I'm Coming Out...

I'm coming out...I'm a registered republican- that’s right I said it!

Last night I watched the GOP debate that took place in Florida.  The candidates looked all shiny and professional, almost like a group of kids on their first day of school.  You know that feeling, we've all had it, and on the first day we promise our parents and teachers that this year were going to do "the right thing" and keep up with our work and grades.  I feel like that’s how these debates are, democrat or republican, all the politicians promise change and betterment; yet somehow when they get to the White House and people are left scratching their heads saying, "um didn’t they say this was going to be different this time around."  Besides all of that, one thing about the debate really bothered me last night: the booing of a gay solider.
I would say half way through the debate, and half way through a bottle of wine, a gay solider asked a question about DADT (Don’t ask Don’t Tell) and his question was met with booing audience members of the debate.  I was in shock!  I had to rewind my DVR because I wasn’t sure if that really happened, or if I had more wine than I thought; it really happened.  The next shocking thing was that the candidate who got asked the question, Rick Santorum, didn’t address the booing and how utterly disrespectful it was, he just went right along answering the question.  The answer he gave didn’t help matters either, not to mention he sounded like a complete fool.  I started thinking to myself as a future educator what the ramifications of this sort of behavior can mean for adolescents.  Let's just say, in my hypothetical classroom, there’s a student who is somewhat homophobic, or on the fence as to whether or not they believe homosexuals deserve the same rights as heterosexuals.  Now, lets say that student watched the debate last night too and saw and heard what the rest of the country did, what do you think that student would think about his/her own thoughts and feelings toward homosexuals?  I think that that student would feel justified in what they believe and would possibly make their feelings toward homosexuals much more negative.  As a future educator, how am I supposed to teach young people about equality and respect if our politicians and elder members of society can’t uphold that?
The people in that audience booed a solider, gay-straight-green or blue, he's a solider.  A man giving his life over in Iraq, day after day for the country YOU live in, for the country YOURE so proud of, for the country YOU stand behind no matter what...well I guess unless you’re talking about a gay solider, because YOU didn’t stand behind that.

To Stephen Hill, my deepest apologies for the ignorance of the American people- to me, you’re not gay or straight, you’re a hero!

There is more slavery in the world today than back in the 1800's...

       
Recently I read the book, Half the Sky, which for those of you who haven’t read it, it’s a must!  This book is so compelling, so appalling, that’s its hard to put it down for a second.  One thing that I found truly disturbing, and trust me threes no lack of disturbing facts in this book, is that slavery today is more prevalent that it ever has been, with numbers reaming as high as 12 to 27 million people.  Interestingly enough, slavery is now outlawed in all countries.  I think what scared me the most about learning some of these hideous facts is that nothing is being done to stop it.  I can count on less than one hand the number of times I've seen a news station cover a story of modern day slavery.  I bet if you walked into most classrooms around the U.S and asked students if slavery still exists today, most of them would say no.  I mean how can we help stop slavery if people are unaware that it even still occurs. 
Scarier than that, when we look at the human trafficking component of modern day slavery, we as Americans think of human trafficking as something that happens to "those people," the people who live in third world countries and eat a small bowl of rice as a meal for the whole day.  But, we don’t think about the American women who are sex slaves right here in our own backyard.  Think about those women and girls you may see late at night on the streets in barely there outfits and spiked high heels, do you jump out of your car and help them, or do you just turn your head and drive away?  Many of those women on the streets are forced to be there.  Many of them were kidnapped by pimps as younger girls and forced into a life of sex and criminal activity.  On top of that, the women who are forced into these activities often make no money, because the pimp or person who "owns" them keeps it all. In 2005, the Department of Justice reported an estimated 150,000 sex slaves in the U.S.  In 2009, a study found that 300,000 youth in the U.S were at risk for being sexually exploited for commercial use.  These facts are from a few years back and continue to grow as I sit here blogging about it.  I hope that people read this and are inspired to get involved, or to at least educate themselves and others about the issue. 

My first blog...ever

Hi everyone-
So this is my first blog, and I'm kind of nervous about it, since I've never created one before.  I guess I'm going to give this my best shot, and hopefully write about something semi-interesting!

As someone who is becoming a future teacher, I tend to try to listen in on people’s conversations about education, and anything that comes along with that.  Most recently, I overheard a group of people (couples, middle aged) discussing the fact that they hate that their school tax was raised significantly.  I immediately found this interesting since their taxes will affect me getting a job/what my salary will be when I get that job.  The four of them were going on and on about how they cant understand why "teachers" need to make so much money, saying things like, "I mean its not like they have a stressful job or anything; they get summers off; they have free nights and weekends, I mean how much can they ask for."  All of these comments outraged me.  The fact that four people, who have never worked in a classroom setting, were judging how intense or not intense or that matter, the work of a teacher is was downright insulting.  Their conversation swiftly moved from putting down teachers, to where their childeren are going to be attending college is in the upcoming year.  It seemed pretty laughable that the same four people who were just putting down teachers and what they do, moved to talking about the academic success of their children, and what their children’s futures would include.  I wanted to pull my chair over and ask them, "How do you think your children got to where they are?"  I also wanted to pose this to those four people:
if I could lower your school tax dramatically, would you be ok with that?
if I told you I could hire a teacher for half of what a new teacher gets hired for, would you be ok with that?
if I told you that the teacher I just hired only attended 2 years of college, would you be ok with that?
if I told you that your child isn’t getting into a 4 year college because their academic achievement just wasn’t "good enough", would you be ok with that?

So many people complain about things like school tax and teacher salaries, that they overlook the key fact- our teachers hold the future of America in their hands; based on that, would you really want a "discount."