Persuasory

I asked my ninth grade students to submit topics for persuasion papers.  Here are the topics, exactly as written:

• 'Don't ask, Don't tell' military rule
• Abortion
• Law+Rules=cellphone use
• Driving Laws=age,grade, experience
• 2012
• Legalizing the medical marijana
• NFL Players being fined for big hits
• Driving Laws-Should be based on experience
• NCAA Suspensions on Dangerous Hits
• Obama Administration's Wire-Tapping Movement (Against it)
• Capital Punishment
• Big hits in the NFL
• Bed Bugs--are they coming to (our town) or not?
• situation in afghanistan
• Budget cuts effecting entertainment
• Animal Abuse
• Malaria In Africa
• The Mosque at Ground Zero
• Topic: Generation dead extreamly good witeing/ Generation dead is okay its not the best book I have ever read, I don't really like how the author jumps from charicter to charictor.  My favorite thing about the book is the detail.
• Teen pregnancy, why its happening more often

Time marches on.

One of my biggest challenges right now is listening to what smacks of religious intolerance, particularly of Muslims, in my classroom.  I live in a conservative town and I am relatively liberal.  It has never caused a problem.  A teacher's political views don't belong in a classroom, but tolerance and acceptance are important values.  I suppose that just by standing there, I have made a political statement.  Sigh.  Because I teach a foreign language in addition to teaching English, I was challenged during the very first year of my career for teaching culture along with the target language.  I was flabbergasted, but I wasn't the only one.  The administration and board of education were supportive and these days, the Minnesota State Board of Education expects me to teach the cultural dimensions of the people who speak the target language--duh--along with the language.  

This post is really about what to do with anti-Muslim sentiment in the classroom.  I am a little beside myself over it.  I know my own children in the Little School are taught love as a value in first grade and inclusion as a value throughout, inclusion of different races and abilities and--stop right there--I'm not sure we've addressed religion.  I'm not sure we've ever had a practicing Muslim student in our mostly white town.  We have a small percentage of African American students and an even smaller percentage of Asian and Hispanic students.  We are so far north and our population is so financially limited that our students have very limited exposure to people of other races and faiths.  They believe in the Church of the Internet and of course, they mimic what they see at home.  Still, it has never caused a problem I couldn't openly address and steer gently until this fall when a sophomore said, "President Obama is a Muslim.  I read it on the Internet." This week, a freshman began to talk about the mosque at Ground Zero with such disdain that his face became twisted with rage.  The other students joined in with so much misinformation that I was stunned into silence. I observed them carefully, seeing them imitate the words and gestures of adults they knew or lived with.  I knew if I said what I believe--that the people who want to build that mosque have every right to do so, although I believe it to be in poor taste and that for the sake of tact and sensitivity and perhaps even ethics, they should not--my principal might get calls and complaints.  It was the first time in my career I have had this feeling and I now carry the sad realization that the time is different and new in its degree of hatred. 

I can't let it go, of course.  I read Little Son the story of Ruby Bridges and think of her teacher, alone with her in the classroom, while for weeks the entire school boycotted because Ruby, a child of color, was the first to attend the all-white school.  Every  morning, Ruby and her teacher said the Pledge of Allegiance together and throughout the long, patient weeks, she taught Ruby the curriculum and Ruby continued to learn it.  The school did not close and eventually, the other students rebelled against their parents' orders to stay home.  They came back.  I realize now Ruby wasn't the only brave one.

1984

One learns to observe to survive.  Say less, hear more.  Stare at your screen or your phone and just listen.  Listen while you talk.  Just listen.  People volunteer so much information.  But observe in a small town, in a small community, in a small system.  It becomes a blessing and a curse. 

I know nearly everyone.  I know all the staff, 100% of the students in my building and 80% of the students in the other building in our system, which houses grades K-6.  I know most of the parents and obviously plenty of the community.  I know the business owners and the older residents.  I know what people do, when they will retire, about their car-deer accidents, their extra jobs to put their kids through college and how much they paid for that sweater at Kohl's last weekend.  I know about their tomato crop this year and what the doctor said about their kid's learning disorder, along with every dirty deed committed during the divorce and how much laundry their kid does or leaves on the living room floor.  The information feels almost incestuous. 

I have a close friend in the other building with whom I mope and carry on about life; we do a pretty nice job of getting out the bad stuff and lifting each other up.  Because we aren't in each other's territory, we've never once gotten into a pissing match, which teachers are wont to do, and we both know that the other believes in God, family and country, kids first.  We share and compare notes and frustrations, compare how different situations are handled in our buildings, and give each other something we both need: love and honest advice.  Since I tend to overreact when there is a conflict and she tends to to underreact, she tells me when to let it go, and I tell her when to pipe up and state her case.  In addition to helping me keep my professional sanity, Beth also is a sort of spy for me for my own kids as they progress through her building.  She can subtly check on their lunchtime behavior, or if I hear strange stories about something that happened with a teacher, I can ask if such-and-such teacher would ever do "such a thing," or if such an action is typical.  It's an advantage every parent would die for.

All of this has come crashing together on many occasions, most recently related to the dreaded fall parasite, lice.  It's been a banner year for lice in the Little School, as we like to call the K-6 building.  My youngest son's teacher mentioned one afternoon that she was sorry for itching her hair so hard, but "I've wanted to do that all day.  I've got one that keeps coming back without the lice completely gone."  

Did she just say what I think she said? 

When did we change the policy where the kids kept getting sent home until they were nit-free?  The mother in me overtaking the professional, I had to ask.  "Well," she responded, "we can't just keep sending them home forever."

Yes.  Yes, you can.

My mind raced then and continues to do so now every time my son brings home the "lice letter" that means at least one child has been in the room that day with nits and/or actual lice.  I check, I re-check, my husband checks me.  Lice at our house could mean missing work, using sick days, missed wages for my husband. 

"Who was absent today?" I ask my seven year old casually.  He ponders and gives me his best guess.  "Who was absent yesterday?"  "Who was absent last week on Tuesday?" I may as well be asking.  Eventually I narrow the most repeating offender down to my older son's best friend's sister.  My older son's best friend keeps shaving his head.  My older son bugs me to have him over until I finally tell him why I'm resisting.  He understands.  Little son comes home one day to tell me that the lice are so bad that the room got exploded--what turns out to be a bug bomb.  A week passes, then, more lice letters.  His genteel and compassionate teacher tells the class a secret; he is not supposed to tell me.  He does tell me: lice like clean hair.  So he learns tolerance and inclusion.  Is that the proper phrase for this instance?   Either way, I like this secret and I love his teacher that much more.  I just don't want him going to Lice-a-pollooza everyday. 

Eventually I realize in a roundabout way that a co-worker has a lice problem in his house.  He is coming to work with his head shaved. Nothing too unusual except that it's unusually close-cropped and after an extended illness, his son shows up with a shaved head as well.  I have suspicions, but not concerns.  Until.  Until Beth tells me his daughter is coming to school with lice.  What should she do? 

This is what Beth and I call a "Really?" moment.  It's a moment when someone is so mean or dumb or unreasonable that one is left at a loss for words.  Beth wants to know what to do with the poor child, or better yet, with her mother, Lice-Lady.  A professional who works in a school and therefore understands the extent of what is wrong with sending a child with lice and/or nits to school and doing it anyway, and a mom who is acknowledging it and hugging her good-bye, long hair to long hair, in front of everyone...this all leaves Beth and I with only one thing left to say, "Really?" 

"Really?" in this case can mean a number of things, such as "What the fuck?"  "Is that the best you could do?"  "Are you shitting me?"  but most likely, "You're not really going to make me deal with this, are you, God or ______?" (Fill in the blank with name of boss/co-worker/friend/spouse/etc.) 

I gave Beth my best advice, but the problem was compounded for me the very next day when I was out of the classroom.  My substitute teacher was a woman with a gorgeous long mane of hair that stretches all the way down her back nearly to her waist.  It is big, curly, thick, beautiful hair and I am sure that she sat in my new red chair, the first new chair in my entire seventeen year career. 

You guessed it. 

Lice-Lady.

Conferences, The Mini-Series: Post 3

"She doesn't really have a lot of issues related to race, but if something bothers her, she'll tell you.  Unless you call her black.  She'll tell you, 'I'm brown.'"

Conferences, The Mini-Series: Post 2

"Oh yes, he is a little less likely to stir it up than the other boys.  You know I'm not really his mother.  I'm his grandmother.  But he calls me his mom because that's what I've always been.  I adopted him and his brother as soon as they were born.  His mother, my daughter, is thirty-five.  She's a heroin addict.  So yes, he is a careful boy.  He knows how things can go wrong and he is cautious about getting into trouble."

Conferences, The Mini-Series: Post 1

John's dad was large, dark, handsome and a tad overweight.  He gave my hand a hearty shake and plopped heavily into the seat.  He smiled at me in a friendly way, revealing six almost complete teeth.  His flannel shirt draped open over a soiled t-shirt.  "I'll show you mine if you show me yours," it read.  He caught me looking at it and laughed heartily.  "Yeah, yeah.  I read it to a lady friend at work and they sent me  home for two weeks."  He snorted, chortling on, "I guess you can't do that.  Technically,  it was sexual harrassment.  'S what the boss said.  Was almos' worth it though."  He leered at me and chuckled again, clearly cracking himself up. 

I've worked with John's dad now for over six years and I always find him to be friendly and respectful, although lacking sadly in parenting skills.  It certainly was the strangest beginning to a parent-teacher conference that I can recall.

Note:  For obvious reasons, all names and places in this blog have been changed.  Any resemblance to a recognizable person or place is just plain wrong!

You Are So Beautiful to Me

"That must be dreadful," people frequently comment when they hear that I teach junior high students.  The response dismays me.  Are children like puppies?  Should we only like them until cute becomes awkward and vulnerability becomes anxiety and apathy?  Over the years, I've learned that everyone has a specialty.  Mine is not a room full of six year olds.  Perhaps when people dismiss the desirability of  my student population, they are thinking about two things: their own junior high experience, and parenting a greasy, erupting and always moving target.

A lot of people my age grew up during the era of the latch-key child.  We mostly raised ourselves and we were left to wander the aisles of angst in the K-Mart of adolescence, alone with our hair and our loneliness, both piqued beyond repair. It was every bit as harsh as it is today for kids who struggle with divorce, abuse,  mean girls, violence, broken hearts and a newer and longer chapter of poverty than anything the eighties could have conceived.  We are of the Breakfast Club and Fight Club, of Heathers and the Weather Channel and, sigh, we wouldn't go back to junior high for all the money...even in these times when the money would be handy to pay off our copious debt.

Parenting a thirteen year old is not anything like teaching one.  This post isn't about the pain and fear  involved with parenting, so I won't even try to describe it.  There is joy too, of course.  Peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys.  To be a parent is to know extravagant vulnerability.

What is beautiful about awkward?  Baby fat pooching out a tummy and still wearing a clingy shirt.  Wearing high heels that are too high and tripping down the hallway.  The courage of pink hair.  Or french braids that don't quite work.  An older brother's much-too-large sweats and slippers on a waifer-thin body, bending in sweat-soaked, wrinkled-faced concentration over a desk peppered with fractions.  Asking your mother how to kiss a girl after being kicked off the computer for looking at porn.  Swearing and enjoying the pure sparkle of the words.  The honesty to cry in front of peers and get fired up enough to shout out loud.  Talking out loud in class about visiting your dad in jail.  (It is what it is.)  Being told in the morning that your parents are getting divorced and showing up for school like it's any other day.  Asking the teacher in your new school if you can resume counseling because some of the conversations you've heard lately are bringing back memories of your own rape. Anticipating the haunted house on facebook.  Decorating each other's lockers with crepe paper and bows on birthdays.  Helping the kitchen lady clean up the tables without being asked.  Kissing under the bleachers.

To be a teacher is to love the kid enough to envision the small child and potential hero within, but to have the emotional distance to see the long view--and to see it actualize over and over so many times that one grows to trust the pattern, to believe in the long view.  It is to know that the broken hearts do lead to a deeper understanding of love, and they are necessary and purposeful and such a meaningful part of what it means to be human.  It is to truly understand that mean girls are mean because nice girls were mean to them.  It is to eventually realize that the kids we wring our hands over the most frequently become the strongest.  They become the ones we use as examples of those who conquer suffering, or who will best understand another group of the abused and misused.  There is not good in all suffering, but young people have taught me not to wring my hands so much as to celebrate their resilience and strength.  They have taught me to recognize what was strong about me during that time I felt most ugly--or the times I still do.  I have learned to see them all as works-in-progress; it is not hard. In doing so and for so long, it has allowed me to see it in myself.  I have come to see myself not as a final draft with all my errors, but as a work-in-progress, still crafting myself, still being crafted. That has been the greatest lesson of all.

Blue Jeans

Do you remember when you were in third grade and first saw your teacher outside of school in blue jeans?  You had the sudden stunning realization that she did not live at the school.  Over a period of time, you came to terms with the fact that she had a family and activities that she participated in that didn't include you and your classmates.  Eventually you got into high school. You probably realized your teacher was real, but you probably didn't realize how real she was.  In fact, I discovered society saw a fabulous transition in me when I went from a normal person to a teacher.  This was not a real transition, unfortunately; it was an expectation.  I am like any real teacher though: I have flaws and characteristics that make me authentically human.  I have some secret blue jeans I wear outside of school; these are the things that make me real.

• I swear.  A lot.
• Sometimes I swat my kid in the back of the head.
• I eat popcorn as a meal.
• I make empty promises to God when my life or the life of a loved one is in danger and then I don't follow through and hope He understands.
• I argue with my parents.
• My teenager makes me cry.  
• I get speeding tickets and so does more than 50% of the staff.
• I make mistakes and don't learn from them.  
• I sneak an occasional invasive species into my garden.
• When money is tight, I let my dogs go without their shots and I don't buy vitamins for my kids.
• I steal the occasional pen that writes with just the right degree of ink from the bank or the doctor's office.
• I have a crush on my doctor and...a few other men.
• I definitely have no problem stealing this month's issue of "Rolling Stone" from the dermatologist's office so I can finish the article I started in the waiting room.

All teachers are real people, whether you want them to be or not.  The good news?  I always take the magazine back to the next appointment, and in spite of what people think, I don't take a mental red pen to anything except commercial sign-age and news articles.  In truth, I love your kid and my goal every day is to give him the power to wield words with competence and confidence in this great world.   I hope it's enough to get past the blue jeans.

The Librarian

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of story hour at Tamarack Public Library.  The librarians there were truly of storybook quality.  Mom could drop me off for story hour and go for groceries, knowing I would be entranced by their magic and just...loved--by the books and the ladies--while she was gone.  My favorite librarian was Virginia who had ropy yellow hair that fell to her polyester-clad hips, tight turtleneck sweaters that loved her plentiful curves, and a wide toothy smile.  Virginia must have been scraping along on her rural librarian salary, but she played the part gleefully, never tiring of chatting with me about books, even as I grew into a morose, sullen teenager.  She still recommended great books; she still was patient and she still loved me.  Perhaps Virginia's overflowing heart is the reason no other librarian since has quite been able to please me in the same way.  It must be that Virginia's enthusiasm and warmth set the bar too high.

In my school, we have a barbarian for a librarian who is sometimes referred to as Mrs. Fish due to her unfortunate resemblance to Spongebob's boating school teacher.  On better days, I think this is sort of mean, but on other days, I reach into my bottom left desk drawer and choose from two rubbery fish toys--one smooth Rainbow Fish and one rough Puffer Fish--and then squeeze for all I'm worth.  I took up this form of stress release after my current principal first experienced my former (and more effective) stress release on Mrs. Fish, which consisted of shouting and demanding better for the kids.

The problem is that she doesn't like kids.  And she doesn't appear to like books either.  Worse though is that she doesn't like kids and books together; it seems she'll do anything to keep them apart.  She'll go out of her way to block access to a computer, the lab or any reference materials if, oh say, a research paper is due in a few hours and a student just found out her Works Cited page is done wrong.  She takes a special joy in charging overdue fees and I personally think she uses them for her Healthy Hosiery Fund.  Examples of her cruelty in wielding control are numerous but they really aren't the point here.  We all know someone like this.  There comes a point every few months when she needs to be reminded that she works for the kids, they don't work for her.  Over the years, Mrs. Fish and I have had some whopper blowouts, (that is until the current principal came along and told me in a polite but firm way that this had to end.)  Because of her contemptuous nature, a couple of principals sort of thanked me as they chuckled about scenes like this, and there were plenty of slaps on the back from fellow staff who found both of our roles in these scenes plenty amusing.  There would be one day when she got the best of me: I was nine months pregnant and wobbled immediately from the angry scene to the faculty restroom to settle myself, where I promptly dropped my lunch card into the toilet and--oh, fuck it--flushed it away and went home to give birth to my firstborn.

Sometimes though, a bad librarian doesn't spoil the bunch (of books.) Last week, I took a midget seventh grader down to the principal's office when Mrs. Fish's antics had once again gone on just a day longer than I could bear.  "Olivia," I said to the tiny, cherub-faced 12-year-old who stood wringing her hands before us, "please tell Mr. Appleton what just happened to you in the media center."  As it turned out, Olivia had turned in her slightly late book and tried to check out a new one.  For seventy-cents-worth of late fees, she could neither check out a new book, nor have her old book back after it had been sucked into the "Returned" slot, even though she needed a book for class.  Olivia's earnestness was heartbreaking and apparently fueled more than my own anger.  Later that day, dear old Mr. Appleton put seven dimes on the librarian's desk and with the shark-like jaws of authority, forcibly changed the overdue book fine policy.

This one's for Virginia.  Bite me, Fish-face.

Purpose

From The Prophet:  "Work is love made visible.  And if you can not work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you s hould leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of the people who work with joy."

I have always loved Gibran's reflections on work, children and death.  This particular quote has hung near my desk for years, to remind me to have a better attitude when the going gets tough.  I don't mind work; it brings me great comfort.  Work gives purpose, and I believe purpose is a gift. 

I have trouble with mediocrity.  And reality.  What, really, are all those hours in the therapist's office besides accepting mediocrity and reality?  They are all about learning to accept flaws, my own and others.  I recently came across a few lines of Leonard Cohen that sum it up beautifully and from them, I draw the goal of my acceptance, and the title of the blog.  Thanks, Len, for once again tying it up so impishly.

Ring the bells that still can ring,
forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything;
that's how the light gets in.