Who would argue that teaching is not a demanding vocation? Consider, after, all, the two greatest exponents of the art, Jesus and Socrates. One was crucified, the other poisoned; both in the line of duty.

Not that it takes the ultimate sacrifice, though, to qualify teaching as a challenging line of work. Ask any parent, who play the ultimate teaching role, and they’ll tell you. Kids don’t readily absorb wisdom through their pores. That is why lecturing is mostly an exercise of in one ear, out the other.

After all, we’ve learned that no one size fits all. The best teaching employs multiple approaches with the understanding that no two kids are facsimiles. Then factor into the equation the proven theorem that kids love to do the opposite of what you tell them and you can see the wisdom of the Socratic method. Showing is better than saying but the penultimate success comes from the art of suggesting. A practiced teacher pokes and prods self-discovery. Good teaching is, in the end, doing. Paradoxically, it is learning inside out.

Given, then, that even under the best of circumstances effective teaching is a tricky and nuanced proposition, imagine the dicey mission  we have now put at the doorsteps.  In this global economy and age of of lightning-fast information teachers are asked to deal with kids who wire down when they enter the school portals. They are asked to keep this wired generation engaged while producing minds that seamlessly communicate, collaborate and thrive on critical  thinking. They face this already daunting task while asked to be equal parts disciplinarian, entertainer, coach, social worker, counselor, motivator, sociologist and statistician.

Strikingly, one elementary teacher was telling me that years back it was expected that  you might have one or two ‘problem’ kids in any given class, a child suffering a.d.a. or impulse management or maybe from a troubled home. Control issue, yes, but the juggling came with the territory.

Nowadays, the teacher reported, that classroom management factor typically runs 6 or 8 or 10 kids, with gripping issues such as homelessness, parental unemployment, child abuse, family addictions, latch-key environments, or stressed out commuter parents. That’s a lot of fires to put out.

Broken families? That phrase from another age that once stirred concern now sounds hopelessly old-fashioned in its’ lament. Facts are, more than half of marriages dissolve and some communities have born out of wedlock rates at 70%. As backdrop, Antioch has seen a 250% increase in group homes and a 200% increase in foster homes.

Then throw into this mix the jolt of assimilating  an explosive pace of urbanized migration and transiency; an increasingly permissive, materialistic, violent and instant-gratification addicted society; and a culture where the authority of teachers is casually questioned by students, parents and the ACLU alike. It spells an uphill battle.

Not to mention yearly pink slips and the No Child Left Behind pressures of  test mania; nor the difficulty of doing all of this in a state where classroom size and the staffing ratio of counselors, nurses, psychologists and librarians scrapes the very national bottom.

Tough gig? I say! Hopefully on Tuesday, May 8th, which is the National Day of the Teacher, we thank these unsung heroes and heroines for what they do. Let’s remember that  a teacher in teaching our son teaches our son’s son, that his or her influence has no end but ripples to the shores of eternity.

Walter Ruehlig

Antioch

Ruehlig is a Trustee on the Antioch School Board

Restore the Delta would like to thank  our supporters, the members of the Delta Coalition, members of LAND, the fishing community, and our friends in Discovery Bay for turning out for Tuesday’s (March 13, 2012) legislative hearing.

About 100 people who care about the Delta came out to make sure their objections to the BDCP and the Delta Plan were heard. Contrary to the  repeated comments of Jerry Meral, the Delta is united.

And contrary to the comments of Phil Isenberg, the people in the Delta are just beginning to make themselves heard.

Special thanks to our friends who drove from Berkeley, San Francisco, and San Jose to make public statements on behalf of the Delta.  We appreciate you very much.

We also know that many of you wanted to make statements, or longer statements, and a number of you ended up watching the hearing in the hall or in the cafeteria.  We thank you for being there.  Being there (in bodily form) is a statement in itself.

It’s going to be a long, hard fight.  But step by step, we know that our message of reduced water exports, improved levees, and local water projects to increase water supplies throughout the state, will be the winning message of the day — not just for the Delta, but for all Californians.

Yours in service,

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Jane Wagner-Tyack, Jessica Iniguez, Brett Baker

Based in Stockton, Restore the Delta is a grassroots campaign committed to making the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta fishable, swimmable, drinkable, and farmable to benefit all of California. For more information visit www.RestoretheDelta.org.

Dear Editor:

More than $2,000 raised

By Walter Ruehlig

A community’s educational positioning is like a three legged stool; it balances by taking the support of students, teachers and parents/community. More so than ever, we can’t do it alone.

Before even contemplating the academic No Child Left Behind challenge let’s start with the financial dilemma facing the Antioch Unified School District and its AUSD has suffered a staggering $74 million in state cuts over the last four years, with no end in sight to the crippling attack.

It’s a heady challenge; needing to train a globally competitive workforce while in the societal throes of an endemic breakdown of the family and simultaneously adapting to the radical transition of youth’s attention to a wired world; all the while addressing tumultuous change with far scanter resources.

The recent arson and vandalism incidents that shut down the Diablo Vista Elementary School kitchen and decimated the playground at Lone Tree Elementary were low blows, then, to an already tottering budget and besieged morale. As if money was free and easy, the tab for some thug’s mindlessness is now running upwards of two hundred thousand dollars.

Monday evening January 8th Take Back Antioch, led by Brittney Gougeon and the Lone Tree Elementary PTA, led by Patty Ward, said no to victimhood mentality. They demonstrated a fighting, proactive community spirit by holding a spaghetti dinner and raffle at the Red Caboose Restaurant to raise funds for the damaged schools,
particularly for enhanced security measures.

Lone Tree Principal Melanie Jones, Diablo Vista Principal Wanda Appell and School Board Trustee Walter Ruehlig addressed a packed crowd that included Mayor Jim Davis, Mayor Pro Tem Wade Harper, Councilman Gary Agopian and School Board President Diane Gibson Gray.

Good company, good food, good cause.

To the editor:

On December 6, 2011, the Board of Supervisors adopted election procedures for Prop 218, a new property-related fee which will be imposed throughout Contra Costa County. This is apparently a parcel tax disguised as a “Clean Water Fee.”

A public hearing to discuss the proposed fee has been scheduled for February 7, 2012. Written notices were allegedly mailed in mid-December 2011 to record owners of each identified parcel (or everyone who owns property in Contra Costa County). I own my home in Antioch, but, to date, have not received my notice. Have you?

At the public hearing, the Board will consider all protests against this fee. If written protests are presented by a majority of property owners, then the fee will not be imposed. Otherwise, ballots will be mailed 45 days prior to election close date of April 6, 2012. A majority vote by mail-in voters is sufficient to impose this new fee.

The election process to approve Prop 218 is a farce. It was designed to avoid detection rather than truly give the people a voice. The county has more than 1 million people. How many are property owners? Could the chambers of the Board of Supervisors accommodate all property owners? Why require written protest at a public hearing? Why the urgency and not wait for a regular election? How much more will election by mail cost? Do we really need to burden people struggling to pay their mortgage with a new tax?

Noticeably, District 3 Supervisor Mary Piepho has immediately started her campaign for approval of Prop 218 through her December 7, 2011 article appearing in Contra Costa Times titled “Delta At Risk And Needs Our Help Now.” She has also hit the campaign trail speaking before the Antioch City Council on the urgent needs of the delta without actually mentioning the Board of Supervisors’ plan to tax property owners with a “Clean Water Fee.”

Once imposed, this tax will be with you for ten years. On February 7, 2012, you have a choice; speak up (and write down your protest); or get out your checkbook.

Cynthia Ruehlig

To the editor:

As a neighborly follow-up to your posting wisely alerting people to be wary of opening a door to strangers, we have had kids going through our neighborhood asking to rake leaves. Having mowed lawns and shoveled snow as a youngster, I am never one to impede youthful enterprise.

Leave it to Beaver, though, is no longer the norm in these less than innocent times. Alarmingly, older kids are sometimes not far behind the avowed rakers. Somehow that makes you wonder.

Just like there is no such thing as a stupid question, there is no such thing as a stupid call to the police. Ask our men and women in blue to be vigilant and maybe drive by. This, after all, is a repeat of the common practice of kids ringing your bell collecting for a basketball league or some such extra-curricular activity. Truth be told, I not only habitually get puzzled at the private club they represent as it seems I have never heard of it.

Worse yet, given the burglary climate, I have bigger fears than contributing to a possible sham. It could be legit; it could be a set-up. It’s easy to feel guilty because we don’t want to doubt people asking for help, but preying on guilt can be a practiced art. Consider the studies that show that as much as 70% and upwards of beggars use their panhandled money for drugs.

You owe it to your family. Better safe than sorry.

I must confess that as a former New Yorker I have had to adjust to casual California where the doors rarely have peepholes and police locks (now called door jammers or braces) are uncommon. Those devices are poles, like long car clubs, that stick in the floor propped into the door. It would take a battering ram to force the door open.

New Yorkers take this stuff seriously and, obviously, jammers are far better than the useless door chain. Those decorative bracelets might stop a seven year old but they, and sorry to say, that $30 lock you are so proud of, are laughable to even a mere 130-pound crack addict with two good legs looking for their next fix.

Advice: If you are a woman and answer the door you might wish to yell upstairs, “honey, it’s some kids” -even if no male is home it sends a message you’re not to be messed with.

Incidentally, I met a fellow at the Golden Gate Bell Ringer and Boys Chorus concert last night who said that nine homes on his block had recently been burglarized. Five of them had previously shrugged off joining the local Neighborhood Watch group. Any wonder why they now sing a different tune?

Walter Ruehlig

To the editor:

Ready for this? St. Ignatius of Antioch Church, which has been hit three, yes count ’em, three times, for copper, twice within a week, had another attempted ripoff the other night. Luckily, the thief was frightened off by one of the volunteer parishioners who give up their warm beds to patrol the church grounds nightly.

You must have read how for the second time BART was vandalized, with the thieves going out on the tracks themselves. Here in Antioch, this week Marsh Elementary School got hit for the second time. And the beat goes on and on. If you’ve got copper faucets or copper pennies laying around the house, you better have a guard dog. These people are crazed!

On another note, my neighbor was monitoring their outside video cameras the other afternoon when they saw five male youth approach a neighboring house of folks vacationing in Europe. The suspects then proceeded to kick the door down.

My neighbor called the police, but no patrol car was available because of a fight somewhere in Antioch. Eight minutes later the thieves started leaving the house and my neighbor called the police again.

This time they sent out five cars and were apparently able to catch at least two of the suspects, who were running through back yards and climbing fences, including my mother in law’s around the corner from me. In fact, one of the suspects was filmed taking out a change of clothes from his backpack but didn’t change his flaming red socks. The foolishness of youth!

My best advice: get an alarm (which the broken-into folks didn’t have; try to get a house sitter if you are gone; have a dog; iron gate your door; start a Neighborhood Watch. The police are doing their best, but with a force down well over 30 uniformed cops, the ruling maxim is that God helps those who help themselves.

Walter Ruehlig
Antioch

To the editor:

As expected, Don Freitas is going to run for mayor next election. And he should. He controlled the city council meetings very well. But that’s no reason to re-elect him. Since he left office two years ago, he has not made any appearances at council meetings, never any input on anything.

The same can be said of Arne Simonsen. Never shows at council meetings and little input in the newspaper. But I could vote for Arne if he would make a commitment to run as a full-time mayor and eliminate the position of city manager.

Arne is the only council person to ask questions. I always thought him to be the smartest of them all. He has the time to be full-time mayor and we need him.

Bob Oliver
Antioch