Let's Talk About Sex...Education

As many of you know, my side gig when I'm not being a professional blogger is teaching high school English (well, maybe it's the other way around, but let’s pretend).  The other day, as a reward for finishing their state tests, I was letting my students talk quietly in groups and do word games.  I sat next to three of my 9th graders (3 girls and a boy) and quickly joined in on their discussion.

They were talking about teenage pregnancy, noticing the high number of girls in the high school who were currently pregnant.  The tone of the conversation started playful, but the students were asking some very serious questions.  The sole male student in our group directed the following question to me:

“Yo, Miss-- who do you think is more responsible for getting pregnant-- the boy or the girl?” 

A Matter of Life and Death

Happy Holidays, readers!  Let's talk dead bodies...

Without Autopsies Hospitals Bury Their Mistakes

The above article is a part of the ongoing ProPublica/NPR/PBS Frontline investigation into American coroner and medical examiner offices (very cool information; see here).  In it, journalist Marshall Allen describes the decline of autopsies in the modern healthcare system. 


Whereas autopsies used to be routine procedures in the case of all hospital deaths, the autopsy rate has now plummeted to 5% of all hospital deaths. Among private and community hospitals--which account for 80% of hospitals--that rate hovers around 0%. While autopsy is crucial in determining disease progression, pathogen dissemination, medical mis-diagnosis, and faulty treatment, most hospitals have simply chosen not to perform them.

To Protect and Serve Whom: the Red Herring of Prostitution Convictions

According to a recent Feministe article, the New York City Police Department is engaged in a practice which may be counter-intuitive to public safety. Current law enforcement policy allows for the use of condoms as evidence in the prosecution of prostitutes. This is deeply problematic for several reasons, mainly that it is a major disincentive for sex workers (and a disincentive for folks, in general) to carry prophylactics. As reporter Crystal DeBoise notes:

This practice is an outright slap in the face to the decades of hard work that public health advocates have undertaken to increase safe sex, decrease HIV and create a positive shift in the cultural acceptance of condom use. This policy discourages a stigmatized and marginalized group of sexually active people from carrying the tools they need to be healthy and safe.

Is it ADHD?

Let's do a little thought experiment:  Imagine you are teaching a student with ADHD. They have trouble focusing in class and controlling their actions. They are disorganized, procrastinate on assignments, and have difficulty completing even the simplest of tasks. Assignments are cluttered with careless mistakes and sloppy handwriting. Classroom behavior is unruly, at best.

Now, my big question:

Go Directly to Jail: Do Not Pass Go, But Do Collect Healthcare

This is kind of one of those “WTF” stories about which I feel compelled to comment:

"Bank Robber Planned Crime and Punishment."

Before I begin, I should note that this happened several months ago, but, akin to my obsession with Mad Men or love affair with Miley Cyrus, I am a little behind the times on current events and trends. I am, however, TOTALLY up-to-date on aimless internet browsing, which is how I found about about this.

To continue, this past June, in North Carolina, James Richard Verone planned and executed a $1 bank robbery with the intention that he would be incarcerated.  Laid-off from his job of 17 years, suffering from chronic pain, unable to afford healthcare, and denied disability insurance, Verone planned his imprisonment so that he might finally be able to obtain much-needed healthcare that had been denied to him through traditional means.  

In this country, we are loathe to view healthcare as a basic human right.  In fact, we are the only industrialized nation that does not have a universal healthcare system.  This is due, in large part, to  a market culture which views healthcare as a commodity—something which is bought and sold, can accrue profit,  and the cost of which is determined by basic laws of supply and demand, however manipulated those are.   Through Verone’s case, one sees that the only way to access healthcare as a right in this country is to become part of the penal system.   Let me just say, I find it deeply ironic and symptomatic of an unjust society that a citizen gains rights by virtue of being a prisoner. Yet this is the trajectory America has been on for many years, as social welfare, which, by definition, ensures the dignity and well-being of persons, has all-but collapsed (or, as in the case of healthcare, was never properly developed in the first place).  

The Emotional Demand of Teaching

In his recent NY Times op-ed, “In Honor of Teachers,” Charles M. Blow addresses why so few people enter the teaching profession and why, of those that do, half leave within the first five years. In response to his own inquiry, he reveals the many arduous (though often ignored) demands on teachers: poor working conditions, long hours hours, less pay, lack of professional credibility. Importantly, he poses the following question which gets to the heart of the issue:

...how do we expect to entice the best and brightest to become teachers when we keep tearing the profession down? We take the people who so desperately want to make a difference that they enter a field where they know that they’ll be overworked and underpaid, and we scapegoat them as the cause of a societywide failure.

I'm sure by now you all can hear my pseudo-beatnik-agreement-snapping from wherever you are in the country (hopefully you are doing the same but with more style). This article got me thinking, however, about an under-reported difficulty of teaching not addressed here: emotional stress. I think that it is this stress, as much as the issues enumerated above, which contributes to high teacher burnout and turnover.

I present here two problems which most represent the high emotional demands on teachers:

The Downsizing of Big Pharma: Brain-Drain or Blessing?

“As Big Pharma downsizes, a major loss of brain power."

The above Philadelphia Inquirer article follows several women in the pharmaceutical industry who have been laid off in the past months. The women are part of a trend that has seen thousands of pharmaceutical researchers, developers, marketers, and other employees losing jobs. The reason for the down-size is that many so-called “blockbuster drugs”-- high-earning drugs that treat common problems-- are now coming off their patents, meaning that any company (not just Merck or Pfizer) can develop generic versions of these drugs for cheaper. This equates to a substantial loss of revenue for the big players in the industry, who had gleaned most of their profit from these drugs. It also means big changes for industry-led research, which will now likely focus on developing so-called “niche” drugs that treat less common conditions.

While the content is informative, I find the tone and scope of this piece deeply unsettling.