Please watch this video on News 12 on bullying, belittling and berating students - in Scottsdale college

https://www.12news.com/news/investigative/bullied-belittled-and-berated-did-scottsdale-community-college-turn-a-blind-eye/207602847

As a former instructor of students in the criminal justice system, I found this report by Ms. Halloran disturbing and shocking that nothing was done before a death occurred. I honestly feel that if there was some type of intervention was taken by the college, prevention of a suicide was possible. Certainly, as a former chief of the basic training section at a Nationally Accredited Corrections Academy, I saw deep flaws in the entire performance of this teacher. 

First and foremost, much sympathy to the family of this beautiful child. Wendy Halloran humanized this story to the point that the viewer can feel the pain of this gross mistreatment by an instructor who is best identified as an ‘abuser’ rather than a teacher.

The details of her death comes to a sad conclusion that she was driven by various factors to her desperate state of mind when she decided to commit suicide. Factors that are clearly describing a pattern of behaviors that should have been observed and managed by her supervisors and the college, who are ultimately, responsible for her actions and ‘enabling’ her to act out in ways, that destroys, damages or leads to a serious mental status that is similar to humiliating someone to death. Being “direct” does not include being abusive. In fact, had the college cared enough about their own credibility, integrity and abilities to teach young adults the art of equinox training, they would have seen an incompatibility in this instructor from the beginning rather than “enabling” her to act like this.

It is hard for the college to admit they abused this student. Just like it was hard for the student to admit to anyone she was shamed into a despicable state of despair and hopeless mindset by a form of mental torture that resembles a ‘boot camp’ mentality but in this case, the teacher forgets or neglects to build these kids back up after tearing them down. I heard nothing that was labeled or tagged positive reinforcements for their accomplishments.

We have to ask – why did the college give this instructor so much control and why didn’t they ‘rein her in’ when she demonstrated harsh and ‘direct’ dialogues with people vulnerable to such bullying and attending school to seek life quality improvements rather than punishments. They had the power over the teacher but did nothing to stop her. So you have to ask – who was in control? Because they let her get away with her sadistic mannerisms, she created pawns in her hand rather than students wanting to learn and not be afraid of failure or admonishment for falling short of the teacher’s expectations.

This instructor was a manipulator. She manipulated these kids for her own ego and narcissistic needs. She might have appeared normal but she needs help badly. Her obsessive control shows in her mannerism of teaching class. Perhaps she sees her students as she sees these horses, mindless and in need of strict control.

I think she scared the hell out of everybody, perhaps even her own supervisors. Her insecurity lashed out on her students who were very young, impressionable and eager to please adults especially their teachers. They followed her will and she took advantage of that relationship.

To shame someone that they aren’t good enough hurts deeply and creates an abyss of hope and promise that success is even possible. It cuts so deep, they feel through the manipulation, torture and constant abuse, they aren’t worth the time, effort or even the attention to be someone that is able to learn anything, whether it be a horse or another vocation.

This is absolutely an abuse of authority. I can’t even begin to rationalize what would drive a teacher to abuse a student like this except to believe perhaps, at one time in her life, she was abused and now has the authority to ‘get even’ with others.

In some ways, she deserves sympathy for the pathetic person she is or has become. Her future as a teacher in now in deep doubt as the college will have to decide to retain her or fire her. This relationship by the instructor and her students was most unnecessarily rude in nature and unmannerly as an employee or educator. The college was left with no other choice to defend her actions because to fire her, would be an admission of guilt that they failed to act to protect the students and that’s a gross violation of trust and integrity for educators.

Let me list the factors of shaming this student to her death – she was likely a very bright girl and threatened the teacher’s own intelligence or control of their conversations. This caused resentment and more abuse because the student had the power instead of the teacher.

Since this relationship was based on power and authority rather than intellectual or educational grounds, the teacher wanted to take control and she did by being direct and harsh and at times, intimidating and cruel.

Tantrums in the classroom are very disruptive and the student usually gets the blame for any interruptions due to the manipulation factor. I am certain that this teacher never attempted to fix any flaws but rather, focused on flaws and shamed her by bullying her in front of her classmates or when isolated.

She not only shamed her to death, she scared her to death. She knew the student needed her approval to successfully finish the college course and move on. When the teacher took control and exerted her power over her, she threatened the student with failure and that’s a no win position for the student.

This entire episode is about abuse and control. Sad it had to end like this.  However, Wendy Halloran did a fantastic job revealing the background factors that gave me insight on this instructor. I might be wrong on some of my comments but overall, this teach was unfit and unqualified to teach our young people in a structured and what was supposed to be an educational environment. 

Hell behind the CPAP mask - self help information book on OSA

Boredom - Spontaneous and Solicited inside prisons

Spontaneous and Solicited Boredom inside a Prison

Without getting into the morality or veracity of how prisons are being run or operated and whether or not they are within our legitimately statutory or constitutional guidelines in reference to human rights and confinement conditions decreed by the courts, it has been widely expressed that under the dehumanizing conditions of prison life, it is reasonable to say that the state of boredom has come to pervade the experience of everyday life inside the penitentiary.

This collective boredom can be the trigger mechanism to spawn not only moments of illicit excitement (as prisons are schools of enhanced criminality as well as a house of repentance) but larger arenas of short-lived crimes committed against boredom itself, but a stimulus for a larger flow or migration of political and cultural rebellion spread out over time sentenced and served.

Thus it is safe to describe this collection of boredom inside a large jail or prison as an institutionalized form of boredom due to ambient beats or tones in relationship to its various sets of rules and cultural behaviors in various levels of societal expectations or innovations.

Every penal system has a brand or culture of its own and fosters daily under the pressure of mental stress, intellectual excitement (thrill seekers or adrenalin junkies) and therefore offers a rebellion of its own at times. Hence, a collective or institutional boredom is an overall form of a human(s) engagement(s) with time, space, rules, criminality and other factors explored to determine what prisoners do when they get bored.

Like out in the streets, institutional boredom can be destructive in nature and needs to be addressed to avoid social disruptions or criminal activities from taking over their efforts to do their time constructively and with some acceptable form of rehabilitative efforts to come out a reformed person.

Anyone who denies that boredom does not impact criminality, violence, property destruction, disturbances or other negative environmental dynamics has not studied the mannerism of those incarcerated for a lengthy amount of time and how they do their time. take into consideration a few other factors to add to the triggers of boredom and you have yourself a collective cause that are the basic foundation of crimes, riots, looting and destruction of property when activated under another reason or pretense.

Boredom can be quickly accelerated into a vested ‘interest’ to participate and cause or create a larger scene. One can invest in the act of incitement by merely shouting encouragement or actually act out with their own activities or engagements demonstrating approval, cohesion and rebellion.

This is how the boredom is quickly and spontaneously spread into an organized or collective effort to exhibit a sense of approval, whatever the cause, grievance or complaint might be at the time of such demonstrations. Even tacit approval, by silence, can bring a collective effort to its peak or climax if the tone and energy afforded and applied matches the wills of those participating.

Encouragement can come in many forms – (chants) talk along, mocking or repeating, laughing and yelling or some other form of human engagement that displays some sort of anthem or affirmation of something e.g. allegiance through a show of cohesiveness and heavy taunting. This is especially true in gangs.

Realistically, through some common or conflicting gang audiences, this method of communicating, may in fact be translated into lyrics, or [rap] songs that represent their moods or ideologies with a pretense or disguise these lyrics are just that, songs, but in reality their mantra for behaviors and claiming or expressing their membership of the gang.

Such collective boredom strategies may be a form of organizing or dis-organizing illicit or unauthorized gatherings while reinstating their presence and body of force and power / control on those present at the time including correctional staff. In a prison setting this could be done even when every individual is locked up in a single cell as they collectively chant or taunt those who oppose them. Thus the freedom to join in these impulses is solicited and inviting a common cause or resistance.

Moreover, such activists or instigators are in reality a symptomatic example of other problems that should not be ignored in everyday existence. Remember that everything in human life exists within the boundaries of buying and selling; a web of exploitative and demeaning activities and behaviors that undermine the security and order of any facility.

By their mere example of behavior, they could trigger or force a demonstration of resistance that threatens the everyday routine of any large jail or prison and if not picked up, could cause apocalyptic consequences. Most people would heed such a warning and alert those in charge something is happening and the place is filled with a banner of subversive activities. A ghost of things to come that is ever present in every penal institution everywhere.

This cultural undercurrent must be observed or detected to avoid a more aggressively animated unexpected uprising. The disregarding of such behaviors allows tension and other stressors to percolate and if it remains unaddressed, it serves as a fuel by creating an incendiary cultural dogma of the group’s desired wishes or demands to be heard or mediated with in order to resolve any undetermined grievances before the place blows up.   

One cannot deny that whenever such howling incantations of these type of activities are present, there is in fact a critique that turns out or reveals that boredom or too much leisure time was directly involved in such demonstrations. Hopefully, nobody will say that boredoms are minor details and address such conditions in a timely manner with secondary points of interest to discuss or mediate for resolution.

Boredom is the tool of insurgents. The politics of boredom straddle criminality and excitement. Boredom may be displayed as graffiti, vandalism, fights, theft, sexual assaults and much more. With the agenda of mass incarceration and overpopulated jails and prisons, boredom has emerged as some sort of motive for aggression and a conceptual building block for activism and critique of the environment. This by itself allows boredom to expand into broader social and cultural condition at the whim of the activists or demonstrators.

Keep in mind, revolutions are real or imagined creations for the possibilities to change social and political justice. There is a strong relationship between boredom, revolutions or disruptions and criminality. Having the condition of boredom multiplies exponentially the reasons for incitement, excitement and is implicit in institutionalized worlds like prisons.

Merely based on penitentiary related customs and practices, there is a precarious tradition to destroy or riot whenever conditions are unsatisfactory or when faced with any other pragmatic situation that may need attention.  

Boredom as defined inside a large jail or prison could encompass features such as bureaucratic rationalization, too much efficiency, excessive routinization, excessive or insufficient regulation, too much standardization and others familiar to stifle the human engagement to be productive or creative whenever incarcerated for a long period of time.

The more repetitive the environment is, the more boredom is created and thus the population senses no progress and becomes idle and frustrated. In plain English – whenever overcome by the dulling sameness of the day, the more boredom is created.

Here at last is the paradox of boredom and institutionalization – the agency wants regulation and consistency in their programs – the population suffers on sameness and dullness. Thus the challenge is to emerge with some human measures of worth, values and address the quirks of individualities and create some incentive to provide a personal innovation to combat boredom.

Taking into consideration that obedience to rules and regulation is rationalized as success, this process takes away the independence of minds and creates problems for the rulebooks due to misbehaviors and other resistance motives. Therefore, an unusual rise or growth in disciplinary or misconduct is a red flag for potential disruptions within the population.

Success should be measured in defusing or recover a sustainable balance for moderation and at the same time, find things to do in everyday life to counter-point the dullness and make the individual existence meaningful with some kind of approved democratic participation in the construction of their everyday life.

The administration should find a balance between legitimate mental exertions and physical or labor interests inside their facilities eliminating or reducing negative forces that exert hate or discernment, personal discouragement and irrational thinking and emotional disruptions which do not escape and escalate with due time.

Today, public schools serve as rehearsal halls for mental hospitals and jails/prisons emerge as training centers for boredom through the enforcement of a tedium agenda. To repeat this trajectory from schools to prisons is a dangerous path to continue on as it has an emotional buildup that is rarely addressed through constructive means or programs.

Children today are being programmed and orientated into a state of disciplined efficiency. Working assembly lines or fast food franchises are mass-producing instruments of boredom and when re-instituted inside a jail or prison, the process is continued without any freedom for individuality to appear and invigorate the mind and body onto a new path.

One can begin to see how the mechanics of conformity create a schedule of dullness and sameness to a large degree in the everyday life and more so inside a prison. This would be a positive attribute if the population was to remain under some level of mind control or a rigid trained insightful means of behaving but the fact is, in order to prepare them for release, we have to find ways to cut out the rigidities of their sameness and create individuals who may think and behave to conform to society’s rules which are much more liberal and filled with more freedoms than inside the joint.

As an alternative, we must seek an open circle of control rather than the closed circle they [prisoners] have been orientated under and conformed to strict rules while incarcerated. This could be addressed through custody levels as the lower custody levels allow more individuality than the higher more rigid custody levels.

Research shows that boredom creates alienation, estrangement of relationships etc. as their minds are not adequately occupied. It would appear that if there was some change infused into the everyday life the monotony is reduced, and relief is found making it more bearable and creative that may even include some excitement for the lack of a better word.

Delving into the emotional aspect of boredom, we find despair as one fatalistic element as well as resistance. This would be exasperated for those who are mentally ill and contemplate suicide. One can create radicalism through boredom as those who resist boredom seek alternatives that are either constructive or destructive in nature.

Sabotage is another aspect of boredom. The idea to interrupt the normal or sameness experienced daily becomes a challenge to disrupt to interrupt life’s mind-numbing repetition. Researchers argue that boredom is indeed a counter-revolutionary device meaning it might mean a fight against the dehumanizing process of standardization.

The advantage of some traditionally situated individuals who serve in the armed forces is the fact that they may be sparked or stimulated by the chance of war, deployment, combat or anything else that differs from everyday life. Thus life is calculated by situations that produce risks and uncertainties.

Love Yourself First - fake people and a real world

Real World, Fake People – Talking to the Mirror

Desperate times call for desperate actions or so we are told. So many are so desperate to be liked or socially accepted, they engage in counterfeit behaviors and personalities to become more about them then themselves. Once involved in this bogus promise to be someone else, you lose all your social safety nets and expose yourself to sorrow and pain at a dime’s notice. In other words, you become a controlled puppet of false expectations.

So you become a lying hypocrite begging for more attention and self-importance as you dwell into the jungle of delusional manipulators who have nothing in common with you except your ego. Day after day, you promise yourself to maintain the unjustified status of your falsehood and fakery to please yourself and ignoring the facts around you that you are a lie to everybody around you.

You believe they love you and accept you for who you are when in fact, you have lied about everything that you pretended to be. As you seek unflinching support around you, your social circle narrows down to a few who call you a friend but somehow, you are something or someone they need in their fake lives as they leech off others fakery to justify their own.

Some seek the help of anti-depressants and others go to therapy to deal with their problems but in the end, the only solution left on the table is to get away from the garbled rants and raves of those you associate with daily and stop the needless spending of those luxuries that are not the necessities you need in life to be happy.

Through the medication or fake relationships, your ego is satisfied they love you for who you are and that they are with you because you told them what they wanted to hear as in reality, nothing genuine has been said or done. Finding yourself deeper in vanity’s debt, you become aware that this debt can never be paid off, which in essence is the fall of your own existence as a person.

A real person, not someone on a forged expedition in life, and who has a brain, would have to wonder why anyone would ever support such a facile rant or rave to be so ignorant of what is happening. Living with false flags all around them, it becomes harder to recognize the truth as time goes on and somehow, they never learn to pull themselves out of this charade of life.

To call a fake person a dim-wit would be in entirety, an understatement as they left an undeniable trail of fraudulent friends along the way to the realization of who they really are. But just as scary as it is, the bizarre re-entry into the real world when your mind adapts to common sense and allows you to see life as it really exists and brings your feelings and emotions back to where they belonged all the time.

This re-entry shouldn’t be much of a surprise to those who really know you well enough to see how you have changed and now back to where you belong. The sudden emergence of intelligence and sound thoughts enlighten hope that from now on, you will tell people exactly what you want them to hear and not what they want to hear.

Throwing caution to the wind, you have seen the dark side of this journey to the other side where life is nothing but phony and surrounded by die-hard supporters of such behaviors. No longer a great believer in the art of deception you no longer support the chicanery that has mired you for so long in a lost world that never offered you any hope or success of happiness. After surviving your stint in hell, you now feel the genuine concern for other people and their feelings.

Your mind, no longer out to lunch, has learned you possess a verifiable level of competence to be real and sincere in a world that is filled with lies and hypocrisy. You have avoided an inevitable catastrophe to occur as you now live a life that is no longer a lie and the lives of those around you are now recognized to be real as well as a match in made in heaven. This is how the world is, this is how your future unfolds as you stand before the elongated mirror and say to yourself, “mirror mirror, on the wall, who am I, really” and sigh with relief the answer stands right before you.

Has Civilization Surrendered? Part I - Is Civilization Culture?

Civilization as we have known it to exist has re-appeared as a barbaric monster it was back in the darkened days. A complex systems of societies developed with internal characteristics of customs and cultures, it has no reared its ugly head to attack the very basic foundation of a modern world seeking to take it back centuries into the earlier parts of the world’s history.

Most of us know of the early rise, growth and decline of earlier civilizations. Whenever the world reached a potential perfection of the quality of life, someone or something spoils the goodness of society and turns it into an evil advance of hate, greed or lust for power. These advances are often fueled by religious and spiritual norms of our civilization but spurred by war, violence and greed by political means and intrusions.

In other words, when the level of civilization reaches it peaks of goodness, can it be brought back down by the poor maintenance of such positive developments and growth by the negatively motivated, unethical relationships usually grounded in human immoral and criminal behaviors.

Perhaps we all overestimated the meaning of civilization. We know that the opposite of being civilized is to be ‘barbaric’ in nature and how that is defined is truly interesting as it is all based on cultures and practices that appear to be normal or unacceptable to different people divided into classes or groups of men, women and children belonging to a specific race, creed, religion, color or nationality.

To each their own, civilization may be applied to human groups indiscriminately based on the perception at hand of those who judge and sit in judgment of others aka bigots. Hence, we have changed the word to mean an acceptable standard of behavior, similar to etiquette. A phenomenon that casts a shadow on crude, unacceptable ‘barbaric’ behaviors.

But evolution and revolution has brought a deeper definition of the word civilization. It has now enveloped, encircled or wrapped up other characteristics that are both inner and outer layers of acceptance or disapproval. This has brought on two key words that describe today’s assessment of the world as we justify ‘racism’ and ‘imperialism’ with a wish to dominate others either religiously or politically.

Powerful nations have formed an alliance to defeat other nations deemed to be a threat to their own way of life or because of greed or power. Using the term under this description, we are now pitting one element of civilization, the more complex, refined, sophisticated society that is viewed superior to the other lower description of another element of the opposite civilization, the weaker barbarians and culturally dominate them into slavery or dominance or even death.

One cannot erase the fact that this same conflict exists also within a culture or civilization itself. A conflict that may lead to a civil war if not maintained or controlled to preserve peace by adhering to the expected integrity and cultural standards set by the foundation of such civilizations or groups of men, women and children as they grew up and enjoyed an education, freedom of religion and free-will thinking.

Think of culture as a specific set of ideas, religious beliefs, customs, arts, political wills and other elements that makes them unique. This includes the creativity or development of intellectual minds to embrace more intricate and personal aspects of the cultures that includes literatures, philosophical ideologies, architecture and other fabrics of life that makes them believe they are unique and elite.

Certainly, grounds for conflict and future clashes or political strife as these are all subject to perceptions and truths attached to the values placed on such items, categories or suggestions. What guides their thinking is their educational and intellectual resources provided to give them insights and recommendations of which to choose or follow. One can see the value of schools and media from this point of view. It should never be underestimated.

Serpent at the Door

Serpent at the Door

Every now and then, you hear a knock on the door that makes you shiver for your mind is telling you, there is something evil lurking outside your door. We all have lives to live and most of us do it with episodes of monsters and other creatures filling in spaces where we shouldn’t have gone or traveled too far. Always faced with curiosity or temptation, the door is a portal that should never be taken for granted.

Our lives are multidimensional in existence but there are times we end up in a single zone; a zone that is unquestionably the scariest of them all because it is filled with fear. Lifting the veil of fear, you find many reasons for taking on such draconian journey into a cave of darkness. There are no reasonable motives why you expose yourself to this but you do. It’s a way of life that tests us of our own free will and our ability to stand up to the unknown that lurks around us.

The fact remains we all do it at one time or another. We all travel through a darkness at one time or another as we explore the world around us either spiritually or emotionally. A true realization of fear comes when you are trapped inside this tunnel of darkness that seems to have no end. It seems to be leading you nowhere and you know you can ill afford any protection against the dangers.

Hence, you become subject to or vulnerable to a spiritual invasion, a darkness that can overwhelm the light and trap deep emotions. There is an invisible trap door to enter and a non-existent exit door to find. The entire journey is done through blindness as the eyes cannot find the light. Hidden, pale and filled with distress, you wonder how you will make out of this mess. Your senses tell you the door is near, but your hands are trembling with the fear.

There are no keys, no maps to unlock or find this door. When you travel the Serpent’s Trail, the interior is filled with darkness, shielding your eyes from the light. You must travel without help to find the exterior – there are no markers to help you along the way. Shaking mildly, you see the monsters and creatures, blocking your way to the door that you finally fund after frantic searching and traveling.

For a moment, your heart stands still, as the darkness tests your will. Ten feet away, you make your move as you are determined to leave this cave you entered freely while searching for something. Guided by only our instincts to survive, you have endured the presence of stealthy characters known to be your enemies and as the tunnel narrows, your efforts to make it past these enemies become very challenging.

Ten feet seemed like a hundred feet of maze, twisting turns and numerous trip hazards. Your mind plays tricks as you finally reach the light. In life, there are more than two paths to take- what is noteworthy is which path takes you to what journey. Knowing which path to travel is often complicated leading you to make many choices. Choices that are significant to sustain your progress through the darkness and complete the travel necessities in order to complete this journey.

There are no easy options, they are all equally cumbersome and hard for the final step you take in this quest is the step to freedom. Presumably you dodge the skeletons and bones found along the way, avoid the bites of the rats that are at your feet and the smiling faces of the characters you meet. This journey will never be easy. This journey will never end. Every time you open the door after hearing a knock, the serpent may be waiting for you to come outside and take a step on his favorite trail of doom and despair called the darkness. 

Break these Chains of Pain

Break these Chains of Pain

An Ode of Loneliness

I never believed that making money could bring you happiness or erase the pain that it brings without your awareness

Living your life in the bright lights and fancy places does not add up too much when there isn’t so much or enough to gain

When the blood runs deep and cold, frozen to everything you touch

It is time to reflect yourself and break these chains of pain

Walking away from your dreams, can bring you happiness

A difficult path to take away of what you thought would be enough

It’s just a matter of what you prioritize in your life, for happiness is not something you can buy or gain by selling your soul

If only, you could break these chains of pain

When alone at the end of the evening, is brings you nothing at all that life tolls

Searching for that peaceful easy feeling, and dreaming of the one you love

Can bring you the happiness you have been seeking and that was once lost

Struggling to be free from these chains of pain

Knowing it was hard to change your ways, you found new ways to settle down your life, without all the running around

Ending up with family, friends and lovers, while both feet are standing firmly on the ground.

So it’s true, I gave up being a dreamer so I could settle down my ways

Realizing the neon lights are fading, and thinking about the ones who made my life special in so many ways

I may never cross these highways of life again; it may be it will leave me all alone at the end of the evening

Somewhere, while driving alone, I saw a sign that told me to stop turning out and burning out as they there turning out to be the same

So instead of wasting my time, spending it chasing a dead and already fading dream

I freely chose to break these chains of pain

I turned my back to admit, I had nothing to believe in anymore and that to keep going, would get me nowhere

Resting on my laurels of the past, I knew I would be alright if I could just remain sane and not worry about tomorrow

Agreements aplenty, there were times when what we had just wasn’t enough to keep us going in that direction

So in the end, I chose to spend my evenings alone with my thoughts struggling within myself to bear these chains of pain