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Enough is Enough

  • Posted on June 25, 2010 at 12:19 pm

Schools in Michigan are under attack from the state government.  We have lost much funding over the last several years.  Over these years we have gone from around $7500 per pupil spending to under $7000.  The effects are really being felt this year by many schools, including Sturgis.  Our administration decided to offer a retirement incentive which gave people retiring a $30,000 401K that cannot be touched until the retiree is 59.  The state matched that with increasing the multiplier from 1.5 to 1.6.  As a result we had somewhere in the neighborhood of around 20 teachers retired this year.  Many of these teachers were very good at what they do…TEACH.  Those of us that didn’t retire are facing the results of the retirements which include paying 3% more towards our own retirement as well as being scared out of our wits about what the state is going to “require” of us next.  There is talk of a 5% pay cut and even a 20-25 % health insurance cost for teachers.  In addition to all of this we are facing larger class sizes and the decimation of programs and the loss of things like library services, exploratory classes and other special activities like traveling to special exhibits.

The Michigan Education Association in an effort to try and get the state legislature to stop the assault on education funding planned a rally at the state capital yesterday.  The Sturgis Education Association chartered two busses to take many of us up to the capital.  Some teachers also came from other local towns like Three Rivers.  When I was talking to our Uniserve director on the bus she said that around 8000 MEA members planned on attending.  These members include teachers and support staff as well as the many family members that joined their parents.

When we arrived at the capital the mayor of Lansing, Virge Bernero, welcomed us with open arms as the MEA has endorsed his candidacy for governor.  There were other people that spoke as well.  The night before some of us went up to the middle school art room and made some handmade signs.  These turned out to attract a bit of attention as we were able to get a few interviews for TV.  One guy saw my Sturgis sign and wondered how far we had come from.  I told him we were south of Kalamazoo about an hour so two hours.  He asked if he could interview me.  I told him our president was right by me so it might be best to interview him as he is our spokesperson.

After the interview our state senator, Cameron Brown, came down to visit with us as Ellen Eisele had emailed and called him prior to this event.  He invited us up to senate chambers and he let us talk about what was on our minds.  Many of us spoke up with clear thoughts about the funding issues and suggestions about how the two parties should come together to fix this issue.  He did not answer any of our concerns directly when we asked questions.  He waited until we were done and then proceeded to explain some things to us from his perspective.  He wanted us to know that the state isn’t doing anything illegal by taking funds from education and giving those funds to colleges and universities as this is in the constitution.  He said the fund isn’t set up to be just for K-12.  He also wanted us to know that he “voluntarily” gave up some of his pay ever since he began his senate career.  I reminded him that the operative word was “voluntarily”.  The most interesting thing he kept saying to us was that he came from the school where the film, “Remember the Titans” was developed.  It’s like he wanted us to know that he wants to get along and that some how this information made him more agreeable to us.  Most of us didn’t feel any connection at all to that statement.  Craig mentioned something that he thought most Republicans would and should agree on as they comment on this stuff all the time.  Craig said that it should be about local control and at Sturgis we have been doing a good job of working with the administration and the decisions shouldn’t be made by the state but by the local institutions as they know what is best for their own communities.  Senator Brown couldn’t argue with that.  The two issues that most affect this are the 5% pay cut and the choice of health insurance with the 20-25% cost to the insured.

I don’t know if we had any real impact.  It is doubtful that Senator Brown will vote any differently based upon our visit.  However, I know that most of us will be voting in the coming election and we will, once again, make our voices heard.  The state of Michigan needs to fix these problems.  We are bleeding jobs and nothing really changes.  The tax revenues are down and it is obvious.  Each year valuable programs are lost while the two parties twiddle their thumbs and cry, “The sky is falling.”  I don’t want someone giving me any more excuses.  This is much of what I felt from Senator Brown, that old “blame game” thing.  I want someone that can “lead” this state to its rightful place in the world.  The children in our schools are the future.  Unfortunately, many of these young wonderful students graduate from college and leave Michigan as they cannot get a job here.  If Michigan is going to rise above this we must educate our children and create a system so they can find their opportunities right here in Michigan.  This is a beautiful state with many natural resources.  We don’t have to be a “one trick pony” based on the auto industry.  We can develop many other job sectors including biomedical research and green jobs.  If we continue to cut education funding our children will suffer even more than they already are suffering.  Our first priority should be to provide a quality education for our children.  The people of Michigan have to stand up for their children.  I know the economy is tough for everyone but public education still works here and even if you aren’t working you always know that your child will get their education.  In the state of Michigan we provide everything for the children including paper, pens and pencils.  Parents don’t have to worry about providing these items for school.  If a parent is out of work they can still rest assured that their child will be welcomed in public school.  Schools will not be able to maintain this level of education if cuts continue to happen across the state.  It’s just that simple.

We already see the “pay to play” mentality that has been happening with sports.  Poor families just cannot afford to let their children play sports as they cannot afford the cost to play or the cost for insurance on their child.  I sure don’t want to see this happen with other parts of the school day as well.  It is frightening to think about what will happen next.  Being a school teacher shouldn’t be about fear and loathing but about hope and inspiration.  These young students are being faced with a lot of stressful situations from over testing and parents out of work to now whether the programs they love, like art and music, will be there tomorrow.  Our children are the future of our country and the future of our state.  We must do everything we can to create a quality environment for them to learn and grow.  Our schools need to be top notch and fully funded.  The state of Michigan needs to prioritize school funding and fix this on going problem immediately.  Seriously, enough is enough!  The legislature needs to get creative and fix the funding problem for schools!

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We’ve Gotta Have Art

  • Posted on April 2, 2010 at 11:11 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG6A71py9nE

Teaching middle school art today is very different from when I was young and just out of college.  I remember the enthusiasm I had for teaching my first class in Fowler, Michigan.  It was so exciting to be out of school and to finally get a job.  I graduated in December of 1977.  It was in the middle of the school year and there weren’t any jobs really available.  I started working at Sugar Loaf Mountain resort as a hostess for the restaurant.  It didn’t pay very much and I didn’t stay long after they wanted me to design wine labels for the same pay as the hostess job.  I also found it very elitist in their attitude.  As an employee we were not supposed to fraternize with the tourists coming to ski the mountain.  I didn’t have a problem with that but they really didn’t want us to even go to the bar or restaurant.  It felt more like the hired help wasn’t good enough to sit next to the wealthy establishment.  I found the place rather stifling with their rules and expectations for the “hired help”.  They found out I had an art background so they wanted to use that.  Regardless of their motives I soon found employment at Kmart in the camera department.  I really enjoyed working at Kmart as they put me in an area where I had a lot of expertise and they respected my intelligence.  In the summer when I was interviewing for a teaching position the management was overwhelmingly supportive.  I was given the time I needed to interview and people were very happy when I snagged my first teaching job.  It felt like a family at Kmart as everyone was very encouraging of the young people that had gone to college and were looking for jobs in their fields.

When I arrived at Fowler I got right to work on working with the young students to create art.  We had so much fun together.  At the end of the school year I organized an art show while the gym teacher organized a dance and the music teacher had a concert.  We had a great turn out from the community and this was established for each year until I left a few years later.  I did manage to paint an eagle with two boys, with scaffolding, on the gym wall.  What an experience that was for someone who is afraid of heights!  I took a break from teaching and devoted myself to my art, making pottery and traveling to different art shows in Oklahoma and Michigan.  For many years I was happy doing this but when my son started kindergarten I volunteered to bring in my pottery wheel and demonstrate for the students.  I fired pottery pieces the students made and fell in love with the idea of teaching again.  I decided to update my teaching credentials.

A lot had happened in my years away from teaching.  Something called D.B.A.E (Disciplined Based Art Education) happened.  I was out of the loop but I easily got back into the loop.  However, teaching art has to be more about art production than anything else.  The art history, aesthetics and art criticism are all important but working with young people today it is so important to actually get their hands on the art materials and help them experience what it feels like to produce art.  In this age of text messaging and quick technology fixes I think it is more important than ever to develop creativity within my students.  So many students don’t have a clue how things are really made and why we buy the things that we do.  While art is all around them in designs that they purchase from their shoes, totes, mp3 players and phones so many of them are clueless about the thought that these items are purchased because of their interesting design concepts.  Some of them think that a computer spits out the design.  They don’t think about what person may have put the idea into the computer.  I try to point this out to my students because there is vast ignorance from most people about these issues.  Art is so important in all of our lives today whether we are aware of it or not.  We are surrounded by art in many forms and we make decisions about art on a daily basis whether it is decorating our homes or buying a car.  Art surrounds us in ways we don’t even think about!

I had an opportunity to review my art curriculum this year.  I was able to add a document camera and a projector to my teaching tool box.  This has resulted in a major change in my instruction delivery.  When I would show students how to do things in the past they would have to look at a mirror placed strategically over my head.  Now it’s projected.  If I’m doing something very detailed I can even zoom in for the students.  That student sitting in the very back of the room can now actually see what I’m trying to show them.  I marvel at this new technology and how computers have snuck their way into the art classroom through art programs and even online galleries.  Some people might think art is a thing of the past but art really is evolving and is the future.  We, as consumers, will always be drawn to beauty and grace.  Art will be in our future designs and really the creativity of our nation is dependent on the continued exposure to all the arts in their many forms.  Without art we become a mass produced society, plastic in many ways, without a heart.  It is art that nourishes our souls and completes our craving to be unique, to know that we are original beings and that we aren’t just one of many but one in a million!

When I was young and a beginning teacher I never thought about how teaching art might change.  It was all pretty basic in my mind.  You draw, paint, and sculpt; whatever medium you use art remains fairly unchangeable in its end result.  However, now I realize that art and its medium is constantly changing.  Today we have artists creating art through recyclables, computers, videos and much more.  Art is never stagnant and never stays the same.  Art is truly the most original thing that one can do.  Art continues to allow our imaginations to soar and our creativity to flourish.  Today there is more to art than ever as we search for new ways to express ourselves.  The importance of art in this rigid testing structure of education cannot be overly emphasized.  If we are to truly think, dream and imagine we must have art in our lives and we must nourish our souls with the making of art.

A video from our high school art teachers and the 2010 Scholastic Art Awards

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The State of Michigan Needs Inspiration

  • Posted on March 30, 2010 at 10:00 pm

This is the time of year when schools look at their budgets and program offerings for the coming school year.  At Sturgis Middle school we recently found out about our MEAP scores.  Each year we hold our collective breath waiting for the results.  The MEAP doesn’t follow an individual class through their time in school but focuses on grade level.  This means that scores can go up and down sometimes based on the type of class that is currently being taught.  It has been my experience that some years we have classes that are challenging, usually behavior issues are the problem, and some years we have classes that are exceptional both in their behavior and their ability to pass the MEAP.  This year we all have let out our collective breath with a big “Hooray!” as our scores were very good.  We can only hope these scores will continue to be high in the coming years.  I know that everyone at our school is part of the team to help students pass these tests.  This year students, that needed extra time, were given extra “lab” time with their core teachers.  This was accomplished through much effort by the exploratory teachers.  Exploratory teachers were asked to develop a “split” time class in which they would have students for 25 minutes out of 50 minute period.  This has been a difficult thing to accomplish but exploratory teachers rose to the moment and did what was necessary to help make this program a reality.  Most days classes were normal but some days individual students were kept back for more lab time in math, science, etc.  This can be very challenging for any exploratory teacher working with project based media as the student can fall behind in that class and other students will get bored if they spend too much time waiting for the behind students to catch up.  There are often times teachers are pitted against each other based on being a “core” teacher or an “exploratory” teacher.  Core teachers always get the respect from everyone simply because they are teaching what most people see as being necessary for an education, “reading, writing, and arithmetic.”  Some core teachers see themselves as above exploratory teachers by virtue of their placement of importance in the system.   In my nearly seventeen years of teaching at Sturgis a well rounded education has been of utmost importance to Sturgis school district.  Unfortunately, with the current money problems I think many schools are being forced to make cuts to their programs.  Whether it is art, music, drama or extra curricular programs all will be judged regardless of their merits.  At Sturgis we have been able to maintain our programs.  I believe it helps us with the “school of choice” program but as people flee Michigan for other states where they hope to get a job, the outlook for our school is also dim.  The funding coming from the state is less and less each year while the costs for everything from staff to energy continue to rise.  This is forcing larger class sizes and the reduction of services just like what is happening to our state government.  It’s time for our state to develop some new ideas for funding and for surviving our current crisis in our schools as well as all other aspects of our lives.

Our state is in a crisis that can and has to be fixed.  We need more revenue coming into the state to fix these problems.  Either we must create more employment through industry of some type or we must raise taxes on those that are still here working.  The fact is we are going to see a reduction in services across our state in our schools, road work, police, secretary of state’s offices, and anything else that the state touches, if we don’t do something now.  Many people are tired of being taxed and feel it’s gone far enough but many don’t realize the perilous position the state of Michigan is in.  We have such a beautiful state.  I personally think it’s ridiculous that our state should be in such bad shape.  We have natural resources that are the envy of other states.  We have great universities where people come from all over the world to get their education from.  We have terrific hospitals across our state.  We have so much to offer for recreation all through the year from the lakes in the summer to the skiing in the winter.  Unfortunately, for many years we put all of our eggs in that one basket of the automobile industry.  It’s time for new industry to grow and prosper in Michigan.  I love our state.  I think it is an absolutely beautiful state.  We need to develop our commodities to attract people to the state.  We hear about the problems in Detroit but it isn’t just Detroit.  The problem is all across our state.  If you go to the thumb area it is just as depressed as Detroit.  It’s just a smaller population.  Here is Sturgis we too have lost business and of course the people that work in those businesses.  Yet, we have a beautiful little city that could be doing more to get people to stop and shop here and build our local community.  I find myself running to Coldwater and Three Rivers to get things because we don’t have the stores that those communities have to offer.  I’d like to keep my money local but I’m not willing to shop at the loss of choices in products.

Our current government continues to use the same old tactics and behaviors that they have been exhibiting for the past sixty years.  That is the Republicans want to argue about cutting programs and lower taxes and the Democrats want to maintain programs but don’t have the where with all to create the funding for them.  Neither of these approaches really seems to be working.  We need something new and daring to happen.  The same old politics just isn’t working.  Geoffrey Fieger was on a local television program and he was talking about being “inspired”.  He said, “We need someone that will inspire us.”   I couldn’t remember the last time a politician actually inspired me.  Maybe when I was a kid and learned all about John F. Kennedy I felt inspired.  As an art teacher I know that inspiration can lead to all kinds of wonderful thinking and problem solving.  I think maybe our politicians need to be inspirational to bring out the best in their constituents.  My sister is always talking about the “genius among us”.  These are every day people that come up with fantastic ideas and solutions to problems.  Many of them are over looked as being “kooks” or just flatly ignored but there may be somebody out there with great ideas for our state that is just being ignored and overlooked.  I think maybe our current government needs to go to the people for fresh, new ideas.  We need a suggestion box for the government just like those old suggestion boxes we used to see at restaurants.  Someone in Michigan has a great idea for this state and how to turn it around.  I just don’t think it’s a politician.  He or she may be sitting next to us with a wonderful imagination and a desire for change but not the where with all to make it happen.  The state of Michigan needs to set out the suggestion box to get this conversation moving.  Enough of the fighting over budgets and everything else, it’s time for new ideas for funding this state and developing it to its fullest potential.

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Union Busting

  • Posted on February 24, 2010 at 9:29 pm

Central Falls High School

Every union in the United States of America will be busted in time.  Unions really built the middle class.  If it wasn’t for unions all wages would have been kept low for most people.  When a union goes into a community it puts pressure on other companies to up their wages in order to recruit good workers and also to include things like health insurance.  Since Ronald Reagan it has been fashionable to bust the unions.  He busted the air traffic controllers.  It’s been down hill ever since for anyone belonging to a union.  Today I think there are only about 8% of the people that even belong to a union.  The next unions to take the hit are going to be the teacher’s unions.  They are going to be busted.  The government is doing everything they can to talk about the poor quality of teachers, which really is bogus.  Teachers are more qualified today than they ever have been.  They have degrees that include a major in the area they are teaching.  Many have other things they bring to their teaching experience whether it is other work experiences or even travel experiences.

Today I came home and saw this on the news.  http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/24/rhode.island.teachers/index.html?hpt=T2

The Superintendent stays and every teacher, principal, etc. is fired.  This is incredible.  If you read the article you will see that they have made some gains with testing.  The trouble was in the negotiations.  This is a drastic move by the board of education.  I know I wouldn’t want my child to go to this school.  They care so little for the children that they will expose them to an all new crew.  They may hire up to 50% back but who knows who the “chosen” ones will be.  Probably the ones that keep their mouths shut and don’t ask any questions or rock the boat in any way.  Any one with a brain knows that not all of these teachers fired are poor teachers.  Maybe none of them are as it is a largely Hispanic community where English is a second language.  NCLB has very difficult standards of testing for these new English learners.  It amazes me that they expect so much from them so quickly.  Our Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, applauds this move.  http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433×195524 This shows me where Obama stands on the issue of unions.  When the government wants to go into communities and fire teachers and staff and then create a new or charter school in its place that is all about destroying public schools and unions.  I cannot be convinced that this is a great move for this community.  I know how I feel about my students and I know how hard I work each and every day to help students find success.  I don’t believe this school in Rhode Island doesn’t have hard working, talented teachers that just got fired!

As I was looking online I came across this.  http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://newsblog.projo.com/mocchi_poster.jpg&imgrefurl=http://newsblog.projo.com/2009/08/funeral-set-for.html&usg=__bxvIHLt5FbMjPvVznexbC1TmHRo=&h=341&w=512&sz=58&hl=en&start=5&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=GgLaNIjFpBvt6M:&tbnh=87&tbnw=131&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcentral%2Bfalls%2Bhigh%2Bschool%2Bteachers%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1B3GGGL_enUS231US233%26tbs%3Disch:1 This school started the year with tragedy, a well liked teacher died in a crash and now their going to lose all of their teachers.  Wow, this school is in crisis and these poor kids are being treated like just a bunch of numbers on a score card for testing!

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Teaching in a Disconnected World

  • Posted on January 9, 2010 at 12:59 am
Global Children

Let's Embrace the Creativity in our Children

The word we always hear about today is “global”.  We are either “going global” or we’re standing still.  However in the American classroom my life as a middle school art teacher has probably helped to make me a bit skeptical of new government educational plans.  We seem to be pressured to make our children “global” beings that will “beat” all the other “global village” people as the government keeps telling us our children are not quite up to par.  The arts are always the first to be cut because greater minds than mine have decided that they must be a “frill”.  I always think those people simply must have absolutely no talent and imagination.  The arts are far more than a “frill” and serve a far greater good than most people can even imagine.  If you are wearing beautiful clothes, driving a highly designed vehicle or live in a fabulous home thank the artist that brought the design to fruition.  I know that many people have absolutely no idea of how most items are created and even brought to market.  If it wasn’t for the very artists that create the cool designs that make us all want to buy the next great thing, we’d all be driving around in box shaped cars and still be computing on the old box shaped computers.

Artists have been treated poorly in this old educational process of teaching for a “test”.  I think picking a, b, c, or d on a test is basically pointless.   The truth is no one will really know the end result of all this testing until these test takers become productive tax paying citizens that the government and business clearly want to be the next little worker bees.   I, on the other hand, believe that a true education will encompass all aspects of our intelligence.  This fight for the “core” subjects is disheartening to those of us that are on the cutting edge of embracing our creativity.  It is through real creativity that we all can find our true purpose in life.  Creativity allows you to learn how to think and make decisions based on realizing that there might be more than one answer to a problem.  Test taking makes us believe there can only be one answer and it is the “right” answer.

In life we all know that sometimes things aren’t easy for us.  Sometimes we actually have to think our way out of problems.  The answer isn’t covered on a test.  I think it’s time that we taught students how to think and make creative decisions.  Many children are lost in this test taking mold.  Many have shut down because their exuberance is not appreciated.  Sometimes teachers are so busy teaching for the test that they can’t see the marvelous gifted mind of the student that may be simply struggling with the test taking process.  I don’t blame the teachers or even the administration.  I blame a society that allows arbitrary politicians that promote programs that are just a boon for the test taking industry and a peril for the poor student confronted with all of the tests they have to take.

I think students need to spend much more time using their hands and brains in the classroom whether it be a core subject or my art class.  Students today are spoon fed information and then given countless hours on the computer where things are really quite pointless in many ways.  It’s just a click here and a click there browsing through things but usually not really reading them all that clearly.  We are in such a hurry today that I think we have forgotten the true wonder of education.  It is a joy in my art classroom when I watch a student that didn’t think he or she could draw figure out the drawing process.

Education used to be a wonderful thing to embrace.  Students need to feel that thrill that comes with the discovery of new intelligence.  If we want students to be excited about learning then we have to embrace the creativity that the arts empower in individuals.  The true joy of learning comes through self expression.  While the arts are a power onto themselves they can also enhance the learning in the core classes as well.  It is the individual we need to embrace and cultivate to be the creative adult they are meant to be.  It is not the test taking process that is going to build the next “greatest” generation.  It is the almost innate creativity we all have within us when we are a child that has been suppressed through years of “drill” type instruction that needs to be embraced and nurtured.  If the government wants us to be a “global village” then we should empower our children through creativity in all of their classrooms.

Below I have included an excerpt from Eliot Eisner that I think needs to be examined further.  The truth is number 10 is what I have really been talking about.

10 Lessons the Arts Teach

1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.
Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it
is judgment rather than rules that prevail.

2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution
and that questions can have more than one answer.

3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives.
One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving
purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.

6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects.
The arts traffic in subtleties.

7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material.
All art forms employ some means through which images become real.

8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said.
When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.

9. The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source
and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

10. The arts’ position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young
what adults believe is important.
SOURCE: Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press. Available from NAEA Publications. NAEA grants reprint permission for this excerpt from Ten Lessons with proper acknowledgment of its source and NAEA.

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Dress for Success

  • Posted on January 2, 2010 at 12:15 pm


Dress for Success

The other day I was walking down an aisle in Wal-Mart and I ran across some Michigan State University sweatshirts with hoodies.  Now having graduated from Michigan State I was intrigued.  I was shocked because they looked old and worn out.  The silk screened image was barely there.  I thought a hoax has been carried out on the American people.  I have students that come to class with holes in their jeans all the way up to the crotch area.  They think they look cool.  I, being the age I am, think they look like they should be milking a cow.  Some how in the last forty or fifty years that “Dress for Success” thing has been thrown out the window in favor of the “Come as You Are” model of success.

In the past year my son interviewed for a job.  Of course I told him to wear his suit because he would make a better impression.  He thinks the suit may have been a detriment because while the work demanded professional credentials the work place was extremely casual in nature.  Even at school it is difficult at times to tell the students from the teachers.  When I was growing up the male teachers wore suits and women dressed up.

Recently my sister and I have noticed that we seem to be heading for a class system of dress.  Most people will fall under that “casual” crowd.  They can dress with holes in their jeans, wear tennis shoes with everything or whatever but there is another class that will show a definite separation between the “commoners” and the “wealthy”.  Eventually, the commoners won’t be able to compete with the wealthy.  Labels on clothing have become very important from your jeans right on down to your shoes and even your purse.  As a young woman growing up I never knew much about labels.  Even today I don’t know a lot about them but I know that eventually those labels will separate us all, rich and poor, so that you will know who you “peeps” really are.  The wealthy can occasionally “slum” with the poor but they can’t “marry” them.  They can have fun with them but “those people” will never be invited to the party unless they happen to be working at it.

In politics this clothing issue is more than evident.  While politicians are having their “state” dinner parties and dressed to the “nines” the poor are living on the streets getting handouts to stay alive.  The divide is drastic and yet we are so busy accepting this casual attire we can’t see the class system that is really developing from all of this.  While my students think it is “cool” to wear ripped, tattered clothing they lose the sense of style that comes with developing attire that fits who you really are and what you really care about as well as appropriate for the time and place.  Clothing can be used to express yourself but when you start looking like a massed produced person expression is lost.  It used to be we had our every day clothes and our church clothes.  Many people don’t go to church on a regular basis any more and maybe don’t feel the need to dress up but when you do dress up you tend to walk a little taller.  Your sense of self is stronger.  You feel more confident and self assured.  You know when you look good and you can feel it.

Today so many are so busy being part of the crowd and buying the lies that are being sold to them that they don’t even realize how their sense of style and self is being whittled away by corporations putting out shoddy merchandise with little or no standards.  Trust me the wealthy are not dressing like the masses.  They are still buying fancy designer gowns and Armani suits and attending everything from the opera to those state dinners.  They are still dressing for success but now they know who their “peeps” are and those peeps are the people that hold the power in America as well as the world.  Those huddled masses that make up the rest of us, they are the commoners that will never be invited to the dinner except as a maid, an usher or a specimen to pull out to show what good deeds the wealthy are doing for the rest of us, yes, we the commoners.  The next time you get dressed think about what you are saying by what you wear.

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