My Take on the Teacher of the Year Award

Photo credit: IJR Red

As a former teacher, I was annoyed but not at all surprised by the choice for this year’s Teacher of the Year Award. The recipient with a political agenda showed the nation what an “exceptional teacher” looks like. With her boorish and rude behavior during the ceremony at the White House, she bashed and disrespected our President in front of the entire nation and in front of school children who look up to teachers like her to be objective. Yet many indoctrinate their students into their twisted political world eight hours a day, not into the American-exceptionalism that they should.

President Trump, exhibiting class and respect, mentioned the “incredible devotion that has earned her the adoration, total adoration, of her students and colleagues, the school district, community, and the entire state.” https://www.facebook.com/ijrredpresents/videos/179722432727814/

The petty little ideologue was not just wearing an insufferable smirk the whole time, she was rude and ungrateful and refused to shake the president’s hand or clap when appropriate.  Honored for her “adoration” in the classroom, she could not muster the slightest propriety for the moment and the place.  

Her rudeness and lack of decorum are a disgrace to the profession. There are so many deserving teachers out there who work in the education trenches every day without being recognized for their work because their politics are of a different kind than the Democrat-sanctioned socialist plantation of Marxist adoration.

Selecting a Teacher of the Year begins at the local level and each school district has their own criteria that tend to match the national guidelines. You will be very surprised to know that parents and students have nothing to do with the selection process even though they say the nominee is adored and respected by the community which they serve. The high ranking administrators form a selection committee composed of administrators, teachers, educational service personnel, student support personnel, and past Teacher of the Year winners and nominees.

Some common denominators are membership in the National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), with their financial support for the Democrat Party, and other university-sponsored organizations who are mills for future teachers.

Teaching awards are nothing but a Democrat popularity contest of who is the most progressive, outrageous, and anti-American progressive ideologues in good standing with the top administrators and other decision-makers who can send that person to the top of the heap.

“According to the criteria for the National Teacher of the Year Program, a Teacher of the Year should inspire all students to learn. Teachers who aspire to this award do not stick to the textbook or traditional methods of teaching.”

The nominees usually push the latest fad in education, currently the Common Core curriculum. The top nominees believe in global education, global citizenship, no borders, the anthropogenic global warming, the rights of the illegal aliens and refugees that trump those of American citizens, alternative lifestyles, Islam over Christianity, and deviant sexual behaviors promoted as the norm and introduced by force into the classroom as early as kindergarten in some states.

Mandy Manning, this year’s awardee, is an English teacher in Spokane, Washington, and teaches refugees and immigrant children from countries like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Myanmar, Mexico, and Tanzania. It is no surprise that a political person like her would be chosen as spokesperson for an entire profession. https://www.yahoo.com/news/mandy-manning-teacher-handed-trump-080024349.html

No mention is made whether these immigrant children are legal or illegal as it does not matter to liberals if we follow the law as long as we have more future Democrat Party voters in our midst.

Is it any wonder that such “educators” are turning our children into communist agitators and snowflakes, with no allegiance to our country, our history, our sovereignty, our flag, our pledge of allegiance, God, and to a sound education?

This teacher of the year affronted our President the entire time.  If she is the teacher of the year, the best and brightest that our country can produce, what must the rest of the teachers be like?

Based on the buttons she was wearing during the ceremony, a rainbow apple, Transgender Rights, Women’s March, and the letters she gave the President from her immigrant students, this person obviously puts the interests of immigrant children, refugee children, and a women’s movement that embarrasses at least half of this country’s female population ahead of America’s students’ interests.

Whatever happened to teaching reading, writing, American history, American exceptionalism, science, and American civics objectively, without the teacher’s political agenda being front and center eight hours a day?

 

Through the Fog of Time

The creek of our childhood Photo: Ileana 2015

As we age, humans tend to mellow out and nothing that had previously been that important matters anymore in the grand scheme of things. All struggles, frustrations, successes, victories, defeats, losses, and gains, dissipate in the fog of time. Regrets and memories of opportunities lost, of physical pain, of mental anguish and frustration diminish, replaced by arthritis, loneliness, and loss of loved ones. The struggle is still there for billions of others, very real and painful, but it seems almost irrelevant to us.

Romanians just lost their King Michael to old age, very old age, and their last hope that a monarchy might somehow right all the wrongs that had plagued the country politically was dashed and died with him. There won’t be another king. Some mourned him, most did not even know he existed nor cared. Like here, these citizens are part of the #resist movement yet they have no idea what they are resisting.

Yesterday I met one of my first cousins I adore (I have 27) and his lovely daughter Elena for lunch in a town nearby in Virginia. It was surreal. If you had told me 39 years ago that someday in the future, in a state far away, thousands of miles away from my former home in Romania, I would see one of my first cousins again, I would have been extremely incredulous and would have laughed, a physical impossibility.

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015

 

Yet here we were, reminiscing about our childhood, how fast time flew, how my aunt passed away a week after a severe cough had plagued her for months, and the second stroke that killed my uncle while gardening. We compressed almost four decades of life, weddings, baptisms, burials, disputes, schools, professions, and family into two hours, surrounded by spouses, children, and grandchildren. Good food and beloved company are always relaxing.

He asked me about retirement, teaching, accomplishments, life in America, and it almost seemed like we were talking about someone else. What teaching accomplishments? It was just a job that paid me well. No teacher of the year for me and certainly no thanks for a job well done. I was not a Democrat, nor a communist, how could I possibly succeed in education and thrive? Mediocrity and collectivist politics ruled around me in academia. My cousin was shocked.

I told him about all the communists in education in America and he was almost incredulous. How could any rational human being possibly think that a Marxist ideology that killed 100 million people around the world can even remotely be considered in this beautiful country built on free markets, not oppression and tyranny?

My cousin had to work in difficult places around the world in order to bring home enough cash to build a beautiful villa for his family. Two of his three beautiful daughters moved to America, just like I did, in order to find freedom and opportunity for success that had been denied to many still in Romania, twenty-eight years after the “fall” of communism. They joined the five million other Romanians who immigrated around the globe in search of a better life for themselves and their families.

We talked about adjustment and assimilation, learning the language, becoming an American citizen and losing my Romanian citizenship, how it was so much harder for an older person to learn a new language and how little my mom learned in 37 years. Cousin Ionel learned Russian in school and found it much easier to learn and speak than the English language, even with the Cyrillic alphabet. Russian is very phonetic, it is pronounced the same way it is written, no wild variations as in the English language, he added.

We reminisced about fishing and swimming in the crystal clear river in his village, a river now so shallow that it looks more like a creek. The landscape was more verdant as more trees grew around it, seeded by the blowing wind. A nicely paved rural road now runs nearby, no more gravel roads, picking up dust every time the bus drove through.

Now every home has a nice car, food on the table, no lines, and a well-stocked country store, owned by his brother. The store stocks fresh meat and vegetables, frozen food, fresh bread, wine, sugar, cooking oil, flour, and anything a cook might need. There is even a gas pump on the side of the road. No gas station around it, just the pump. Bringing free markets to Romania changed the pastoral and isolated life for so many.

We talked about growing up. Cousin Ionel had three brothers and one sister. At meal time there was never enough to eat, it was a free-for-all. My aunt placed a large bowl of food in the middle of the table and the meal began after a very brief mandatory prayer, no portion sizes, whoever ate the fastest, got more to eat first. Poor Gigi, the runt of the family, was always left behind and hungrier than the rest. Even so, there was still not enough to nourish five growing children, we were still hungry and thin when we finished a meal, he said. I used to watch them eat so fast, wondering why my aunt did not give them each equal portions. As an only child, I only had to share food with my mom and dad. We were always hungry ourselves but I did not have to fight siblings at mealtime.

I looked at our table laden with food which we did not prepare but we could afford to pay someone else to prepare for us. Ionel and I never saw restaurant food when we were children and young adults. If it did not come from mom’s or grandma’s kitchen, we went hungry. Later in life, as we gained freedom of movement and our financial fortunes improved, we were able to taste our first restaurant meals and foods we’ve never known existed. Ionel is so cosmopolitan when compared to most people that he will eat any food put in front of him. He traveled around the globe through various jobs and sampled many cuisines and so did I.

It was sad to see him go, to say good-bye, almost as surreal as getting on a plane and finding yourself on the other side of the globe in mere hours. We were together for brief and happy moments, found our common roots, reminisced, but then we were lost again in the fog of time. A few photographs were the only proof that we celebrated today the memories from another life, far away from our humble beginnings.

 

The Incredible Legal Immigrants

I am always fascinated by legal immigrants who left their loved ones and their homes behind, came to this country,  and made America a special place unlike any other on earth. Their individual stories of true grit and endurance in the face of adversity gives our American citizens their unique character and cultural fabric.

I am not talking about the failed European multiculturalism model pushed by progressives to incorporate as many different ethnicities and religions as possible whether they fit in or not, including people who have broken the law or have given aid to our enemies. This societally disruptive and demographically suicidal model failed in Europe, it is certainly going to fail here.  

I am also not talking about people who crossed the border illegally to benefit from the abundance and generosity of American welfare and who have no intention of assimilating into our culture. I am talking about legal immigrants who came here with all the right intentions.

Americans are unique because we borrowed the best traditions from so many ethnic groups but forged one amalgamated culture. While keeping the native language at home, legal immigrants of the last century have embraced their new country and learned English. A unified language gave our country its strength.

People like Dr. Pol, an incredible veterinarian who has cared for the health of his four-legged patients who cannot speak to tell what hurts them, and the hearts and farms of his two-legged customers. For 30 years he has seen all of 19,000 furry large and small patients; some are repeat accidents waiting to happen – their curiosity of exploration runs them smack into the quills of porcupines or traffic.

A healthy and enthusiastic man of 70 with an infectious demeanor and incredible positive outlook, Dr. Pol became a proud American citizen in 1976. A native of Netherlands, Dr. Jan Pol  grew up on a farm with a one-room house and was the youngest child. He experienced hard work and the importance of laboring close to the land.

He can run circles around many twenty year olds with his constant energy. He does not love just what he does but he loves this country. He is so respected and celebrated in central Michigan and his vet practice so famous that they made a reality show about him, “The Incredible Dr. Pol.”

My friends who won the immigration lottery in their respective countries brought to America a lot of expertise: engineers, doctors, chemists, athletes, researchers, professors, computer specialists, and nurses. They did not work in their fields right away – they started rather small.

Doru ran a pizzeria at first despite his limited language skills. When he learned English well, he applied for a job in his field, mechanical engineering. He now runs an entire R & D department in the south.

My second cousin Mara, who left her loved ones behind when she won the immigration lottery, is a skilled mathematician who works for a famous company. She has a family and two lovely children.

My long-time friend Lula came from Egypt years ago and is now a tenured professor of psychology. We had lengthy discussions about her life in Egypt, how she had to flee the new regime after Sadat was assassinated, and United States’ prominent role in the world in advancing freedom. We marveled how tolerant and welcoming Americans were in spite of our differences. We were so anxious then to prove our mettle and earn our freedom by giving back to this wonderful society who welcomed us with open arms and gave us the opportunity to succeed.

My friend Samir from Lebanon became the cafeteria manager at the university where I taught while pursuing his doctoral degree in chemistry. We became friends when he took my class in order to satisfy a Master’s level requirement that he had not had. He worked very hard in spite of the fact that the heat in the room and the exhaustion from his regular job made him doze off in class sometimes.

I remember my first job in the U.S., working for minimum wage of $3.10 an hour. I was perhaps the most educated person in the office but the lowest on the payroll rung. I did not care, I was happy to have a job that allowed me to eat and have a roof over my head.

During college, I always held 3-4 different part-time jobs in order to fit my class schedule in the daily very hectic routine that extended through the middle of the night all week long. To top it off, I was pregnant with our first child. Nothing was going to deter me from reaching my fullest potential when I was in the land of opportunity. In Romania, only the children of communist party apparatchiks were allowed the chance to excel  and have a good life.

Liberals are wrong, no matter how hard they demand social justice, economic, and academic equality. We can have equal opportunity but we cannot have equal outcomes, not even mandated by government fiat. Those in power will always have more and better, some people are more motivated than others, some work harder than others, some are more experienced than others, some are smarter than others, some are more talented than others, and some are luckier than others.

A couple I met from the former Czechoslovakia was brought to the U.S. through a Baptist Church mission trip. They claimed political asylum although the wife was eight months pregnant. It was scary for them at first since their English was quite limited. Using a mixture of German and Russian, we communicated until they established a home and learned English. I helped them with the baby, got them enrolled in school, and drove them around town. He is now the director of one of the largest planetariums in the country and a professional photographer. His wife runs a very successful business from home.

The most interesting story was that of my best friend Frieda who defected from East Germany during a short vacation to the U.S. There was no way she was going back to the hellhole life controlled by the Stasi, the secret police! She was given permission to stay on the condition that her friends would provide for her financially and she would not be a burden to our welfare system.

We proceeded to collect money for an apartment. I helped Frieda with clothes, a waitressing job in a local bar, found an apartment, and everything else that allowed her to function daily. When the apartment complex burned down, I found her another one.  Her legal resident alien status changed several years later when she became an American citizen. Almost twenty-five years later, she is the vice-president of a chemical company. Her Economics degree, hard work, and the desire to succeed helped her achieve her dream. Interestingly enough, we studied Economics at the same college in Europe but our paths never crossed then.

During my thirty years of teaching, I helped many immigrants pro bono by translating their birth certificates, school transcripts, and other necessary documents. My phone number was on the speed dial at the local hospital when they needed me to translate surgical procedures they were performing on foreign nationals who were either new to the area or were passing through. This was my way of paying it forward in hopes that these people would become good Americans, building our country up and not tearing it down.

But  all these stories pale in comparison to the sagas of the initial legal immigrants holding satchels with their earthly belonging who had to pass through Ellis Island after the arduous Atlantic crossing, were quarantined, some assigned new names and new spellings by careless clerks, and were given or denied permission to enter the New World. These were the true pioneers who battled hardships, life and death situations, insecurity, the unknown, lawlessness, prejudice, abuse,  interment, and unforgiving conditions, yet they prevailed, thanking God for their good fortune and their freedom.