The Test

I spent Friday morning covering or removing all the informational displays I have posted in and around my school library. Due to state and district testing regulations, all “instructional materials” must be hidden from sight during the administration of the yearly mandated assessments. On years when I display a giant graphic of a Federal Building representing our Constitutional Republic, this becomes quite a challenging chore.

Because, heaven forbid, we teach children to use the tools around them to help them be successful while they are being tested. As if after their first glance at these eye-catching, creative, laminated, informational displays, our students still notice their existence. Question from a student in March: “Mrs. Branstiter, where are the Fiction books?” My answer: “Oh, you’re looking for Fiction? If I were you, I’d start in the area of the Library marked with half a dozen ‘Fiction’ signs. But that’s just me.”

My afternoon was spent at a district Library Specialist meeting for much-needed practical tips and commiseration among fellow paraprofessionals trying to preserve our jobs by dancing as fast as we can to keep our jobs relevant. (In some cases, this means actual dancing, like hosting an after-school Tap Club).

Besides wrestling with topics like technology challenges and student misbehavior and celebrating small large and small victories on various campuses whose administration and teaching staff value our contributions, we received a legislative alert. This handout reads: “President Trump has effectively proposed eliminating all federal library funding…” Over $200 million taxpayer dollars has been funding public municipal and school library technology and “innovative” reading programs for years, without question, as part of line-item budgeting.

Of course, being one of the largest states, Texas has received a vast majority of these grants and appropriations, including federal funds for online research resources, grants to libraries, interlibrary loan programs, summer reading programs, technology assistance and continuing education for library staff. This information included a link to a video displaying all the communities in my state that benefits from federal largesse. Dots on the map kept popping up until the state was nearly covered. I’m sure residents of Nebraska, with a total population of around 2 million, feel gratified to know that their tax dollars are helping to fund library services for over 28 million Texans.

Do I think that public and school libraries are important? I sure do. Do I believe that literacy programs are vital for an educated citizenry? You bet. Do I want to keep my job? Yep.

It would be very easy for me to follow the suggestions on this handout and contact my representatives to implore the continuation of federal funding to my state, local and school libraries. And, for a brief moment, I considered spreading the word to my fellow educators and participating in a campaign to Save Our Libraries!

Then, I remembered that document I have to cover up in my own school library before testing: the Constitution of the United States. A quick study of the seven Articles within this document reveals a glaring absence of the directive to use federal funds for state libraries. In fact, the tenth Amendment is very simple and concise on this issue: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Does my state value libraries? I’m proud to say that most of Texas cities and municipalities have made consistent efforts to promote and support local libraries. As a matter of fact, a spouse of one of our school district’s Library Specialists was just chosen as President-Elect of the Texas State Library Archives and Commission agency.

In the past decade, Texas public school district libraries have not received the same enthusiastic efforts, however. I have found that a large part of my job is to advocate for my own programs and position.

So, instead of campaigning for the continuation of federal funding for Texas state and public school libraries, I will be in more frequent contact with the TSLAC, advocating for continued support of library services within my state. Because state libraries are not a federal issue under our Constitution.

And even though our Founding documents will be hidden from view during state tests, I’ll continue to teach them to my students and do my best to remember them when I’m tempted to forsake the rule of law for reasons of expediency.

Imagining My Grandmother

I received a packet of photos from my father today. He’s 86 and wants to make sure his daughters get the mementos we’ve requested before he leaves this earth.

This photo is of my paternal grandmother, born at the turn of the last century near Sebastopol, California, apparently taken while she was married to her first husband, a French-American named Barbier.

It looks like this spunky young woman, born Mabel Amanda Feige, could be rolling a cigarette after dance or drama class. Her hair is bobbed except for one long spiral curl draped over her shoulder. She and her sister, Josephine, were actually taking turns dressing up in their brother's Navy uniform.

Before long, she’ll lose her husband in the influenza epidemic of 1914, finding herself a widow with a young child, named after his father, Harry.

This is before women have won the right to vote, but I doubt if this ever stopped her from expressing her opinions, political and otherwise. She’s a rebellious Catholic, eventually meeting a small man from San Francisco who will marry her, give her another son (my father) and drive her crazy because he seems to love the city more than his family.

My grandfather, Albert Engelhart, survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake at age 10. He took advantage of numerous legally questionable opportunities to make a lot of money, as the City by the Bay was being rebuilt. When crime in the burgeoning city became a troubling issue, my grandmother wanted to move south, to the suburbs, but he refused. They divorced, remarried and divorced again - scandalous! She bought some land in Redwood City and lived with her boys in an unwired, unplumbed garage for the next 12 years, building her adjacent stucco home herself, with the sporadic and unreliable help of a male cousin. I remember marveling at the hand-carved beams and doors in the ceiling of her modest Mission-style home.

Mabel remarried and divorced my grandfather and eventually married Milton Stuart, a man my father revered as his stepfather, who tragically died of cancer a year after I was born. My grandmother suffered debilitating strokes by the time I was eight years old and was in and out of nursing homes until her death when I was 16. She cried when she realized she would never teach me how to knit.

Now that I have this photo, I prefer to imagine her as a bit of a rebel. Mabel Amanda was a woman who didn’t need the label of “Feminist” to express her individuality. Both of her given names mean “lovable”, but I have a feeling that she was loved on her own terms.

Remember that SCOTUS Decision on School Prayer?

Many Americans have joined the outcry to “bring prayer back to schools!” Well-meaning, morally upstanding patriots lament the day that government “kicked God out of our schools” on July 25, 1962, as a result of the contentious Supreme Court ruling on Engel vs. Vitale. This 8-1 decision determined that school-sponsored prayer violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

Justice Hugo Black, describing the majority reasoning, interpreted the Establishment Clause as a means to prevent government interference in religion, extending this to include non-denominational prayer. Justice William Douglas, in his concurring opinion, expanded this restriction to forbid government financial aid to religious schools. This ruling, while initiated by a New York state disagreement, resulted in a nation-wide ban on school-sponsored prayer in public schools and a prohibition on tax funds for religious schools or school-sponsored activities in public schools.

Explaining his sole dissent, Justice Potter Stewart argued that the Establishment Clause only prohibited a state-sponsored church. He reasoned that, in accordance with the traditional interpretation of the First Amendment, a non-denominational prayer offered by school staff did not “establish religion”.

Interestingly, the majority opinion went so far as to add the observation that government involvement in religious affairs often resulted in persecutions and wars.

Now, 55 years later, there is a flap regarding faith in a Frisco, Texas school. About seven years ago, the administration of Liberty High School designated a classroom for Muslim students to use for 30 minutes to comply with their religious requirement to pray five times a day. According to Principal Scott Warstler, this solution was offered to reduce the number of Muslim students who were being dismissed from school in the middle of each afternoon to be transported to their home or mosque for their corporate prayer time. The room serves as a regular classroom during the rest of the day. Students of all faiths may use the room for prayer during the same designated period, although Principle Warstler admitted that it is not typically used for prayer by students who are not Muslim.

How does this arrangement conform to the Engel vs. Vitale Supreme Court ruling in strict effect since 1962? School property, funded by taxpayers, is being used primarily to accommodate the specific faith requirements of one religion. The school district argues that the prayers are led by the students themselves and the room is open to all faiths during that prescribed prayer time, thus remaining in compliance with the law.

The Frisco high school campus is not the first to offer accommodations to the Islamic faith. Schools in Tucson, Arizona, Riverdale, Maryland, and San Diego, California have all made accommodations for Muslim students for prayer.

Due to the high population of Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, Muslim students attending public school are allowed prayer accommodations and early release from classes on Fridays.

So, faithful Americans can rest easy- prayer has been returned to public schools!

Parents may want to ask their own children how often they take advantage of this opportunity.

An Abomination of Desolation

Biblical prophecy foretells of an event in which a religious usurper and his followers “shall profane the sanctuary, even the fortress, and shall take away the continual burnt-offering, and they shall set up the abomination that maketh desolate.”— Daniel 11:31 (ASV)

This verse may very well pertain to something yet to come, but I would argue that an abomination that causes desolation occurred on March 8, 2017, outside the Cathedral of Tucuman, Argentina.

An idolatrous celebration of radical feminism culminated in a disgusting pantomime of abortionists murdering the infant Jesus by ripping the Messiah from the womb of his mother, Mary, as she proudly thrust her defiant fist in the air.

This is blasphemy of the highest order. These women are not protesting the Catholic doctrine or Christian tradition or even common decency. They are rallying for their own oppression.

Besides denying the life-giving, honorable, beautiful, irreplaceable purpose bestowed upon women from the beginning of time, these protestors are contradicting the very facts of history since the incarnation.

Before the coming of Yeshua, everyday life was a dismal, oppressed existence for females, even in the most progressive cultures of the time. According to Probe Ministries, “In ancient Greece, a respectable woman was not allowed to leave the house unless she was accompanied by a trustworthy male escort. A wife was not permitted to eat or interact with male guests in her husband’s home; she had to retire to her woman’s quarters. Men kept their wives under lock and key, and women had the social status of a slave. Girls were not allowed to go to school, and when they grew up they were not allowed to speak in public. Women were considered inferior to men.”

In fact, if Mary had not opted to give birth to her unplanned child, women all over the world might be suffering Sharia Law that females experience in Muslim countries today. According to Dr. Alvin Schmidt, in his book, How Christianity Changed the World, “Christianity is the best thing that ever happened to women.”

Muslim rule “is the polar opposite of what the New Testament says regarding a man’s relationship with his wife. Paul told the Christians in Ephesus, ‘Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.’ And he added, ‘He who loves his wife loves himself.’"{3}

Jesus acknowledged and engaged women in equal conversation about lofty ideas! He elevated Mary of Magdalene and Martha to discipleship. Women are portrayed in vital roles in history regarding both the birth and death of the Savior of the world. Jesus displayed mercy toward a woman who would be stoned in the Middle East for her crime of adultery today.

The Apostle Paul, writing epistles in the society in which he lived and ministered, admonished church leaders and husbands to treat women with respect at all times, acknowledging that women are also made in God’s image. Paul even went so far as to invite women to pray aloud during worship services! The Apostle Peter taught the churches that women are more than objects of desire and beauty, or baby factories, instructing the females of the flock that their true adornment should be found in a beautiful moral character of service.

 
Current radical feminism that blasphemes the incarnation of our true liberator is a wanton return to female oppression and desolation of spirit. This should be an abomination to everyone, as revealed by this revolting display of ignorance and sacrilege.