In addition to a travel ball team which practices twice a week, Carter is also on a Little League team (new bat league), Miles is playing farm league, and Bradley is helping coach the Little League team. Cousin Clint is the head coach of the Isbell family team. In our spare time, we've been preparing for Carter's pig by building a pig pen/palace. Read trenching water, power, welding gates, pouring concrete, and everything in between. Carter helped prepare the sow for birth and was there for the vaccination, ear notching, and tail clipping. When he's not out notching ears on pigs or welding panels, he's throwing a baseball around with his brother.
Taking a break from the demands of pig farmers and baseball parents, Bradley and I went down the Baja over the four-day weekend for our dear friends' destination wedding. The bride grew up down the street from Bradley and she and I because great friends in high school. We introduced the two of them at a party we had at our home once I got my principal job.
I finally got around to interviewing Carter this evening.
Name: My name is Carter Bradley Isbell.
What is your favorite thing to do? Play baseball, and help my dad with projects.
Who is your best friend? Miles and Wyatt and Finn Hilton.
Favorite Superhero? Hulk
Favorite Color? Orange and black
Favorite Toy? A baseball, a baseball mitt, and a baseball bat.
Favorite Food? French Dip and pizza from Denny Bar.
Favorite Drink? Dr. Pepper
Perfect Day? A whole day of baseball.
What do you want to be when you grow up? A major league baseball player.
What will you miss about being eight? I will miss being the age of the number of my favorite SF Giant's baseball player Hunter Pence.
What are you looking forward to about being nine? I look forward to playing on the Dirt Dogs, being Brandon Belt's number, and taking my pig to the fair.
What are you really good at? I am good at playing baseball.
What are your chores? Putting wood on the porch, chopping kinling, cleaning the chicken coop, recycling, taking out the trash, feeding the horse, feeding the chickens, and vacuuming.
What makes a good person? A good person is kind to others, respects others, and they do not think of themselves, they think of others first.
Favorite thing to watch? Major league baseball, specifically the SF Giants.
What is your favorite thing about school? Talking to Mrs. Thackeray about baseball.
Something you can work on? Not arguing with my mom and being nice to my brother.
Carter spent his birthday basically repeating his 8th birthday, but this year the twins slept over for TWO nights. The first night was unplanned but it made it that much more fun. We headed to Medford and visited Dick's, Red Robin, the trampoline park, and the batting cages. The evening was topped off with a movie and homemade carrot cake. The boys all begged to buy air soft guns at Dick's Sporting Goods. They came armed with their own cash and we relented. An airsoft gun shoots plastic pellets with air. We looked like parents of the year leading out four boys with airsoft guns which resembled the same guns that Dick's had just discontinued selling a few days prior. The purchase made for a very exciting Sunday morning with lots of running, pellets, and laughing.
I'm not sure who all out there reads this blog, but I can imagine that in the wake of the 281st school shooting in America it seems a bit preposterous to imagine four little boys buying what look like real guns and then having a blast shooting each other up in the lawn. Or the fact that our son has a shotgun and hunts with his dad, or the fact that I surprised my husband this year with his first left-handed gun he's ever owned. Our sons are growing up in a home, as my husband grew up in a home, where guns are to be respected and much education takes place. This is all secondary to my thoughts on school violence in America.
If you walk into any public school in our country you are likely to find 10-40 anti-fire measures in every single classroom. Even the goddamn bulletin board paper that our insurance companies force us to use is "fire safe". I couldn't set my school on fire if I tried. I could literally build a fire in my office and it would not burn the school down. Is this because I got rid of fire? No. It's because our government, our insurance companies, the DSA, all got together and combatted ways to address fire while still recognizing its existence. Fire is not going away.
School violence is not going away. There will continue to be guns placed in the hands of mentally unstable people regardless of what guns laws are in place and what mental health or medication people receive. I shouldn't even say "people", I should be more specific. White males. Every school shooter has been a white male. We need to treat this threat just like we do with fire. Every school in America should be protected with multiple measures. Automatic locks. Do you even know how many different ways there are to lock a school that was built in 1956?!? A lot.
Despite the countless drills that we have at our school, the endless training I've been to, and the progressive approaches that we have taken to teaching kids to perhaps jump out of windows and run (in a zig zag line no less), I still live in fear every time I leave my school site. I am not in fear because of the lack of education, or the lack of comfort, or the ability of my team. I am in fear because I wonder if today will be the day that a shooter comes to my school. For lack of a better term this is extremely sad. I work with a extraordinary team of professionals who strive to deliver a level of education that is on level with private schools across our country, and my biggest fear is about school violence.
What would make me feel better? A completely locked campus with an "entry way" which vets every individual coming on campus. Bullet proof glass, automatic locks, mental health screenings of every student once a year, every staff member, and every parent. A "live" in color camera system monitored by a team of individuals in real time. Is this all sad to wish for? Yes. Do we live in a different time? Yes.
What won't make me feel better? Arming teachers. Some of my teachers lose their phones regularly or forget to lock their classrooms. They are amazing people, but they don't want the pressure of owning a gun. They can interrupt the mental cycle of an untrained gunman with a heavy book or a chair, they don't need a gun.
What else won't make me feel better? Arguing about gun control. It's like the war on drugs. Come on people. That was 20+ years ago and we have a worse drug problem in our country than we did then. Should people be vetted buy guns. Absolutely. Is it realistic that some sort of process will keep guns out of the hands of "bad people" work? No.
So there you have it. Maybe someone scouring the Internet for middle-class America's views will suggest that Trump talk to me. A small town girl, working to make her little school the best it can be. However, I might bend his ear on this whole baseball bat monopoly first.
Carter spent his birthday basically repeating his 8th birthday, but this year the twins slept over for TWO nights. The first night was unplanned but it made it that much more fun. We headed to Medford and visited Dick's, Red Robin, the trampoline park, and the batting cages. The evening was topped off with a movie and homemade carrot cake. The boys all begged to buy air soft guns at Dick's Sporting Goods. They came armed with their own cash and we relented. An airsoft gun shoots plastic pellets with air. We looked like parents of the year leading out four boys with airsoft guns which resembled the same guns that Dick's had just discontinued selling a few days prior. The purchase made for a very exciting Sunday morning with lots of running, pellets, and laughing.
I'm not sure who all out there reads this blog, but I can imagine that in the wake of the 281st school shooting in America it seems a bit preposterous to imagine four little boys buying what look like real guns and then having a blast shooting each other up in the lawn. Or the fact that our son has a shotgun and hunts with his dad, or the fact that I surprised my husband this year with his first left-handed gun he's ever owned. Our sons are growing up in a home, as my husband grew up in a home, where guns are to be respected and much education takes place. This is all secondary to my thoughts on school violence in America.If you walk into any public school in our country you are likely to find 10-40 anti-fire measures in every single classroom. Even the goddamn bulletin board paper that our insurance companies force us to use is "fire safe". I couldn't set my school on fire if I tried. I could literally build a fire in my office and it would not burn the school down. Is this because I got rid of fire? No. It's because our government, our insurance companies, the DSA, all got together and combatted ways to address fire while still recognizing its existence. Fire is not going away.
School violence is not going away. There will continue to be guns placed in the hands of mentally unstable people regardless of what guns laws are in place and what mental health or medication people receive. I shouldn't even say "people", I should be more specific. White males. Every school shooter has been a white male. We need to treat this threat just like we do with fire. Every school in America should be protected with multiple measures. Automatic locks. Do you even know how many different ways there are to lock a school that was built in 1956?!? A lot.
Despite the countless drills that we have at our school, the endless training I've been to, and the progressive approaches that we have taken to teaching kids to perhaps jump out of windows and run (in a zig zag line no less), I still live in fear every time I leave my school site. I am not in fear because of the lack of education, or the lack of comfort, or the ability of my team. I am in fear because I wonder if today will be the day that a shooter comes to my school. For lack of a better term this is extremely sad. I work with a extraordinary team of professionals who strive to deliver a level of education that is on level with private schools across our country, and my biggest fear is about school violence.
What would make me feel better? A completely locked campus with an "entry way" which vets every individual coming on campus. Bullet proof glass, automatic locks, mental health screenings of every student once a year, every staff member, and every parent. A "live" in color camera system monitored by a team of individuals in real time. Is this all sad to wish for? Yes. Do we live in a different time? Yes.
What won't make me feel better? Arming teachers. Some of my teachers lose their phones regularly or forget to lock their classrooms. They are amazing people, but they don't want the pressure of owning a gun. They can interrupt the mental cycle of an untrained gunman with a heavy book or a chair, they don't need a gun.
What else won't make me feel better? Arguing about gun control. It's like the war on drugs. Come on people. That was 20+ years ago and we have a worse drug problem in our country than we did then. Should people be vetted buy guns. Absolutely. Is it realistic that some sort of process will keep guns out of the hands of "bad people" work? No.
So there you have it. Maybe someone scouring the Internet for middle-class America's views will suggest that Trump talk to me. A small town girl, working to make her little school the best it can be. However, I might bend his ear on this whole baseball bat monopoly first.
Excellent discussion on a very controversial subject! Every day and in every way I am prouder and prouder of you! XOXOMOM
ReplyDeleteI read your blog religiously! Thank you for sharing your viewpoint on school violence. I am sad to say that this was one (of many) factors that are impacting our decision for private school kindergarten. It is terribly sad that this is something that all parents and educators need to think about. Your ideas are great, especially since you are the principal of a school and you know exactly what is needed.
ReplyDelete