VETERAN TEACHERS BEING "TARGETED?" UM... YEAH!

A disturbing fb thread on ageism in education has got me thinking!

Everyone is talking about how veteran teachers are being targeted because we are expensive!

Veterans are being given poor evaluations.

Veterans are being written up and reprimanded.

Is this really what we have come to?

I think if you want to revolutionize education and take the dignity out of it, you can do that for the new teachers. 

They know on day one it's "just a job."

For me this is my life's work. 

What I give my students is immeasurable. What they give me... just as immeasurable. 

So now you want to rip the rug out from under me and have me no longer believe what I know is true about myself??!! 
That I am a great teacher-- that I make a difference-- that kids are better for having been in my classroom-- that I deserve to be respected-- that I am loved by my students-- that no one takes MY dignity-- these are the things I know! And you want me to believe something else about myself?? 

Sorry Charlie.. or RICK! 

Ain't happening! 

I have already been what I know I am far too long! 

WE can not let them take this away from us! 

We must keep what we have... what we were promised..,. who we are... what we mean to those we serve. 

SCREW them. 

BRING IT ON! 

LET'S GATHER THE TROOPS. 

I THINK I SEE A CLEARING IN THE FORREST! 

GRANNY POWER TO THE RESCUE!

Happiness Brain Waves - 21 Day Challenge

Are you happy?

Do you wanna be?

Try this 21 day challenge...

Take 2-5 Minutes each day for 21 days.  Think of everything you are happy about and grateful for in those 2-5 minutes.  That's it!!!

Now the next day, you do the same thing, but this time you think of other things you are happy about and grateful for.  You must find NEW things to find cheer and joy in.  Stretch yourself if you need to.  You must come up with other things or more deeply explain and describe to yourself the things you are happy about and grateful for.  Do that for 2-5 minutes.

Now the next day, you find even more stuff to be happy about and grateful for.  By now you should be thinking joyful thoughts about the color of the sky, and how the leaves sound when the blow in the wind.  You will be thinking about the very specific things people have said to you and why you love those you love.  You will be finding you are happy and grateful for things like your vision and your voice, and the fact that you have legs.  Hooray!  You are getting closer to eternal happiness.  Do this for 2-5 minutes.

Now the next day, you keep at it and by now you will be a pro and you will see that there is an abundance of stuff to be happy about and grateful for.  Things you never thought of will pop into your head and you will know that happiness abounds and gratitude is the doorway to it.  Do this for 2-5 minutes

Now the next day, you will be a pro at this and probably you will see that you are finding things everywhere to be happy about and grateful for.  you are on your way to permanently changing your brainwaves into HAPPINESS BRAIN WAVES FOREVER!

Now the next day, you just keep all of this up and continue for 21 days!

This becomes so addictive that you will forever be a HAPPY SOUL!

I'm almost always happy.  My mother is almost always happy.  My grandmother was almost always happy.  Happy Brain Waves run in my family and exercising your ways of thinking about what you are happy about and grateful for is the start of lifelong JOY!

Give it a try!  21 days is all you need to permanently change!

ENJOY!

Arne Duncan: Resign! As per Lily @NEA

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/30/stupid_absurd_non_defensible_new_nea_president_lily_eskelsen_garcia_on_the_problem_with_arne_duncan_standardized_tests_and_the_war_on_teachers/

Lily @ NEA you rock on with your bad self!

I like to hear our leaders speak loud and strong, even to the point of asking for Arne Duncan's resignation.

The man is not an educator.

The man has sold out education.

The man believes in privatizing our government dollars.

Why is he still there??

Obama!!!!  What have you done to us? And, why have you done it?

Student I Taught, Now Teaches Me. "F" YOU Song by Angel Sosa. Wee Haa!

In a seeming act of miraculous universal wisdom, a very talented student I had way back in 2000 has come to my rescue with his talents and his writing.

I had this young man during my first year of teaching Drop Our Prevention.  He was one of the inspirations for my book, Voices in the Hall.  We have kept in touch through the years, something I am proud and honored to admit!

Like so many students who I have loved, and the reason for my book to honor them, they seem to love me right back just as genuinely as I ever loved them when they were my 8th graders.  Grown today, they holler back at their teacher, and from time to time, magic occurs.

Many years after teaching this talented writer, whose journals I still remember, and possibly possess somewhere in my extensive teacher files of "kids who inspired me to be a better teacher and agent to my charges" --he writes me a SONG! SOON TO BE RELEASED!

Supporting my vision, my dream, my hopes of sharing with the world what he and so many like him taught me, he has put his musical genius to work and composed a song for my little book called, "F YOU!"  F ailing YOU, Amazon .

This is our second song for this book.  The first, like so many of my projects, got lost in a shuffle to find perfection and never surfaced.  But now, accepting all my imperfections, embracing them, in fact, as is my blog name "UNEDITED"-- freeing myself from the chains of perfection in writing and producing content-- as I have so aptly freed my students--he and I are ready to forge forward and write to the world about the problem in education of FAILING our KIDZ!

My book is about the ZERO.  No kid is a ZERO and I have decided that I have no right to determine who a "failure" is!

Let's find the talents in each other and celebrate them.  I'd like the world where F exists to be a thing of the past.

Thank You, Angel Sosa for your talents and for still caring about the work that we began in the year 2000.

Teacha4lyf!

HOW BODY AND MIND WORK TOGETHER

Your body is a magnificent instrument and you get to impact some of its functions with your will and your decisions,,, in other words, your mind,

Don't take that lightly.  Harness the love and gratitude for this instrument you have been given to live upon the earth.  It is yours, afte rall.  No other body will be yours in this lifetime, just the one you now have,  Honor it.  Talk sweetly to it.  Do good thing that make it useful and strong like studying and strengthening your mind with positive information- like exercise that strengthens your muscles and your bones and make your physicality confident as it moves through space- like finding peace in the moments of honoring what is and allowing yourself and your body, mind and soul to interact with itself, you, and the universe.

My happiest moments have been in joyful movement.  Jogging that first mile and getting a runner's high is the most "alive" feeling I have felt on earth.  That moment when exercise elevates me to a spiritual plane is really divine. More powerful than any drug, and just as seductive.

Find the place where your body, mind and soul meet, and linger there,

It could be meditation, yoga, a game of racquetball, a bike ride, an embrace, the moments before you fall asleep.  It could be one or all of those.  Find that place where all the parts of YOU meet, and linger there in gratitude and will to feel as fabulous as you can.

My life has been a journey to find that place, where the three parts of me meet and can sing and dance together.  Finally, I find that place from time to time, and when I do... I relish in it and so can you!

Again... apologies for any grammar faux pas... I am as imperfect as my writing and I would seldom write if I tried to make it perfect, so I wont.  I no longer want to hammer out a polished piece of writing.  I just want to write and share my thoughts to you as they come to me.

Terry Preuss UNEDITED is born!  Thank You for reading and I hope you find the happy places within you!

A Teacher's Angst

As posted in FL BATS!

I write in stream of consciousness... TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT... NO CORRECTIONS... NO RE-READS. IT IS WHAT IT IS!!! 

These are the words the UNIVERSE is telling me to share... WEE HAA!

It's been a long time since I've offered up a diatribe, but I think I woke up angry today.... Angry because I worked over 25 years to get to the top of the teacher pay scale, and in a swoop of folly my union took that away from me blaming a state bill. NO CREATIVE FORCE TO BATTLE IT, OR WEAVE AROUND WAS AVAILABLE TO THE "NEGOTIATORS!" Teachers nationally are falling into the hands of the tyrants who assault education and for the first time.... I am just one more! Unable to fight it... unable to find justice.... my entire career was made a big fat joke I never could count on. Why didn't you tell me that when I was getting hired? Oh! Let's not forget the state also wants to take some more of my pension fund. I am no longer 27 and ready to take on the world. My life was planned on the promises. I dedicated my life to kids and teaching. The broken promises that steal the dignity of any thinking being call for only thoughtless drones to engage in a life of education. I am not an unthinking drone. I am a loving, giving, well respected educator and you are spitting in my eye and stealing food from my children's college fund... Yeah! I'm angry today because my son can not afford the $900.00 his college texts will cost him. So much for investing in a pre paid college fund, who knew the books would cripple him? I guess college is only for the rich, and teachers are NOT that!. I have been the fool of wicked puppet masters who have come to my profession to steal the coins that glistened in the education coffers. I have NEVER been a fool for ANYONE! But without ability to fight it... I am made the fool to puppet masters who even pull my union's strings! Yeah! I'm angry this morning because my negotiated raise was never in my paycheck because my local can not get their act together, and no one cares to help us, and Christmas has come and gone, and the whole world wants to try to make me sound selfish because I dare to say this. I DARE to say.,.,, I AM WORTH THE PAY YOU PROMISED ME! And I dare to say that those who want to make you think that teachers are the problem have dollar signs in their eyes. SHAME ON US! WE HAVE ALLOWED THE WORKING CLASS TO FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THE WOLVES! WHERE ARE THE UNIONS? Where is the voice of justice? Oh! I see.... they are just as shady as the wolves. Fangs draw blood... but not enlightenment. I have been enlightened. GET WITH IT, UNIONS! YOU MAKE THE BIG BUCKS, HAVE LITTLE CHOICE. PEOPLE ARE NOTICING THAT THE KING HAS NOOOOO CLOTHES! WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THAT INFORMATION? I will focus on the students I love, even if the system is failing them. That is the integrity I have to hold on to. That alone. And I will help the unions if they are willing... HOW DO WE MAKE THEM MORE WILLING TO SEE OUR PLIGHT AND THAT OF OUR STUDENTS? HOW DO WE ALLOW FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME TO SPEAK UP WITHOUT THE FEAR OF RETALIATION? My local has managed to run off or fire almost everyone WHO WORKED FOR US.... Who is next? WILL I BE THE NEXT TARGET OF THE EDUCATIONAL ASSAULT MAFIA? HAHAHAHA... LOL... LMAO.... (what else can make this laughable?) I WILL KEEP YOU POSTED. One must laugh... or one will cry.... even worse... there is the indifference we live with to subsist and survive the assault that so many just deny! DENIAL IS AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! Wake Up America!

www.terrypreuss.com

BTU Baloney!

my first try at a blog.... Terry Preuss UNEDITED is born today!

 I write in stream of consciousness... TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT... NO CORRECTIONS... NO RE-READS. IT IS WHAT IT IS!!! 

These are the words the UNIVERSE is telling me to share... WEE HAA!

Terry Preuss: ON FL bats today: 

WE have to keep at it Keep reaching out in every imaginable way until they listen. Mary Niemeyer and so many here are heroes, dedicated to giving the voice in many new ways. WE need that! We need so much of that! Vanessa Lorraine Skipper we have many great leaders in our locals, MANY. And our state leaders do much... MUCH!! I respect Andy Ford very much and have so far, except for a cancelled meeting where he was going to try to help me get down to the bottom of something our executive board has been trying to uncover. He has been there, and shown a willingness to take some action. Now I will meet with him later this month and am grateful for some state oversight in Broward county because we need OVERSIGHT! I am not BASHING anyone. I am telling my story with TRUTH to POWER as any brave BADASS would. If the individuals involved don't like the TRUTH publicized,m perhaps they should think at EVERY step what TRUTH they are creating for us, because I for one, belkieve it is my duty to discuss and make known injustice and unethical behaviors in my local. I was elected to do so. TRUST me... and people like Leslie Starr and Anna Fusco, and Joanand Tom James and Dawn Owens and others on our executive board and countless stewards in our county KNOW THAT THIS IS NOTTTTTT ME BASHING! TRUST ME ON THAT!!!! If anyone truly wanted to bash, they could do far more than say the few truths I have here said. I DO NOT BASH., I speak TRUTH to POWER. That is my ETHICAL responsibility. To just "behave" a certain way because it is expected, or because it is what leaders WANT is what caused hundreds of folks to drink the koolaid on the Island of Guyana and brought fame to the Jim Jones Massacre. "Behaving" is not what we need not. we need VOICES, IDEAS, PROGRESS, SOLUTIONS, A NEW MODEL AND BRAVE LEADERS. You do not get that b y remaining quiet to keep the GRAVY TRAIN from losing it's spokes. Leaders have been putting thir fingers in the dam to stop the leak for decades. It won't continue to work. Too many of us know that too many of us are hurting with the same kind of pain and at some point it becomes NEGLIGENT for anyone... including our UNIONS to continue doing things the same old way. This is Terry Preuss UNEDITED. I rarely check for errors in grammar so I apologize in advance! IDEAS AND GOOD REASONING FOR BRILLIANT SOLUTIONS THAT SERVE TH 21ST CENTURY ARE WELCOME! But silencing the masses and covering up with area rugs might have worked in the 70's and 80's. It just won't cut today! My humble opinion. LET'S GET TO IT!