I’ve not read others’ posts about lessons they wished they’d learned earlier in life yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if others express the same lesson learned which I learned, a lesson I’ve learned several times. It’s simple: trust yourself. Though I’m not the smartest or wisest individual, I need to trust my intelligence. Though not the most talented, trust my talents. Pay attention to the little voice when it’s trying to encourage me and pay attention when it’s warning me.
Pause, here, to note, I feel naked staking this claim, naked, vulnerable, egotistical, and needy. But I’m swallowing those things to push myself to be honest and open here, to share this so that others can take a lesson from my lesson.
My self-confidence was frequently smothered when I was young. I kept getting bludgeoned by a stepfather who told me I was stupid. He told me that all the time: “You’re stupid. You don’t think.” That recurring process eroded my self-confidence. I started shutting my mouth, retiring to a place to be stupid by myself, becoming a loner. I was and am comfortable as a loner, so that wasn’t that great a change. But my doubt about my potential was really a killer. Since I stayed quiet and didn’t participate in things, I constantly surprised classmates with high test scores, good grades, and accomplishments. When honors came my way later, people were astonished. Then, later, people nicknamed me ‘The Professor’.
Yet, I continued to doubt my skills and abilities. I still do. Everything I attempt requires not one but several pep talks. That usually accompanies procrastination until I build up the courage to make an attempt to myself out, to brace myself to be exposed as an imposter. It also causes me to overtry, which can also end in bad results. In short, like bunches of other people, I’m a headcase.
I have come a long way. Some minor successes have fed that. My wife’s trust in me has fed it, too. So have comments and support from friends and bosses. And teachers; my teachers often saw and cultivated good things in me, and I owe them a doubt too large to ever be fully repaid. I’ve been fortunate in that I have had good friends, good teachers, and good bosses. Despite them, I keep forgetting that lesson about myself. My self-confidence gets smothered again and again. I still hear my stepfather telling me, “You’re stupid.” I do keep learning the lesson that I’m not, but I wish I could keep that lesson in the forefront of my being: trust yourself. You’re not stupid.
A friend shared this on Facebook. I felt it deserved wider dissemination.
Sec of Education (????) Linda McMahon and the Trump administration gave schools 10 days to gut their equity programs or lose funding. One superintendent responded with a letter so clear, so bold, and so unapologetically righteous, it deserves to be read in full. PLEASE READ, to see if this makes sense to you
April 8, 2025
To Whom It May (Unfortunately) Concern at the U.S. Department of Education:
Thank you for your April 3 memorandum, which I read several times — not because it was legally persuasive, but because I kept checking to see if it was satire. Alas, it appears you are serious.
You’ve asked me, as superintendent of a public school district, to sign a “certification” declaring that we are not violating federal civil rights law — by, apparently, acknowledging that civil rights issues still exist. You cite Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, then proceed to argue that offering targeted support to historically marginalized students is somehow discriminatory.
That’s not just legally incoherent — it’s a philosophical Möbius strip of bad faith.
Let me see if I understand your logic:
If we acknowledge racial disparities, that’s racism.
If we help English learners catch up, that’s favoritism.
If we give a disabled child a reading aide, we’re denying someone else the chance to struggle equally.
And if we train teachers to understand bias, we’re indoctrinating them — but if we train them to ignore it, we’re “restoring neutrality”?
How convenient that your sudden concern for “equal treatment” seems to apply only when it’s used to silence conversations about race, identity, or inequality.
Let’s talk about our English learners. Would you like us to stop offering translation services during parent-teacher conferences? Should we cancel bilingual support staff to avoid the appearance of “special treatment”? Or would you prefer we just teach all content in English and hope for the best, since acknowledging linguistic barriers now counts as discrimination?
And while we’re at it — what’s your official stance on IEPs? Because last I checked, individualized education plans intentionally give students with disabilities extra support. Should we start removing accommodations to avoid offending the able-bodied majority? Maybe cancel occupational therapy altogether so no one feels left out?
If a student with a learning disability receives extended time on a test, should we now give everyone extended time, even if they don’t need it? Just to keep the playing field sufficiently flat and unthinking?
Your letter paints equity as a threat. But equity is not the threat. It’s the antidote to decades of failure. Equity is what ensures all students have a fair shot. Equity is what makes it possible for a child with a speech impediment to present at the science fair. It’s what helps the nonverbal kindergartner use an AAC device. It’s what gets the newcomer from Ukraine the ESL support she needs without being left behind.
And let’s not skip past the most insulting part of your directive — the ten-day deadline. A national directive sent to thousands of districts with the subtlety of a ransom note, demanding signatures within a week and a half or else you’ll cut funding that supports… wait for it… low-income students, disabled students, and English learners.
Brilliant. Just brilliant. A moral victory for bullies and bureaucrats everywhere.
So no, we will not be signing your “certification.”
We are not interested in joining your theater of compliance.
We are not interested in gutting equity programs that serve actual children in exchange for your political approval.
We are not interested in abandoning our legal, ethical, and educational responsibilities to satisfy your fear of facts.
We are interested in teaching the truth.
We are interested in honoring our students’ identities.
We are interested in building a school system where no child is invisible, and no teacher is punished for caring too much.
And yes — we are prepared to fight this. In the courts. In the press. In the community. In Congress, if need be.
Because this district will not be remembered as the one that folded under pressure.
We will be remembered as the one that stood its ground — not for politics, but for kids.
Sincerely,
District Superintendent
Still Teaching. Still Caring. Still Not Signing.
The writer ably exposes the Trump’s Regime regular use of doublespeak. They expose the flaws Trump and his minions use in their logic. They expose Trump’s tactics of bullying, his administration’s empty rhetoric, and his deliberate cruelty and lack of empathy.
Trump’s United States is not my United States. I learned from teachers like the nameless superintendent who wrote the letter. I know more are out there. I hope they stand up and speak out.
Funny to me that this is a prompt today, as I was remembering these two teachers this morning before I went online. The pair of teachers were my favorites and most influential. One was encountered in sixth grade while the other taught me two years later.
First, each encouraged me to think harder and try harder. Through their support, I gained self-confidence. Both introduced me to new areas of literature. My sixth-grade teacher, Mrs Forsythe (who was previously Mrs Fogle) read aloud to the class every afternoon. One book she read to us was Flowers for Algernon. Noticing how much I enjoyed it, she took the time to suggest other books and authors to me. From this came my infatuation with science fiction and fantasy, and a lifelong love affair with reading.
Mrs Rubenstein, in the eight grade, taught me to read the news and actually think about what was being said about events of the era. This was during Nixon’s first term. The United States was still fighting in Vietnam. The intense Cold War with the USSR was one facet of worry for us, but many other wars raged, and students were protesting the world’s direction across the United States.
Both of these teachers fired an intense interest in events beyond the end of my nose. I hope that everyone has at least one teacher like them in their lives. I was fortunate to have two. There were several others for me who opened my mind as well, but these two women were very special in my development.
I will never forget them and the debts I owe them.
Thursday, November 9, 2023, has come to have its say in what happens and how it happens with little clear explanation about why it happens. Many people like muddying the clarifications about why things happen because they dislike those explanations. Angers them because they can’t grasp the explanation, so if they can’t understand, why should anyone else? Shut it down; hide it; don’t teach it. Make it a mystery, so they can smugly say, “Nobody knows.”
Down to 34 last night in Ashlandia, where the schools are first rate and the arts and athletics are above average, it’s forty and foggy now as frost covers the bare ground and glazes some grasses. Don’t you worry, though; partly sunny skies will see us through to 57 F by daylights end. The remains of the day will deliver us back into darkness and 37 F.
When I awoke this morning, I opened a window blind. Soft dawn was crawling white through the trees and across the yard. Among the denuded poplar branches, a hummingbird hovered for a few seconds and then zinged away.
The hummingbird’s appearance surprised me. Cold, mid-autumn, winter hustling toward us, I figured hummingbirds would have better places to be.
Meanwhile, Tucker the magnificent (which is the mixed long-haired/short-haired cat’s official title) rose, ate, used the litter box, and went back to bed. Papi, the ginger blade feline floof, went out, declared it too cold, came in, declared himself bored, went back out, declared it too cold, came in, declared himself bored, went out, declared it too cold…get it?
I was outside at midnight last night. Clouds and moon were absent, letting the stars and other celestial bodies take a turn at shiny. Beautiful and serene with clear fresh air, but the black night was hugely cold to my body, driving me into my shelter after just five minutes of standing outside and thinking.
Somewhere in the night, I thought about the GOP – Right Wing – MAGA approach to governing and education. Limitations are the key the their approach. They will not accept anything being taught except what they like and understand as history, which is very, very narrowly defined. Their version of history must not show our nation or white people in a dark light. Our nation is good, because, come on, it’s christian, you know, one god, and all that, as the Founding Fathers so ordered, amIright? In their view, slavery was a good thing: sure people were locked up, traded, and beaten, but they were taught trades and given food and shelter. Surely that’s enough, so don’t dare teach that slaveowners were cruel bastards who often raped slave women and treated slaves worse than animals, unworthy of human rights.
It seems like they take the same approach to anything other than two sexes, male and female, whether it’s in gender or sexual preference. That’s what the bible says, they say, so they must be right.
They only want – no, they only accept – one religion, their version of christianity, and their god, a white, benevolent man who knows everything and is the only deliverer of knowledge, justice, and love. Such a god can’t have ideas about other religions and philosophies, so they can’t be taught because they’re not in their religious book, and their tiny minds can’t brook anything other than what their little black book says, even if they only follow the parts of the little black book that THEY like. Screw the rest of that silly, ancient black book, they decide by action, even if they won’t say it. Like, what’s that whole thing about loving thy brother, turning the other cheek, and that whole thing about bankers and rich men being in the temples and entering ‘the kingdom of heaven?’
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” But, but, capitalism! We are a christian nation, and can’t have rules and regulations which limit our abilities to exploit others and grow wealthier. We’re Capitalists!
“Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.”
I’m sure wealthy Americans plan to do that after they die, right? Until then, they will donate to charities which support their principles to grow wealthier, as long as it’s tax deductible.
Meanwhile, it’s not the government’s job to take care of anyone else, not in our christian nation. No! That encourages laziness. If they’re lazy, they won’t work for others for low pay so companies and the wealthy can make more money. No, no, no. And if companies pay them too much, then the companies will make less profit, and the shareholders will make less money, and the rich executives won’t be able to collect larger bonuses and buy more beautiful, pretty things for themselves, like mansions, vacation homes, jets, cars, and yachts. So pay for the lower classes must be kept low, for so it’s written in the bible…innit?
It all falls back on education then. Limit what is taught or don’t teach them at all beyond the basics of following instructions. That’s all that’s needed.
All that has me and The Neurons singing Pink Floyd’s mashup from The Wall in the morning mental music stream (Trademark unavoidable). See, the way it goes in The Neurons’ view, the Right Wing dictates and limits what will be taught in school, threatening the school systems and teachers with punishment if they don’t adhere and obey (exhibit A: Florida; B: Texas; C: Wisconsin. Etc.). They want perfect little white children (some blacks might be acceptable, as long as they adhere to the doctrine), all male or female – and nothing else because the bible! (And then they descend into lies about what those ‘other’ so-called sexes do, and how evil they are.) Because, see, they don’t understand. And if they don’t understand, they can’t accept. And if they can’t understand and accept, why should anyone else?
Under the GOP plan, aided by the misnamed “Moms for Liberty” who are all about censorship, which as Matthew Perry imight have said as Chandler Bing on Friends, “Can anything be more anti-liberty than stopping what other people read?”, schools become mills to turn out perfectly ignorant, intolerant, non-thinking little images of their white, bible-thumping masters. And the teachers will be the ones molding these little monsters of tomorrow, so long as the teachers adhere to the doctrine, don’t think, and obey the rules, which they will, or the GOP will beat, intimidate, and incriminate the teachers.
Because anything other than the GOP curriculum is ‘woke’, and that’s communist, socialist, thought control.
See how they turn it on its head? It’s no wonder that the GOP and its christians put its greatest faith in trying to build walls.
Stay positive and woke, be strong, and lean forward for others’ rights and freedoms as well as your own. Coffee is now at hand and warming my innards. Here’s the video.
A new position for me had been offered and accepted, and this was my first day. I continued writing around my work schedule. I asked for and gained permission to use work facilities for my writing.
My work location was a towering and modern white edifice, churchy in its serenity, very peaceful. The position was as a research assistant. Basically, I was staff to several teachers. I would go to the modern library and go through the ancient information which was stored there. Docents, librarians, and other assistants were in the library to help me find and understand my research and take it back to the requesting teacher.
For my writing, I used the facilities to create a gigantic digital white board. I found that I could speak to the computer and rearrange things on that white board. Two to three stories tall, it was a dozen feet wide. One of the women I worked for was a previous college professor who taught a creative writing class that I attended in RL. When she saw my writing board, she was immensely curious and complimentary, asking if I could make something like that available to others. Of course I could. I would get right on it.
Not so fast. She fast had a project for me researching a woman named Alice Fingersmith. I knew the last name. I’d read a book by that name and saw a television series based on the movie. I wondered if I’d heard right.
After going to the library, I asked the staff where to go to best start my research. Seeing that I was drinking kombucha, the male staff member, a tall and young fellow, offered to make me orange flavored kombucha because he thought I would like it. The female, who looked and acted just like Poppy from Mystic Quest (the RL Apple TV series), showed me where to find information on Alice Fingersmith.
Fingersmith’s information should be in a low, wooden filing cabinet. The cabinet was so low I needed to get on my knees to open the drawers and look in them. Finding the right one, based on last names, I pulled the drawer open and rifled through the files until I came to a place holder for Alice Fingersmith’s files. There were only small scraps of paper within. I drew a few out and then read them.
Poppy and the male staff member came to me. As he gave me my orange drink, she asked how I was doing. I told them about the files, showing them, and drank the orange drink, finding it very tasty. They were puzzled about why the file was empty as it was and decided they would request a search to see if others in the system had Fingersmith info or knew why information was missing from the file.
I’d been looking at the scraps of paper in the file. I realized the requesting teacher and Fingersmith may have been lovers. I thought the teacher would prefer discretion so I told the two to hold off. Then I took the papers I’d found and went to find the instructor.
I was alternatively and seamlessly at different stages in my life, from teenager to middle age. I was going through four dull brown monolithic buildings. Almost featureless, their outside corners were hard right angles. They reminded me of huge parking garages, but they teemed with people.
As I went through them, I realized the buildings were familiar. Navigating them, getting lost, finding my way again, I realized that two were schools and one was retail stores, like a giant mall. Traversing the steps to different levels, finding my way through the buildings, I’d get lost and take wrong turns and circle back, searching for the right way to go. Doing this, I became more familiar with the layouts. Some was new information being learned or realized, while more came from dredging up memories. I realized that the fourth building were floors and rows of offices and cubicles, the corporate world.
Deciding I had a semblance of understanding about the arrangements, I began searching for familiar places and faces. I sometimes glimpsed people in the crowds who I thought I knew. The buildings were always so crowded and busy, and everyone was rushed and harried. Becoming firmer about my commitment and more convinced about where I wanted to go, I entered a long and tall but quiet and empty room.
A tall flight of black metal stairs was available in the room’s middle. I went up the stairs. Inside were three women. As I walked around, they asked, “Who are you?” Without letting me answer, one said, “Maybe you can help.”
As she said this, another said, “I’m not getting anywhere. Maybe he can try.”
I recognized the three women as RL blogging friends. I’d never met them but knew them online. They were at a workbench. Some electronic device was in pieces on it. “Here, come here,” one ordered. “You try. We’re supposed to use this to analyze but it’s not working. You try.”
I didn’t understand what they were talking about. I asked, “Analyze what?” I had an impression it was to locate guns being fired but then changed that idea to the device being something about interpreting people’s moods.
The one woman was talking fast about their efforts to use the device and putting it back together while she spoke. When she finished putting it together, she stopped talking and shoved it at me.
I protested and scoffed. “I have no idea what this is. What makes you think I can fix it?”
They urged me, “Just try.”
I bent down, figured out how to turn the thing on, and began messing with switches, dials, and buttons. A male voice was immediately heard.
“You did it,” the women said. “You fixed it.”
I was shaking my head, answering them, “I didn’t fix it, I didn’t do anything. I think you might have fixed it when you put it back together.”
They hugged and thanked me. I kept protesting that I hadn’t done anything and then left going back down the stairs.
Knowing where I was in relation to the buildings, I decided to visit my elementary and high schools. Taking different stairs, I left one building and entered another.
No, that wasn’t right. I reversed course and tried again. Coming down stairs, I entered a place I knew as my high school. I immediately spotted a number of people who’d worked for me during my life. “There you are,” one said. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this book. You said it was a good read. This is turgid, dull, and flat. I wanted to kill myself reading it.”
I laughed, pleased to see him, shaking his hand. “It is a good book but it might not be the book for you.” I began going on about different tastes and expectations. While I talked, another person came up. This was Howard, from “The Big Bang Theory”. He said, “I thought it was a good book. I enjoyed it, although I thought there were places where it needed help.”
We spoke for minutes more about the book and then I said, “I need to go,” and told them I’d see them later. I left that room and entered a fourth-grade room which I remembered. It was full of young students at desks. Several began asking, “Who’s he,” as I walked around the room and remembered it. Others began saying, “I know him.” A teacher who I didn’t know came up. “I know you,” she said, then shook my hand. She began telling me about all these things that I supposedly did. She insisted I was famous. I clapped back, “I think you’re confusing me with someone else.”
The wheel keeps on turning, and the day is Friday again. February 11, 2022. It’s another stunner of a sunny day out there, already up to 55 degrees F, according to my office weather station. The earth turned us into the sun at 7:13 this morning and will turn us away at 5:38 PM. They tell us it’ll hit 76 in the valley today, which would be a new record. Maybe, but my part of the valley didn’t see the 75 they claimed yesterday. We’re now into a historic stretch of dry weather, a sad promise that the drought will probably continue and deepen this year.
I have a strange one in the morning mental music stream: “The William Tell Overture”. I’m speculating that it’s because of the horses in a dream I had. Though they were tiny horses — smaller than a cat — they triggered a memory of “The Lone Ranger”. That was a television show that played on Saturday mornings in my youth, alongside “Sky King”, “Looney Tunes” (featuring Bugs Bunny and the gang), “Mighty Mouse”, “Tom and Jerry”, “Deputy Dawg”, and “Top Cat”. What glorious morning television! Then, eat fast, dress fast, and bang, out the door, often on my bike, unless the snow was too deep. In every season except winter, my baseball mitt hung on my handlebar, so I was ready and available for any pickup baseball or softball game that I came across.
“The William Tell Overture” is associated with “The Lone Ranger” because it was used as the theme music. A teacher took note of this and used it as a teaching moment, introducing us to classical music. From “The William Tell Overture”, we ended up exploring “In the Hall of the Mountain King”, “Peter and the Wolf”, and many others. She’s the same teacher who prodded me into reading more and expanding my reading interests. I owe her a huge debt.
So, let’s return to those thrilling days of yesteryear. It’s a rousing, heroic melody, ideal for your weekend beginning, weekend, whatever. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, when needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Here’s the music. Hi-Yo, Silver, I’m galloping off for some coffee. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 