probably worth little, and perhaps showing on my part a mixture of optimism, frustration, and paranoia.
I will tell you up front — make of this what you will.
I write these thoughts in the context of killing time before doing my planning for this week, where I will be out of classes for two days (Thur and Fri) as I head to SW Virginia to give a paper at a conference on Virginia history and culture next Saturday.
There will be three parts to this
1) my optimism/frustration because of teaching
2) some observations on the current political environment
3) sharing what some might view as paranoia, the text of something I just posted on Facebook.
So here we go ...
1) optimism/frustration because of teaching. The optimism is the POSSIBILITY that I might be seriously considered for a position at an independent school whose philosophy totally matches my own, where I would have only four class with a total of less than 80 students (I currently have 6 classes with around 150 students, of whom a good 15-20 are regularly absent and/or on suspension of some kind). The optimism comes from my contact so far, including with the person who would be my department chair. On the other hand, I recognize that my recent pattern of instability of position might mean that despite the positive interaction others up the chain will decide not to proceed further with me. I do have some other irons in the fire, but no guarantee that any will proceed much further.
In the meantime, we are finally back to having all 4 assistant principals, we have central / regional office staff fulfilling the responsibilities of the principal. Some of the serious behavior problems from earlier in the year are now being addressed. But there are conflicts in what we as teachers are supposed to do, and with the still high rate of cuts there is simply not enough time for us to do all they want us to do to document the problems and still have time to do all the tasks directly related to our teaching, especially when we do not have valid phone numbers or emails for a substantial number of families of the kids who cut classes.
I feel somewhat better about what I am getting out of the students who come regularly, but I still have to overcome a great deal of what they have arrived with when they come into my classroom. The incident of last week (the lockdown), how I reacted, and what I have said to all my classes since has gotten me some credibility, because they know I will do all in my power to keep them safe, even at any risk to myself.
2) Some observations on the current political climate. Not sure I have anything pertinent to offer that has not already been offered. The media is again falling into the trap of given Trump too much free air time, and not balancing that with equivalent free airtime to others. Take PA-18 for example. Trump is NOT there as President, but as a political candidate. Why was not Biden given equivalent air time? I know MS-NBC has lots of never Trumpers as talking heads, but that matters less to most voters.
I am also seeing way too many occasions of flat out lying that is not immediately challenged. Yes there are those who will immediately challenge — Katie Tur, Ali Velshi, and Stephanie Ruhle come to mind, and I appreciate that. But if MS-NBC and CNN are going to give a forum to the kinds of folks who regularly lie and distort, including those currently holding elected and appointive positions, they MUST be challenged on every untruth. No, it will have no effect on Trumpistas, but it may wear away on some of those who voted for Trump out of frustration with their needs not being met. I do not believe Trump’s base is even 35% of the electorate. I think it is less than 25%, and that might finally become evident if the media were not spending too much time elevating the views of those who do support Trump to the end.
It is absolutely clear to me that the timing of the tariffs, which will NOT bring back jobs lost to technology, was to try to save PA-18. That is why the only thing Dems should hammer on, and the media SHOULD cover, is that Saccone effectively supports “right to work” in a CD that is heavily unionized.
My current gut feeling is that Lamb will pull it out, perhaps narrowly, perhaps even by more than 5 points. If he does, some Repubs will dismiss the loss as being because of Saccone being a weak candidate, which he is. But Lamb is very in tune with the district, and unions have decided that this is a man worth fighting for. We will see.
Finally, 3) sharing what some might seem as paranoia, what I just posted on Facebook.
I have been thinking for some time about Russian interference, and I remind people that before I became a teacher I spent 20 years in data processing, in a variety of positions, was a Certified Systems Professional, and technically am still a Certified Data Processor. When I took the CDP exam more than 3 decades ago, I had the highest score in the nation. Of course by now, more than 2 decades since I left the field, my skills are no longer current, but I believe my understanding of general principles is still valid.
Anyhow, here is my “paranoia” --—
Let me go way out on a limb. I preface this by saying I spent 20 years working with computers before becoming a teacher, and in that career interacted with among other people at CIA and NSA, as well as a fair number of real experts in things like computer security. I am now more than ever convinced that Russian meddling in our election went well beyond what they did on social media and what we publicly know so far about their hacking efforts, including hacking into voter registration files. Beside the fact that it would not have taken much meddling in voter registration files in WI and MI to flip those two states, I am ever more inclined to believe that there was meddling well beyond, including a better than even chance that (a) votes were changed as people voted on electronic machines; (b) vote totals were changed when tabulation was done (opening up the machines for totals). This did not require hacking DURING the election, but could have been accomplished by manipulation into software before it was loaded onto individual voting machines, for example. Too many electronic voting systems are NOT secure, nor are the tabulation mechanisms used up to the state level. Any place where there is NOT an auditable trail of votes and tabulations should NOT be used. In my own career, I was able to several times demonstrate to superiors how I could implant time bombs into software that was for all purposes untraceable unless you had access to ALL the source code, and even then might be very hard to detect. Today's hackers are far more sophisticated. I also remember two top computer scientists at a conference on ADA (the DoD's mathematically provable computer language) agreeing that no computer system with a connection to the outside could ever be made absolutely secure against improper intrusions and manipulation, you could only make it very difficult and expensive to do. But someone willing to put in the time, effort and resources .....
As I said, make of this what you will.
And now, I have to plan my school week.