I was asked this morning a question and wanted to share my heart with you again:
9:19 AM What did you love about teaching? Well there are many things I loved about teaching and still love about teaching. The moment when the light bulb clicks and they “get it” and you can see it in their eyes. The moment that a first grader has been working in reading groups and daily phonics activities decoding sounds for months and now realizes that they can read not only the book in front of them but posters on the wall and they can read anything, that joy is something I wish I could bottle for the rest of my life!! loved making relationships with my students daily letting them know that they had a strong loving teacher that cared about them as a whole person. I loved being a resource we started a clothing closet a Thanksgiving food drive for families in our neighborhood. I loved being part of a team of teachers and administrators that helped children succeed!!! I love so much about teaching I still do! I love teaching adults as well as children. People learn in layers and people learn through different modalities and it is amazing to me when I’m speaking on a stage or training a group of people whether it’s a group of CEOs or a group of employees I have been asked to train or a classroom of children, when you can provide the opportunity to learn something new it’s spectacular. I also truly love being involved in a child’s life where they get to discover what they are really good at and teach it to another! The BEST BEST BEST is that I still am in contact with many of my kiddos and get to watch them grow into womderful adults! Lori
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I was asked this question through an email. I promised to share my honest thoughts with you as people asked questions of me. I thank you for letting me share my heart with you. Agree or disagree we must come together to do what is best for our children, families and community. My goal has always been and will always be to unify, honor and lead by example in how I treat all humans I meet with respect admiration as to who they are, exactly as they are, and with love for who they were created to be. Division is just hate manifested in how you treat people. It takes joy in spreading fear, anger, and disregard for others based on differences. We should be honoring, celebrating, and learning from those who differ from us. I believe God in His incredible wisdom and beautiful creativity made us different purposefully to revel in his mighty creation.
Your blog is not specific regarding your opinion on CRT which many of us believe to be hateful and racist. It should NOT be taught in our public schools. Also, where do you stand on some teachers discussing transgenderism and other sexual matters with young students in kindergarten through 5th or 6th grade without the knowledge of the parents.???? Please reply and be specific. Hello! Thank you so much for your questions! I happen to fully agree with you and will add this to my blog! Most importantly to your question on teachers discussing transgenderism and other sexual matters with young students in kindergarten through 5th or 6th grade without the knowledge of the parents. My stance is absolutely not, this should not be an option ever. All curricula should be available for review by parents and community members. No Public School curriculum should be a secret or done without the full fidelity of the knowledge of our parents and community members. If there is a lesson that deals with their bodies, health, sexuality, or anything to do with human anatomy and reproduction, it needs to be fully presented to the parents with an opt-out option. Furthermore, in my viewpoint, the only things taught in schools should be about maintaining a healthy body, health, reproduction, and anatomy. At the Middle and High Scholl level, there should be an opportunity for students to have a discussion and curriculum based on sexual/reproduction safety and health. I am far more concerned about students being informed about protecting themselves from predatory adults and other students and ensuring they are safe. Parents have the right and privilege to add additional training and information as they feel appropriate at home. I do not agree with teaching CRT. I will fight daily that we ensure that we teach history and honor all cultures as educators. It does not sit well with my heart the way the CRT curriculum is taught in schools and presented to students and employees across our nation. It is not currently a part of the CCS curriculum, but it is certainly a relevant topic that we need to have an in-place plan for when it does more than knock on our door! Critical race theory is not a synonym for culturally relevant teaching. This teaching approach seeks to affirm students’ ethnic and racial backgrounds and is intellectually rigorous. But it’s related in that one of its aims is to help students identify and critique the causes of social inequality in their own lives. Many educators support, to one degree or another, culturally relevant teaching and other strategies to make schools feel safe and supportive for Black students and other underserved populations. But they don’t necessarily identify these activities as CRT-related. The majority of my career was in a high-poverty school, with 100% of the student population on Free and Reduced Lunch. But not ever in a day in my life as an educator did I ever allow my students to believe anything except how incredible they are and how much potential they had. I found this definition on CRT: "The emergence of Critical Race Theory marked an important point in the history of racial politics in the legal academy and the broader conversation about race and racism in the United States. More recently, CRT has proven an important analytic tool in the field of education, offering critical perspectives on race, and the causes, consequences, and manifestations of race, racism, inequity, and the dynamics of power and privilege in schooling. This groundbreaking anthology is the first to pull together both the foundational writings in the field and more recent scholarship on the cultural and racial politics of schooling. A comprehensive introduction provides an overview of the history and tenets of CRT in education. Each section then seeks to explicate the ideological contestation of race in education and to create new, alternative accounts. In so doing, this landmark publication not only documents the progress to date of the CRT movement, it acts to further spur developments in education." I feel we must align our curriculum to honor and respect all cultures, ethnicities, and differences that make up our student populations. Not one group should feel superior or inferior. I was raised on military posts around this nation. I was exposed to many many races, religions, and cultures, and not ever was I taught one was better than the other. So, I modeled my classroom after my experiences. My favorite book to read to my students was the book titled Everybody Cooks Rice by Norah Dooley. I was intentional about honoring, teaching, and having my students be soaked in a daily environment of equality. As our students progress through school, their world expands. We start teaching "all about me" then we move to "all about my family" then their city, state, country, and so on. Different levels of curriculum and understanding come with the rising level of their cognitive and maturity levels. Should these issues identified in CRT as its core be discussed by older students, yes., in a controlled academic space. It should be age-appropriate and use a no biased lens on looking at the good and bad of our history and nurturing passionate students wanting to ensure we move forward in love and equality. Learning from the mistakes of the past to redefine how we create our future. If we hide the mistakes of the past, then we are doomed to repeat them. There is another book I love called. Measure what Matters: In academic testing, teaching about culture, learning history, all of it must be done through the viewpoint of teaching the facts, inspiring critical thinking and inspiring our children to make this world better with their ideas and collaborative thinking on how to make our world a better place. In my opinion it was perfectly summed up by Marsha Blackburn: Here is the article and link: I couldn't have written it, or said it any better than this: For months, parents have raised the alarm about the left’s effort to brainwash our children by injecting Critical Race Theory (CRT) into public school curriculum. One Tennessee mom recently warned Williamson County parents that her seven-year-old daughter came home from school saying, “I’m ashamed that I’m White.” Her daughter asked, “Is there something wrong with me? Why am I hated so much?” This reaction is reason enough to start asking questions, but those who have yet to investigate the tenets of CRT will be shocked to know that this child’s distress was the desired result of her lessons. If left unchecked, this mental and emotional trauma will worm its way into every classroom in America. Although promoted as “anti-racist” civil rights education, CRT actively encourages discrimination. At its core, CRT segregates people into two main categories: oppressors or victims. The calculation is based solely on skin color. The tenets of CRT stretch far beyond the humanities. In some classrooms in Oregon and California, students operate under the understanding that “finding the right answer” in mathematics is racist. “Right” and “wrong” answers are deemed a product of white supremacy. The woke gymnastics required to reach such a conclusion would be amusing if this destructive ideology didn’t pose such a danger to education in America. We can all agree that racism and discrimination are wrong and have no place in the classroom—but neither does racially motivated propaganda. In the U.S. Senate, I’ve been leading the charge for true equality in the classroom. I led legislation prohibiting federal funding of the “1619 Project,” which reframes American history in terms of racial conflict and oppression. I also joined my Senate colleagues in demanding that Critical Race Theory’s prejudicial influence be kept out of K–12 classrooms. Many on the left have tried to dismiss this as a political non-issue, but here in Tennessee, we see opposition to CRT is coming straight from parents and educators. In response, the Tennessee State Legislature passed and Governor Bill Lee signed a bill banning CRT in schools. Still, we must continue to stand firm at a local level. Children should not be forced to endure this latest round of revisionist history, but it will take more than letters and legislation to keep CRT out of the classroom. Parents need to keep showing up to school board meetings and reporting discriminatory conduct. The last thing educators should be doing is encouraging our children to be ashamed of the color of their skin. That same Williamson County mom who warned about the dangers of CRT was left with no choice but to put her seven-year-old in therapy. Why? “She is depressed. She doesn’t want to go to school.” While parents struggle to help their children manage the mental and emotional damage inflicted by this dangerous ideology, the left will continue to re-write our education system to fit their woke agenda—and they won’t stop until CRT is in every classroom in America. I will gladly stand with Tennessee parents to demand an end to this latest, unhinged attempt to brainwash our nation’s children https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/2021/7/why-is-critical-race-theory-dangerous-for-our-kids All my very best to you! Thank you again for reaching out. No matter the outcome of this election, I will always work to protect and empower our students to succeed. Not only succeed but be fueled by their own positive self-worth and what they specifically have to offer this world. Thank you for letting me share my heart, Lori Long |
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October 2022
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