So, I am back to feeling crazybusy and not particularly effective and wondering what the point of all my crazybusy-ness is. I feel like I am working too hard - that the end result is not always justifying the things I have to do to get there.
Sometimes I think that is part of being a social worker - that for any number of reasons there is too much bureaucracy which weighs the job down. Sometimes I think that's part of working in a school system - 1) I am a guest and as such I always have to remember I am a guest (and noone likes a bad guest) and 2) schools are also full of bureaucracy (ditto above). Sometimes I think it's just that I am a workaholic and people pleaser and will go above and beyond trying to meet everyone's needs and make everyone happy (impossible scenario).
But I know that the results are important, even if it feels like it took too much effort to achieve the result. The results usually deal with someone's life (and don't we all think our lives are important?) and helping them to reach some level of what they or society consider success. So in reflecting I can say, yes, I am glad we achieved that. Even though I may say "Why did it have to be like forcing yarn through the smallest needle eye you can imagine?"
Friday, September 21, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Back to the Middle School survey question
This is really a two-fold question.
One, I think there is the bigger question of why people do or do not get involved when there is something amiss going on. I think that sometimes we have had experiences where our perceptions have been negated by others. Like I will hear from teachers that they will not interfere in bullying situations in school because they have been told in the past by students: "we were just joking around" (or something similar). Or police officers who are called in on domestic violence calls, only to have both parties turn on them or the victim defend the perpetrator. So when that happens you don't want to do anything the next time (Learning theory = avoid negative outcomes; none of us like to be told we are wrong, especially teachers and police officers :-) authority figures that they are).
Two, what do you do when you see something bad happening? I think that there is no preparation teaching us to jump into intimate situations and put ourselves at risk. It runs counter to our survival instincts. And often there is no sense of "what can I do in this situation." Personally I love having a cell phone for this reason - I can call the police and not have to put myself at risk. I see a car broken down or an accident or whatever and I can just call and feel I have done something... But if you are 10 years old and you are walking home from school and see bigger kids take some other kid's glasses, I think you have no idea (if you even have a cell phone) who to call and what to ask for. And you would have to be crazy to run over and tell them to stop (unless you hope the humour of your challenging them will cause them to collapse in laughter allowing you and the other child to run away).
And yes, it depends on the situation, and tons of dynamics, and if there are no simple answers as an adult, there certainly is no easy way to help kids.
One, I think there is the bigger question of why people do or do not get involved when there is something amiss going on. I think that sometimes we have had experiences where our perceptions have been negated by others. Like I will hear from teachers that they will not interfere in bullying situations in school because they have been told in the past by students: "we were just joking around" (or something similar). Or police officers who are called in on domestic violence calls, only to have both parties turn on them or the victim defend the perpetrator. So when that happens you don't want to do anything the next time (Learning theory = avoid negative outcomes; none of us like to be told we are wrong, especially teachers and police officers :-) authority figures that they are).
Two, what do you do when you see something bad happening? I think that there is no preparation teaching us to jump into intimate situations and put ourselves at risk. It runs counter to our survival instincts. And often there is no sense of "what can I do in this situation." Personally I love having a cell phone for this reason - I can call the police and not have to put myself at risk. I see a car broken down or an accident or whatever and I can just call and feel I have done something... But if you are 10 years old and you are walking home from school and see bigger kids take some other kid's glasses, I think you have no idea (if you even have a cell phone) who to call and what to ask for. And you would have to be crazy to run over and tell them to stop (unless you hope the humour of your challenging them will cause them to collapse in laughter allowing you and the other child to run away).
And yes, it depends on the situation, and tons of dynamics, and if there are no simple answers as an adult, there certainly is no easy way to help kids.
Interesting blog I found
I found an intriguing blog (while looking for information on a therapist I wanted to refer a student to), which prompts me to think I could do so much more with THIS blog - at a professional or personal level (since my professional and personal seem to be so intertwined these days). Any way - here is a link to the blog in case you're interested in checking it out.
http://gandalwaven.typepad.com/intheroom/
http://gandalwaven.typepad.com/intheroom/
Sunday, September 16, 2007
so we really are in middle school SURVEY
So, here is a question - what do you do when you see some one trying to hurt someone else? It's one of those questions that continuously runs through our humanity... Kitty Genovese in New York City... or the student whose glasses are being stolen by some bigger kids.
What did you do when you were in middle school? What do you think the right thing to do is? What would you tell a 12/13/14 year old to do?
What did you do when you were in middle school? What do you think the right thing to do is? What would you tell a 12/13/14 year old to do?
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Take a Deep Breath and try to collect your thoughts
Well, it has been incredibly hectic, with lots of chaos. But today was Rosh Hashanah and schools were closed, and it was an incredibly beautiful day. Life is good.
JT loves middle school. He thinks it's wonderful. He even loves walking home 1 1/2 miles. The only slight glitch was during the first week when he would not do his homework because he was too busy reading or sneaking and playing video games. But then we set up a schedule and an agreement that there are NO video games until the homework is done, and so far (a week) it's worked very well. (knock on wood). He now has reread all the Harry Potter books for I think the 4th time, so he will have to find some other reading material. (He's waiting for the sequel to a number of books to be published -- I used to hate that -- it's part of why I gave up reading science fiction and fantasy books, by the time they published the sequel I had forgotten most of the details in the previous book).
PB seems to be adjusting ok to 1st grade. It's harder to be sure with him. Most of the time he seems to like it. But there's still a sense of "but...." The school itself it going through such upheaval and angst and the adults there are clearly stressed but being very professional with the kids, but you know that the kids have to have some sense of things being tense because kids usually are so good at picking up on the tone of things even if they don't understand what's really going on or why.
My jobs are crazy crazy crazy. Teaching a new course at University is such a huge amount of work - and you know me, I always get anxious about it! And the high school social work stuff is just lots of intensity at the moment... I don't know if it's the phase of the moon or karma or what! It's just stressing me out.
So a day with no work and just my kids and hanging out and taking care of life business (banking, groceries, and going to the book store) is blissful.
Happy New Year!!!
JT loves middle school. He thinks it's wonderful. He even loves walking home 1 1/2 miles. The only slight glitch was during the first week when he would not do his homework because he was too busy reading or sneaking and playing video games. But then we set up a schedule and an agreement that there are NO video games until the homework is done, and so far (a week) it's worked very well. (knock on wood). He now has reread all the Harry Potter books for I think the 4th time, so he will have to find some other reading material. (He's waiting for the sequel to a number of books to be published -- I used to hate that -- it's part of why I gave up reading science fiction and fantasy books, by the time they published the sequel I had forgotten most of the details in the previous book).
PB seems to be adjusting ok to 1st grade. It's harder to be sure with him. Most of the time he seems to like it. But there's still a sense of "but...." The school itself it going through such upheaval and angst and the adults there are clearly stressed but being very professional with the kids, but you know that the kids have to have some sense of things being tense because kids usually are so good at picking up on the tone of things even if they don't understand what's really going on or why.
My jobs are crazy crazy crazy. Teaching a new course at University is such a huge amount of work - and you know me, I always get anxious about it! And the high school social work stuff is just lots of intensity at the moment... I don't know if it's the phase of the moon or karma or what! It's just stressing me out.
So a day with no work and just my kids and hanging out and taking care of life business (banking, groceries, and going to the book store) is blissful.
Happy New Year!!!
Monday, August 27, 2007
Vacations and Return to School
Well, we made it home in time for a mad rush to get back to work and get ready for school.
JT starts middle school this year - which I fondly refer to as a "black hole." However, I have to admit that I loved the one junior high that I went to for 7th and half of 8th grade. So I am trying to keep this more balanced perspective in mind.
I just know that it seems like a lot of kids have negative things happen to them during middle school - whether it's teasing and bullying, or getting sidetracked with social things and losing their way for a while, or setting the stage for adolescent sex, drugs and rock'n'roll ... But the reality is that I think hormones are running high and you go thru so many changes (physically, emotionally, socially, etc) and you lack life experience to put it all into perspective, so no wonder a lot of teens (and adults) I may talk to have negative experiences to recount.
The reality is that we probably have too much time to reflect on the nuances of it all, so it all gets magnified. And what is the meaning of life anyway? Personally, we are at the pinnacle of human existence: We're all alive, healthy, live in a suburban land where violence is extremely unusual (in our lives personally), we can eat ice cream for lunch every day, and we can read a book or play video games until we get hungry (or mom kicks us off). We have green space to go play in out our front door. We have our choice of exotic fruits from the store. We can do our little things to make the world a better place, while not having to personally put ourselves at risk... As long as we don't want to be millionaires, what else can you ask for?
JT starts middle school this year - which I fondly refer to as a "black hole." However, I have to admit that I loved the one junior high that I went to for 7th and half of 8th grade. So I am trying to keep this more balanced perspective in mind.
I just know that it seems like a lot of kids have negative things happen to them during middle school - whether it's teasing and bullying, or getting sidetracked with social things and losing their way for a while, or setting the stage for adolescent sex, drugs and rock'n'roll ... But the reality is that I think hormones are running high and you go thru so many changes (physically, emotionally, socially, etc) and you lack life experience to put it all into perspective, so no wonder a lot of teens (and adults) I may talk to have negative experiences to recount.
The reality is that we probably have too much time to reflect on the nuances of it all, so it all gets magnified. And what is the meaning of life anyway? Personally, we are at the pinnacle of human existence: We're all alive, healthy, live in a suburban land where violence is extremely unusual (in our lives personally), we can eat ice cream for lunch every day, and we can read a book or play video games until we get hungry (or mom kicks us off). We have green space to go play in out our front door. We have our choice of exotic fruits from the store. We can do our little things to make the world a better place, while not having to personally put ourselves at risk... As long as we don't want to be millionaires, what else can you ask for?
Monday, August 6, 2007
Random Thoughts on Politics and Blogs
I have been reading quite a lot - just none of it for preparing for the course I'm teaching this fall. Trying to wade through a backlog of magazines and keep up with the newspaper.
One of the articles I read (in Mother Jones) was talking about blogs and the internet and politics, and I found it interesting that basically most political blogs are run by white men and that the internet's role in politics basically reflects what happens in the outside world in politics in the USA - most energy and power is focused around white men, with women and minorities playing a very peripheral role. I know that while politics interests me, the time constraints of being a working mother mean that I don't have time to go to a bunch of evening meetings to keep up with what is happening in city council meetings. Let alone any political party meetings or caucuses. And I do not have cable (saving money while I save our brain cells) so I can not watch the recordings of meetings. And the reality is that the minutes of meetings, when they are available on-line, leave out much of the nuances and nitty-gritty that you get when you go to meetings in person.
I wonder if I would approach things differently if I were in a country where it felt like politics had a vital role in my life. I think politics have a big impact here, but my life is so cushy here in the USA that I wonder if it allows me to put politics on a back burner. Or is it that politics is such a huge bureaucratic animal that there is no sense of how I can have an impact. Sure I write my senators and congress people (usually email them), but it always feels like my voice doesn't really count. Either they will do something I agree with - because they would do that anyway, or they do something I DISAGREE with - which is also what they would do anyway. While I appreciate all the nice letters and emails to me from their aides, I can't say that I feel like my voice really has an impact.
And as far as local politics is concerned, where you think you could have a real impact, people seem to feel even more disconnected, or if they aren't disconnected, they are small-minded and vituperative. Which is not about to make me want to get involved. Life is too short and the issues they are up in arms about seem meaningless when I look at the big picture.
There are not really any open doors that invite people into the process. I have seen the way that outsiders get treated - like they are annoying or irrelevant, or to be appeased to their faces and talked about behind their backs, or just out and out ignored. Or they give you the round-around: "that's not in our jurisdiction, it belongs to so-and-so"... with everyone just passing the buck (or the hot potato) because they don't want to invest the energy it would require to do something meaningful.
And I get very angry and frustrated with the lack of visionary people in local politics, and that is NOT good for my blood-pressure, so I'd rather put my energy in other places than to bang my head on a door that seems to already be closed and locked.
But am I making a big mistake?
One of the articles I read (in Mother Jones) was talking about blogs and the internet and politics, and I found it interesting that basically most political blogs are run by white men and that the internet's role in politics basically reflects what happens in the outside world in politics in the USA - most energy and power is focused around white men, with women and minorities playing a very peripheral role. I know that while politics interests me, the time constraints of being a working mother mean that I don't have time to go to a bunch of evening meetings to keep up with what is happening in city council meetings. Let alone any political party meetings or caucuses. And I do not have cable (saving money while I save our brain cells) so I can not watch the recordings of meetings. And the reality is that the minutes of meetings, when they are available on-line, leave out much of the nuances and nitty-gritty that you get when you go to meetings in person.
I wonder if I would approach things differently if I were in a country where it felt like politics had a vital role in my life. I think politics have a big impact here, but my life is so cushy here in the USA that I wonder if it allows me to put politics on a back burner. Or is it that politics is such a huge bureaucratic animal that there is no sense of how I can have an impact. Sure I write my senators and congress people (usually email them), but it always feels like my voice doesn't really count. Either they will do something I agree with - because they would do that anyway, or they do something I DISAGREE with - which is also what they would do anyway. While I appreciate all the nice letters and emails to me from their aides, I can't say that I feel like my voice really has an impact.
And as far as local politics is concerned, where you think you could have a real impact, people seem to feel even more disconnected, or if they aren't disconnected, they are small-minded and vituperative. Which is not about to make me want to get involved. Life is too short and the issues they are up in arms about seem meaningless when I look at the big picture.
There are not really any open doors that invite people into the process. I have seen the way that outsiders get treated - like they are annoying or irrelevant, or to be appeased to their faces and talked about behind their backs, or just out and out ignored. Or they give you the round-around: "that's not in our jurisdiction, it belongs to so-and-so"... with everyone just passing the buck (or the hot potato) because they don't want to invest the energy it would require to do something meaningful.
And I get very angry and frustrated with the lack of visionary people in local politics, and that is NOT good for my blood-pressure, so I'd rather put my energy in other places than to bang my head on a door that seems to already be closed and locked.
But am I making a big mistake?
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