For our pre-service this school year, we had Dr. Harold Blatt and Gloria Klinefelter from Community Circle of Care give a presentation called Bridges Out of Poverty. This was a very good presentation. Our data has shown a disparity between our low Social economic status students and the rest of the population. The district professional development committee which is made up of administrators and teachers decided to try this in-service. It gave a very good representation of the difference in thought processes for people in both generational and situational poverty. We have a high per cent of free and reduced lunch students and this in-service was very timely. We hope to have a follow up on this later in the year.
I was discussing this with some of our teachers. A few of us could relate to this and realized that our thinking when we grew up was like the people of poverty that were represented in the presentation. I never realized that I grew up in poverty, but now I realize that my family really was poor. I always felt that, as much as I wanted to, I never fit in with the "middle class" students around me. There was a culture of thinking that I did not fit in. I realize that now. It really hurt and bewildered me at the time.
Mom and Dad went to work after 8th grade. Neither of my sisters went to college.I went to college mostly because a football coach asked me to come play community college football. I stayed in college because I worked in different factories in summer and during the school year to pay for expenses. I knew that I really did not want to work in a factory for the rest of my life. Good decision. I also admired many of my high school and college coaches and thought that profession would be a good one to enter. For 25 years, my wife and I and two children survived on one teacher/coach salary and what my wife made working in daycare, and taking our younger daughter to preschool. She did a great job of raising our two girls. The trade off was that our children could not have the material possessions that their friends had.
Twelve years ago, I made the switch to administration. My salary now is much higher than I ever dreamed it would be when I grew up. I take nothing for granted. We have worked very hard to get to the point that we are in our lives.
When I left teaching and coaching which took up most nights and weekends for twenty five years, I actually had the time to golf. With the administrator salary, I also could afford to play golf. I never dreamed about playing this game when I grew up. That was something that the "other people" did.
So now I play golf and really enjoy the game. So, back to the title of this blog, I now play golf......because I can.
