Stop Blaming Teachers for Everything Wrong in Education

Dear American People,
Stop blaming teachers for the decline in the education system of this country.
Start blaming the unrealistic expectations placed on teachers by state governments and, yes, parents. Start blaming the introduction of bullshit like the Common Core (which, for the record, I've never met a teacher or teacher education student who likes Common Core). Start blaming the rise of standardized testing, forcing teachers to teach to a test if they want to keep their jobs.
Start blaming your own inability to do anything about it. Stop saying, oh must be the teacher's fault, or "my kid couldn't possibly fail so the teacher must be failing him on purpose"!

Start looking at yourself. Start looking at your student. And yes, continue to look at the teacher.
But the responsibility to make education work does not rest solely on the distributor of education, the teacher.
Principals have a set of expectations.
School boards have a set of expectations.
And above that, state education departments have a set of expectations.

Blaming teachers for the rise in difficult to understand problems passed down from the near-country wide accepted Common Core (voted on by groups of individuals that run schools systems but are not themselves teachers)

Do teachers hold some of the blame? Of course, there are really bad teachers out there. But the systems in place prevent the good ones from doing much more than explaining the bullshit as best they can. And there are systems in place that prevent these bored teachers, the teachers who don't really care anymore, from being replaced by teachers who want to make a difference.

And then there's the whole concept of grades. Life doesn't hand down grades to tell you when you've done a good job, an ok job, or outright failed. There's too much emphasis on "making good grades" and "making a 4 on the test" and "getting a 3.0 or higher GPA" or even on "My IQ is over 100..."

Numbers can give us a reference by which we need to adjust what a student is learning, and how they're learning it. But they aren't an end all be all to how smart someone is, or even how well they're learning the material. Some students do really well with tests and some freeze up the moment someone says quiz. Some students can write excellent papers and some struggle to get the required page amount.

Can a teacher be reasonably expected to teach to every student? Of course not. But she can do her best. But that best can't be reached when you have to play the numbers game. End of grade standardized tests put a tremendous amount of pressure on both students and teachers. Pressures that shouldn't be there.

Common Core standards are bullshit, and the way they're taught are bullshit. If teachers don't even understand it how the hell are we supposed to get students to understand it?

And then there's the pressure from parents.

I run into so many parents, JUST IN AFTERSCHOOL, I'm not even a full teacher, just a counselor for afterschool, that think their child(ren) are perfect. Nothing you can say to the contrary could possibly change their minds. In fact, if something goes wrong it's YOUR fault, as the teacher/counselor/tutor. Or it's another kid's fault. Never their child. Their child is an angel.
Do parents naturally want to protect their own kid? Of course they do. That's parental instinct. Even the worst parent is quick to defend their kid. But refusing to accept that your child is human and as such capable of mistakes is idiotic and harmful to your kid, and even more harmful to the teacher/counselor who's doing his best to help your child succeed.


There is NOTHING more important, beyond the basic necessities like food, water, and shelter, than education. A SOLID education does more to prevent human rights violations than any law. Ignorance may be bliss, but only for the ignorant. Those to whom they subject their ignorance may not be as blissful.
The US federal government has established that every student has a right to an adequate education.  Not an excellent education, not even a GOOD education. An ADEQUATE education is good enough for our children.
TEACHERS SHOULD NOT STAND FOR THIS AND NEITHER SHOULD PARENTS

ADEQUATE is not good enough. WE NEED TO STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE. This does not mean your child should be always getting As and Bs. In fact, why do we stress such things? They make a good measuring tool, and a decent way to let the kid know what he's struggling with. But AN EXCELLENT education should do more than measure. An excellent education should teach children how to THINK and how to LEARN. Not just how to take tests. Not just how to get good grades.

The bureaucracy that is the public education system needs tests to function. Otherwise how can they prove that schools deserve money?

Schools should ALWAYS be first on the list to receive public assistance, followed by public safety. The better our schools, the more intelligent our people.

No student learns in the same way. Some students can bullshit their way through a test and make an A, even without having studied the material. This is how I took tests in high school. When I hit college this messed me up big time. I could bullshit a paper and make at least a B, but I couldn't do that on tests. Tests in college aren't standardized. Even when teachers write their own tests in the K-12 public education sphere they are still formatted to be similar to the final test. If the final wasn't a state mandated standardized test? You could be EXEMPT from it just by coming to school and making decent grades. If you had perfect attendance and Cs, you could still be exempt.
College, not so.


I had some excellent teachers growing up and some extremely bad ones, throughout my entire school career. The excellent ones put me on the path to becoming an educator, the bad ones made me even more determined to get there, so that I could be better.

Teachers don't make much money. The benefits are decent and you get summers off. A starting teacher's salary is livable, but not fantastic. The main reason teachers teach is because they care. At least that better be the reason.  Any other reason is ridiculous.

There are many WAYS a teacher cares. Some teachers want to help children become better people. Some teachers try to change the world, one student at a time. Some teachers love a subject and just want to pass it on to young people. Some want to be a resource for kids at the most difficult points in their life: middle school.
But every teacher should teach because he or she cares.

And as such blaming teachers for the decline in the education system is a band-aid. Most teachers I know, and most wannabe teachers I know, want to do good in the world, but the system might block them. We blame teachers because it's easier than admitting that a whole system is flawed, because that would require us to fix it.

"Unfriend" Guilt

There is a phenomenon exclusive to the social media area. The ability to "unfriend" someone.

In "irl" (in real life) relationships, unfriending is not usually a conscious act (unless they're a person who treats you horribly and you consciously severe all ties, but I'm going to compare that to "blocking" later). You just drift apart from someone you were once close to until you're no longer friends.

In the world of social media, be it facebook, twitter, tumblr, instagram, etc. you can consciously choose to never see a word from a person ever again, at least in that particular medium. And often times, when we go to unfriend or unfollow a person/blog that has started to annoy us, we feel more than a little guilty, or at least I do.

Unfriending someone is usually a process for me:

1. I hide them from my newsfeed but keep them in my friend's list. Sometimes, this is enough, if I actually like the person and it's just their posts on FB that irritate me. Sometimes, I go to step 2
2. I consider unfriending them....for a couple weeks at least. I don't ever unfriend someone easily. I'm not sure why, I think it has something to do with an ex-friend that took everything that happened on Facebook super personally. She now has me blocked because I unfriended her because I was tired of seeing her bitch about her ex-husband (also a friend of mine, whom I actually like a lot more) on Facebook. Not because I did anything to her personally (on the contrary I was quite kind to her when she and her husband split) but because I unfriended her. 
3. I actually unfriend them. This is the point where I have finally have had enough (like aforementioned bitchy poster above) and have gotten over the initial guilt stage. 
4. I wonder if I made the right choice. Yes it's facebook. Yes, it's stupid...but it's how I keep in touch with 90% of the people I consider friends. Removing one of those friends is a big deal to me. I don't care about Facebook, but I do care about the people in my friends list. I don't usually friend random strangers (I do have some people in my friend's list that I've never personally interacted with, most of them I've met through groups or pages) so it's like actually removing a friend from my life when I unfriend. 
5. I accept my decision or I refriend depending on my conclusion in the above step. 

BLOCKING someone is even more of a process. In my opinion, the block function is there to keep people from harassing you. The only people I have blocked are 2 individuals who made me feel horrendous about myself, the first being a guy from a My Little Pony group I was in who attacked me for a situation involving the admins of the group, including pot shots at me for unrelated reasons and on the day my grandmother passed away. The second is a biggoted asshole who refuses to see other points of view and would jump down your throat for disagreeing. The first I didn't want coming after me again. The second I didn't want to see his posts, otherwise I would engage in conversations that would just upset me.

If I block someone it's usually only if I feel unsafe or unhappy being visible to them.

But even then there can be a massive amount of guilt involved in preventing someone from seeing any of your posts. A friend of mine was being harassed by a "nice guy" who wanted to date her, but that she had no interest in. He wouldn't leave her alone and at urging from her friends, she blocked him, long after she should have. The guy IMMEDIATELY messaged ME asking if I knew her and asking if I knew a way to get in touch with her.
1) This is what the block function is there for. 

2) CREEP ALERT

I'm not sure why blocking and unfriending induce a sense of guilt in me (and possibly in others) It's very silly to take social media so seriously (and in most cases I don't) but it really bothers me. 

Then there's the facebook group member situation.
I run a simple fan group for My Little Pony.
One guy in the group drives me absolutely insane. He's older (old enough to have a grandkid at least) and mostly internet illiterate. But that's the tolerable stuff.
If I post a set of pictures, he feels the need to go and comment on EVERY SINGLE FREAKING ONE with some kind of "caption" like comment. He also comments on literally everything I post.

I just now as I'm writing this unfriended him (I must have already completed step 1, I'd forgotten he was still my "friend" ) but as he hasn't broken any of the rules in my group I don't feel justified removing him from that.
Technically, it's my group and I can remove/add whomever I want, but Facebook groups have an even more rigid set of social rules, especially if rules have already been established for the group to follow. Arbitrarily doing things will result in uproar from members. (See guy I blocked)

So I can't escape this guy, even though he drives me crazy. I could block him, but as admin of the group, I have to be able to monitor posts for rule breaking, so that's out.

I guess what I'm saying is there's a whole new social structure for making and keeping friends when you're online than there is in real life.

Gender Norms and Bullying

This is a topic that has been a hot button issue recently.

Bullying. Especially bullying related to gender normativity and "what girls/boys are "supposed" to like". As a nerd, a brony, and a childcare provider, this is an important and intense issue for me.

Disliking something is totally OK. I don't care whether or not you like something. It's when it becomes an excuse to use hateful language and target people for physical, verbal, electronic, and emotional abuse that it's not ok.

As a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and a sometime member of the "Brony" (adults and boys that like the latest instalment of the My Little Pony franchise) community, I experience this prejudice of what men and boys are supposed to like and what women and girls are supposed to like. As a female geek/nerd/whatever you want to call it, I experience it first hand.

I'll start with bronies, because it's a community that I'm familiar with, that many people target for hate, and that has been in the news recently with stories of young boys being bullied for liking My Little Pony.

I'm going to describe the first 2 episodes of the show without once referencing the fact that it's about magical, pastel colored ponies.

The main character goes to a new town, expecting to prepare for an annual summer solstice holiday that might be the culmination of an ancient prophecy. This prophecy suggests the return of an old evil that was sealed away for 1000 years. The main character is a bookish young girl who prefers libraries and studying to the company of others. She is the most trusted student of the kingdom's ruler. The Princess sends her student to this town with orders to prepare for the solstice celebration and more importantly to make some friends. The student scoffs at the idea of making friends and attempts to prepare for the celebration without being troubled with making friends. However, the four new characters she meets each ties her up in some fashion, trying their hardest to be her friend. Frustrated, the student returns to where she is staying only to be tied  up by a fifth character throwing her a surprise party, and staying up all night to bring in the summer sun. The characters all travel to the town square, where they are supposed to greet their ruler and bring back the sun. But the when the Princess is announced, she has vanished. The ancient evil has returned and is threatening eternal night. The student is the only one that recognizes her (the evil) and calls her out by name. The episode ends with the evil cackling.

The next episode begins with the student being confronted by the aforementioned 5 characters on why she knew so much. She explains that she's a studier of magic and legends, and discovered a reference to the ancient evil in a book in the library of her school. She then refers to a set of 6 ancient artifacts that harness the power of harmony (known as the Elements of Harmony) the represent the values of loyalty, honesty, kindness, generosity, laughter and a mysterious unknown sixth element. The other characters find a reference to those Elements in a book in the library where the student character is staying. They are hidden in the old castle of the two sisters that once ruled their land which is in the old, scary forbidden forest.
The student wishes to go alone to find the Elements but her new found companions refuse to let her. We'll call them Orange, Blue, Pink, White, and Yellow to make individual references to them without referring to their names (which gives away the pony-ness of it all).
The 6 girls set out into the forest, being tricked along the way by the ancient evil's magic. A cliff is knocked out from under them and all are safe except the Student, who is helped by Orange. Orange reassures her that everything is going to be ok if she lets go she'll be carried to safety. This reassurance helps Student make it with the help of the other characters.
Then, the girls come across a giant Manticore, a creature that is part lion part scorpion. The girls try to fight the creature but are stopped by the quiet Yellow, who discovers a thorn in the creatures paw, and removes it, and sends him on his way, all without hurting or attacking him, and all with what she calls "a little kindness" The magic causes evil trees to come to life that Pink banishes with humor and laughter, White repairs the destroyed moustache of a sorrowful sea serpent, and Blue choses her companions over her dreams and her own ego.
Finally, they reach the ancient castle and find the five elements, encased in stone. Student sends the others on her way, trying to make a "spark" that will cause the sixth Element of Harmony to appear. Instead, the ancient evil traps her, forcing her to face off alone. The Evil destroys the physical elements of harmony leaving Student to feel she is unable to defeat her until she hears the voices of her companions, and yes, friends. The friends turn out to represent the Elements of Harmony, and each of their acts in the forest makes the student realize how happy she was to hear them and see them, and that she considers them her friends. The Elements appear as jewelry around the Friends' necks (and in student's case, the sixth element, Magic, appears as a tiara), and they are able to not only defeat the evil, but to revert her to the state she was before she was consumed by jealousy and hatred: that of one of the two sisters who ruled their land. Their ruler appears, and congratulates them on their victory before turning to the defeated (formerly) evil, now transformed back into what she reveals to be her sister. The sister accepts the Princess's friendship and begs forgiveness for her actions (ok, she just says she's so sorry but begs sounded better). The friends return to town amid cheers and celebrations for the return of their lost princesses and the day. The student is saddened by having to leave her newfound friends, so the Princess (and her teacher) issues the order to stay behind in the small town, with her new friends, and study the magic that is friendship, and report to her her findings. Thus ends the intro to a show that became a phenomenon.

Now...with the ponies removed...what in there sounds like it's exclusively for girls? Are boys not allowed to appreciate good friendships? How about the fantasy adventure elements that make up the two parter (fewer of the regular episodes have this feel, but the point remains the same). Replace the ponies with human characters (and maybe make a couple of the girl characters boys) and it could be the plot of an anime.

This to me is what makes the show attractive: good characters, sweet stories that teach a lesson about friendship and other important life lessons without it being overly preachy, engaging and funny dialogue, magic and fantasy. All of these things can be found in things that are considered as "for boys".
I'm not saying everyone needs to like My Little Pony. It's definitely not for everyone, boys and girls alike. But there is absolutely no reason to degrade someone for liking it because they happen to be a boy. The Brony community can be obnoxious, this is absolutely true...of the adults. The 9 year old boy who takes a Rainbow Dash backpack to school, is targeted by bullies, and then told to leave the backpack behind by administrators because it "made him a target" has done nothing to deserve being bullied. Neither has the 11 year old who attempts suicide after being a target of bullying for liking My Little Pony.

You can point fingers and blame whomever you like for these situations. You can say the school was right to tell Grayson Bruce to leave his backpack at home. But you'd be wrong. The real perpetrator here is the standards we expect boys and girls to live up to. By saying "girls like ponies, boys like superheroes" we're giving kids the idea that if a boy likes ponies there's something wrong with him. The same goes for a girl who likes Superheroes or Star Wars. There was a story online recently of a girl who was bullied for carrying a Star Wars lunch box.

Star Wars, Superheroes, Monster High and My Little Pony aren't things that are naturally available. There is no predetermined "what you like" based on gender. No one person is the same. Anyone can like what they like and getting upset about it is ridiculous.

This idea of "boy stuff" and "girl stuff" leads to bullying. Kids don't just naturally target a boy that likes MLP or a girl that likes Star Wars. They are taught that these things are "for boys" or "for girls" and taught by association that boy that likes MLP or a girl that likes Star Wars are "weird" or "wrong".

This of course is just one societal factor that leads to bullying. Bullying can be based around race, religion, gender, sexuality, ability, mental ability, looks, and many many other things.
But one fact remains the same: Bullying is TAUGHT, usually by adults or by peers that were taught by adults. They see or hear an adult shame someone for liking something, or looking a certain way, or believing in something or not, and they copy. Racism is taught. Sexism is taught. Religious discrimination (including the discrimination of those without religion) is taught. Homophobia is taught. Gender norms are taught. None of these things are things that are innate in humans or their wouldn't be controversy surrounding them. And it needs to stop. Starting with adults that should know better. Teach your kid to accept other people, and not to accept things that hurt other people. Should you just accept everything you don't like? No, but you should accept those that do like it if it's not harming another human.

Religion: Why I Don't Have One

I wrote this a few weeks ago with no intention of publishing, because  I knew it would cause drama. If it begins to cause drama on here (I doubt) I'll remove it. People have different beliefs, and I absolutely respect that. I just ask that you do the same for me. 

I don't know why but for some reason the idea of faith has been on my mind recently.
I've never been very religious and I've rarely been very spiritual. My mother was raised Catholic but never attends church anymore and seems to have some sort of vague concept of God. My father is an atheist who barely tolerates the existence of religion. So I was never really overly exposed to it. I did attend church for about the first seven or eight years of my life, but I barely remember it. It's just a haze of uncomfortable clothes and sitting through a few minutes of some guy talking so I could get to the fun part, Sunday school. I think I asked my mom once about Heaven and whether or not it was real and if I would go there. She gave me the typical "if you're a good girl you'll go to Heaven" but even my childish brain was not really sure about the whole "Heaven" and "Hell" thing, let alone the concept of an almighty being, I'd sure never seen God, and he'd never answered me back when I'd talked to him, so my whole idea of faith began to waver very early on.

Now, I was totally willing to believe in other things I'd never seen in person. I knew the Santa at the mall was just a guy in a costume, but I staunchly believed in Santa Claus and was even picked on and somewhat bullied for believing in Santa in the 6th grade. I'd been presented with evidence that Santa as I believed him to be didn't exist. In the 3rd grade, possibly 4th I desperately wanted a "Super Poochi" (some early 2000s robot dog thing that did tricks) and for some reason, I believed Santa could read my mind. More so than I believed in God. Weird, right? When I didn't get my Super Poochi I convinced myself that Santa must have decided some other kid needed my Super Poochi more. Yep, that was my logic. Kids, amiright?

About that same year, my sister, brother, and I had what we now refer to as "The Babysitter from Hell". Her name was Angela (ironically, she was anything but angelic) and she was one of those Christians. Somehow the concept of the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution got brought up and my sister got into an argument with her over the existence of God. Basically, it was a creationism vs. evolution debate, pre-internet. The only difference was my sister was about 6 or 7 years old. Yep. A woman in probably her late 20s/early 30s debated religion vs. science with a 6 year old.
My brother and I (who were about 4 or 5 and 8 or 9, respectively) tried to help my sister as best we could but being also small children with limited science education, naturally lost.

This woman kept throwing the same argument at us that many Christians do today. If there was a Big Bang, who caused it.
Modern science believes that at one point all matter was contained in a single point and as it expanded outward, it exploded, thus, the Big Bang. The idea that the universe had to have been created is shallow.

But of course as children, this was beyond our grasp and we hadn't really learned much about the Big Bang except that it involved a big bang and maybe had something to do with cells. We "lost" the argument (as much as one can lose an argument with someone who's arguing circular logic), but this conversation has stuck in my head for a very long time.  This woman was so single-minded in her belief that God created the world that she would argue it with children who weren't hers. As a child care provider now (I work as a summer camp counselor for the YMCA) her actions are appalling and pale only in comparison to her dumping us on a playground in the middle of a hot Texas summer day in no clothes but our swimsuits, and driving off, intending to leave us.

This conversation stayed with me, for years and years, over a decade has passed since then and I still remember this fight with a babysitter. Not word for word, but clearly enough. This and other things I have run into in my life, make me 100% certain that religion is not appropriate for children. Children, more than anyone else, are the most likely to blindly believe. Children believe in magic, even if they don't admit it. Most children believe in Santa at some point in their life. They believe in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. And they will believe almost anything their parents, teachers, pastors, priests, and other adults tell them. Which to me, is dangerous.

Children aren't 100% capable of deciding for themselves what to believe. As a child I believed in God because my mom told me too, I stopped believing when my mom realized we didn't really get anything out of church and after my parents divorced and my dad took primary custody of the three of us. My dad is a scientist (meteorologist to be specific) and he doesn't "believe". He will accept something as a fact when it is proven to be so, and he actually understands science, unlike much of the general population.

So for most of my childhood I adopted my dad's lack of belief in anything. Generally, if asked, I'd tell people I was baptized Catholic (because I was) and most of them would leave me alone.

The school the three of us went to after we moved back to North Carolina from Texas is a place called Evergreen Community Charter School. Unlike many schools, this place is one of the most accepting and caring places out there. I started in fifth grade, my sister is two years younger than me and my brother 4. Despite this caring and accepting environment, my sister had a "friend" in the fourth grade who was intensely religious. She found out Emily (my sister) was an atheist and broke down in tears because Emily was "going to Hell". She refused to leave Emily alone after that. All I remember is that this "friend" directed cryptic comments toward my sister, and eventually left the school.

The "Evergreen Years" were fairly uneventful as far as religion is concerned, other than that I began to take an interest in Wicca in middle school. The feminine nature of the religion appealed to me, as one of my biggest issues with the Christian God was and is, the insistence on making Him a He. I didn't relate to men or boys at that time in my life, other than my father, and he was the only man I needed at that point. I had one troublesome guy friend, but "he" was transgender (I learned after I lost contact), and so obviously feminine that it was even hard to think of him as a he. I digress a little, the point is that the masculine didn't appeal to me, especially as a pubescent preteen who was trying to figure out what it meant to be a woman.  So Wicca appealed to me, even after I found out that there was a male aspect to it as well, perhaps even more so. And as I implied in my story about believing in Santa in the 6th grade, I wanted to believe in the possibility of Magic.
High school was an entirely different story.

In the 9th grade, I had graduated from Evergreen and was now attending a public high school. I had no friends and was quiet, too nervous about my new surroundings to make friends or attend afterschool activities.
I rode the bus in the afternoons, and one afternoon got into another of my more memorable religious debates with a girl who rode the bus with me.

She was being kind, and somehow the topic of religion got brought up. I mentioned my earlier excuse, that I was baptized Catholic (at the time I was still practicing Wicca, but was afraid of anyone at my high school knowing, for good reason, as the school was as a whole, closed minded). This, for some reason, set her off. She said that Catholics weren't really Christians. I named all the things Catholics did, and she agreed that most of them Baptists (which is what she was) did too. But still she insisted. I was confused. I was smart, especially with language and I happened to know that the root of the word "Christian" was "Christ".  Both Baptists and Catholics believe in Jesus Christ making them both Christian. But this girl was pretty insistent. I hadn't been Catholic most of my life and I wasn't truly able to argue what they believed (I knew they had a Pope, and saints, and that Mary was given a little bit more respect) but beyond that, I couldn't really figure out how to counter her arguments, especially given that they were circular and idiotic. I don't think I "lost" that argument but it confused me, and in a lot of ways still does. Up until that point Christians had never given me flack for being "baptized Catholic" unless I said I no longer WAS Catholic. But her this girl was arguing that Catholics (who came first, by the way) weren't Christian.

I had never encountered ignorance like this before. At the time, I was pretty naive, as my next story will most likely demonstrate, but I wasn't stupid. So it bothered me that this girl seemed to be so uninformed about her own religion.

My next distasteful experience regarding religion came in the form of a boy.
I dated an older guy in secret my freshman year of high school (yeah, I know, already a bad idea). Likely, he was cheating on someone else with me, or didn't want his ex girlfriend to know he'd been chasing another girl (he started bothering me in Chorus, touching me inappropriately without my consent, even while he was still dating this other girl). We started dating after the Christmas Break.

At some point, someone started to spread rumors about me. Wes (the guy) told me that someone was calling me a slut, and my friend Juan had told me that someone was saying I was a Witch (which was partly true, I had told a couple people that I was Wiccan). At the time I assumed that it was Wes's ex spreading rumors, but she came to me later (after Wes had dumped me, the first time) and assured me that she hadn't. I'm almost certain the rumors came from Wes, as he was one of the few people I'd told that I was interested in Wicca. He'd changed the rumor to sound like it was coming from his ex, not expecting me to hear it from Juan that that wasn't true, or at least that's what it seems like
While this doesn't directly involve religion, the rumor that I was a witch was enough to really worry poor Juan that someone was trying to hurt me.  This was the year 2006. The whole idea that calling someone a "Witch", and meaning someone who practices dark magic, could be an insult still seems ridiculous. But that's how it was. Wicca isn't dark. It's quite joyful and full of the celebration of one's self, Nature, both the feminine and the masculine, sexuality of all kinds, and life in general. There's no Hell in Wicca, nor Heaven, just reincarnation. It appealed to me for all of these reasons, I was tired of the negative messages I kept receiving from (especially) Christians. I was in a very vulnerable time in many ways, and this positive nature religion was helpful.
Wes however, was poison, and I gave up Wicca, thinking he would judge me because of it.

Wes was in an out of my life for the next two and a half years of high school. Two very wonderful friends finally talked me into cutting ties with him my Junior Year of High School, about half way through the year. I won't go into the details, but he strung me a long, we weren't dating and we weren't not dating, it was very confusing for me. Through this period of time I cleared off my Wiccan Altar and set aside my books, occasionally flipping through them, but not seriously. I picked it up again after Wes was out of my life for good.

My friend Juan also struggled with some after-effects of religion, though he never abandoned his Catholic faith because of it, something that still amazes me.
He came out of the closet as gay to a few close friend around sophomore year, myself included. One of those friends was a prominent member of the school's religious club, the name of which escapes me.
This "friend" of Juan's shoved him out completely. He wrote a very cruel letter to Juan, explaining why he was going to hell, and condemning him for his sin. He and I got into an argument in Chorus over whether or not people who didn't believe in God could go to heaven. I drove him crazy with my argument that "it might be true for you that you can't get into Heaven without accepting Jesus, but it's not true for me". He just couldn't accept that others thought differently than him and believed in different truths, and he nearly broke poor Juan into pieces when he rejected him for being gay. Juan had a lot of good friends around him that picked him up when he came out and some rejected him, but he experienced a lot of difficulty. When people try to tell me that being gay is a choice I can't help but find them ridiculous. Juan STRUGGLED so intensely with his sexuality because of his religion and because of the religions of others. No one would CHOOSE to go through that, and my belief that there was something fundamentally wrong with a religion that would shun people that way was cemented at that point in time with my empathy for Juan backing it up. 

College was a weird time for me. I was Wiccan for a while, then just kind of fell out of it, feeling like I didn't need it anymore. I became more agnostic, kind of wanting to have a religion but ultimately not feeling like I could.
By the time I hit my junior year I was pretty much a solid atheist, though I wavered a few times. I met my current boyfriend around that time, and his support and love have gone a long way to healing the wounds caused by others.

My current job has given me some perspectives as well.
There is a girl who was in my afterschool group that was normally really sweet, except to one boy in particular.
According to the boy's mother, this girl in particular had picked a fight with the boy over the existence of God. When the boy said he didn't believe in God the girl did much as my sister's "friend" did and wouldn't leave him alone about it. Religion is just as much of a target for bullying as gender norms, but we rarely see it discussed in the papers.
My brother experienced bullying in high school for being an atheist.
He was targeted for this, questioned when he didn't pray during the school's morning "moment of silence" and once heard someone accuse another student of "acting like an atheist" But we never hear these stories of bullying because of lack of faith. We've heard the occasional anti-Semitist story of Jewish children being bullied, and we KNOW that anyone who resembles a Muslim gets bullied, but we never talk about atheists or pagans.

But as you can see, I became disillusioned with Christianity in particular (and ultimately faith in general) early on. My experiences have shaped who I am, and what I believe.
I believe the following things about religion:

1. It can be helpful for many. My experiences with Wicca taught me that. Being Spiritual I think is healthy for many, however there is a difference between being spiritual and being religious
2. It is extremely damaging to be totally blind in one's faith. It closes the mind, and refuses to let in new truths. Like Juan's friend who rejected him outright for being gay, many religious people believe so strongly that they are right that they refuse to think critically. Juan himself tortured himself for a long time over the fact that he was gay, and that his religion forbade being gay, and no one should have to go through that
3. Religion is toxic for children. Children are always at least a little blindly faithful in something. Many of those blindly faithful children grow up to be blindly faithful adults. And many of those faithful little children bully other kids if they don't believe in God or Jesus, or celebrate Christmas, or  write X-mas instead of Christmas or would rather be wished "Happy Holidays!" Exposing children to religion is just wrong. It's akin to brainwashing, and it doesn't allow those children to learn to think critically for themselves. Some will overcome it and begin to evaluate their choices later on, but some don't, and it's those that don't that become the mindless masses who refuse to understand the importance of science
4. Adults don't need to engage children in religious arguments. Ever. Adults can teach children that there are religions out there and that many religions exist (though skipping over the ones that aren't the three monotheistic ones is an idiotic move. Don't forget that Hinduism is one of the largest religions in the world). But arguing with children about the existence of God or the validity of Creationism is not only pointless it's hurtful. Angela's refusal to acknowledge our arguments as valid planted a dark seed in all of us.

I have very strong feelings about religion even though I don't currently believe in anything. I don't hate Christians, many of the best people I've known have been Christian, and many of the worst have been atheists, and visa versa. A religion doesn't make you a good or bad person, nor does lack of religion.

I'm Not a Parent But...

So I have very definite views on how children should be treated. I work for a summer camp and before than an afterschool program, I've been a babysitter for years, I want to teach, I want to be a parent one day, and I've been the one older kid that takes care of all the younger kids since I was no longer one of the younger kids. I know kids really well. And I have a few pet peeves about the way people treat kids. I'm not a parent. I have no kids of my own and I'm sure that when I AM a parent, I will be just as lost and confused as every other parent out there. I'm the eldest of three. I was the guinea pig child, I know now that my parents had to learn how to be parents, and I just had the bad luck of being born first.

But there are some things that people do to kids that drive me insane:

1. LIE to them. I'm not talking about the little lies, like, I love this drawing that you made (even though I can't tell what it is) or even really Santa, the Toothfairy and the Easter Bunny. Lying to make kids happy is ok. It's the lies about things that are important, things that we think they can't handle that I hate. Like the whole concept of death. Kids are not going to understand death, but that doesn't mean we should hide it from them. Yes, mommy/daddy/teacher/preacher/grandma/grandpa is going to die one day. Sexuality is another topic that is unnecessarily hidden from kids. They're going to hear things and they're going to ask questions. That's a given. Instead of beating around the bush, answer the questions as honestly as possible. The same thing goes for other topics like divorce, poverty, etc. Honesty begets honesty. We try to tell kids not to lie about things, but we lie to them unnecessarily all the time. Kids aren't stupid. They will eventually figure out you're lying and they'll be a lot more likely to get into trouble that way. As a summer camp counselor I can't answer the difficult questions, that responsibility is a parent's choice, and I respect that. it just bugs me. 
2. Along similar lines Talking down to them. Kids aren't stupid. They know when they're being treated like a baby, and they won't listen to you if you talk to them that way. Talk to them (appropriately) like their adults and they'll be much more likely to listen. If you happen to say a word or phrase they don't know, they WILL ask what it means, even the shy ones if you're talking one on one, and in a group the extroverted ones will ask and everyone will get the answer. If you're not sure how to define a word, think of a simple synonym that kids will understand, even if it's not an exact definition. Kids don't like to be babied.
3. Screaming/yelling/punishing unnecessarily. I have another counselor that I work with that cannot seem to get that there are some tasks that young kids (we have the youngest group) are not going to get right the first time, and she gets very easily frustrated. She has a tendency to scream at the top of her lungs to get their attention, usually in a somewhat shrill and angry tone. Do you sometimes need to raise your voice to get attention or to get a point across. Yes, absolutely. Does it need to be your first approach? Absolutely not. Teachers are taught to have a commanding, but not loud voice. The most successful classroom managers are teachers that can speak at a normal, indoor volume, and still command attention. Screaming and yelling usually only manages to either frighten kids or just does nothing to get their attention. On a similar note, punishment for every little tiny thing they do wrong doesn't work either. It's better to reward than to punish and it's better to teach responsibility and respect than to do either. Reward and punishment is a frequently used system, but it's flawed at best and damaging at worst. Rewards can be great motivators, but if it's the only way you can get a kid to clean up his mess, you're doing it wrong. Punishment is even less motivating and usually serves only to make kids mad, not as a chance to think about their actions. Punishment is definitely necessary at times, but so is a calm explanation (when both the caretaker and the kid are calm) of why the kid is being punished, and what he or she can do to correct it in the future. 
4. Extreme Parenting: I will have to define what I mean by this.
   In my job, I run into all sorts of parents, both good and bad, both agreeable and not so much with caretakers that aren't them. I think everyone should find their own parenting style, but there seems to be a trend (especially with youngish parents) of being on one extreme or the other of parenting. Meaning that parents are either helicopter, can't let the kid out of their sight for one second without flipping out, super strict rules about clothing, food, hobbies, etc. or their parents that are super "go with the flow", very loose rules, little to no supervision, and/or they're overly indulgent of the kid and let them do whatever they want
   This drives me nuts. The first parent (the heli-parent) is smothering. That kid is going to either be the rebellious teen who does everything he can to piss off mom and dad, or the kid so awkward and shy he has few friends, if any. Parental supervision is important, as are rules and guidelines and so forth, but parental pressure to be a certain way is part of what leads to teen suicide among LGBT youth. I'm not saying all heli-parents are bad parents or cause their kids to become rebels and suicide statistics, but it's pretty much a given that being overly vigilant is going to mess your kid up.
   Option number two is also unnerving to me. It suggests to me a lack of care. Letting your kid have a certain amount of freedom is one thing. Having your kid walk all over you is another. No, little Johnny does not necessarily know what's best for him. He's 6. If he gets to pack his own lunch (without supervision) it's going to be Fruit Roll Ups and Little Debbies. But letting him wear a batman costume to school is probably ok as long as it's not against the dress code of the school (and would cause him to get sent home) 
5. Parents that Think Their Kid is Perfect: parents who refuse to acknowledge that their kid has faults are the bane of teachers and child-care providers everywhere. Jimmy gets into a fight and mom blames the other kid involved. Jimmy gets an "F" and it's the teacher's fault. Jimmy gets hurt by jumping off a wall and the camp counselor should have been watching him better. No one is perfect. NO ONE. You love your kid, but that's not an excuse to blame others when something happens to him. Kids make mistakes, and it's the job of the adults in the kids' life to help him correct those mistakes, so he can become a better adult. Making a kid believe he has no faults is why douchebags exist. 

I could also go into the damaging gender roles parents (intentionally or unintentionally) teach their kids, but that's more of a society issue rather than a parenting issue, but it's a big contributor to bullying, and needs to be addressed. I'm going to write another post about bullying at some point.