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I Just Feel Worn Out”: Constraints to Teacher Agency throughout COVID-19
Get PDFCOVID-19 created serious and long-lasting difficulties within educational systems resulting in higher rates of teacher attrition in the U.S. Teacher agency, which is the teacher’s capacity to act professionally, is a predictor of teacher attrition. The school environment, through policies and practices, can inhibit teacher agency, and the constraint of agency promotes teacher attrition. As school structures shift to address new post-pandemic needs, there is an increased need to understand how school structures throughout the pandemic inhibited teacher agency and drove teacher attrition. We examine how school systems constrained the agency of three veteran high school teachers from March 2020 through their resignation in May 2022. The participants shared how their agentic constraints in the remote (reduced instructional time, optional student web cameras, changes to grading policy) and hybrid/ in-person (addition of common assessments, administrative responses to new student behaviors) learning environments led to growing feelings of disenfranchisement and directly motivated their resignation. Campus administrators also experienced limited agency and could not effectively address the teachers’ barriers during COVID-19. Implications are discussed
Bridging the Cultural Divide: A Single Case Study to Describe the Lived Experiences of a High School Senior from a Mexican American Working-Class Family
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Bridging the Cultural Divide:
A Single Case Study to Describe the Lived Experiences of a High School Senior from a Mexican American Working-Class Family
The United States’ education system lacks a commitment to multicultural education. This failure to validate all students’ cultural assets is problematic. Multicultural education challenges the status quo to change schools to validate the diverse backgrounds of students of color (Banks, 1993; Banks & Banks, 2015). The United States education system must adopt a multicultural education policy that focuses on equity, freedom, and diversity to ensure students’ success (Grant & Tate, 1995). Consequently, schools and students benefit academically and socially when schools validate, incorporate, and respect underrepresented students’ cultures as an integral part of the school curriculums and classroom cultures. This inclusion is crucial because multicultural education benefits teachers and administrators (Ladson-Billings, 1994). This paper explores the lived experiences of a bilingual Mexican American high school senior and first-generation college student as she navigated school and a hegemonic society that fights cultural and linguistic diversity. This paper describes the student’s lived experiences and the influences of hegemony on her and her family’s lives. The researcher audio-recorded the participant’s interview in her home. The participant responded to three primary questions and 30 supporting questions. In addition, the researcher asked questions that solicited details about her school experiences as a child of immigrants. The study’s findings conceivably inform school administrators, curriculum designers, teachers, boards of education, and other K-12 decision-makers of the need to implement multicultural education.
Keywords: multicultural education, cultural capital, funds of knowledge, white privilege, marginalization, hegemony, macroculture, segmented assimilation theory, critical race theory (CRT), anti-racist education, linguistic diversity, hegemony, DE
Are you ready for retirement? Retirement and quality of life as resources
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Retirement in later life has been considered as an important aspect of life course, because it contributes in many ways to one’s life change, social relations updates, and health declines. Although aging brings with changes and declining all aspects of life, many older adults still remain in active after their retirement. This study will address about relationships between older adults’ retirement and its’ quality-of-life resource. Retirement, itself, may be associated with a loss of professional colleagues and work-related friends (Gloria et al, 2015). By contrast, growing numbers of older adults may maintain their active participation in social networks through diverse physical activities including daily exercise after their retirement (Hooyman & Kiyak, 2020). Compared to working adults, retired older adults may have a greater amount of time to be involved in diverse physical activities (Feldman, 2013). Given that aging processes encompass social, emotional, and physical changes or adaptations, it is clear that aging can be considered as not only a physical but also a social process (Lee & Bakk, 2001). The current study’s findings build on accounting for how older adults’ retirement differentially explained to their quality of life. A directive for future research is to examine more diverse variables which explain the dynamic relationships between older adults’ demographic factors
Air Pollutants around an Animal Feed Processing Facility in Nacogdoches, TX: A Study on Their Effect on Local Outdoor Air Quality
Get PDFIn this exploratory study, different odorous compounds were measured near TFP Nutrition to better understand the impact of odor on local outdoor air quality. TFP Nutrition produces pet feed, livestock feed, and agricultural fertilizer for local brand Lone Star Feeds. It is known in the Nacogdoches area for producing powerful odors near its facilities. It is in the downtown area of the city and in proximity to an elementary school, recreational softball fields, and residential homes. Odors can be connected to the presence of air pollutants. This study on air quality was performed to quantify this data on odors for public education, health purposes, and further research if necessary. Two Nasal Ranger® Field Olfactometers (St. Croix Sensory) were used simultaneously: one evaluated general odor while the other evaluated ammonia (NH ₃ ) odors. In addition, weather conditions, which included temperature, wind direction, and wind speed, were collected using two pocket weather trackers (Model 4500, Kestrel). Sampling occurred twice per week at five different locations near the plant. Notable findings included dilution to threshold (D/T) ratios at the highest possible value of 60 at certain locations on different days. Overall, the highest D/T ratios for both categories of odors (general and ammonia) were found at location 4 southwest of the facility. Wind direction seemed to make a large impact as the highest D/T ratios were detected at times the wind traveled in a direction from the facility toward the sample locations. An important discovery was that each time a D/T ratio greater than 2 was detected on the Nasal Ranger evaluating general odor, a D/T ratio of equal or lesser value was also detected on the Nasal Ranger evaluating ammonia odor, making the connection that much of the odor from this facility may be related to ammonia
How to be an Anti-Racist Educator: A Book Review Through an Educational Perspective
Get PDFThe authors reviewed the book How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (2019) while reflecting on how Kendi’s brilliant dismantlement of racism and discrimination would help educators become conscious of how racism operates in our society, their schools, and their communities. Kendi’s book could motivate teachers to self-reflect on intrinsic feelings and misconceptions about race and culture built over time, allowing them to adopt new attitudes towards their students and school community. The authors considered the need to reevaluate systemic racism in schools as research has, for instance, found evidence of discriminatory practices towards African American boys (Gregory & Roberts, 2017). Therefore, teachers must engage in their subjective experiences about race to avoid decisions based on stereotypes and fight different forms of systemic racism in schools
Seasonal Dynamics and Glycerol-3-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Variability in Ixodes scapularis Tick Population in Eastern Texas
Get PDFObjectives: 1. Document seasonal population dynamics of I. scapularis in eastern Texas. 2. Explore variability of GPDH in I. scapularis ticks in eastern Texas and relate data to its population dynamics
How to Lose $5.2 Million in Your Operational Budget and Still Make It Balance
Get PDFSome cities experience exponential growth. Some cities experience operating budget shortfalls. Significantly few cities experience both simultaneously and are still able to balance their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year. This is the predicament a small municipality found itself in as it was forced to face unimaginable challenges at the beginning of fiscal year 2022. The operational budget shortfall could happen to any municipality and may have even happened to yours.
This article will explore what happened, how it was discovered, what was done to balance the budget, and what measures were put in place to prevent this from happening in the future. To understand how this happened, you will need to first understand the process that was being used, how the operational budget was presented to the city council, and some of the “tricks” that were used to veil actual representations
Identifying and Analyzing Multi-Star Systems Among TESS Planetary Candidates Using Gaia
Get PDFExoplanets represent a young, rapidly advancing subfield of astrophysics where much is still unknown. It is therefore important to analyze trends among their parameters to learn more about these systems. More complexity is added to these systems with the presence of additional stellar companions. To study these complex systems, one can employ programming languages such as Python to parse databases such as those constructed by TESS and Gaia to bridge the gap between exoplanets and stellar companions. Data can then be analyzed for trends in these multi-star exoplanet systems and in juxtaposition to their single-star counterparts. This research was able to automate the data collection process and the findings generally concluded that most multi-star systems host stars similar in size to the sun that are cooler, less luminous and will therefore have a longer lifetime. In comparison to single star systems, more complex systems were observed to have slightly larger orbital periods, yet smaller planet radii and mass
The Intersection of Academic Freedom and Trigger Warnings
Get PDFThe purpose of this policy brief is to explore the intersection of academic freedom and trigger warnings. The author argues that the vague language within academic freedom policies and the blurred lines between judicial jurisdiction over first amendment rights and institutional jurisdiction over academic freedom policies sets the stage for future limitations on teachers’ rights within the classroom. Te author also argues that while much attention is given to the academic freedoms of instructors, more attention should be afforded to the academic freedoms of students when considering their requests for trigger warnings