful people, like myself, believe in God – but who also understand that the Bible is not a science book. Chemistry, physics, geology, astronomy, medicine, and biology all work together as disciplines to explain the natural world. Though scientists may debate the exact mechanisms for evolution, almost no scientist doubts there has been very gradual change in organisms over a very long period of time, billions of years. Does this really come down to a “teaching religion in the science classroom” agenda? 92 percent say Bill Nye won the debate in Christian Today poll. Because I believe that most Americans understand that the people who wrote the Bible, inspired by God, also were not scientists. They described the world around them with the best understanding of how things worked that they had, at that point in time. Fishermen described the kraken, as a way of understanding the ocean. Latin Americans used the chupacabra as a way of understanding unknown phenomenon. And my son and I settle in to read about mythical beasts, and he understands that these people weren’t stupid – they were using stories to explain the natural world. Many years later, science has helped us understand the Earth in new ways. Just as DNA fingerprinting has allowed over 312 convicted criminals to be exonerated based on the evidence, we learn that eye witness claims cannot always be trusted. The people who were eye witnesses to the Biblical tales did the best they could, but now new evidence has arisen. Evidence, at the end of the day, is what science is all about. Income Inequality seems to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue lately. President Obama spoke about it in his State of The Union Address on January 28th. He described how the middle and lower classes have stalled in their wage potential, and the possibility of getting by, much less getting ahead, seems to have lessened. Also in the news is the plight of adjuncts – those part-time college instructors who teach one or two classes at a university for a small sum and no benefits. This morning, adjuncts at my university were described in an NPR story, “Part-time Professors Demand Higher Pay; Will Colleges Listen?” The story goes on to describe how “professional adjuncts” – those workers who hold a graduate degree in their field, and who teach as needed at one or several higher education institutions, as their full time job – are essentially making minimum wage, or less. The plight of professional adjuncts is often a sad tale – often we read about how they struggle to make ends meet, selling plasma on the side to supplement their income, Margaret Mary Vojtko who died destitute at the age of 83 as she taught French for 25 years as an adjunct at Duquesne University, to this self-proclaimed “adjunct whore” who describes herself as doing tricks each semester to make ends meet. The horror stories abound. But how did these horror stories come to fruition? I must first divulge my own experiences as an adjunct. I enjoyed my position as a non-major, adjunct biology instructor for 6 semesters at my university. I taught large, stadium-style lectures for classes of 100 to over 300 students each semester. I enjoyed working with these students, even though there were a lot of them, as they worked through the general education requirements of their degree plan. I spent three contact hours a week – either two classes of an hour and a half every Tue/Thur, or three classes of one hour every Mon/Wed/Fri – lecturing, using classroom technology, answering questions, helping the students find videos of concepts they didn’t understand, helping students with campus problems, or just counseling students on problems I could help with, be it personal or academic. Outside of class, I had to order textbooks, sit on review committees, collaborate with other lecture professors, do grades, answer emails (and with 300 students, that’s a TON of email) and make copies. I earned less than $1000 per credit hour for the course. After taxes, for one semester, I would see $399 deposited once a month, five times, into my direct deposit bank account. Take home for one semester of work - $2000. Now here is where I differ from the adjuncts that are often described in the depressing stories you hear about these people with advanced degrees living on welfare and food stamps – I have a full time job. I work at the university already, as a Biology lab Coordinator. 40 hours a week, I work with teaching assistants, supervise 640 lab students a semester, order supplies, write curriculum, do learning management software for the course, and keep a bustling Biology lab exciting and fun. In between writing curriculum and being a single mom who just earned a doctorate, I love to teach a class or two. Most of the classes that are offered to adjuncts are the general education, lower level courses in the 100 or 200 range. I taught the lowest level of Biology course there is offered at this university – the one taught to general education, non-majors students. I know people who adjunct who teach the freshman English classes, the non-major History courses, even Physics! I also have my name and resume in the pool at six other universities/colleges for these types of adjunct positions. I think adjuncting is fun! It allows me to do something I find enjoyable – teaching. But, there’s been no adjunct teaching positions available in my department for the last three semesters, because of grant fluctuations and course load changes for professors. Thank god for my full time job. Adjuncting was NEVER meant to be a full time job. That is the exact reason adjuncts, who are “professional adjuncts,” are in the position they are today. Adjuncting is a part time type of position, meant for people who are professionals in other full time jobs, who essentially “pick up a shift” here or there. They are like substitutes, who are called to fill in when a full time, tenure tract faculty gets a huge grant and the department needs someone to fill in. The people who wish adjuncting was a full time profession are sadly mistaken, and I believe will continue to suffer if they keep trying to push to make adjuncting a full time job with benefits and security. Just as I feel the minimum wage employee at Walmart or McDonalds is futile in fighting for this type of job to support them and their families (these fast food jobs were meant for teenagers who needed part time work, not for someone needing to support a family) – I feel the plight of the adjunct is useless. Someone who has the basic skills to man the fryer, stock the shelves, or teach the most basic of college courses will continue to earn part time employee pay, for low-level, part-time created jobs. Adjuncting is not a career, adjuncting is the burger flipping of higher education. Now please, don’t think I’m dissing on adjuncts. I know how hard, stressful, and overwhelming adjuncting can be as a job. When you have students taking intro courses, they can be the most needy students – the ones who may be taking your course while also taking basic math because they can’t do math, taking basic reading, because they can’t read, or just aren’t cut out for college. You may pour 30 hours a week into one course, to do the justice to your students that you feel, and I felt, they deserve. But the honest truth about adjuncting is that there is no security to it as a profession, it’s low paid work meant for people who have other full time jobs, and it’s something that I would advise ANY person who is getting a graduate degree and plans to go teach “because they love it” to stay away from. Go into secondary education and teach high school students. Find a job at a company that you can do professional development or job training. But if you get your grad degree and plan to “just go teach” instead of having a research agenda that is good enough to get you a tenure track position (and I almost guarantee you are not in that top 5% in your field who will be offered a tenure track job), then you are going to find yourself unhappy, unemployed on a whim of the finances of higher ed institutions, or forced to move somewhere you don’t want to live, working at a university no one has ever heard of. The truth of the matter is that a $80,000 a year job that you don’t have to move for, that allows you to teach a subject you love, with benefits and security, is a fantasy.
And as long as “professional adjuncts” are offering themselves on the altar of higher education in hordes, the market for them is not going to change. Only when ALL adjuncts decide to pursue other job opportunities, that are full time, with benefits, and security, and no one wants those adjunct positions anymore, will higher ed pay more for them. Supply and demand. The brutal truth of education as a business. This post is inspired by a sermon from Joel Osteen called “Stay in the Game.” You might not be in grad school, but I think this applies to life as a game, as well. It doesn’t take a lot of faith to stay in the game when things are going our way. Many times along the way, I considered grad school (and life) as a game. Completing my dissertation, and getting a PhD was a win/lose type of situation, or at least it was for me. If I had given up, I would have lost at the game. Looking back, if I had effortlessly completed the classes and the dissertation, with no bumps, bruises, or challenges, that prize, being Dr. Hollingsworth, wouldn’t mean as much to me. If the grad school game were easy, it certainly would not have taught me all the lessons it did.
It’s easy to lose our passion when we’re hurt – our advisor is critical, a colleague does us wrong, an experiment doesn’t work, our families aren’t understanding of the pressure, the program changes to become harder, the environment on campus becomes negative or nasty, or we flat out feel the pain of stress pressing down on our lives. It’s easy to begin the negative talk. “This program is stacked against women. This research doesn’t mean anything. My experiments don’t matter. My advisor is a jerk. My committee has it out for me. They don’t like me. I chose a bad advisor. This program is doomed.” This negative talk is making excuses for why we MIGHT fail, and prepares us to shield our emotions, in case we do fail. Shake off the pity, and get back in the game. Some students make excuses to sit on the sidelines. You can still play, even in pain. “I’d rather be in the game in pain, than sitting on the sidelines watching.” This is where the game became personal for me. Through my entire grad school career, I was having massive surgeries. Any one of them would have been reason to give up. In February of 2008, both of my retinas blew out. I had over 20 eye surgeries, the last two of which they removed my eyeballs, and scraped them out, and filled them with fake fluid. One of these surgeries was right before I was supposed to take a final. The other kept me from starting class for three weeks. Throughout all of these surgeries, I never once thought of quitting my program. I always was thinking “How can I get back to school, so I can get on with my life?” There were days I couldn’t see well, and my father drove me to work. There were other days where I laid face down on the floor in my office, waiting for my pain meds to kick in, so I could get back to writing. The last of my eye surgeries was January 11th, 2011. Almost a year went by of me feeling horrible physically. I didn’t move a lot, because I was scared to hurt my eyeballs. I was depressed, I felt awful, but I stayed in grad school. It was the one thing that gave me solace from the pain. I loved the group of women I worked with, and was in class with, and they provided me with so much support. Reading and writing were two things I could do, despite my physical maladies. I bandaged up what was hurting, and I stayed in the game. I said, “I may be hurting, but I’m still here. I may have been knocked down, over and over, but I’m in this to win this, and I won’t quit.” In December of 2011, I had a massive abdominal surgery that left me in chronic pain, pain that persists until today. I’ve had surgery many times since that first one, for kidney stones, for a bowel obstruction, and for the wound that refused to heal. At this point, it would have been easy to become bitter. I could have blamed my failures on my pain, my body, or other people. I didn’t. I let people know when I was hurting so bad I couldn’t complete assignments, but I never asked to not do the assignment. Sometimes I needed a week extension, sometimes I was past the due date, but I made up my mind to never quit. I saw some people in my program that were so sour, who wanted other people to be unhappy with them. They tried to bring others down. The ladies I surrounded myself with, however, were my rock. I could have hung out with the complainers and joined their pity party. There were definitely always people around me who were quick to grumble, whine, and nit-pick, to say why they couldn’t do this, to make excuses. I will admit – I did let these negative folks into my head a few times. And after I would talk to them, I would feel like I was run over by a bus. I had to actively choose to smile at these people, offer them a word of encouragement, and then go back to my group of girls who cheered me on. If you surround yourself with criticism, self-pity, bitterness, anger, hatred, and discontentment, don’t be surprised when that weighs down your soul. Get back in the game, and find your cheerleaders. The best thing to do when you hurt is to go help someone else in need. You sow the seed to change your own situation. This is why I love to teach. No one would have faulted me if I had given up. I was injured, but I never left the game. When times were tough, and nothing was going my way, I was still good to the people around me. Even when my eyeballs or my guts hurt, I still treated my students well. And they knew that I loved what I was doing, and many approached me and told me that they were inspired by the fact I never gave up. This world has a great reward for people who are faithful in the tough times. My graduate school experience resulted in me winning the game, because I never gave up, even when it was rough. Because I have paid it forward, by helping students be successful, by cheering on my group of girls, and by giving my work my all, I won that game. Now, I’m on to the next game, The Superbowl that is my life. I refuse to just exist. I will live. If I had quit, what would I have done? Become disabled? Planned my funeral? That wasn’t even an option. Even when I couldn’t do all the things I wanted to do on my own, I could still offer friendship, hard work, and dedication to the people around me. When you put yourself in the right position, when you coordinate your game plan so that you are in success’s path, that’s when the universe pays you back. You position yourself for good karma. I never stopped searching out new friends, looking for new opportunities, and searching for ways to get past my pain. Grad school was never meant to end a person, even though it may feel that way. It’s meant to be a beginning. An awakening of your spirit, a challenge to your mind, the seed of your dreams. It allows you to have double what you had before. Nobody knows the battles you fight when you take on this program. When you defy the odds, when you play despite the pain, the most powerful force in the universe breathes in your direction. You may not be able to do what you used to, but the wind fills your sails, and you stay in the game. Just being here, that took an act of faith. Part of the game of academia is its critical nature. It will crush you, if you let it. It’s easy when people are criticizing your ideas to feel as if you are the one who has it all wrong. Eyes on the prize, stay in the game. Keep the game ball moving forward, run with your ideas, allow them to blossom, and take on that fight. No one knows your battles, but everyone knows that you can’t win the battle if you don’t show up in the first place. My biggest and best quality is the fight I have in me. I never give up. I keep on going, because I love what I do. I allow others to achieve their dreams, and I can’t do that from my bed. I need to be in that game. I need to be a positive role model for my son. I needed to fight. People can’t look at me and know that I’m in pain. I don’t look sick, even though I’ve been diabetic 30 years and have had all those surgeries. I’ve had people tell me “You don’t look sick. I had no idea,” or “You seem so happy! I had no idea you were in pain!” It’s one thing to go through a struggle that everyone knows about, or can view you going through. But my struggle is all inside me. I struggle with my feelings, with my body, and with figuring out who I am. Despite my pain, I persist. I go to work, I’m kind, friendly and compassionate, I help everyone I can, and I never give up. There is no way I could sit back, nursing my wounds. I’m hurting, but I’m still here. I can still smile, and be kind, even if no one knows what kind of horrible pain my body is in. If I can do this, I have no doubt that other women can get through the game of grad school, too. Play on, despite the pain. The University of Akron was in the news again today, and not for a good reason. In this article from MSNBC, "Will Congress Turn It's Backs On Students?," it is suggested that the government doesn't care about students with huge loans. The student, Becky, who is a public school teacher, has taken out $96,000 in student loans, and now would like Congress to somehow alleviate her of what is described as a predatory practice of the student loan lenders.
First, let me state my belief that this is not a "problem" for government to intervene. Do I think something needs to be done about the $96,000 debt of this student? Absolutely. But not by the government. First, let's talk about what the student received for her money. First, let me state that I don't know this student, and I don't know what her lifestyle was like before, during or after her college career. For $96,000, Becky may have attended school for four to six years. The article doesn't state how long she attended school. During that time (judging from the huge amount of debt), she likely lived on campus, in one of the designer dorms UA has to offer. UA boasts of it's award-winning apartment style residence halls, with private kitchens and baths. All that, for only $9,308 a year. Surely, living in luxury will make it easier for students to study, right? They offer wonderful dining options, like dining plans that include Starbucks, Einstein Bagels, Subway, a grille, a market, a cafe, and many others. Deluxe accommodations, only $4240 a year. Students can have their morning cup of java on the way to the Rec Center, which boasts "What can you do at the Rec Center? You can bike, run, shoot hoops, swim, play ping-pong, climb a 53-foot wall and join any number of group-exercise classes, ranging from yoga to cycling to Zumba." Wow, it sure seems like students have the opportunity to live like royalty at UA. I'm sure there is equal opportunity to live a lavish lifestyle while at any other university around the country. And, let's be honest about what happens AFTER life at UA, after she has received her degree. I bet that students feel they can't take a step backwards, into "regular life" like the student in this story described in the article. Students, once they become dependent on zumba and Starbucks and deluxe apartments wouldn't want to go back. And when student loan lenders are offering to furnish all this luxury for you, no problem, sign on the dotted line - students take that money. The article states that over 40 million Americans have bought into that luxury. And keep in mind, when we say "But, they needed that money for education," it was not JUST classes. It was a lifestyle upgrade. I don't know Becky, but I see students like her every day. Students come to my class showing off new tattoos, new piercings, designer clothes, fancy meals, energy drinks, Starbucks, flashy UA clothes - and then I wonder.... "Why are these students so unlike me? Where do they get the money to do this?" Let me tell you how I lived in undergrad. I lived in a two-person dorm. My roommate and I shared 30 square feet of cinder block, built in 1956, called McMaster Hall. We bought an old bunk bed from Goodwill. We had a used futon, and we would fashion a coffee table out of milk cartons. We had a tiny cube fridge, and ate a lot of mac and cheese. I thought I was hot stuff when I moved up to an apartment with a roommate. We lived in a one bedroom apartment off campus, that cost $430 a month. I paid it by being a waitress on the weekends. I may have had crappy surroundings, but I had friends, I was happy, and I was learning a lot. I loved being in school. I wasn't building up any debt. NO DEBT. But I don't see many students "tough it out" anymore, because they have student loan packages that pay for deluxe livings. The article is right - schools and student loan lenders will give students EVERYTHING they want, and more. And, they will saddle them in debt, for their choices. Just as I have to live with my choices at Mount Union (I have no student loan debt, thanks to a wonderful family who helped me pay, and my frugal habits and weekend job) Becky and the students like her will have to live with their choices. These students will be in debt for their Starbucks and lavish lifestyles. And there is NO REASON for the taxpayers to be paying for that. This is not a government problem - this is out of control spending, catching up to these students. So, if I were to offer any advice to a student, choosing to go away and live at college - take the bare bottom choices. Choose to live in the oldest, cheapest residence hall. You'll only be sleeping there, and will spend most of your time, out with your new friends. Take the bare bottom dining plan, and buy a Keurig for your dorm room. Make your own coffee, and take it to class in a reusable mug (hello, environmentally friendly!). Get a weekend job. Spend your class time wisely, wake up early, and go to the library to study. Plan your day to make the most of the time when many students will be sleeping off their hangovers to be as productive as possible. Better yet, live at home, or with as many roommates splitting the cost as you can manage. Choose your major WISELY! You may hate math, but any major that involves math will likely get you in a better career than one without. The "fun majors" are often the ones that have no job opportunities once you graduate. Or, you'll be competing against 800 other applicants for that one job. Make sure that you'll be able to pay your bills once you graduate. And, once you do graduate, hit that student loan debt as hard as you can! Better to slash it while you're young, than to let it build and compound interest. Becky has $96,000 in debt - here's what I would suggest to her, specifically. Take in a roommate or two. Or, even though it's not fun, move home with your parents. Live in their basement while you toss every cent at that debt. If you need to live out on your own, then slash every bill you can. Got used to deluxe cable while on campus? Slash it by buying a Roku, and Netflix. Get rid of cable, you don't need it. Start looking into frugal living tips - my personal favorite site is The Simple Dollar. There are a ton of tricks and tips to save money, or to stop wasting money. He makes great suggestions too - like to stop trying to impress people with money. I think one of the pitfalls of a college degree is that people believe they should be in a certain lifestyle the second that they graduate, and that just keeps them perpetually in debt. Sure, after living at UA and having deluxe accommodations, deluxe food, deluxe drinks, deluxe Rec Centers, a movie theater, a lazy river, and social events, you want to keep up that lifestyle, but look at what it's doing to countless other students besides Becky. To put it bluntly - IT'S DESTROYING THEIR LIVES. Who would have thought going away to college would be the thing destroying people's lives? But that is the reality. Did many students make that mistake of being sucked into a glitzy, glamorous game? Yes. Should the government bail them out? No. (and for the record, government shouldn't bail out anyone, in my humble opinion). The reason student loans cannot be discharged in bankrupcy is simple to me. If you take out too big a home loan, the bank takes back the house. If you take out too big a car loan, the bank takes back the car. If you take out too big a student loan, to live like a rockstar for four to six years, there is nothing for the bank to take back. They can't take that education away from you - nor should you WANT them to. Now is the time for people with these huge loans to make a significant life change. Buy a smaller house. Stop buying new stuff. Get a roommate or two. Stop trying to impress other people. Find cheap or free activities through your city's website. Slash all your bills.Sell stuff on Ebay or Craigslist you don't need or use. Go to the library instead of the bookstore. Make food at home. Move somewhere cheaper. Take on a second job. Do this for yourself, and your future, because Congress, the president, and the government is not going to help you. Only you can help you. It's never too late to start making better money decisions. Life is full of tests. To be a doctor, you take many exams through medical school. You take the MCAT to even get into med school. In fact, EVERYONE who goes to med school must pass the MCAT, and almost every US and Canadian medical school requires it. I went and clicked on one of the six topics and skills that are assessed by the test. Just the Biology section had 17 pages of outlined topics you would have had to have studied for YEARS in your undergraduate program. Even as a Biologist myself, there are some topics I would want to go back and review before I’d ever take that kind of test. I am glad that every one of my doctors has had to pass that test, and tests like it, in order to take on the responsibility of being a doctor.
If I want to get into law school, I have to take the LSAT. The LSAT is a standardized test that measures reading skills, analytical skills, and logical reasoning. This test is described as “providing a standard measure of the acquired reasoning and reading skills of law school applicants.” When a student has taken and passed the LSAT, the law school has a reasonable understanding of what this applicant is able to do - read, and reason. I am glad that every lawyer has had to take that test, in order to understand and comprehend the law, and all it's intricacies. What, then, do we want from the professionals that are part of our daily lives - our teachers? When I wanted to become a teacher, in Texas, I took the TExES, or the Texas Examination of Educator Standards. As I remember, there were two parts - one part about the subject matter, and one part about understanding teaching. I actually remember the day I took that test. I was living on the Mexican border, and I had to drive to San Antonio for the proctored, secure examination. There were two other teachers with me in the car for the 2 ½ hour drive - one was a teacher’s aide who had completed her coursework, and wanted to move up into a teaching role. The other was an “emergency certified” teacher, like me, except that this was his third time taking the test, and his last try before he would be let go from his teaching position. When you were on an emergency certification (I was, because I had a Biology degree, but no teaching experience. I took all the classes while teaching full time) and you had three years from when you started to pass all the classes, and take the test. If you couldn’t pass the tests, you lost your job. I had always accepted that this was how the system worked. I was never angry that I had to pass a test. I was never mad at the test, or fearful of the tests. I knew that if I did all the practice tests, reviewed the materials, approached my professors at school about anything I was unclear of, and just took care of business, I’d pass the test. Sure, it wasn’t fun to study. It was tedious. It was boring. It got in the way of some fun stuff I wanted to do on the weekends. But, if I wanted to be a teacher, and I did, I would pass that test. I invited friends over to study. I made binders full of material about each topic, flashcards, even read my study material out loud so I could record it and play it in my car on the way into work. I knew I had it. (Beware, this paragraph has swearing in it) At the time, I was living with a person who wanted to become a federal agent. He also had to pass a test. He went through 3 months of intense academy to learn to shoot, learn the law, learn the job, and learn Spanish. Then, he had one year from when he started working as a recruit, until he took the test, and would either pass, or get fired from his job. Our attitudes about “the test” were a million miles apart. My attitude was “If I want this job, I take this test. Obviously it’s a test I can pass, because most of my fellow teachers have passed it, so I just need to buckle down and do this.” His attitude was “I hate this f**king test! It’s so unfair that some of these guys are Hispanic, and we are both being tested the same way on if we know Spanish. It’s not fair. If you’re a native speaker, you have an advantage. And what if I’m having a bad day, and can’t shoot? What if I’m sick? What if I can’t remember a stupid little law, or mix it up? I mean, I know the laws in general, but what if they pull out an obscure law and I miss it? This whole test is bulls**t! And my job depends on it! What if I fail, and I have to go get another job? People will know I failed. F**k this, no F**K THIS!!!!” The closer we got to his year, the more angry, aggressive, and paranoid he got. He didn’t settle in to study - he spent a lot of time bitching with the other recruits. His first topic of conversation at every meeting with another recruit would be “The test… blah.. blah… angry blah.” I noticed that several people, especially the native Spanish speakers, stopped hanging around us. He was mad all the time. He would take his weapon with him everywhere - to the grocery store, to Walmart, to friends’ houses. He treated me in an increasingly hostile manner, because I would ask him if he wanted to study together for our tests, go out to meet new friends I had at the school and their husbands, or go to the gym and exercise (he said all the walking from the job made him miserable and tired). He became known as “Amy’s angry boyfriend.” I made excuses, “He’s just upset about this test. It will pass. He’ll pass the test, and then everything will be fine.” Finally, I broke up with him three months before his test, because I couldn’t live like that. Being surrounded by hostility about the test, anger over studying, constant anxiety about failing, fearfulness about losing a job, and test-aggression was making me physically sick. It was like a disease to all those around us. It weighed on our lives, and broke us apart. Friends, there are teachers who's attitudes are like mine, and teachers who have an attitude like my boyfriend in your child’s school, who's emotions feed into your child, who are preparing them to take their tests, and ultimately, to graduate. I actually used to be the one designated science teacher who would be assigned every student who hadn’t been able to pass their graduation exam. I worked with these students a period a day, after school, and on Saturdays. I had material for them on EVERY CONCEPT that would be on their tests. I meticulously scoured through old, released graduation tests, figured out which standard the question applied to, and then made mini-tests for my students to take on each assigned topic. I bought them all green highlighters (somewhere I read that if you liked green, you were smart, I don’t know if there is a smart color, but it sounded good) and peppermints (I read that peppermints helped you concentrate), and so any time you came to me for test prep, you got a green highlighter and a peppermint. Somewhere I read that yoga helped people de-stress and focus, so on test days, I would lead my class in yoga pre-test. One semester I started off with 128 seniors who had failed their senior science graduation exam. I read, re-read, practiced, encouraged, cheer-leaded, and gave them tips and tricks to beating multiple choice tests. I became known as the test whisperer - I could help you pass the test. I knew everything there was to know about that damn test, and I knew how to help students pass it. That year, I got every student to pass except SIX. And I remember those six, very vividly. One girl had such negative talk, that she refused to even read the test. She marked her scantron, and then fell asleep, every time she took the test. She repeated to me often, “I’m a failure. It’s OK, I know I’m not going to graduate. I don’t care anymore.” She set herself up for failure, and no matter what I did, she refused to even try. Another girl refused to speak English. We were on the Mexican border. Even though I never taught in Spanish, I understood it, and she understood me in English, but she would never answer any question in English, no matter what I did. All her other teachers just allowed her to speak Spanish (80% of the teachers on the border are Spanish speaking also), so she refused to do anything but speak Spanish. Another boy was a gang leader, and was only at school to attempt to sell drugs. He was suspended so much that I barely got to see him. When I did have him in class, he was sulking, in a foul mood, and staring into space. He was preoccupied, and wanted nothing to do with me or the class. Even the best of teachers can’t reach everyone. I consider myself one of the best, most professional teachers there is. I was part of an amazing group of teachers in my department who worked together the make the science experience amazing for our students. And by everything you hear on the news today about students, we should have had utter failure in our school. We had 99% Spanish speaking students. Most of our kids were on free lunch. We had gangs, drugs, students with children, and troubled students. But we all said, “there is no reason we can’t get everyone to pass the graduation tests.” And we were right. We pulled our resources, at our department meeting each week we would each bring our best lessons on a given topic, and then make a plan so that each teacher in the department did that best lesson, and then we revised it together to make it better, make rubric answer keys, make common powerpoints, find labs that worked with that lesson, and made sure it aligned to the standards. We got to be so good at it, that in three years, we went from 39% passing the graduation tests, to 89% when I left the school. We were professionals at getting kids to pass the tests. And never would I say we “taught to the tests.” We taught everything that was ON the test, sure, but we also got to highlight the topics we loved (one teacher loved plants, and another loved evolution). The labs we did with the students were fun and hands on, and we loved that our lesson planning was a collaborative effort. We never felt alone, because we were professionals who met regularly and took each person’s strengths, and highlighted them. Some days, all the Biology teachers would meet in the lecture auditorium, and bring all their classes of students, and one of the teachers who was really good at the topic would put on an exciting production with multimedia presentations, an outline for the students to take notes, and the other teachers would be out in the “audience,” helping kids who had questions, kids who were sleeping (you all know it happens), or helping students who needed assistance. Mostly, though, these production days were looked forward to by the kids, because it was like watching a concert, with a rockstar teacher leading. What it took to make this happen was a collaboration between our school, and the UT Charles A Dana Center at The University of Texas in Austin. We did what was called “The Professional Teaching Model.” I plan to write more about it in the future, because it was that program that helped us turn ourselves from troubled, tired teachers, to professional teachers. We were amazing. And it was HARD! But as we all know, teaching is HARD, whether you’re succeeding or failing - so why not make it successful? And for parents, who would you rather have leading your class? Someone like me, a professional teacher, who is motivating and fun, and hitting every standard and getting your child to pass those tests? Or someone who is constantly bitching about how unfair the tests are, how they hate the standards, and how burnt out and angry they are? A teacher who feels hopeless and angry, or who works with their department and school to be part of a collaborative, professional, efficient, effective team? Who IS your kid's teacher? If you ARE a teacher, who are YOU? There is a popular author who has a blog that I often see shared who I absolutely despise. I won’t even mention her name, but she’s an educational historian who is what I’d label as a “critical theorist.” She is critical of education, and spends all her time breaking down how bad education is, how bad teachers are treated, how bad politics affect education, how bad the common core is, how bad testing is, and basically how bad EVERYTHING is. She offers no solutions that are feasible. She makes teachers despair even more. She amplifies criticisms, finds faults in the system that she says make it hostile, and writes books to terrorize teachers, and make them afraid. She’s a s**t-stirrer, s**t-flinger, and an irresponsible, critical, worthless hack (in my opinion). And I feel sad for every teacher who climbs on board with her, ready to complain and waste their time fighting against standards. And I plan to write, teach, motivate, and educate until she goes away. I will talk louder, write more, motivate, encourage, and enable success in the profession that I LOVE. Because I believe every school district, every single school, every department, and every teacher is part of this amazing profession called EDUCATION, and that people would prefer to be lifted up, instead of held hopeless to the ground. We all got into this profession to make our lives, the lives of our students, and the education in this country get better. And I, friends, am just getting the ball rolling. Who’s with me? I was particularly inspired this morning by a question asked of the Q Methodology community (a particular research methodology that blends quantitative and qualitative techniques to scientifically study subjectivity) about developing a study using Q, that addresses the needs of teachers related to "teacher stress." Anyone who has taught has been through stressful times in their teaching, which is what I discussed with this Q Listserv member. Here is how I proposed she put together a study:
Hi Rachel, As someone who taught high school for ten years, and who just just completed a doctoral dissertation using Q Methodology, one of the ways I imagine you could put this together is: There is a TON of literature on teacher stress. Just thinking back to my own experience, issues such as motivation, burnout, standards, high-stakes testing, feeling inferior, feeling unsupported, family/career balance, challenges with peers, stressful students, etc.... I think just by doing a thorough lit review (as I'm sure you have), you could come up with 40 - 50 statements easily. Heck, I could probably give them to you! As you brainstorm, put all of the statements into an Excel spreadsheet or other software you use for keeping track, code them according to theme, and then have some teachers look at the statements. You could find out pretty fast if you are missing anything. Then, as you work with your set of statements, think about your research questions. One of the things that helped me immensely was checking out 20 or so dissertations from the school library that used Q or used needs assessment (that was my topic) to see how others have written the research questions. I also feel the Watts and Stenner book helped immensely in visualizing my project. There is a ton of great lit on the qmethod.org site to guide you. Eliminate statements that are too similar, or that hit the same theme. Figure out how many statements and in what distribution you want your Q Sort to look like. I would pilot your Q Sort on a small number of teachers, to see if the sort works, or if anything the teachers find out of place should be corrected. Do you have a specific set of teachers you want to work with? Purposefully choosing your sample of teachers is appropriate in Q. In my study, I worked with teaching assistants in the Biology Department at my university. I wasn't looking at every teaching assistant in the USA - too big a P Set - but I purposefully chose this set of TAs because they were who I wanted to help improve their teaching and support. I imagine that you will come up with between two and four "types of teacher stresses" or "types of stressed teachers." At that point, after the analysis, I would give an exit interview to these teachers which asks for their input on coping mechanisms, professional development, or support systems that could help each of the types of stressed out teachers. Maybe some teachers need a forum to discuss their stress, small groups that meet at school to talk, or a teachers lounge that is inviting and soothing. Maybe other types of teachers need individual therapy, because their school stresses are a manifestation of their own personal problems. Maybe a third type of teacher needs a professional mentor who is a veteran teacher. There's a world of support systems out there - it's figuring out which teacher needs which type of support. In my dissertation, I found three types of TAs. All of the TAs in my sample needed a basic instructional training program, but then each of the types of TAs needed their program scaffolded to address their particular needs. I called it "additive scaffolding," and am writing an article about it now. If you'd like a copy of my dissertation to see how I laid out my problem and research questions and Q Sort, I can send. I think you've got a great idea for a dissertation, and there are certainly a lot of ways you can approach this. I like brainstorming like this :) Also remember that what ever you propose will change dramatically when your committee gets a hold of it. Use the professionals around you, and in the Q community to explore. Best of luck, Amy What are some other types of teacher stress, and what could your school have done to better support you through stressful times? Is there a way your could have approached stressful situations better? Would professional development have helped you better approach stressful situations? Are there online resources you use? I'd like to hear from teachers what kinds of things could help? Every day, in my email, I get a note from the universe (a personalized thought meant to stimulate me, inspire me, or otherwise make me smile). Some days, similar to reading your horoscope, they don't strike any chord. Often, however, they make me begin my day with a positive direction, with enthusiasm for new things - writing, creating, or dreaming big.
Here is my note today: If you were able to look back at your most brilliant successes, stunning comebacks, amazing catches, and smokin' ideas, Amy, and you were to find that virtually all of them seemed to materialize out of thin air, when you least expected them, and that they had exceeded even your greatest expectations at the time, how excited would you be about the new year and whatever else I've got up my sleeve? Hubba, hubba - The Universe If you don't get started somewhere, then you'll never make it anywhere. Some of my most brilliant successes - my Master's Degree that I earned on the Mexican Border, my PhD that I finished despite numerous health crises and being a single mom, owning my own home, raising a handsome and well-behaved young man - involve looking into the future and deciding how to live my life NOW. Putting in the hard work NOW is never the fun thing. Sure, there may be fun moments along the way - I call them EUREKA! moments - but often, the best things in life involve work. Lots of hard, lonely, not fun work. But when that day finally comes, that you've put in the work,that you've researched the ways to be successful, that you've done all the right things - that day you walk across the stage with a degree, move into that new house, or smile proudly at your awesome child - WOW. Just WOW!!! You know life is worth doing the right things now, and reaping the rewards in the future. Go for it! What are the steps you can take today, to make tomorrow (and beyond) worth it? Have you ever had someone say something to you that cut you to your core? That maybe was said playfully, but that hurt you badly? What if that one thing stuck with you the rest of your life? I've battled with one remark that haunts me, to this day. Marie Forleo is a blogger who I love, and she shared a video this morning that made me think back to one of my life-shaping experiences. She said: "Have you ever had someone say something about your work that felt like a punch in the gut? Where you were almost shocked how downright ignorant and mean it was? While most of us get that learning to deal with criticism is an essential part of the creative game, that intellectual awareness doesn’t always help us emotionally. Especially when you’re first starting out. Words sting. And unfortunately, the harshest words often linger in the back corners of our minds longer than we’d like to admit. That’s why I want to tell you a story about this guy who put me down on an escalator and how I’ve used that experience to lift myself up." This one really struck home with me.. When I was in seventh grade, my geometry teacher would greet me every morning with "Hey, Hollingsworthless." Worthless. WORTHLESS. I spent every day of that year, essentially being told I was worthless. That it was part of my name - HollingsWORTHLESS. I became determined to prove him wrong. Even though the other kids laughed at me. Even though I felt awful, I held my head high, and mastered his math class. In fact, as a girl who "isn't supposed to be good at math," I got the highest grades in the class. I graduated from high school. I got a degree in Biology, and then a Master's Degree in Ed Administration, and just finally finished my PhD in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education. I've spent every moment of my life, proving I wasn't worthless. So, now that I'm DOCTOR (and he's not), I teach hundreds of teachers every year what demeaning your students can do to them. No teacher should ever be allowed to make their student feel worthless. But would I trade that horrible experience? I would not be the same person I am today, without it. I wouldn't trade that awful remark for anything. Now, I not only teach at a university, I run a website for empowering women in science. I'm an author (written eight books, now working on my ninth), a motivational speaker, and an all-around awesome chick. His put-down became the fuel that fired me up. I won that game, hands down. What experiences have you had, in your own life, that fueled your fire? I'd love to hear them in the comments below! |
AuthorDr. Amy B Hollingsworth has worked in education for over 20 years. Most recently, she was a Learning Coach at the NIHF STEM School in Akron. She served as the Executive Director of Massillon Digital Academy. She was the District Technology Specialist at Massillon. She also was the Natural Science Biology Lab Coordinator at The University of Akron. She specializes in Biology Curriculum and Instruction, STEM education, and technology integration. She has written six lab manuals, and an interactive biology ebook. She has dedicated her life to teaching and learning, her children - Matthew, Lilly, and Joey, her husband Ryan, and her NewfiePoo Bailey. What's Amy Reading?Archives
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