Talking Baseball

People Don't Want Your Pity The kids left under my care for periods of the day don't need my pity. Neither do their parents. They need my work. They need me to get off my recliner as an adult in the United States of Kiss My Ass and do something about income inequality. Do something about the privatization of public schools. Do something about housing. Make a connection with a red-neck? Perhaps. This idea of "reaching across the aisle" seems a bit suspect. I believe I need to do that within the confines of my heart.  "Judge not, lest ye be judged," type of thing. Jesus had a lot of good lines, didn't He? I watched some baseball tonight. Tuned into the Giants' victory at home over the Colorado Rockies. I watched my team hold onto a one-run game. It felt good. Panik and Posey reached in the bottom of the 8th with no outs. They were stranded. The feeling that the bullpen would then blow it was palpable in my living room. 

Poverty is the thing. I work in a school. Before I started I expected the parents to be apathetic or absent. The parents I've talked to care deeply. The problem, as I see it, is that they are poor. We talk and talk about this or that. The simple truth is that poverty is fucking people in the ass. Public education has been under assault for 40+ years. I used to think that standardized tests were a misguided attempt to measure student and teacher performance. After less than one year in a public middle school, I am convinced standardized testing is a tool to destroy public education. I'm beginning to wonder the same about Common Core. Another thing I'm dealing with is how boring is the content I'm hired to teach these kids. I realized today that I've been hired to sell swampland in Florida. "...sell you dirt to fucking deadbeats money in the mattress..."                              -Richard Roma in Gleng...