#maybe this is a public school thing like the multiple choice test skills everyone in university seems to have that I've never heard of

[emkini]

Okay wait hold on do you people actually pay attention to time when you take tests?? As in you calculate exactly how much time you can spend on certain sections instead of just vibing through???

[kuroopaisen]

Im not sure if this is an apropriate or sensibke question to ask but is there a way to know what constitutes as good education?

nah you're fine, it's an important question to ask. i guess the answer is subjective, but i personally understand it as having access to a plentiful education (a school offering a wide range of subjects to study vs. a meagre few), access to genuinely good teachers (of which there are alarmingly few), and the reputability of the school you went to. and usually, those things are linked with coming from an affluent family. the best way i know how to answer it is by using the two examples i'm familiar with: australia's op system and england's catchment areas.

back when i lived in england, where you went to school was based on where you lived (referred to as your catchment area). parents would often try to move to certain areas specifically for the purpose of getting their kids into better schools. and surprise surprise, the areas with 'better schools' would often be in areas that were more expensive. otherwise, you can send your child to a private school and those are. ludicrously expensive because of course they are.

there is the option of grammar schools which are academically focused, but they're notoriously difficult to get into and i'm pretty sure you have to get into them young. you literally have to peform well on a set tests when you're eleven if you want to get into a grammar school. now granted i haven't lived in england for the past decade and a bit so maybe things have changed, but basically your socioeconomic class played a significant role in your ability to access quality education.

now in queensland, they used to have this system called the 'op'. i think they got rid of it recently but they used it for, what? twenty years?

anyway, the idea of the op is that you take this thing called the qcs (queensland core skills) in your final year, and everyone in your cohort takes it. every other grade 12 student in queensland takes it too. then, the average of your cohort's grades are taken and how well your school did in comparison to other schools affects your final score. you could be the most hardworking student in the world and get straight a's, but if your cohort does really badly on the qcs then you won't be able to get an op 1 (the best score you can get).

the public/private divide isn't as strong as it is in england, and there are more ""affordable"" private schools in queensland, but the more expensive schools often have specific qcs training from outside professionals for their students (training includes, like... learning how to answer multiple choice questions efficiently and also familiarising what you qcs is trying to test and whatnot). and that training often equals higher scores on the qcs. so once again, how affluent you are effects your access to 'good' education.

that’s not even getting into issues like the rural-urban divide, the fact that teachers are horrendously underpaid and the issue of funding education is. fucked (and poorer schools often have to just... take who they can get, regardless of how good they are at their job) and a whole host of other issues with education. class and education are linked, especially when it comes to high schools. 

i’m going to shut up now and i’m not sure if i explained myself very well but HH 

[meta-squash]

Your ADHD procrastination post has really stroke a nerve with me. I've had the same issue for years, but thought it's normal for everyone. Since about a year or so, I've been wondering if I may have an undiagnosed ADHD along diagnosed conditions. If it's not too personal, how else ADHD manifests in you? I hope it's okay to ask. I love hearing women's stories about ADHD because they are much different than the stereotypical image of it...

It’s not too personal! (FYI I go by they/them pronouns, but I am afab; it’s all good though!) Also, this got VERY long, I’m sorry! I’m verbose and have a lot to say, apparently.

So I personally have a weird relationship with ADHD. I was diagnosed with it (or some sort of attention deficit thing) when I was in like 3rd or 4th grade. I was briefly medicated but I think I was on Ritalin (I forget) and my child body couldn’t handle it; I was a zombie during the day and then when it wore off at night I was Evil and freaked out and wanted to fight everything. So I went off it pretty quick and didn’t get medicated after, presumably because my parents thought my ADHD wasn’t bad enough.

The reason they probably thought that is because my brother has Really Bad ADHD. Like, all the classic stereotypical symptoms and characteristics to the extreme: never shuts the fuck up, really damn loud all the time, extremely high energy, can learn pretty much anything in about 5 seconds but can’t actually hang on to an interest really (now that he’s an adult he can, but not as a kid), can’t sit still or pay attention in class, doesn’t finish homework, etc etc. I was able to mask mine and function enough to get through school just riding pretty much on my humanities grades alone. It sucked a lot but I somehow did it. I had an IEP (Individual Education Plan, which is a US school thing for kids with learning disabilities and such that allows for accommodations and assistance in school) but it didn’t do much except I think give me extra time on math tests because of my dyscalculia (I was in Special Ed Math my whole grade school career). My mother is an OT but I also think that (as you said) ADHD in afab people often manifests differently than in amab people, so I guess my parents just didn’t know what to look for and that’s why I never really got the same help as my brother.

I like to jokingly categorize ADHD into two distinct but overlapping types: Fast ADHD and Mush Brain ADHD. Fast ADHD (in my opinion; this may vary from person to person) is the classic stereotype symptoms. Fast ADHD’s focus problem is too much happening all at once. Lots of thoughts and ideas flying by and you get distracted mid-thought with another thought, or your train of thought gets really crazy but is super fast so your reply to someone’s comment might not make much sense to anyone else because they weren’t privy to your brain’s journey, or you go down a focus worm-hole and sit and do One Thing all day and forget to surface for things like food/water/bathroom. Fast ADHD has more energy (though when paired with depression that usually manifests as restlessness or anxiety) and is quicker to pick up new things. Mush Brain ADHD is kind of the opposite. Thoughts take longer, or you think of something and then it almost immediately disappears (for example, scrolling a website, seeing something that you want to google, you scroll for like 5 more seconds and think “wait, I completely forget what I was going to look up”). With Mush Brain ADHD it’s harder to have conversations because thought-to-mouth time is slower, rather than (with Fast Brain) lots of stuff is going on up there. Mush Brain often feels like, well, mush and like you can’t really form thoughts very well if you want to do stuff. It’s like you’re trying to focus on thinking a thought but it just slides away. Another way I’d describe it is having thoughts but it’s like they’re on a blackboard and they’re being erased as you think them, so they end up mostly smears. Obviously, this is just based on my own experiences as a Mush Brain ADHD person while my brother has Fast Brain ADHD, so this might be different for other people.

Both have lots of overlaps: executive dysfunction (that’s the big one), insomnia, auditory processing problems, hyperfixation (which is not a bad thing! I love my hyperfixations! They’re fun!), absolutely crap organizational skills, constantly losing things, really bad perception of time, detachment from the world (like you drift off into your own daydream, or things feel distant, but not quite the same as depersonalization/dissociating),  difficulty making choices, sensory processing disorder, crap abilities with money, rejection sensitive dysphoria, and often comorbid mental illnesses like depression, OCD, anxiety, dyscalculia/dyslexia, etc.

 Oh, and a lot of ADHD characteristics also overlap with depression characteristics (and a lot of people with ADHD have comorbid depression, so it really doesn’t help).

But I can tell you about my own experiences with some of these.

The Big One which is basically what that schrodingers motivation post is about, is executive dysfunction. People also call it procrastination (it only kind of is) or inertia. Basically, executive dysfunction is where the difficulty lies in starting the task. You want to do something, but you just can’t get going to do it. You get sort of paralyzed. It even happens with things you like. For example, when I made that post, there was a short (just over 100 pgs) book I wanted to read before the end of the day. It’s a good book! It’s on my reading list! I want to read it! But I just sat on my computer and watched dumb youtube videos because that’s what I was already doing and executive dysfunction makes starting tasks really hard. This happens to me a lot. It can happen with reading a book, or getting up to go to the store and buy groceries, or making a meal, or watching a movie. The movie-watching one happens to me a lot. Basically it’s the brain struggling to switch tasks; you’re scrolling tumblr, and that’s what your brain is focused on, and it doesn’t know how to switch from doing that to doing your bio homework or folding the laundry or whatever the task may be. This happens with “bigger” or more complex tasks too, like starting an art project or starting a new book, because your brain has to figure out all the components of that task (I need these items for my project and this amount of time and I need to use them in this order) which is overwhelming, or it needs to comprehend how “big” the task is (how much time/concentration should I try and commit to in order to read this book) which is sometimes hard to gauge. Oh, also this can happen if you’re interrupted in the middle of a task, whether it’s to do another thing or just to answer a question or something; it’s hard to get back to it because it’s another kind of switching tasks. Aside from the blackboard-being-wiped-thoughts, this is my biggest ADHD problem. I can go more into how I dealt with executive dysfunction in college and now if you want!

Auditory processing issues is another thing that I deal with, although to a lesser extent than some people. It just means it’s harder for your brain to process sounds/talking. Part of this, for me, is because if someone is talking to me but there’s other noises (music, other conversations, general loudish ambiance) going on around us, my brain treats them all as equally important and I can’t focus in on the person talking. Another part for me is in my experience I seem to process conversation different from explanation. If I’m talking back and forth with someone about something and it’s not terribly important, I’m fine. If they’re trying to explain something to me, give me instructions, or read a passage of text to me, it just does not stick in my brain. If I’m helping my best friend with her grad school applications, I have to read the sentence she’s asking me check, I can’t have her read it to me. If she does read it to me, I’ve realized that I try to imagine the words as text in my head so I comprehend it better (it doesn’t always work). Auditory processing issues means that a lot of my conversations in public with people who are not my close friends (and therefore easier to pick out from the noise because familiar and/or easier to predict because familiar) are filled with a lot of me going “what?” Retail conversations with customers are slightly easier because there’s at least a mild “script” that they’ll stick to, usually.

Another one I experience is organizational problems. This one was bad enough that I actually went to a tutor-like thing to help me with it for most of grade school. Basically, I had no ability to organize tasks like doing homework or other activities, so things would get forgotten/lost/never even written in the calendar/etc. I couldn’t do projects because I couldn’t (and still kinda can’t) organize far enough into the future. I didn’t know how to break the project down across multiple days or weeks and make it manageable without totally forgetting pieces of it. I’d forget to write down homework when the teacher wrote it on the board, or I’d write it down but forget to do it. Or I’d do it but misplace it or leave it at home. My perception of time was also really crap; I couldn’t read an analogue clock until I was in maybe 6th grade? Even now I sometimes have trouble. It was hard to know how much time I had to allot to certain projects because I didn’t really have good perception of how hours fit in the day and how much time until homework is due and stuff. (Which meant lots of finishing things in class minutes before I had to turn it in and stuff. Once in uni I completely forgot to do an Entire Essay; luckily it wasn’t a class I needed to graduate.)

Along with this is losing EVERYTHING. I misplace things CONSTANTLY. I’ll put something that’s in my hand down to get a cup of tea or something, or even just to like, move a blanket, and I’ll forget where I put it. I’ve solved this problem with Important Things (wallet, phone, and keys always go next to my bed, for example, and rarely move from there if they’re not in my pocket. All important papers go in my Important Papers Folder as soon as soon as possible) but I lose regular stuff all the time. I’ll be working on an art project, I’ll put my glue stick down to reach for a piece of paper, and lose the glue stick in the time it takes to pull the paper towards me. The other day I was brushing my teeth and I put the toothbrush cover down to say hello to the cat and forgot where I had put it down once I had followed her to the next room. When things have a Place it’s easier, but I’ve learned to live with going “Where the FUCK did I put this thing? I had it a second ago!” at least once a day.

The “Mush” in “Mush Brain” is another big one for me. I don’t know if this has, like, a name? Or anything? It’s just what I call it. The best description for it would either be that blackboard description from above, or like you’re struggling to get to a thought through a lot of mud. Oftentimes I’ll have a sort of concept of a thought but not something full, and I know it’s there, but I can’t get to it. This is really apparent when I’m trying to remember a synonym for something, or trying to elaborate on certain concepts or pull ideas from texts. It doesn’t happen all the time. I was an English lit major in uni, so this affected me a lot back then. It’s sort of a similar feeling to reading the same sentence over and over and not registering the words, except it’s in your own brain instead. This kind of goes away for me when I’m writing/typing. Writing this out is easy (minus me forgetting the word executive dysfunction for like 5 minutes) but if you were asking me to explain this aloud I would struggle, probably. This is probably because I can stare at what I’ve written to see what’s missing or edit my thoughts, which I can’t do while I’m speaking, and also can’t do to other people’s interactions with me.

Just a general inability to focus is also one I struggle with. It goes with the “mush brain” to an extent but I think it’s different. It’s more like my brain doesn’t want to, well, focus on anything. If I’m just messing around on my laptop, that means I end up clicking back and forth between tabs endlessly because nothing is holding my interest. If I’m trying to read or do anything “intellectual” or “academic” it means I just can’t get myself to read or I can’t keep my thoughts on what I’m trying to write no matter how hard I try. Nothing holds my interest for long enough, it’s like brain restlessness. I try and concentrate on doing something, watching something, reading something, and my brain just slides away from it.

Rejection sensitive dysphoria is something I experience on a more minor level. It’s something that also overlaps with anxiety and depression. Basically, it’s a really intense emotional reaction to (perceived) rejection. For example, if my best friend says something to me with a certain tone or gets mad at me for doing something minor, my brain just goes “She hates you! She doesn’t want to be friends with you! You should isolate in your room and never speak to anyone again because you’re so annoying and terrible!” I know that’s mostly incorrect (although I also know I’m quite annoying and that’s another ADHD characteristic; knowing you’re annoying someone in some way and having no idea how to stop) so I can fight it but sometimes I do end up holing up in my room for a little bit. Things like criticism (whether towards you or towards, like, an essay or something) can also trigger this reaction. So can things like having an expectation that you’ll be good at something, and then failing at it or just not being as good as you’d hoped. (I developed a sort of defense mechanism for this one of never expecting to be good at things and never expect higher than a C in a class.) It also can come with a sense of feeling inferior around people doing similar things. It happens to me a lot here on tumblr, actually, because I’ll write a meta about something, and then read someone else’s good meta on the same thing, and feel like I’m an idiot and they’re really smart and nothing that I wrote was insightful or good. It happened to me in uni a lot too. It also happens to me kind of...secondhand, now. What I mean is, my best friend/roommate is extremely smart. Like genuinely one of the smartest people I know and an incredible thinker, straight A’s at uni in a degree she created, etc. She still gets imposter syndrome herself and feels like she’s not smart, and when she says she’s not smart, I feel bad for her but I also feel really terrible about myself, because if she thinks she’s stupid, then what am I? But again, it’s an overreaction to perceived rejection. It still sucks though.

There’s some evidence that ADHD comes with a whacked out sleep schedule. And not just insomnia (although that too, I know this because it’s 7am and I haven’t slept yet lol), but also Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder. Which basically means that most people’s circadian rhythms start slowing down so they’ll go to sleep around like 11pm-1am-ish, give or take. ADHD circadian rhythms are shifted so often we start getting tired around 3am or even 4 or 5am. (This is different from insomnia, btw, with DSPD you can fall asleep fairly easily, you just get tired later in the night; with insomnia it’s an inability to or difficulty in falling asleep quickly.) I always thought I’d just gotten my dad’s night owl genes, but it’s more likely that it’s the ADHD. I also have at least mild insomnia and it takes me a million years to fall asleep a lot of the time.

Hyperfixations are the Fun part of having ADHD (in my opinion). They can get in the way sometimes but they’re also really comforting and nice. Hyperfixations happen when you find an interest and it’s basically all you want to think or talk about, and you relate to the world through it, and you want to learn everything about it. It’s also a characteristic of autism. I’m not autistic, so I don’t know if there are major differences between ADHD hyperfixation experiences and autism ones. Anyway, often hyperfixations stick with you for a good amount of time, depending on the strength, and then you might find something else to focus on. Some of my hyperfixations have lasted a few months, some up to 4 years. A lot of ADHD people rotate through the same or similar ones. For example, a hyperfixation I had back in 2011-2014/15ish was Les Miserables. I then found a different thing to hyperfixate on. This past year I have returned to Les Mis. Hyperfixations are usually pretty cool, because it’s usually something you really like and enjoy learning about or doing and it’s kind of like the thing your brain would rather be doing/focusing on.

Personally, I’ve lived so long without ADHD medication that I’m fairly functional without it just due to coming up with personal adaptations and stuff. The thing that I have the hardest time with/that upsets me the most is the Mush Brain part, which also gets worse when my depression gets worse. I really would love to have clear, quick thoughts whenever I want. It’s frustrating to hold a conversation or try to write creatively and quickly when it takes forever for thoughts to fully crystallize in my brain and then come out my mouth or fingers. Right now I don’t have very good health insurance (all blame to covid layoffs) so I can’t really do the meds thing but I often wish I could. My ADHD is definitely not as intense or severe as some people’s. I have friends, and also my brother, who struggle a lot more than I do, and with different things

Holy hell this was so long. Feel free to message me if you have any questions! Or if you want me to elaborate on some of the things I do to deal with stuff.

[uncloseted]

What is the best way to find what career path you should take in life? I know ultimately its a choice I’ll have to. make myself but I lack direction and seem to have multiple interests (in like everything...), I wish there was a way to pinpoint what my realistic options were like a place or a site that would take into account my interests, my desired salary, my actual skills, etc.?

So first things first, I think it’s important to say that your field of study/career doesn’t necessarily have to be your passion (and for that matter, what you study at uni doesn’t necessarily dictate your future career- a lot of people have degrees they never use).  I know that many of us have been sold this idea that a career can only be satisfying if it’s our “passion”. I think that’s a convenient narrative for aggressively capitalistic countries (the US being the biggest offender) because it sets a standard that we should be willing to do anything for our passion-career (unpaid internships, working for less than our labor is worth, doing unpaid work, putting up with toxic work environments, unreasonably long commutes…), since we’re not doing it for the money, we’re doing it because we genuinely love our jobs.  Maybe your passion is making dolls from corn husks or golfing or people watching or something else that’s not easy to monetize, and that’s totally okay.  It’s okay to have a job that you don’t love and aren’t super dedicated to because it allows you to do the things you do really love.  Your work shouldn’t have to be your life- work should allow you to live your life.

Anyway, I do have some thoughts about how to find a career that works for you, whatever that might mean. First, I would look into the Japanese concept of ikigai- your “reason for being”.

When searching for your ikigai, I would suggest making a list (no matter how short), of the things you love, the things you’re good at, the things the world needs, and the things you can be paid for.  Look for overlaps in each category, and try your best to think creatively about how you can combine the different categories.  For example, maybe you love movies, you think the world needs to know about global warming, and you’re good at organization.  Your ikigai in that case might be to be a coordinator on documentaries that focus on global warming.  It’s a job that pays pretty well, and also incorporates the other sections on your list, so it’s likely to feel fulfilling.

Moving away from ikigai, there’s this story that I think about a lot.  One of my great uncles told it to me, and I always assumed it was a story from his life until one day I discovered it was actually a chain email called The Parable of the Mexican Fisherman and the Banker.  I still think about it a lot, though, and it’s shaped the way I view work, so maybe it will be useful to you as well.  It goes like this:

An American investment banker was taking a much-needed vacation in a small coastal Mexican village (in my uncle’s story, the fisherman is from Kalymnos and he dives for sponges) when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. The boat had several large, fresh fish in it.

The investment banker was impressed by the quality of the fish and asked the Mexican how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.” The banker then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican fisherman replied he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman replied, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos: I have a full and busy life, señor.”

The investment banker scoffed, “I am an Ivy League MBA (in my family the school is always Harvard), and I could help you. You could spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats until eventually, you would have a whole fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to the middleman you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You could control the product, processing and distribution.”

Then he added, “Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City where you would run your growing enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But señor, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15–20 years.”

“But what then?” asked the Mexican.

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You could make millions.”

“Millions, señor? Then what?”

To which the investment banker replied, “Then you would retire. You could move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

The question that this story prompts for me is, if you had unlimited time and resources, what kind of life would you lead?  Where would you live?  What would you spend your time doing?  Who would you be with?  Would you have pets?  Kids?  What would your daily routine look like?  Maybe the answer for you isn’t a university degree or an office job.  Maybe it’s not millions.  Maybe it’s diving for sponges on a Greek island or being a fisherman in Mexico.  I think it can be helpful to put together an image of that perfect life and then try to reverse engineer the best way of getting there instead of putting the onus on the job you have to shape what kind of life you want to lead.  Maybe you really want to have kids, so you need a job that will have a good parental leave policy or that has flexible hours or that will pay enough to support the family you want to have.  To me, those considerations are just as important as whether or not you feel interested in the job you do every day.

I would also think about the opposite- what kind of life could you absolutely not stand living?  What kind of workplace would drive you crazy?  Knowing what your “hard nos” can help you to narrow down the potential field of options. For example, my hard nos include anything to do with venipuncture, jobs that require me to be organized on behalf of other people, anything that’s heavy on performing/public speaking, jobs where people have high expectations of me (incidentally, this is the reason I’m not a therapist), and any environment that wants me to work more than 40 hours a week.  For some people, all of those are totally doable, but for me they’re not, and that’s okay.  There’s no reason to spend your life doing things that make you miserable.

The last thing I’m going to suggest is the CareerExplorer quiz.  I like this quiz in particular for a few reasons.  First, it’s a really comprehensive test, and so I think it can help you find the language to describe what you’re going through, what your hard yesses and hard nos are, and what you need in a work setting. Even if the answers the test gives aren’t perfect, I think it provides a framework to think about career options because of the questions it asks.  The other reason I really like this test is because so far it’s been 100% correct for everyone I know, even those with more obscure careers, so it seems to be more exact than other career aptitude tests out there.  And the user interface is really nice as well, which is a bonus.

Hopefully some of that is helpful in your decision making process.  And if you ever want someone to bounce ideas off of or help coming up with careers that might be a good fit for you, I’m happy to help.

[tefltraininginstitute]

Why Do We Teach The Way That We Teach? (with Karin Xie)

What shapes the ways we teach? What influences teachers' views and beliefs about language learning? Trinity College London teacher trainer Karin Xie and I discuss what factors we see influencing teachers' ideas about teaching and talk about how our own experiences have informed our views of language teaching and learning.

Why Do We Teach The Way That We Teach - Transcript

 Ross Thorburn:  Today, we have with us Karin Xie. Hi, Karin.

Karin Xie:  Hi, everyone.

Ross:  Karin, do you want to tell us a little bit about what you do? You do teacher training. Tell us who you do teacher training for.

Karin:  I work with teachers who prepare students for exams. It's a graded speaking exam that focuses on communication skills.

Ross:  You were saying also for those teachers, a lot of them end up teaching in a way that they were taught before, right? Which is really quite different to what the exam measures.

Karin:  Yeah. In my experience with the teachers, I found a lot of them, they would still focus on teaching students the knowledge, like the grammar and the vocabulary, so that students have the knowledge for the exam but not really the skills. I wondered why. I found that relates to how they were taught when they were students. How they learned language and how they were trained.

Ross:  That got us into this conversation about all the different things that might affect how teachers teach to them, we just mentioned. One is how you were taught as a student backwash, and then how teachers are trained.

Today, we're going to try and look at what affects how teachers teach. Let's start off by talking about backwash, you mentioned earlier. What's backwash?

Karin:  It's the impact an assessment has on classroom teaching. For example, for [inaudible 1:18] exams, it's a one‑to‑one, face‑to‑face conversation the candidate has with an examiner. There's no script, no question banks.

To prepare students for that, the teacher has to mimic what's happening in the real exam and give the students a lot of chance to use the language at their own choice and express what they want to say, ask questions, etc.

Ross:  I guess a good example backwash, and maybe less good would be what? If your test is a multiple choice, pick the right tense of the verb exam, right?

Karin:  Yeah, exactly.

Ross:  In that situation, people end up just...

Karin:  Giving students lots of words to remember and do a lot of written exams that don't really prepare learners for real‑life languages.

Ross:  It's amazing how much of an effect that they can have on what happens in the classroom. IELTS, for example, the speaking part of that test, this is one of my bugbears is that the students don't have to ask any questions in the IELTS speaking exam.

If you think of what effect is that going to have in the classroom? If you're preparing students for IELTS, why would you ever teach them to ask a question? Because you never need to do that.

Of course, people usually take the IELTS so they can study abroad or so they can move to another country. I think we all agree that if you do move to another country, one of the main things you have to do is ask questions because a lot of the time you don't know what's going on.

Karin:  Yeah. Any kind of speaking exchange requires contribution from both people whereas in IELTS, the examiner is not allowed to contribute to the communication by say, giving comments or giving support.

Ross:  Absolutely.

Karin:  I think maybe we could add one point here...

Ross:  Sure, of course.

Karin:  ...about the materials teachers use, especially with new teachers. Very often you see the teachers fall into the flow, what it says, and just use it as it is.

Ross:  Materials can almost act as a source of teacher training if they're good materials, because teachers will get into the habit, maybe if they're new teachers, of following whatever structure there is in the coursebook.

It's problematic though, isn't it, if the structure in the coursebook may be using ideal or if the coursebook has been written for first year teachers and you never move beyond that.

Karin:  Or if the book doesn't allow a lot of communicative activities, the teacher may not even think about designing any activities for students to talk to each other and work with each other.

I remember you were really excited when you were designing materials. You were like, "If you do a teacher training workshop with the teachers, you are not so sure whether they're going to apply everything. But if you design good teaching materials, you are kind of sure that they're going to use it somehow." I don't know if that's...

Ross:  [laughs] I guess that must be before I'd seen the reality of how teachers use materials.

[laughter]

Ross:  I guess those are both ways of influencing what teachers do, but all of it passes through some filter that the teachers personally have of this is work, does this is fit in with my views of teaching and learning.

I remember in a previous job doing some research where we tried basically introducing different materials in this job. It was all one‑to‑one classes. Because it was online, every class was filmed. You could go back and you could watch and see the effect that the materials had on the teaching.

We did a little bit of research and started including some personal questions in the materials because we noticed in general, teachers didn't ask for [inaudible 4:47] . I remember one word that was a tongue twister.

It said like, "Can you change one word in the tongue twister and make a new tongue twister?" Pretty simple. Not an amazing activity, but some tiny bit of personalization. Afterwards, we watched 20 videos of teachers doing this. 18 of the 20 teachers didn't even ask the question.

Karin:  I found if you have that is often at the end of the unit or of the chapter. You find teachers either saying that we don't have time for that anymore or they go through it really quickly, whereas that's the most important part of the lesson. That's when the students really get to use it.

Ross:  I guess you think that's the most important part of the lesson but maybe the person using the book doesn't see it that way.

Karin:  That makes me think about why we make those different choices. We both have the same course book, but we use it so differently. That, I think, is the beliefs we have towards teaching.

Ross:  Absolutely. Another thing that maybe affects how teachers' beliefs are formed obviously is people's own experiences as a student. I can't remember what the numbers are, but it's something like by the time you graduate from university, you've been a student for something like 20,000 hours.

If do a CELTA course or something, or an initial teaching course, if you're lucky you do like a 120 hours. You're at 120 hours versus 20,000 hours. One month versus 20 years of education. It's very, very difficult to break the beliefs that are formed and how teachers themselves have been taught as students.

Karin:  I always think about the teachers that taught me and the good things that they did that I think made me learn better and the things that I didn't really enjoy. I think that shaped my teaching beliefs.

Ross:  Which is interesting, but it reminds me of the George Bernard Shaw quote, "Don't do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It assumes people's preferences are the same. Obviously, it's worth thinking about what you liked or disliked about your teachers might be different to what the other people in the class liked and disliked about their teachers.

Karin:  I was thinking about the cultural environment behind our teaching beliefs. The one reason that my teachers used to do the lecture style teacher‑centric way of teaching is because the thousand‑year‑old teaching belief of the role of a teacher is to impart the knowledge to the students.

If the teacher doesn't talk enough, you feel like you don't learn enough. Same with a lot of parents today. If they send their students to a class, if the students were doing things rather than the teacher doing all talking, then they have the feeling of they don't get good value for the money. I'm not learning enough.

Ross:  I like your point there about the it's maybe not the 18 years that your teacher was a student...

Karin:  Or 2,000 hours.

Ross:  Yeah, or 2,000 or 20,000 hours. It's actually maybe the last 1,000 years of the culture or something that's affecting how that person teaches. There's also something in there about the culture of the school that you're in, I think as well.

There's a great chapter, I think it's at the end of Jack Richards book called "Beyond Training." He has students who did his [inaudible 7:54] course. All these teachers, after doing the [inaudible 7:58] course, are really brought into communicative language teaching, task‑based learning.

Then they go into these public schools in Hong Kong. The reality in those schools is very different from the context often surrounding communicative language teaching where in those public schools in Hong Kong, there's 60 students in a class. You're next towards others classes, so you can't be too noisy. Your manager expects you to do X, Y and Z in the class.

It's amazing how over the course of a year, you look at these teachers, some of them just go 180 degrees, and go from being like, "Oh, I want my students to communicate. I'm going to speak English in the class. I'm going to make sure students enjoy what they're doing," to being authoritarian, grammar‑based and doing everything in the students' first language.

Karin:  We need to raise teachers' awareness on their own teaching beliefs because that's how they make the choices in lesson planning and delivery, but we often miss out the step of how they can adapt all those methodologies into their own teaching context.

I had a similar experience of training some public school teachers where we talked about communicative language teaching, group work, student feedback and things like that. They were like, "With our learning aims, and the class size and our schedule, it's really hard to do that. We literally don't have the time for that, or if we get the students do that, they won't be able to pass all the exams."

Ross:  Another point here is teachers' own experiences of learning a language. This is something that I personally find really interesting, because I've learned my second language without going to any classes and without studying.

I think I have a very laissez‑faire attitude towards the teaching of grammar, really anything overly formal in the classroom, because I know that's not how I learned. Implicitly, I think that's not important, but I obviously that's not true for everyone.

Karin:  Personally, I like the language awareness approach because my experience with the language learning is that when I was learning English in high school, I never really enjoyed the grammar lessons where we learned the rules. I liked to engage myself with different sources of the language.

In the last two years, suddenly, I just became aware of the rules and I see how it works. I was like, "This is amazing." Now I like to lead my students to be aware of how language or how English works rather than giving them the rules. For example, one day, they were asking me about a brand sly. Like, "How can I say this?"

Instead of teaching them the pronunciation, I said, "Well, how do you say fly?" They were able to say that. Then I said, "Now take another look at this. How do you say this?" She was like, "Oh, sly. I know how to do it. Now I'm going to find more examples of that." I think that sense of achievement as a learner, and for me as a teacher, was really important.

Ross:  Obviously, this end up being very personal. One of the dangers with this is that there's always some learners that will learn regardless of what you do. You could have something which is definitely not the best method of teaching a language.

Let's say audio linguicism or grammar translation. There will be still have been some people that learned like that. They can then use that to justify, "Well, it worked for me, so I'm going to use it for everyone else."

Karin:  Our teachers didn't talk about why they did the things with us. Now, we can get the students to have conversations with us on how we learned the language, how we teach the lessons, and why we did them and how they can discover the ways that work for them the best.

Ross:  The last one we had here was something that affects how teachers teach is their personalities. I'm sure you've heard this before. I definitely have. Saying teachers are born instead of made, or often there's people saying, "So and so, they're just a natural teacher."

That's something that really used to annoy me a lot, because to me, it just seems as devalue all the professional development, qualifications, knowledge, and research. No one would ever say that about a doctor or a scientist. At the same time, I think there are a lot of personality traits...

Karin:  There are.

Ross:  Yeah.

Karin:  Yeah. For example, very often when you ask someone, "What makes a good teacher?" Instead of saying all those skills, people say they need to be patient, they need to care for their learners and things like that. Those were all personality traits.

Ross:  Absolutely. To me, it also reminds me of the nature/nurture debate in psychology. Are we who we are because of our genes, or are we who we are because of our upbringing? Just like that with teachers. Are teachers who they are because of their personality and who they are as a person, or is it their training and professional knowledge?

Obviously, I guess it is both, but it's really interesting to think and reflect on what are your own personality traits that you bring into the classroom, and how do you use them. Overall, it's a wrap‑up. I think it's useful for us to think about who we are and how all these different factors affect how we teach and what our teaching decisions are and what our beliefs are.

Karin:  For me, I think it's the most important thing now as a teacher that we are constantly aware of why we're making the decisions we make.

Ross:  Good. Karin, thanks so much for joining us.

Karin:  Thanks for having me.

Ross:  Great. See you next time, everyone. Goodbye.

Karin:  Bye.

[rolandfontana]

How to Find the Cops America Needs

Officer-involved shootings continue to be a major problem for police departments across the country. According to the Fatal Force database compiled by the Washington Post, 3,743 people have been shot and killed by police since 2015, with 746 of those deaths occurring in 2018 alone.

While a number of these incidents may be the result of officers responding to legitimate threats to their safety, and the safety of others, many still point to a pattern of violent and irresponsible reactions to situations that should have ended differently for everyone.

One solution has been to train officers in de-escalation and conflict resolution techniques, an option tried in major departments such as New York and Seattle. But increasingly, members of the criminal justice community say police need to take a much closer look at who they’re hiring, and how those men and women are being selected for a job that puts people’s lives in their hands.

“The traditional police hiring process really tends to eliminate people; it’s not designed to hire the best,” said Tom Wilson, director of the Police Educational Research Forum’s Center for Applied Research and Management, in an interview with The Crime Report.

According to GoLawEnforcement.com, an online employment resource for nationwide law enforcement, the standard hiring process consists of a written exam—usually multiple choice—an oral board interview, a physical agility test, a polygraph, a psychological exam, a background investigation, and a medical exam. Each candidate completes each exam and then moves on to the next.

Wilson, a 25-year veteran of the Anne Arundel County Police Department, compares it to a “funnel.”

“You start at the top end of a funnel, and you get all these people to apply and then maybe by the time you actually hire somebody you whittle it down to one out of ten, twenty, thirty, forty.”

The “funnel” only serves to weed out those who don’t make it to the next step.  Most departments then rely on their training academies to further identify who has the desired and necessary skills they are looking for, and who doesn’t.

“If you don’t pass mustard in the academy, if you’re not able to pass certain requirements and tests, then you will be eliminated from the process,” said Wilson.

But police academies aren’t always reliable filters. With police departments around the country facing high demands for new officers, some cities’ academies are graduating people who are both ill-prepared and ill-suited for the job ahead.

Cities like Chicago and Baltimore, for example, who are under pressure to hire thousands of new officers, have been criticized for the quality of their new hires.  According to the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Police Department’s academy graduated more than 97 percent of its recruits over a four year period. According to a report in the Baltimore Sun, a third of Baltimore police recruits set to graduate lack even a basic understanding of the laws governing constitutional policing.

“As long as you have (hiring) quotas, you have targets, and when you have targets you’re eliminating good people,” said Stan Mason, host of the radio program Behind the Blue Curtain, in an interview with TCR.

Lowering standards begins at the hiring level.

A 25-year veteran of the Waco, Tx., Police Department, Mason was part of the selection process in his agency for 15 years. He points out that for most departments, and especially those in major municipalities, lowering standards to meet numbers begins at the hiring level.

As a result, even positive efforts like diversification can yield poor candidates when selection comes down to just filling required slots as soon as possible.

“When you have to meet numbers and you get down to the last two black guys, neither of them might be worth a thing,” said Mason. “But, one of them is going to get in there because you gotta fill those books.”

Stan Mason

Mason recommends that cities and their departments focus instead on better understanding the demographics of their communities, stressing a need for departments that strive for a cultural diversity that mirrors the demographics of the cities or towns they police and, as a result, are better equipped to provide the kind of officers those communities really need.

It’s a necessity that Wilson agrees is long overdue for recognition.

“It’s time we start recognizing that different people bring different skills to this job, and we need that diverse background,” said Wilson, who adds that even just changing where and how departments hire those people is a step in the right direction.

In the wake of low unemployment rates, negative public scrutiny, and a shift in what younger generations want in a career, developing new and innovative hiring practices to fill the ranks of police departments is critical.

A 2017 national survey by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence found that governments are having more trouble hiring police than any other category of personnel. According to Wilson, this may be due, in part, to an outdated hiring strategy.

“It’s not the old standby that we go to the local colleges, or state colleges, or military bases,” said Wilson. “We need to start branching out a little bit.”

Some departments are.

Proactive Recruiting

In 2017, the Michigan State Police put full-time recruiters in the field, made community partnerships with the Black Caucus Foundation and America Corps, visited churches that recommended candidates, and launched an aggressive social media campaign with videos posted on Facebook and YouTube. Their most recent academy class, set to graduate in 2019, is the most diverse they’ve had in 20 years.

In Dallas, Chief U. Renee Hall launched a program that seeks to hire recent high school graduates as supplemental public service officers who will receive college tuition reimbursement and, upon program completion and reaching hiring age, become eligible to attend the police academy.

Its goals include attracting a new pool of recruits from different areas in the communities that the police serve and thereby strengthening trust.

However, Mason insists that innovative hiring campaigns like these, while positive efforts, are only successful if the departments know the people they’re serving and choose the right officer for the right community.

“You have to understand your city,” said Mason.

“You can’t hire two Blacks, 17 whites, and one Hispanic and say, ‘wow, look at us: we got more people.’ You just have more resources. If the resources can’t be applied effectively, what good is it?”

And for officers like Mason, making sure that departments are hiring people who know the communities they are policing is essential to ensuring everyone’s safety and understanding.

A 2017 report by the Pew Research Center found that in a national survey of nearly 8,000 police officers, 72 percent considered knowledge of the people, places, and culture of the areas they work extremely important to doing the job effectively.

However, many departments today find a lot of their officers live outside the communities they serve.

Does Location Matter?

According to The New York Times, in cities like Baton Rouge, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis, a majority of officers don’t live within the city limits. In fact, data journalism outlet FiveThirtyEight reports that only 15 of the nation’s largest police forces even require residency for their officers at all. As a result, the number of officers policing communities they actually know is rapidly dwindling, creating greater risk for potentially deadly mistakes.

“If you have a white officer, who has never been around black people, is this guy going to fit in Detroit, Chicago, or Baltimore?” asked Mason.

“This guy can’t handle it; it’s culture shock.”

Faced with this reality, finding the best officers can’t just be about finding the people that culturally or ethnically best suit a specific community.

For David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a leading national authority on racial profiling, it must also be about finding the people who are able to make a connection with, and adapt to, any community’s culture.

The first step begins with paying attention to how a candidate behaves at home.

David Harris

“If I’m recruiting people, I want to know what they do in their own community,” said Harris, a criminal justice author who has also worked as a professional trainer for law enforcement agencies throughout the country.

According to Harris, finding men and women who demonstrate a concrete commitment to the community in which they live, even if it’s not the one they’re applying to serve, is essential to finding out what kind of police officer they will be in the future.

“Do they coach Little League? Do they work at a soup kitchen? Volunteer for meals on wheels? Anything,” said Harris.

“Show me that they are people who care about that sort of thing.”

By finding such community-involved and adaptable individuals, Harris believes that departments can move closer to the more empathetic and conscientious officers that people want. And the departments that will have the best luck in finding these kind of men and women are the ones who reach out to those very same communities and ask, “what do you want.”

While conducting research in this area for his 2005 book “Good Cops: The Case for Preventive Policing,” Harris had the opportunity to observe the St. Paul Police Department do just that.

“They went to the community and asked them what kind of police department and officers they wanted,” said Harris.

“The people didn’t come up with physically strong, willing to run into a burning building.  What they came up with was good communicator, honest, having integrity, being able to talk to people. Those were the things that the community was interested in. What any community would be interested in.”

For Harris, this kind of cooperation and communication should be the norm, especially during the hiring process. For example, by including civilians and members of the community in police department’s review boards, which interview candidates on their qualifications and character, departments may have a better chance of improving the whole process and veering away from hiring the kind of command and control police officers traditionally sought after in the past by boards comprised mainly of a department’s sworn officers.

In fact, according to the Report on 21st Century Policing, released under the Obama administration, civilian involvement with local law enforcement agencies is essential to improving the state of policing in this country. And while police popularity may be low, a 2017 study by the Urban Institute found that large percentages of people living in the most challenging areas of cities like Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, and Birmingham, also professed a desire to work with police to solve neighborhood issues.

Community Involvement in Hiring

“A civilian group, or the community more broadly, can and should certainly be helping an agency determine what its priorities are,” agreed Seth Stoughton, an assistant law professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, and a former Tallahassee, Fl., police officer, in an interview with TCR.

A member of the Columbia, S.C., Police Department’s civilian advisory council, Stoughton explained that, as part of the department’s inclusive selection process, a member of his council always attends both police applicant interviews and officer disciplinary hearings.

Seth Stoughton

Enjoying an equal voice and vote alongside the police chiefs and commanders in the room, these men and women can ask questions and provide feedback on a candidate that helps to better decide if they are the best choice for the job.

Another example of this kind of successful cohesion is Washington D.C. where, according to PBS.org, the Office of Police Complaints (OPC) has won praise for an effectiveness that is based on community outreach, independence, and authority to approve policy and training recommendations to the department.

But while the OPC may be an example of a best-case scenario when it comes to organizing civilian involvement and cohesion with police in the hiring process, Stoughton warns that no two departments are alike. Things like independence and authority are hard to come by, he said.

“The devil is in the details,” Stoughton observed. “How do you pick which civilian or set of civilians is going to be involved in this? How much say does the civilian have?”

In a country with roughly 18,000 different law enforcement agencies, finding the right answer to these questions is no easy task. A report by the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) states that the largest impediment to establishing approaches to civilian oversight are the wildly different practices of any two jurisdictions, which can depend on a variety of political, cultural, and social influences.

Inconsistency of this kind can lead to board members being selected by the chief of police or a political official, a biased situation that some would consider no different than having the chief select an officer.

In addition, further damage can be done by the civilian members themselves, who, according to a study by the Columbia Journal on Law and Social Problems, can not only display bias towards the department that hired them, but could also be overly deferential to the police because of a lack of experience.

Shortcomings like these are exemplified by cities like Seattle and Albuquerque where, despite having established civilian oversight and apparent transparency in the past, they find themselves facing an uphill battle to improve their police departments.

In Chicago, a debate continues over whether civilian groups should oversee police at all. While it may be a small step in the right direction, civilian involvement is far from the only solution to finding today’s best, brightest and most empathetic police candidates.

“I think civilian involvement in the hiring process is an easy thing for most agencies and jurisdictions to do,” said Stoughton.

But he added, “I don’t think it entirely or substantially solves some of the problems that various agencies in various communities have experienced.”

Gypsy Cops

When it comes to proper hiring, one of the largest of those problems are known as “gypsy cops.”

Recently, communities in Cleveland were outraged to find out that Timothy Loehman, the Cleveland officer who shot and killed 12-year old Tamir Rice, had been hired by the nearby Belair, Ohio police department on a part-time basis.

Despite losing his job in Cleveland for failing to disclose that the Independence, Ohio police department had previously found him unfit to be a member of their own department, Loehman was also permitted to apply at departments in Euclid and RTA. Though he has recently quit amid public pressure, he was still hired in Belair despite his very public and questionable reputation.

“Most would assume that if police departments knew what happened with an officer at a prior department you wouldn’t hire them,” said Roger Goldman, a Callis Family Professor of Law at Saint Louis University School of Law, to TCR.

Roger Goldman

“That is absolutely not the case.”

Instead, police departments around the country have been rehiring officers with terrible records for years. And while some departments may look into a former officers past before hiring, they are too often either not digging deep enough or are willing to ignore prior misconduct and hire people who are a risk in the face of both state laws and department budgetary issues.

“State law can get in the way of screening officers who come from prior service,” said Stoughton.

According to the Washington Post, some states shield police personnel records, including firings, from public records, while state laws passed in the 1960s and 1970s allow police some form of collective bargaining rights. Thus, police unions are able to appeal any discipline taken against an officer and, more often than not, have them reinstated.

The process is lengthy, complicated and costly and, as a result, many departments prefer to avoid liability altogether and only provide a former employee’s start and end date.

“One agency might not want to tell another agency exactly why an officer no longer works there, because they might be afraid of a defamation lawsuit,” added Stoughton.

On the other end, Goldman said that police departments, especially smaller departments, will often choose to roll the dice on a former officer with a poor record just to save money, rather than spend what they may not have in order to train a completely new hire.

It’s a decision that can cost lives.

“What got me started in all of this was a cop at a St. Louis, Mo., department who was playing Russian roulette with suspects, and despite that was hired knowingly by another department that couldn’t afford a better cop,” said Goldman, who adds that the officer later ended up fatally shooting an unarmed suspect in the back.

‘Desperate for Bodies’

“Some departments are so desperate for bodies that they’re willing to hire anyone.”

But Goldman explains that this pattern can be broken by taking sole authority for hiring out of the hands of local departments and sharing it with the state.

For the last 40 years he has successfully crusaded for state laws that allow for decertification of police in instances of misconduct. Noting that state licensing boards already exist for occupations such as lawyers, teachers, doctors, and even plumbers, he argues that the policing field needs this same type of oversight.

Since New Mexico became the first state to get the authority to revoke licenses in 1960, 46 states have followed suit and established commissions with the power to decertify officers and a total of 30,000 officers have been decertified, according to an article from The Guardian.

However, four states—California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island—still lack these kinds of regulatory bodies. Twenty of those states that do have the power can only decertify if the officer has been convicted of a crime, according to The Atlantic. Even some states that have the power to decertify often fail to utilize it, such as Louisiana, which The Advocate reports has only decertified six officers in the last 12 years.

While the issue of decertification is currently only an individual state concern, when plagued with these kinds of inconsistencies Goldman states that it may not be able to succeed without federal involvement.

“These are local matters, but you need federal oversight to make sure that individual departments come up to standards,” said Goldman.

Federal involvement of the Department of Justice (DOJ), in a fashion similar to the consent decrees issued after Ferguson in Missouri, Seattle, and Chicago, could help to motivate state efforts by denying funding to departments that fail to comply with set guidelines.  In addition, where there is currently no national database for recording decertified officers, activity by the DOJ could require one.

“Just how we now have the National Practitioner Databank for healthcare professionals, that has any disciplinary action that has been taken against the practitioner run out of Health and Human Services; so too if a police officer goes across state lines a licensing board would be able to access a federal databank,” said Goldman.

But, so far, the feds have done very little.

Since 2003, states have been required to submit data on officer-involved killings of civilians to the DOJ, but many have repeatedly failed to cooperate, with little to no resulting penalties, reports NBC.com. The only existing resource for recording decertified officers is the National Decertification Index, an independent databank that 45 states submit to and which accounts for 25,000 of the total 30,000 recorded since 1960.

In addition, the current administration has stated that it considers policing a matter of exclusively local oversight, going so far as to suggest cutting funding for the DOJ’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, which provides information and funding to advance the practice of community policing in departments nationally, a major blow to a seemingly already faulty system.

Yet, step by step, state by state, there are pockets of improvement.

Colorado recently passed a law stating that former officers cannot be hired by another department unless they waive any nondisclosure agreements that they may have made. New York, through regulation, has had the power to decertify since 2016, and Hawaii has recently enacted a decertification bill. In the ongoing effort to find the best possible officers, decertification helps prevent departments from hiring anything less and holds them to the same standards as other professions that are not given a badge and a gun.

“Like we do with lawyers, we can do with cops: take away their license, probation, suspension, so forth,” said Goldman.

“Policing requires the same kind of oversight that all these other occupations have.”

“In policing, thinking doesn’t go very deep and it doesn’t go very far.”

Peter Sarna, a 40-year police veteran and former chief of the Oakland Police Department, thinks that ideas like this are sorely lacking in the policing field overall.

“In policing, thinking doesn’t go very deep and it doesn’t go very far. It doesn’t look out over the horizon to see what the long term effects might be,” said Sarna in an interview with TCR.

A nationally recognized expert in police training and use of force, Sarna believes that this absence of foresight has not only led to circumstances like the gypsy cops, but also trapped policing in an outdated and unrealistic performance model: one that expects all their officers to be able to perform a variety of different task specific skill sets, at any given time, and to be able to switch rapidly between those skill sets depending on the task.

In addition to the basic tenets of the job, and the everyday potential for danger, police officers today are now called upon to handle a variety of new situations that they were before rarely called upon to deal with. From policing the mentally ill to performing disciplinary actions at schools, all while dealing with an increasingly popularized negative image of policing in general, police today are wearing a lot more hats—perhaps even too many.

When it comes to hiring and selecting, expecting to find large amounts of people who can perform all these duties effectively might be a tall order.

“Maybe you have 1 percent of your cops that you can recruit who are stars,” said Sarna.

“They have the mindsets, they can move quickly among different types of calls, they can catch bad guys, solve family fights, they can do spectacular work. But they’re a small percentage of the workforce.”

Looking for the ‘Renaissance Cop’

According to Sarna, this model of a “renaissance cop” ignores a stark reality of the profession: it requires a multiplicity of tasks performed by a variety of officers to succeed. While the goals of having de-escalation skills, empathy, and conflict resolution abilities in every officer are important and necessary to pursue, he insisted that there will always be those officers who are better at one aspect of the job than the other.

Instead of wasting time searching for new hires based on an idealized model of the perfect cop, he believes that the whole policing profession needs to be restructured and that police officers should be selected for specific positions based on the strengths they develop and bring to the job before and after training.

It is an idea that mirrors the kind of division of labor found in most hospitals today.

“You go to a hospital and there’s a doctor for every part of the body,” said Sarna. “It’s extensive.”

This kind of division of labor is more than necessary in the policing field, where the types of calls for assistance vary widely. And a recognition that certain types of calls warrant specialization and demand certain skill sets has begun to grow, especially when concerning the handling of the mentally ill.

In cities like New York and Chicago, departments have started Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) programs and created teams of trained officers who respond to any call involving the mentally ill or those in distress.

Sarna, who served as a rank-and-file officer in Oakland before becoming chief, pointed out that this type of specialization was attributable to much of Oakland’s success at that time. And though the “warrior vs. guardian” debate continues to define how officers are chosen, he insists that understanding the need for both, and how to properly assign them, is the key to a more successful, and safer, style of policing.

Tough Questions

But first, departments need to start asking themselves some tough questions.

“Do we need to specifically select a top tier of cops who are crime fighters and can do it well within the law?” asked Sarna.

“And do we also need ‘community service officers’ who can handle a lot of the tedious, mundane things that need to be done to work well?”

For Capt. Victor Davalos, Commanding Officer of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Recruitment and Employment Division, there are no easy answers to these questions. He argues that a department’s ability to implement this kind of overarching specialization depends on specific factors.

“It’s important to know the differences, limitations and environment that every department operates in,” said Davalos.

Though it may be an option for larger departments, he notes that specialization is a luxury that most smaller departments, and even medium-sized departments like the LAPD, can’t afford.

“Unlike, for example, New York, which has about 30,000 officers, we only have approximately 10,000,” Davalos told TCR.

“We have to do a lot more with a lot less.”

And while the LAPD does have a program similar to the CIT teams in New York, where their officers are partnered with mental health specialists and respond to mental health calls together, and can also utilize a SWAT team to respond to very dangerous and high risk situations, Davalos points out that, in any department, there are a lot of calls to service in between those two dimensions.

“We really need officers that are able to respond to all types of situations,” said Davalos.

In order to find them, he and the LAPD feel that, rather than trying to restructure the whole department, a lot of progress can be made by simply making adjustments to policies and procedures that would make hiring easier and better suited to the times. And, for some departments, one such adjustment that is currently up for discussion is the use of marijuana.

Should Past Marijuana Use Disqualify?

In the past, drug use of any kind was considered an automatic disqualifier for service. But as marijuana laws become more relaxed around the country, with Business Insider reporting recreational use legal in 10 states and medicinal consumption legal in 33, police departments are following suit. In places like Chicago, Denver, Portland, police departments are relaxing their policies on past marijuana use in an effort to attract candidates who would otherwise be passed over.

Davalos says the LAPD is following suit.

“As those laws continue to evolve, so must we, so we remain current and we’re not using outdated guidelines,” said Davalos.

In addition, the LAPD and other departments are also reconsidering disqualifying applicants based on credit checks and certain criminal records, both of which, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, disproportionately impact racial minority candidates who are more likely, for multiple reasons, to have low credit scores and more contact with criminal justice in their communities.

By adjusting certain aspects of selection in this way, departments ideally have a chance at widening the pool of applicants they have to choose from.

Aram Kouyomdjian

This was the case in Philadelphia where, in 2017, after lowering the college credit requirements and raising the hiring age, the police department experienced a 20 percent increase in applications from the roughly 5,000 annually that they were accustomed to. More applicants arguably allows departments to be more selective in their hiring and take the time to find the best possible candidate, opening a pathway up to those most needed that gets them through the hiring process much faster for much less.

“If I’m trying to process 10,000 people, many of whom are unqualified, that is a harder drain on my resources than if I’m processing 7,000 candidates who are more qualified,” said Aram Kouyoumdjian, Assistant General Manager (Public Safety) of the City of Los Angeles Personnel Department, the entity that handles testing and produces the lists of eligible candidates certified to be hired for the LAPD’s final review, to TCR.

“It actually makes the process easier for them and for us.”

According to Kouyoumdjian, this more streamlined process, and resulting influx of officers, has allowed his department, which handles every aspect of hiring but the police department interviews, to fine-tune testing to focus more on reading comprehension and communication skills, adjust physical exams to be more in line with what is done in the academy, and take a much harder look at applicants backgrounds than ever before.

“It’s about trying to get more qualified candidates into the process from the get go, as opposed to just testing willy-nilly and spending time screening people out,” said Kouyoumdjian.

Yet some in law enforcement remain concerned that changes such as these could potentially have dangerous results.

A 2016 article for policeone.com warns that a person with poor credit history may be susceptible to bribery, someone convicted of a previous crime may reoffend, or a person who can’t meet physical standards may jeopardize the lives of others.

And in Texas, ksat.com reports that the San Antonio Police Officers Association recently argued that changing the standards for department hires may lower the quality of men and women hired for the job rather than improve it.

Despite these concerns, Kouyoumdjian insists that changing the standards by no means equates to lowering them.

“Our responsibility is hiring officers who can deliver on all fronts.”

“We want officers who can, when circumstances call for it, perform the job of law enforcement, but (who will) also be able to recognize who needs protection and who needs accountability.”

However, although this kind of clear-sighted and optimistic approach may be necessary to finding today and tomorrow’s best police candidates, it might not be enough to tackle the many real hurdles the industry has to overcome.

While practices such as involving the community in hiring, diversifying applicants, decertifying lateral hires, restructuring division of labor, and updating and evolving hiring to suit the times represent some of the best efforts being made today to find the officers we need tomorrow, men like Peter Sarna still remain unconvinced.

Isidoro Rodriguez

“Are we fooling ourselves? Can we actually get people in large numbers, who can perform full spectrum policing? Or is it impossible?”

The answer to those questions may determine the future of 21st century policing in America.

Isidoro Rodriguez is a contributing writer to The Crime Report. He welcomes readers’ comments.

How to Find the Cops America Needs syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

[zipgrowth]

Is This Hiring Process a Better Way to Find That Perfect Candidate?

I’m starting a school. That statement took a year for me to feel comfortable saying out loud. It’s not just a dream, or a lofty goal—it’s actuality—and since I’ve launched my hiring process, it’s becoming more real with each passing day.

Capitol Learning Academy (CLA) plans to launch in Washington D.C. next fall as a nonprofit private elementary micro-school, starting with ages seven to nine and expanding in both directions to serve a capacity of 150 students over the coming years. The school plans to serve a socioeconomically diverse population and will use an indexed tuition model to make the school accessible to all families. To supplement this tuition model, CLA will campaign annually for fundraising.

Our mission is to prepare students to effectively use resources, tools and relationships in order to succeed as world citizens in an unpredictable future. We envision a school where each student progresses along an individual learning continuum and educators focus on developing skills, such as collaboration, perspective taking, technological adeptness, problem solving and adaptability. We want to prepare students to “roll with the punches” as jobs, technology and work spaces change at a lightning fast pace.

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

The unknown is scary, and not everyone is ready to jump into it. Even those individuals who are interested in the model likely don’t have extensive experience with the practices we’ll be using because they’re relatively new. That makes hiring a tricky and detailed process, especially for my first hire. I’m looking for a non-grade-level specific facilitator who is creative, engaging, can manage an open learning space and is interested in working at a startup school. I’m looking for a unicorn.

Public and charter schools schools are bound to rules and even laws that dictate how and who to hire to fill teaching positions. From certification to tenure, these regulations can restrict school leaders from taking the time and being flexible in finding the right fit. But when you’re starting your own independent school, the world is your oyster—and that can be a blessing and a curse. I’m hopeful that putting time into developing a thoughtful process, it will give me the freedom to find the unicorn I’m looking for. 

Developing My Hiring Process

Before I could start the search, I needed to determine my hiring process. It needed to allow for multiple rounds, requiring effort on the part of the applicant so that I could immediately see who was genuinely interested in this job—not just a job.

The process needed to be designed in a way that allowed the applicants and I to mutually interview one another and determine if it would be the right fit. You might liken it to building a relationship, from dating to marriage, as we test out the waters of compatibility. After all, there is a high likelihood that the first hire and I could be the only two employees of the school in its founding year since it will start so small. We will be working very closely together, spending countless hours making big decisions and probably challenging one another.

This first hire is a critical one and the process needed to reflect that, so I developed a four-round hiring process using NOLA Micro Schools as a model, and I’m hoping it will land me my ideal first hire. 

Round 1: Online Dating

Other schools I’ve worked at in the past posted jobs, accepted resumes and cover letters, and brought candidates in for an interview—I needed to do more.

To start, I developed a set of questions to encourage the applicant to consider their level of interest and dedication to working at a startup school. The questions were formulated with advice and suggestions from other startup schools, specifically NOLA Micro Schools, which also uses in-depth application questions and had already fine-tuned their number of questions, question type and language over the years.

I landed on 15 questions covering personal experience, problem-solving skills, mission and vision alignment and general educational philosophy. My hope is that they’ll give me insight into each candidate’s personality, views on personalized learning, perspective about the skill set necessary to prepare students for the future and what attracts them to a startup school with a progressive model.

Each applicant’s collection of responses determines whether they are invited to the second round. 

Snapshot of questions from the Capitol Learning Academy application process, Image Credit: Alexandra Roosenburg

Round 2: Our First Date

The second round is a phone or Skype interview. The purpose is to provide applicants with an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the school’s expectations related to this role and what the job might entail. It also will give me a chance to dig into the questions and responses from the initial application with each candidate. This is where I can determine if a mediocre written application is or is not reflective of a candidate’s possible fit for the school, if a fantastic application is a red herring, or if everything can proceed because I may have found “the one.” A successful phone call will move on to the next round.

Round 3: Finding Common Ground

Successful phone calls are immediately followed by a homework assignment. Applicants will read an article about alternative approaches to learning, watch a TED Talk by Sugata Mitra and view a video by Sal Khan. Then they will reflect by responding to some questions. The texts and videos give the candidates and opportunity to hear some experts in the field, discuss important factors to consider when implementing a personalized learning model, and consider what it looks like to build a student-centered learning environment. These resources are all firmly in line with the mission and beliefs of CLA, and provide background knowledge that we feel is imperative for all faculty who work with us. 

There are three purposes to the “homework” assignment:

To establish a shared understanding of what some thought leaders are saying about the future of learning

To continue to demand a high level of dedication and effort throughout the interview process and to ensure commitment, which will continue to be critical once employed by the startup school

To subtly highlight the importance of professional development for all faculty at CLA, showing that professional growth will always be supported and provided

Round 4: Meeting the Family

The final round of the interview process is an in-person meeting with myself and some school board members paired with a casual opportunity to interact with prospective students.

The in-person element gives each applicant a chance to meet different members of the school community, and to have some final conversations based on all we have learned from previous rounds.

After these four rounds, fingers crossed, the best candidate will be an obvious choice. I’m hopeful that the process naturally siphons out the candidates who want to teach—and teach well, but don’t necessarily have the energy and grit that a startup school requires. I also hope it allows me to maintain flexibility and an open mind.

I don’t want to have some predetermined profile of who I hope to hire. Just as I don’t want to box students into grade-levels or age-specific curriculum and outcomes, I don’t want to look at my candidates based on their years of experience or grade levels taught. I want to see them as individuals and what they might bring to the school as such. What matters most is that they share the philosophy, values and vision for the school and have the personality and skill set necessary to thrive in a small, startup environment.

Even with a clearly outlined process, in-depth questioning, and high level of commitment required of our candidates, I’ve got some underlying fears. What if my application doesn’t find its way into the right hands? What if there is some element of the process I’m missing that will be critical to finding the right person? But I'm hopeful that I'll find the right match.

Maybe I’m overthinking things. Maybe my level of detail in this process is too arduous and all candidates will balk. But launching a new school is a lot of responsibility and I owe it to my future students to put time and care into building a strong school community—and in my case, the first step is finding my unicorn.  

Alexandra Roosenburg is founder & executive director of Capitol Learning Academy, a micro-school planned to launch in Washington D.C. in September 2018.

Is This Hiring Process a Better Way to Find That Perfect Candidate? published first on http://ift.tt/2x05DG9

[denizerkli]

I'm not nessicarily so sure I agree entirely with Socrates on this one, for I believe emotion is infact one of the most unique human components we embody, and öne thing that has me questioning is, how Socrates opposed emotion. İ mean what would Arts be without emotion apart from mere mechanization of civilization? What would humanity be without emotion for that matter? Ex: the souless experts raised in the rightwing Nazi Germany during the Industrial Revolution. Or Ex: the oppressed emotions written in Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451', Orwell's '1984', Huxley's 'Brave New World', Lowry's 'the Giver', Scott's 'BladeRunner', Bay's 'the Island', or even Winner's 'Equilibrium', applied in the contemporary spectacle. I fathom that emotion and reason ought to go hand in hand as previously mentioned and brought up by Atatürk and in Emmanuel Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' in the enlightenment era. Of course, when it comes to politics, balance maybe organik according to the variables and factors in statues quo. Now think about it, what if skill was subject to emotion? As in humanitarian Art, respresenting iq and eq. I'm not a populist, but I embrace emotion.

So let's hear it for Naussbaum...

__________________________________

Why the Liberal Arts Matter...

We’ve discussed before that Socrates, one of the greatest things to come out of Athens, hated Athenian democracy. While he had many reasons to do so, one of the primary ones was that the typical Athenian had no idea what they were discussing, and were prone to using emotion over reason when making important political decisions. They lacked both the skills for critical thinking and viewing the world outside their own perspective to be proper democratic citizens.

But, as philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues, we can avoid those problems by placing a high value on an education in the humanities. A high value which today is often difficult to find.

In her book Not for Profit, Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, Nussbaum lays out the case that a job oriented education, one focused on preparing students for work, is far from enough to assure that the students will also be able to function as democratic citizens in a pluralistic, modern, and globalized, society.

While she doesn’t deny the need for technical education; she argues that a purely job oriented education, or even one which is highly focused on a narrow field of study, does not promote the development of critical thinking skills, the ability to consider differing viewpoints, an understanding of people vastly different from themselves, or strong methods for finding truth for themselves that people need as citizens.

These skills, she argues, are best found in the arts and humanities as promoted by a liberal arts education at all levels. While the United States is doing well at the university level of teaching these things, she contests that we are often unwilling or unable to do so at the grade school or high school level. If we do not assure students have access to the arts and humanities, she posits, we are likely to fall victim to demagoguery and lose the benefits of a modern democratic society.

Well, what’s wrong with our current method of teaching the humanities? Why write a whole book on this?

A major issue in modern American education she discusses is the increasing use of standardized fill in the bubble tests, and the tendency of teachers to “teach to the test”. It isn’t impossible to teach the humanities in a way that can be easily tested, the treatment of philosophy as a test subject for the A and O level exams in the United Kingdom has shown that much, but Nussbaum shows us how a multiple-choice test is unlikely to encourage any skills other than the regurgitation of information. They aren’t even that good at what they claim to do anyway.

With the national focus increasingly given to education for employment and competitiveness those parts of education which seem unlikely to lead to employment are the most simple to justify cuts to. Nussbaum laments this, and notes that at her own university advertising geared towards new students focuses nearly exclusively on those programs seen as practical and leading to employment. She dubs the combination of funding cuts and lack of attention a “crisis of massive proportions” which is still underway.

Suppose we just got rid of the humanities. Can’t we be a free people without them?

The myriad examples of tyrants attacking the arts and humanities suggests we might be wise to hold on to them. She cites, among other events, the prohibition of teaching the Korean language in public schools and the crackdown on Confucian education in general during Korea’s occupation by Imperial Japan. All a key part of the plan to reduce the Korean people to servants of Japanese imperialism, a role which had no need for a non-technical education.

Nussbaum later argues that the most cartoonish and often horrifying mistakes made by the Athenian democracy, which caused thinkers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle to reject democracy, could have been easily avoided if the population had any of the skills an education in the humanities provides.

The Funeral Oration of Pericles, an example of the Athenians being led by a populist working in their interest. Often, they were only led astray. Is she alone in these ideas? Does anybody else argue that a democracy requires these skills?

Socrates, as depicted in The Republic, favored an intensive education for the philosopher kings he saw as the ideal rulers of his utopia. While his proposed curriculum is not the liberal arts education Americans know today, it is one that promotes the search for truth with the use of reason and logic and assures that the leaders of the city state will know not only how to lead, but how to approach the problems they may face as leaders. While he didn’t wish for the majority to lead a nation, it is clear he understood that those who do lead must have certain intellectual skills. In a democracy, these leaders are the people.

Aldous Huxley, philosopher, author of Brave New World, and noted psychonaut, made a similar observation in Brave New World, Revisited. Where he noted with terror that the world was moving towards his dystopia much faster than he had predicted and proposed education for democracy as a key tool to prevent this. He later elaborated on his proposed curriculum for a free people in his utopian work Island.

Okay, what does our situation look like now?

We presently have a better education system than the people of Athens; who ended their formal education in adolescence and denied it to women and non-citizens. Often inspired by Socrates and his pedagogy, today’s students can find a humanistic education in the American, Scottish, and (increasingly) Korean education systems dedicated to making them fully rounded individuals and citizens.

While Nussbaum warns us to be on the lookout to attacks on and financial cutbacks to the liberal arts model of education, we have reason to be optimistic as well. She mentions many excellent programs in American schools, such as Future Problem Solvers, as examples of democratic education done correctly and in a way that assures continued support.

The study of the humanities can have many practical uses. It can even be used to find employment, no matter what the nay-sayers might tell you. More importantly, they have an intrinsic value in allowing us to fully develop as individuals. In today’s climate, they also take on the role of helping us make democracy possible. Without a proper education in the humanities, where we learn how to understand people we may never meet, how to evaluate arguments and charged rhetoric, and imagine differing scenarios from those we see every day, we may be doomed to the fate of many a failed democracy before us.

But, if we utilize the fantastic tools we have access to, rise to the challenge of giving everyone the education they need, and emphasize all vital subject matter-even if it seems impractical, Nussbaum argues that we have much reason for optimism and the chance for the continued success of democracy all over the world.

If you would like to improve your humanities background, several Ivy League schools offer free classes you can take online. A selection can be found here and here.

[texasborderbusiness]

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Roel “Roy” Rodriguez, P.E. was selected as the “City Manager of the Year” for the State of Texas by the Texas City Managers Association.

L-R standing: Bianca (daughter), Roy Rodriguez, Noelia, his wife, Briana (daughter), seated: Roy II (son).

By Roberto Hugo Gonzalez

As originally published by Texas Border Business newsprint edition August 2017

Roel “Roy” Rodriguez, P.E. is McAllen’s City Manager and without a doubt a unique individual in public administration. The challenges dealing with municipal matters are monumental; his decisions without hesitation, are always made from a structured approach.

Humble Beginnings

Rodriguez is very proud of his parents, Cesario and Beatriz Rodriguez. He was born the sixth of nine children. His dad, an authentic cowboy was originally from a rancheria near Ciudad Mier, Tamaulipas, in Mexico. His mother was born in Starr County.

He talks about his parents with love as if they were still alive. He grew up in a tight knit family, where humility and work ethic were instilled. “Those were the two things that I got from my parents,” Rodriguez told Texas Border Business.

“I was born in San Benito.” He said, “I suspect that it was the least expensive place for a parent to have a baby and that’s what happened”

In a few words, and told differently, Rodriguez meant to say there was no opulence in the family as he was growing up. “I was raised in Harlingen except for that day when I was born in San Benito.” According to Rodriguez, the hospital where he was born, Dolly Vinsant Hospital, closed just recently.

Proud of his parents, he highlights that when his father was young, he was as an accomplished horseman, helping with the tasks of the ranch, and working at herding cattle.

“One day, as a teenager in Harlingen, I got home and saw my father, which was unusual because he always worked very late.” Rodriguez noticed something about the way his father looked, that grin he had on his face. The curiosity was killing him as he walked up to him and asked in Spanish “What’s going on?” Don Cesario responded, “Hoy soy ciudadano Americano.”

His father had just taken the oath to become a U.S. Citizen. “I’ll never forget that day because he was so proud of becoming an American citizen, maybe, the proudest day of his life,” Rodriguez added.

Forgeing a Career

Rodriguez worked in another state and different cities in management positions before coming to McAllen,. From the beginning, Rodriguez’s life has been one of constant evolution, always looking to improve his personal and professional life. After graduating from Harlingen High School in 1981, he earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Texas A&I University and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Texas-Pan American.

He is grateful to his wife, Noelia Mancha, a McAllen native. He pointed out that she has followed him everywhere without ever questioning why they were moving. “My career took me to a lot of places; she has always been with me.”

His travels started two weeks after finishing college, moving to Oklahoma City. Rodriguez said he took the job because he needed the money badly. “As it turned out, it was a great job and opportunity. I worked there for many years, also in Tulsa, and in El Reno, Oklahoma,” he said.

His last job in the state of Oklahoma was in the Panhandle, from there he moved to Harlingen. “That was a big day in my career; I became the city engineer in Harlingen.”

Job opportunities kept coming; he landed the County Engineer’s position in Beaumont, Texas, which was different and challenging, and a different perspective to practicing engineering. Later, he moved to Weslaco at a time the mid valley city was growing their management team. “I was the engineer for Weslaco. I also had charge of many departments, so I was acting as an assistant,” Rodriguez said.

With the experience he had acquired, he was called to be Assistant City Manager in Harlingen. He did it for seven months, and then he was promoted to the City Manager’s position. “I was very fortunate that one of my mentors, Natalie Prim, hired me twice, and helped put me on this career path.”

Having served in high-ranking capacities in the State of Oklahoma, Harlingen, and Weslaco, it seemed like it was his last stop. It wasn’t, he was hired to become the Public Utilities (MPU) top man of the most prosperous city in the region, McAllen.

Making McAllen Shine

Rodriguez spent ten years building infrastructure setting McAllen at the top, if compared to other Valley cities. Being the top man at the MPU, he oversaw all water and wastewater operations, including a capacity of 59 million gallons of treated water per day and growing. He also experienced a unique situation in that he became an Assistant City Manager for McAllen, and had the dual title for many years.  This was a set up that McAllen had not had before, nor since.

He had wished for many things, others he had worked for, but nothing was more fulfilling to him than being named interim City Manager on March 2014, and to begin as such on April 1. A few weeks later on in May 2014, Rodriguez was selected to fill the position of McAllen City Manager and to report directly to the Mayor and City Commission.

Sometimes people say that nothing prepares you for the future, in Rodriguez case, that saying fell short. Working with multiple municipalities prepared him to do what he loves most.

He has spent the last three and a half years serving as McAllen City Manager. However when he became interim city manager; his administration skills were quickly put to the test. City Manager Mike Perez retired on March 31, Pilar Rodriguez, an assistant to city manager (no relation) had left a year before, and another city assistant had stepped down; the only one left was Deputy City Manager Brent Branham. “Brent had scheduled his retirement for August 2014.” He continued, “I remember talking to the city commission at the time, and they were very concerned about the void that was occurring.” It is indeed true; public administration brings monumental challenges, and Rodriguez was facing them.

To give readers an idea of the city manager’s activities, he inherited 35 departments including two international ports of entry, an international airport, a municipal golf course, and the Convention Center District, and his direct oversight over the City’s $197 million operating budget.

Was this the greatest challenge to start a new position? “Yeah, absolutely!” Rodriguez continued, “It was definitely, and probably, one of the biggest challenges I had was to fill positions quickly. But also, it was to be able to maintain all of the programs and services that we do in the city.”

Rodriguez pointed out that filling those positions was the second most challenging, but the first was maintaining an organization of 1,800 employees with the help of Branham for a few months until he was able to find and fill the three assistant manager positions.

So, the hunt for assistants began, forty applications on his desk, all with strengths to fill any high-ranking position in a large corporation. Rodriguez knew he had a puzzle, finding the three missing pieces that were strategic left no room for mistakes.

“I was fortunate and blessed that I was going to be able to make significant appointments that don’t often happen in a city of our size,” Rodriguez said. His 30 years’ experience managing diverse fiscal, environmental, and community areas came in handy to find and select the right professionals to fill the vacancies.

Today, after more than three years, the selection of three assistants can be classified as outstanding. He brought Michelle Leftwich, who was the assistant city manager and planning director for Mercedes; Jeffrey “Jeff” Johnston was the assistant city manager and emergency management coordinator for Brownsville; and Joe Vera III, who was the city manager for Hidalgo, Texas.

Rodriguez said, “I hired three assistant city managers, and these are people that I have observed through the years in the Rio Grande Valley. I have seen what their strengths were and so I was able to take those strengths and put them where I needed them.”

How do you feel; have they performed well under your authority? “I feel very good about what happened and the choices that I made when it came to filling those positions.”

What inspires you to do what you do? “I don’t know if there’s one answer for that, first of all, you’ve got to be a little insane because this is tough work.  But, the feeling that you get of accomplishment when you improve a community, when you improve infrastructure and bring something new to your city that has a significant impact on people, it always has a big impact on me as well.”

Can that be called passion? “Absolutely, if you don’t have that for public service you need to do something else.”

What concerns you about the future of the city? “McAllen is resilient and always has been. It was like that before I got here, it is now, and it will be when I leave, so, the future of the city is very bright no matter what.”

Rodriguez said that McAllen has to continue to do things that separate the city from everyone else. He recognized that today it is not easy when there are communities around McAllen that are successful because they are always adjusting their strategies and their visions to ensure success.

“You know, 20-25 years ago, McAllen was everything to Hidalgo County.  The communities around us are growing, so, today it is challenging to shine. However it will not be such a challenge if our community wants to, and, I hope it does.”

Planting Roots

What keeps you up at night? “You know, this is a blessing and a curse, this telephone.” He made that comment holding up his smart phone. “We are always connected, always, it doesn’t matter if I’m on vacation or if I’m sick!”

He said that sometimes he wakes up at 2 o’clock in the morning, and starts typing in his to-do list of his smart phone; solutions that he might apply. “Once I do that, I fall asleep like nobody’s business,” Rodriguez said

How many children do you have? “We have three, Bianca Beatriz is 26, the oldest; she’s an attorney and the Assistant District Attorney in Houston. Then, Briana Nic\ole 21, she will be a Junior at Texas A & M Kingsville, my alma mater, and, my son Roy II is 19. He is going to be a sophomore at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, also my alma mater.”

Do you regret moving so many times? “I tell people that for two reasons I haven’t left McAllen in 13 and a half years. One is that I saw how hard it was for my children to be moved around. This last move that we made here was very hard for my oldest.”

According to Rodriguez, at that time, Bianca Beatriz was going to be a freshman in high school, and it was heart breaking for him to watch her struggle. “I told myself I am not doing this again.”

Rodriguez finalized with this comment, “You know this is a great place; this is the best place in south Texas and one of the best in all of Texas. Because of that, and, the fact that I have brought my wife home, I say, you know, this is one step from heaven because my wife is super happy!”

Recently, Roel “Roy” Rodriguez, P.E. was selected as the “City Manager of the Year” for the State of Texas by the Texas City Managers Association, a worthy recognition for a man who loves public service.

Michelle R. Leftwich, AICP, CPM, ICMA-CM, Assistant City Manager

I’ve known Roy for a long time, for more than 20 years. In fact, he hired me, he was in the panel that hired me at my first job right out of college in Harlingen, when he was the city engineer there.  I always admired his leadership skills ever since then. He was not an unapproachable person, and he was always down-to-earth. Roy gives you a chance to talk to about real issues, and he always seems to have such wisdom on whatever the situation is that you are up-against. I have valued his leadership skills over the years, and I’m very happy to be working with him here in the City of McAllen.

Jeff Johnston, C.E.M., Assistant City Manager / Deputy E.M.C.

Roy is a fantastic leader, one of the key things that I have seen from him in the time I’ve been with the city is a high level of integrity, both personal integrity and business integrity, as well as a desire to instill in the employees the very best of public service. Roy loves what he does, he has an attitude that encourages the staff through the city to be the very best that they can be. When we have issues that come up in the city, as it happens in all cities, he takes the lead to focus on looking at what happened and how can we make the city better for it. That’s been the case for years and years, in the City of McAllen, we work to make it better.

Joe Vera, CECD, CFEE, Assistant City Manager

Roy has always emphasized the theme of open governance, transparency and the need for continued support of the basic principles of honesty and integrity in public service.  He has always said what he thought, meant what he said, and never made a commitment he did not keep.  I have never doubted his sincerity; he has never given us any reason for doubt. Even in the toughest of times and situations, Roy has a passion, a sense of calling and the courage for doing the right thing and instilling that integrity into staff.  We are fortunate to have a city manager who is not afraid of doing the right thing for the betterment of the community.

Exclusive: “McAllen Is One Step From Heaven” –Roel “Roy” Rodriguez, P. E., McAllen City Manager By Roberto Hugo Gonzalez As originally published by Texas Border Business newsprint edition August 2017 Roel “Roy” Rodriguez, P.E.