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Jackson’s casualties of the culture war
I’ve been spending a lot of time on social media doom scrolling. I don’t do this on purpose; it’s just that I’m slapped in the face with it every time I open Twitter or Facebook. For the uninitiated, doom scrolling is the process of sliding your thumb up and down your screen as you are […]
Tennessee fails to address need for more Black educators
The end of August begins to bring a sense of normalcy to the awkward tension that always exists at the beginning of each school year, as teachers and students find ways to understand and relate to one another. Like any human interaction, trust has to be built for a relationship to grow and, to learn […]
Career educator: Tennessee Gov. Lee fooled me into thinking he cares about public education
In September, I accepted a position as the Chief Communications Officer for Haywood County Schools in Brownsville, Tenn. For anyone unfamiliar, Brownsville is the home of singer Tina Turner, the Hatchie River, and is about 30 miles east of Memphis. Since last fall, though, its identity has been found as the new home of Ford’s […]
Madison County “culture war” is a fight worth having
Since the beginning of time, relationships between humans have existed in many other forms and fashions other than monogamous, heterosexual affiliations. Until recently, however, those relationships were not equally recognized from a legal perspective or carried the same weight of acceptance from a broad portion of society. The strides that have been made over the […]
Commentary: Southern Baptist Convention silences women
For the first 25 years of my life, I attended church religiously. I was an active member of the youth group in a Southern Baptist church. I enrolled in college at Union University—a conservative, Southern Baptist institution. When I graduated, I became the youth minister at my home church, and eventually a deacon at the […]
Commentary: Threatening voters in open primaries is anti-democratic
My first active experience in the election process was voting in the presidential election in 2000 when George W. Bush was running against Al Gore. I was a senior at Union University — a highly conservative, Southern Baptist university in Jackson, Tenn. I didn’t really do any research on the candidates because as a good […]
Commentary: Investing in Tennessee’s children is long overdue
My girlfriend lives in southeast Pennsylvania, so every other Friday I hop on a plane in Nashville and fly up. This past weekend, we were at a party in Philadelphia and during the course of conversation with a group of people, I mentioned that I lived in Tennessee. I got a side-eye from one person, […]
Commentary: That’s what the money’s for
There’s a scene in an episode of the television series “Mad Men” that I haven’t been able to get out of my head recently. In the scene, anti-hero Don Draper is working late on a Friday night because he’s miserable and wants to make everyone else miserable, too. Copywriter Peggy Olsen is also staying late […]
Commentary: Regressive discipline policy in Jackson-Madison County Schools is wrong direction
Up until about a month ago, my work days were spent in the presence of 20-25 adolescents who were navigating changing bodies, volatile emotions, teen angst, and the best way to learn the latest TikTok dances. In other words, I was a middle school teacher – arguably the most challenging job in the world of […]
Commentary: ‘Unapologetic American exceptionalism’ exists in a whitewashed world
I follow Gov. Bill Lee on Instagram. He’s probably not the first person that comes to mind when one thinks of cutting edge, visual social media. I don’t follow him because I’m a fan of his policies or his plaid shirts or even his folksy, staged pictures in Anytown, Tennessee. I definitely don’t follow him […]
Commentary: Our children will bear the brunt of state’s mishandling of COVID-19 crisis
As a teacher, I can pinpoint distinct feelings associated with each part of the year. The obvious excitement of the end of the school year in late spring with students wrapping up exams and desks being pushed to the perimeter of the room for the annual waxing of the floor over the summer. The tired, […]
Commentary: Educators will continue to teach the truth of America’s racial history
As a West Tennessee public school teacher of 18 years, my life has taken on a rhythmic pattern – pedal to the floor, hair on fire for ten months and then two months of rest during the summer. The same process year in and year out. June and July have always afforded me a time […]