Jess, I retired from teaching elementary school at 53 with 28 years of service. Call me crazy, but I could not accept what children were being put through with NC's End Of Grade tests.
It was trickle-down pressure. The superintendent pressured principals, who pressured teachers, who pressured students to achieve high scores on the tests. Teachers were judged by the scores, children were judged bt their scores.
The last several years I taught, we were mandated to focus on reading and math because those two subjects were the only ones tested on the EOGs. We were force feeding sample test questions and were encouraged to leave out any activities that did not reinforce the reading or math "skills." Creativity and student interactions with teachers fell to the wayside.
We were no longer teaching social studies, science, spelling or cursive writing. Social studies and science suffered the most.
My last year I was teaching science to 4th graders who were not motivated by anything. I won an $1800 grant for science equipment.
Those children came alive with the hands-on activities!! It was wonderful to see, but the principal walked in one day, looked around and said, "Aren't you supposed to be reviewing reading at this time?"
That did it. I never darkened a classroom door again, which was sad because I loved the children more than their test results, and was told by parents that I had a positive impact on their children's self-esteem and their confidence that they COULD learn.
I could never teach these days.- too many mandates from "leaders" who don't know a thing about what is good for children.
I’m sorry you had such a negative experience with your principal. I’ve actually been there and done that (“principaling,” that is) …. and in NC, as well.
I’m retired now. I made it through the EOG days without selling my soul to the testing devils - retired before the Republicans could start fully undermining public education. And it’s only gotten worse since they’ve had control of the legislature: budget cuts, teacher pay, expanded charter schools, these “opportunity scholarships,” and the list goes on. I don’t think I could do it today. I think I would be in a constant state of rage …. come to think of it, though, I actually AM in a state of semi-rage, even in my retirement.
John, thank you! For eight years, I've tried to understand how "wrong" has taken over "right." I have to back off at times because I too have rage and I know it's not healthy.
I have had so much dissolutionment over the Republicans' inane actions. The first big-time dissolutionment I had was when I found out that Betty Crocker was not a real person. :)
It’s been a steady process for years - so many factors to consider. But I think the force that really kicked everything into high gear was the Great Recession back around 2008 (just about when I retired).
That was when the charter school movement gained momentum, and it became tied to the ideas of “parent choice” and “school competition,” rather than its original purpose of offering alternative educational opportunities to kids who hadn’t been successful in regular classroom settings.
And the connection between the financial crisis and the growth of the “charter school industry” (as I learned from looking closely at a local charter school’s administration and funding) was how many people who started these schools were rejects/failures from the world of finance - they lost their multi-million dollar jobs, and they were looking for an investment opportunity. And there it was in the money being budgeted for charter schools.
Well, I don’t want to bore you with too many details because it has been a multi-faceted process, and I hardly know it all. But when the powers-that-be set up an unreliable and flawed “accountability” process that can be used to argue that public schools are failing, then you add in greedy entrepreneurs who want to tap into taxpayer dollars, get a majority of insincere and craven politicians running things, and THEN get fundamentalist religious types fired up with ridiculous claims about CRT, “furries,” teaching socialism, etc., well ….. public schools become punching bags, and the entire system goes “wrong,” as you say.
Oh, I get so angry sometimes. But I try to offer common sense information if and when I’m able.
Hang in there! I’m getting old, but I’m still trying to make a difference when I can. I’m sure you can, too.
Thank you for the encouragement! Before I found Jess and other columns by people who see the Truth about Trump, I stayed discouraged and frightened, because my state, county, and town is filled with Trump lovers and Biden haters. I have ONE friend that feels as I do that Donald Trump has promoted and encouraged the anger, mean-spirit, racism, and prejudice that his followers have felt, and have finally found in a "leader" who will validate their feelings of entitlement.
Don't get me started on the MAGA Republicans who bow down to Trump in order to save their jobs. I know that they see him as he really is, but they're afraid to stand up for justice and truth.
I'm going to go water my flowers and deadhead some blooms. As I'm pinching off the faded petals, I'll pretend I'm pinching off Trump's head. I have enough flowers to go through the entire Republican senators and representatives. :)
Jess has already become one of my favorite writers, and she’s in the running for #1. Her life story is compelling, PLUS she’s a teacher (and I’m kinda prejudiced that way), PLUS she speaks my language - i.e., “common sense,” PLUS what she describes happening in Missouri is almost a carbon copy of what I’m seeing in NC. So, her words resonate with me, and I’m absolutely certain she was (and still is) one hell of a teacher - major props for that!
I share your feelings of being in a lonely place when it comes to politics. I can be completely open and free to speak my mind with my children (thank God for that!), my significant other, and my two longtime best buddies. But that’s about it.
I cringe when I have to drive by my neighbor’s trump flag, or I see one of those idiotic combo Confederate/American flags flapping in the back of a truck. And I honestly get borderline livid when I see (and I’ve seen way too many) “Joe and the Ho Gotta Go” decals on a car - my rage response to that is unhealthy in too many ways.
I think your deadheading strategy in the garden is good - therapeutic, even. We can’t let our frustrations or dread of what is possible overwhelm us. We all just need to keep one another encouraged and supported as best we can.
And VOTE for good people like Jess anywhere we can find them!
I also am a former educator. I quit in the 80s due to politicians deciding that they know more than educators about education. Teaching to standardized tests is not education. The dumbing down of citizens is the biggest reason we are where we are at presently.
I agree!! I am very right-brained :) and tried to encourage the students to use their creativity and to think out of the box to solve problems.
There was no time for that. The teachers were under such pressure for their class to perform well on the End-of-Grade tests that they put pressure on the students. Teachers were judged solely on the test scores of their students. Never was there any test to see how much a child had grown or how a teacher might have changed a child's mind about a subject they didn't like.
Not bragging, but when I taught science to 5th graders, on the first day i asked how many liked science. Maybe two raised their hands. I encouraged hands-on learning, experimenting, asking questions. At the end of the year,
I asked again. Everyone raised
their hands.
I signed up to teach children, not to teach how to pass a useless test.
I miss the children but I have loved every nanosecond of my retirement.😊
And we have a probable candidate (if he is not in prison and officially wins the Republican nomination), who openly expresses his preference for uneducated voters, whom he despises. Probably wants to bring back de Vos.
Jess, I really appreciate your writing and your work in Missouri. You are still teaching; though it’s to a much larger audience. 💙
Would you be willing to come to Kentucky and inform people here about Blue Missouri? Kentucky currently has 3 neighboring states involved in efforts to increase Democrats efforts- Blue Missouri, Ohio and most recently Tennessee.
There are folks in central Kentucky (where I live) and Louisville who need to hear your message of how to engage rural communities.
Thank you for all you do! I regularly share your letters with friends and current candidates.
Powerful .. I want to be shocked at hearing you tell of the schools reactions … but I’m not. And I want to add one thing to the TEACHING you are doing. You never know who is in the room. Whether they are of one party or another doesn’t matter. They have come to hear your message, you are delivering a powerful message in a powerfull way. I continue to be impressed with how you deliver your messages. You are a teacher! thank you for all you do!
Jess, I love reading what you write— we have a lot in common: former literature teacher, roots in NE Kansas & St Joseph MO, activist for democracy. I’m becoming a paying subscriber today!
Sadly in my husbands & my family there are many teachers and they vote against themselves. I absolutely cannot understand this. Many are MAGA fans. We also have many nurses in our families and we see the same thing. Something is radically wrong with our education systems. My husband was a History teacher for many years until he got tired of working 2 jobs just to exist.
Thank you Jess for what you do! Keep up the good fight.
Jess, I love you so much! As one former high school English teacher to another, I bow my head. You are amazing. My admiration for you and what you are doing has no bounds. Keep up the good work. Fight the good fight. Vote blue!
My southern public school education dwelled too long on the American Revolution, a bit too long on the Civil War - and barely mentioned anything in the 20th century. It wasn't until I was self-studying history during and after my enlistment that I began to realize what the schools had left out. And they probably had to in order to please the ruby red politics of our southern state. I tell people I love this place. I love the mountains, the land, the nature. The people are generally good and warm. The politics and the religion of this place are something else though.
I'll add that our public school history classes left out the most important portion of history - the 20th century. We had no idea why the wars happened, why the minorities struggled so, why there were social divisions within our country and region, and all the environmental topics that the science class could have taught us. At best, public school prepared us for college where presumably these subjects would be studied in more depth. To this day - I believe my public southern Alma Mater toes the conservative line and shies away from some of these topics in the general curriculum. Same state as my public education. Fortunately, like always, the motivated life-long learners have plenty of information to choose from in the libraries and on the internet. Hopefully folks can learn to choose quality information sources.
Like you and so many others, I was shocked to watch the January 6 insurrection unfold LIVE on TV. I also watched LIVE on TV the space shuttle Challenger disaster from my office in DC. And, I watched LIVE on TV in my office as the second airliner crashed into the NY Tower on 9/11.
I hadn’t thought about it, but you are right about the similar effect of these disparate tragedies—the shocking disbelief of what I was SEEING with my own eyes in live TV. “No, this CAN’T be happening.” I walked around all the next day, trying to make it go away. It felt so unnatural on the streets in downtown America. Sadly, that’s changing. Disaster seems more and more commonplace.
So, just a couple days after discovering SUBSTACK a few weeks ago, I sent a link to your stuff to family back in Southeast Missouri. How totally surprised and happy it made me to hear, “Oh, yeh. Jess Piper. We’ve been hearing about her.” You are a teacher beyond the classroom. Though I have no right to be, you make me proud. Thank you for and keep up what you are doing. 🥹
“ I always started my Harlem Renaissance unit in January, and I needed to catch the kids up. They needed to understand the Gilded and Jazz Ages, WWI, the 19th Amendment, Flappers, and Prohibition…..In the Harlem Renaissance unit, my students learned about alienation and racism. They learned about an economic boom followed by the Great Depression. They read Langston Hughes and James Weldon and Claude McKay. They read Zora Neal Hurston. They understood that the Harlem Renaissance could not have happened without the Great Migration and then went even further back to remember that both things were born out of Black resistance to racism, Black Codes, the KKK, and segregation.”. I was struck by the fact that I went through grade school, high school, and college and was never exposed to any of the topics you mention in depth or how they were related. You are a wonderful teacher. When the assignations of President John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Dr.Martin Luther King happened, there was an announcement over the PA with no request for a moment of silence or anything else. There was no classroom discussion. We just went right back to the lesson, That was the expectation at that time. WWII vets did not discuss what happened to them, girls and women did not discuss oppression or abuse, in our town boys did not discuss the draft though many went to Vietnam. One of the married coaches frequently had sex with high school girls in his office, I did not find out til I was in my 60’s. No matter what your parents said or did, you never spoke of it to anyone, If a teacher dug her fingernails into your scalp while asking you a question, or threw a picture frame at the class barely missing a student, or paddled you with a wooden paddle, or shamed and humiliated you in front of the class, no one spoke of it again. I am not sure how we were all trained to grin and bare it because they were the authority, but we did. I tried once. I had written many poems mainly around the theme of man’s inhumanity to man. It took a lot of courage, but I asked my English teacher if she would read them. She returned them without a word. The poems had no notes, just a few red pencil corrections in spelling and punctuation. II love TV, radio, movies, documentaries, the library, and the internet. They have allowed me to be taught by many wonderful people and dispel the ignorance that dominated my early years, I am always so grateful when I hear of really good teachers. You are defiantly one. I am sure you have had a meaningful difference in more peoples lives than you can imagine through your teaching, politics, advocacy , empathy, and just all round being a good person, I am so glad that you write this substack. It lifts us all. I wish swift legal action had been taken against Trump and his insurrectionist coconspirators so that he couldn’t keep spreading his lies. I have heard it said that if it were true then they would have arrested him. “REMEMBER, CROOKED JOE BIDEN AND HIS RADICAL LEFT THUGS WAITED THREE YEARS TO BRING THESE INDICTMENTS & LAWSUITS AGAINST ME, RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MY CAMPAIGN!” Trump said on Truth Social . He makes a seemingly valid argument, Justice delayed is justice denied, Disbelief, time needed to build a case, so many blocks put in the way? I don’t know, I can only hope that there are enough judges, journalists, politicians, and people who see through the gaslighting that will allow Trump and all Congresspersons, and other collaborators who colluded to overturn the election and supported the horrific assault on our capital that resulted in not just property damage, defilement of our capital, bodily injury, but in deaths to be jailed for these high crimes. The delay in justice has given their movement more power. We can’t be silenced any more. Human sacrifice to appease a King, Monarch, or God is part of our history that we supposedly evolved past. Yet today our sacrifices come in the form of sacrificing the common good to support the wealth and power of the few, Tale as old as time.
Until I went to college, I was educated in southwestern Missouri. My 5th grade teacher taught us that states rights were what caused the Civil War. We didn't learn anything about the Harlem Renaissance or much about diversity in any subject. We didn't even learn about Langston Hughes despite having a street named after him since he was born in Joplin. Btw, that street got renamed after the F5 tornado that decimated 1/3 of the town. I once assigned myself the project of looking up traditionally banned books in our high school library (this was in the days of card catalogs). Not one of those banned books was there, not even ones written by Langston Hughes. I was shocked.
It wasn't until college that I understood how sheltered I'd been wrt education, music, and even local knowledge. I didn't know Joplin was a sundown town or, once I did, what that truly meant. It wasn't until I read Lies My Teacher Told Me that I started realizing just how under-educated I was about history. And my education has continued.
All this is to point out that Missouri, under Republican rule even back when I lived there, has been educationally deprived and suppressed for a very long time. It's no wonder Missourians have no idea what they don't know or what immense benefits great policy decisions could bring. They have no idea how truly terrible Republicans are for their health, prosperity & happiness. It's a crying shame.
BTW, I now live in Texas (frying pan, fire) and my son's elementary school allowed parents to opt out their kids from watching President Obama's live address to school children. By that time, I wasn't surprised but I continued to be disgusted.
Thanks for all you do, Jess! I used some of your great talking points in a speech I gave on what Democrats can do in Texas to support democracy.
It seems like the Civil War never really ended but instead morphed into a fight about a whole bunch of other issues besides slavery. I think there’s that unspoken wish for the South to rise again and for those northerners not to interfere.
I look forward to supporting your next run for office Jess.
I keep pondering Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. My Great Grandfather, Grandfather, Father, and two brothers all fought in wars for our Nation. I’m a peacetime Veteran. Whereas Lincoln’s address speaks to our Nations founding principles, and citizen soldiers ultimate sacrifice for the same, my perspective expands Lincoln’s brilliant sentiment to include those patriotic citizens toiling in the necessary and vital activities and vocations necessary for our Nations survival; teaching, medicine, science, journalism, agriculture, politics, poll workers, voters, to name a few. All those who work to maintain our Nation and Democracy, whether in or out of uniform, I humbly commend.
For me, his last paragraph of the address, speaks to us all, the living, of today;
“It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
I too would give extra credit for Kleenex at the beginning of the year. No, I did not build a Trump wall. I taught government and history, and you are right, the best way to teach history is to teach a country's literature as well. It makes the story of history better. But, I also had another social studies teacher who gave extra credit to students who marched in the local parade for a particular candidate, but not the other. There is good and bad in the classroom and when the administration doesn't see the political favoritism, then it will never end.
Jess, I retired from teaching elementary school at 53 with 28 years of service. Call me crazy, but I could not accept what children were being put through with NC's End Of Grade tests.
It was trickle-down pressure. The superintendent pressured principals, who pressured teachers, who pressured students to achieve high scores on the tests. Teachers were judged by the scores, children were judged bt their scores.
The last several years I taught, we were mandated to focus on reading and math because those two subjects were the only ones tested on the EOGs. We were force feeding sample test questions and were encouraged to leave out any activities that did not reinforce the reading or math "skills." Creativity and student interactions with teachers fell to the wayside.
We were no longer teaching social studies, science, spelling or cursive writing. Social studies and science suffered the most.
My last year I was teaching science to 4th graders who were not motivated by anything. I won an $1800 grant for science equipment.
Those children came alive with the hands-on activities!! It was wonderful to see, but the principal walked in one day, looked around and said, "Aren't you supposed to be reviewing reading at this time?"
That did it. I never darkened a classroom door again, which was sad because I loved the children more than their test results, and was told by parents that I had a positive impact on their children's self-esteem and their confidence that they COULD learn.
I could never teach these days.- too many mandates from "leaders" who don't know a thing about what is good for children.
Yuck!!
I’m sorry you had such a negative experience with your principal. I’ve actually been there and done that (“principaling,” that is) …. and in NC, as well.
I’m retired now. I made it through the EOG days without selling my soul to the testing devils - retired before the Republicans could start fully undermining public education. And it’s only gotten worse since they’ve had control of the legislature: budget cuts, teacher pay, expanded charter schools, these “opportunity scholarships,” and the list goes on. I don’t think I could do it today. I think I would be in a constant state of rage …. come to think of it, though, I actually AM in a state of semi-rage, even in my retirement.
Good luck to you …. to all of us, actually.
John, thank you! For eight years, I've tried to understand how "wrong" has taken over "right." I have to back off at times because I too have rage and I know it's not healthy.
I have had so much dissolutionment over the Republicans' inane actions. The first big-time dissolutionment I had was when I found out that Betty Crocker was not a real person. :)
Thanks!
It’s been a steady process for years - so many factors to consider. But I think the force that really kicked everything into high gear was the Great Recession back around 2008 (just about when I retired).
That was when the charter school movement gained momentum, and it became tied to the ideas of “parent choice” and “school competition,” rather than its original purpose of offering alternative educational opportunities to kids who hadn’t been successful in regular classroom settings.
And the connection between the financial crisis and the growth of the “charter school industry” (as I learned from looking closely at a local charter school’s administration and funding) was how many people who started these schools were rejects/failures from the world of finance - they lost their multi-million dollar jobs, and they were looking for an investment opportunity. And there it was in the money being budgeted for charter schools.
Well, I don’t want to bore you with too many details because it has been a multi-faceted process, and I hardly know it all. But when the powers-that-be set up an unreliable and flawed “accountability” process that can be used to argue that public schools are failing, then you add in greedy entrepreneurs who want to tap into taxpayer dollars, get a majority of insincere and craven politicians running things, and THEN get fundamentalist religious types fired up with ridiculous claims about CRT, “furries,” teaching socialism, etc., well ….. public schools become punching bags, and the entire system goes “wrong,” as you say.
Oh, I get so angry sometimes. But I try to offer common sense information if and when I’m able.
Hang in there! I’m getting old, but I’m still trying to make a difference when I can. I’m sure you can, too.
And Betty Crocker wasn’t real??
More proof that I don’t know everything. 🙂
Thank you for the encouragement! Before I found Jess and other columns by people who see the Truth about Trump, I stayed discouraged and frightened, because my state, county, and town is filled with Trump lovers and Biden haters. I have ONE friend that feels as I do that Donald Trump has promoted and encouraged the anger, mean-spirit, racism, and prejudice that his followers have felt, and have finally found in a "leader" who will validate their feelings of entitlement.
Don't get me started on the MAGA Republicans who bow down to Trump in order to save their jobs. I know that they see him as he really is, but they're afraid to stand up for justice and truth.
I'm going to go water my flowers and deadhead some blooms. As I'm pinching off the faded petals, I'll pretend I'm pinching off Trump's head. I have enough flowers to go through the entire Republican senators and representatives. :)
Jess has already become one of my favorite writers, and she’s in the running for #1. Her life story is compelling, PLUS she’s a teacher (and I’m kinda prejudiced that way), PLUS she speaks my language - i.e., “common sense,” PLUS what she describes happening in Missouri is almost a carbon copy of what I’m seeing in NC. So, her words resonate with me, and I’m absolutely certain she was (and still is) one hell of a teacher - major props for that!
I share your feelings of being in a lonely place when it comes to politics. I can be completely open and free to speak my mind with my children (thank God for that!), my significant other, and my two longtime best buddies. But that’s about it.
I cringe when I have to drive by my neighbor’s trump flag, or I see one of those idiotic combo Confederate/American flags flapping in the back of a truck. And I honestly get borderline livid when I see (and I’ve seen way too many) “Joe and the Ho Gotta Go” decals on a car - my rage response to that is unhealthy in too many ways.
I think your deadheading strategy in the garden is good - therapeutic, even. We can’t let our frustrations or dread of what is possible overwhelm us. We all just need to keep one another encouraged and supported as best we can.
And VOTE for good people like Jess anywhere we can find them!
😊
I also am a former educator. I quit in the 80s due to politicians deciding that they know more than educators about education. Teaching to standardized tests is not education. The dumbing down of citizens is the biggest reason we are where we are at presently.
I agree!! I am very right-brained :) and tried to encourage the students to use their creativity and to think out of the box to solve problems.
There was no time for that. The teachers were under such pressure for their class to perform well on the End-of-Grade tests that they put pressure on the students. Teachers were judged solely on the test scores of their students. Never was there any test to see how much a child had grown or how a teacher might have changed a child's mind about a subject they didn't like.
Not bragging, but when I taught science to 5th graders, on the first day i asked how many liked science. Maybe two raised their hands. I encouraged hands-on learning, experimenting, asking questions. At the end of the year,
I asked again. Everyone raised
their hands.
I signed up to teach children, not to teach how to pass a useless test.
I miss the children but I have loved every nanosecond of my retirement.😊
And we have a probable candidate (if he is not in prison and officially wins the Republican nomination), who openly expresses his preference for uneducated voters, whom he despises. Probably wants to bring back de Vos.
Charter schools are her grift.
Jess, I really appreciate your writing and your work in Missouri. You are still teaching; though it’s to a much larger audience. 💙
Would you be willing to come to Kentucky and inform people here about Blue Missouri? Kentucky currently has 3 neighboring states involved in efforts to increase Democrats efforts- Blue Missouri, Ohio and most recently Tennessee.
There are folks in central Kentucky (where I live) and Louisville who need to hear your message of how to engage rural communities.
Thank you for all you do! I regularly share your letters with friends and current candidates.
Sure! Just message me with details!
Thank you for your quick response.
I Contacted my state representative and hope she can help work out something. I’ll get back to you soon.
Tread lightly, huh? Insurrectionists attempt to overthrow our government & we should tread lightly! BS!
Thank you for being on the front lines, both as teacher and as political candidate. You WILL win office one day and then the real fight begins!
Powerful .. I want to be shocked at hearing you tell of the schools reactions … but I’m not. And I want to add one thing to the TEACHING you are doing. You never know who is in the room. Whether they are of one party or another doesn’t matter. They have come to hear your message, you are delivering a powerful message in a powerfull way. I continue to be impressed with how you deliver your messages. You are a teacher! thank you for all you do!
Jess, I love reading what you write— we have a lot in common: former literature teacher, roots in NE Kansas & St Joseph MO, activist for democracy. I’m becoming a paying subscriber today!
Thank you, friend!
Me too!
Sadly in my husbands & my family there are many teachers and they vote against themselves. I absolutely cannot understand this. Many are MAGA fans. We also have many nurses in our families and we see the same thing. Something is radically wrong with our education systems. My husband was a History teacher for many years until he got tired of working 2 jobs just to exist.
Thank you Jess for what you do! Keep up the good fight.
Jess, I love you so much! As one former high school English teacher to another, I bow my head. You are amazing. My admiration for you and what you are doing has no bounds. Keep up the good work. Fight the good fight. Vote blue!
I have to agree. Jess is mighty impressive. I know I’d vote for her if I could!
My southern public school education dwelled too long on the American Revolution, a bit too long on the Civil War - and barely mentioned anything in the 20th century. It wasn't until I was self-studying history during and after my enlistment that I began to realize what the schools had left out. And they probably had to in order to please the ruby red politics of our southern state. I tell people I love this place. I love the mountains, the land, the nature. The people are generally good and warm. The politics and the religion of this place are something else though.
I'll add that our public school history classes left out the most important portion of history - the 20th century. We had no idea why the wars happened, why the minorities struggled so, why there were social divisions within our country and region, and all the environmental topics that the science class could have taught us. At best, public school prepared us for college where presumably these subjects would be studied in more depth. To this day - I believe my public southern Alma Mater toes the conservative line and shies away from some of these topics in the general curriculum. Same state as my public education. Fortunately, like always, the motivated life-long learners have plenty of information to choose from in the libraries and on the internet. Hopefully folks can learn to choose quality information sources.
Like you and so many others, I was shocked to watch the January 6 insurrection unfold LIVE on TV. I also watched LIVE on TV the space shuttle Challenger disaster from my office in DC. And, I watched LIVE on TV in my office as the second airliner crashed into the NY Tower on 9/11.
I hadn’t thought about it, but you are right about the similar effect of these disparate tragedies—the shocking disbelief of what I was SEEING with my own eyes in live TV. “No, this CAN’T be happening.” I walked around all the next day, trying to make it go away. It felt so unnatural on the streets in downtown America. Sadly, that’s changing. Disaster seems more and more commonplace.
So, just a couple days after discovering SUBSTACK a few weeks ago, I sent a link to your stuff to family back in Southeast Missouri. How totally surprised and happy it made me to hear, “Oh, yeh. Jess Piper. We’ve been hearing about her.” You are a teacher beyond the classroom. Though I have no right to be, you make me proud. Thank you for and keep up what you are doing. 🥹
“ I always started my Harlem Renaissance unit in January, and I needed to catch the kids up. They needed to understand the Gilded and Jazz Ages, WWI, the 19th Amendment, Flappers, and Prohibition…..In the Harlem Renaissance unit, my students learned about alienation and racism. They learned about an economic boom followed by the Great Depression. They read Langston Hughes and James Weldon and Claude McKay. They read Zora Neal Hurston. They understood that the Harlem Renaissance could not have happened without the Great Migration and then went even further back to remember that both things were born out of Black resistance to racism, Black Codes, the KKK, and segregation.”. I was struck by the fact that I went through grade school, high school, and college and was never exposed to any of the topics you mention in depth or how they were related. You are a wonderful teacher. When the assignations of President John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Dr.Martin Luther King happened, there was an announcement over the PA with no request for a moment of silence or anything else. There was no classroom discussion. We just went right back to the lesson, That was the expectation at that time. WWII vets did not discuss what happened to them, girls and women did not discuss oppression or abuse, in our town boys did not discuss the draft though many went to Vietnam. One of the married coaches frequently had sex with high school girls in his office, I did not find out til I was in my 60’s. No matter what your parents said or did, you never spoke of it to anyone, If a teacher dug her fingernails into your scalp while asking you a question, or threw a picture frame at the class barely missing a student, or paddled you with a wooden paddle, or shamed and humiliated you in front of the class, no one spoke of it again. I am not sure how we were all trained to grin and bare it because they were the authority, but we did. I tried once. I had written many poems mainly around the theme of man’s inhumanity to man. It took a lot of courage, but I asked my English teacher if she would read them. She returned them without a word. The poems had no notes, just a few red pencil corrections in spelling and punctuation. II love TV, radio, movies, documentaries, the library, and the internet. They have allowed me to be taught by many wonderful people and dispel the ignorance that dominated my early years, I am always so grateful when I hear of really good teachers. You are defiantly one. I am sure you have had a meaningful difference in more peoples lives than you can imagine through your teaching, politics, advocacy , empathy, and just all round being a good person, I am so glad that you write this substack. It lifts us all. I wish swift legal action had been taken against Trump and his insurrectionist coconspirators so that he couldn’t keep spreading his lies. I have heard it said that if it were true then they would have arrested him. “REMEMBER, CROOKED JOE BIDEN AND HIS RADICAL LEFT THUGS WAITED THREE YEARS TO BRING THESE INDICTMENTS & LAWSUITS AGAINST ME, RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MY CAMPAIGN!” Trump said on Truth Social . He makes a seemingly valid argument, Justice delayed is justice denied, Disbelief, time needed to build a case, so many blocks put in the way? I don’t know, I can only hope that there are enough judges, journalists, politicians, and people who see through the gaslighting that will allow Trump and all Congresspersons, and other collaborators who colluded to overturn the election and supported the horrific assault on our capital that resulted in not just property damage, defilement of our capital, bodily injury, but in deaths to be jailed for these high crimes. The delay in justice has given their movement more power. We can’t be silenced any more. Human sacrifice to appease a King, Monarch, or God is part of our history that we supposedly evolved past. Yet today our sacrifices come in the form of sacrificing the common good to support the wealth and power of the few, Tale as old as time.
Until I went to college, I was educated in southwestern Missouri. My 5th grade teacher taught us that states rights were what caused the Civil War. We didn't learn anything about the Harlem Renaissance or much about diversity in any subject. We didn't even learn about Langston Hughes despite having a street named after him since he was born in Joplin. Btw, that street got renamed after the F5 tornado that decimated 1/3 of the town. I once assigned myself the project of looking up traditionally banned books in our high school library (this was in the days of card catalogs). Not one of those banned books was there, not even ones written by Langston Hughes. I was shocked.
It wasn't until college that I understood how sheltered I'd been wrt education, music, and even local knowledge. I didn't know Joplin was a sundown town or, once I did, what that truly meant. It wasn't until I read Lies My Teacher Told Me that I started realizing just how under-educated I was about history. And my education has continued.
All this is to point out that Missouri, under Republican rule even back when I lived there, has been educationally deprived and suppressed for a very long time. It's no wonder Missourians have no idea what they don't know or what immense benefits great policy decisions could bring. They have no idea how truly terrible Republicans are for their health, prosperity & happiness. It's a crying shame.
BTW, I now live in Texas (frying pan, fire) and my son's elementary school allowed parents to opt out their kids from watching President Obama's live address to school children. By that time, I wasn't surprised but I continued to be disgusted.
Thanks for all you do, Jess! I used some of your great talking points in a speech I gave on what Democrats can do in Texas to support democracy.
Solidarity, my friend!
It seems like the Civil War never really ended but instead morphed into a fight about a whole bunch of other issues besides slavery. I think there’s that unspoken wish for the South to rise again and for those northerners not to interfere.
I look forward to supporting your next run for office Jess.
I keep pondering Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. My Great Grandfather, Grandfather, Father, and two brothers all fought in wars for our Nation. I’m a peacetime Veteran. Whereas Lincoln’s address speaks to our Nations founding principles, and citizen soldiers ultimate sacrifice for the same, my perspective expands Lincoln’s brilliant sentiment to include those patriotic citizens toiling in the necessary and vital activities and vocations necessary for our Nations survival; teaching, medicine, science, journalism, agriculture, politics, poll workers, voters, to name a few. All those who work to maintain our Nation and Democracy, whether in or out of uniform, I humbly commend.
For me, his last paragraph of the address, speaks to us all, the living, of today;
“It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Papa
Education didn’t loose a teacher all of us gained a dedicated advocate for freedom. Real freedom. Thank you!
I too would give extra credit for Kleenex at the beginning of the year. No, I did not build a Trump wall. I taught government and history, and you are right, the best way to teach history is to teach a country's literature as well. It makes the story of history better. But, I also had another social studies teacher who gave extra credit to students who marched in the local parade for a particular candidate, but not the other. There is good and bad in the classroom and when the administration doesn't see the political favoritism, then it will never end.
Love you Jess, and all you do, bring and share. Thank you for being you. I feel seen, known, empowered when I read your words. Thank you.