When was the last time you asked yourself, or those around you, if Martin Luther King, Jr's speech had succeeded in becoming more than words? Maybe you take it for granted, as I usually do, that segregation is simply a word in our history books that is defined by more words. Sure there are stories that make the news every so often of hate crimes and stubborn individuals, but haven't there always been those stories since the beginning of our existence? The things which do not make the news are the unions that happen each day, the bridges which are built by small, nondescript interactions in the lunch rooms and classrooms of this country. When I asked my students to write what their favorite parts of English class were, and then their least favorites, during their final day with me this Monday, the answers I received were not surprising. Some enjoyed reading, some hated writing, some loved the movies and many of them liked making "new" friends. Huh. Really, new friends as established juniors in high school? I scanned my room at the formed groups among computers and what I saw actually took my breath away. These were the same groups of students I have had for 90 days, and most of them I taught last year, so we can count them up and say I've had them for 180 . . . . I saw my Latino soccer star at a round table with 3 self declared "rednecks"; two black Gospel singers looking up music with my KKK history buff (not a supporter); my football superstar, with a nickname of "Tank", quietly drumming a desk while listening to stories told by an Exceptional Student, who's been outcast by his peers as a total "loser". These relationships had been forming since August, yet I was oblivious to their formations! But I think that's the whole point. These are not forced interactions and they are not Kumbaya circles responding to themes from To Kill a Mockingbird. These are teenagers, who will inevitably become adults in our world very shortly. Do they still see the difference in skin color? Absolutely. Don't you? Do they have opinions about immigration? You bet. But they are inadvertently closing the gaps between basic human needs and the human condition. There will always be discrepancies within our society and unfair treatment among our peers, but these relationships are not the ones worth paying attention to. The relationships to focus on in this new year are the ones which are brewing all around us; the ones which will not be on the news. Focus, instead, on the people sitting behind you at a restaurant and the consumers at your grocery store and the students at your schools and be in awe at how far we have come, even in the whisper of 90 days.
"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood."
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
A Timid Embrace
As I embark on my final week with my American Literature classes, or I should say one last day, I look back on this semester and wonder how on earth I will be able to transition back to my world literature mentality. World lit was my catapult into the teaching world, and somewhat of a security blanket, though I do not describe this leap as a secure prospect. I have grown to love my classes this year, in large part due to my familiarity of faces and attitudes. ( I taught about 90% of them last year) I cannot say for certain they feel the same way about me, and they do not have to in order for me to be successful. I am leaving behind more than just attitudes; I leave behind the safety of Harper Lee and John Steinbeck . . . the authors who have already gone through their banishments and ignorance, and the crackles under 451 degrees. Last year I didn't know any better as I ventured into Night and Things Fall Apart. Sometimes ignorance is truly blissful with these things. As I look at my rosters with unfamiliar names I wonder how they will react to my veteran philosophies. And yes, I think I can call myself a veteran at this point. Will I be able to finally read Elie Wiesel's chapter 9 aloud? Will Oedipus Rex be left by the wayside to writing scores and contemporary affairs? The bottom line is this: do I still have it in me, yes after JUST one year, to rally these students who have been abandoned in this "holding pen" by people who make the rules and pay my salary?
Will I be able to endure another child coming to school with a black eye and broken spirit? Change, as we all know, is inevitable. Lately I wonder how much change I am able to support. Does it really matter that we no longer have an AP and out superintendant is an intern? Can it get any worse than this?
After many sleepless nights the answer to all of these questions is YES. I can endure, and things can get much worse, especially for my students. I have a student who can barely read and his handwriting looks more like a first graders than an eleventh. He has been mine for the past two years, first in English 2, now in English 3. As we were finishing our last novel, Barbara Kingsovler's The Bean Trees, I realized he would not be able to do the group readings I had scheduled for the last 5 chapters. In fact, he had barely followed along for the entire book, so what good would it be now to have him struggle with the ending? I asked him to get a computer, to look some things up for me. Although his reading and writing skills are very low, his moral and comprehensive skills are higher than most of his classmates. "K, would you please look up the backgound information of all the presidential candidates? I am curious to see what you find out." K's eyes light up immediately. His passion is history, and can recite all of the supreme court justices in our history. He has said to me before, as we read TKAM, that he thinks it's a shame when so many people focus on the "evil" white people during segregation, that people need to know more about Atticus Finch than the KKK. This student happens to be black. He wants to know if I agree, then wants to know if I think Obama's campaign will turn into a race against black and white. He has the most faith in the people of this country, and those figures who made it so great in the first place. Then he asks me how to get into law school, and if I think it's easier to get a PhD. or a degree in law. I shake my head in disbelief at my colleagues who toss him into the "retarded holding pen". I tell him to make his own decision based on the information he's found, but not before he lets me know the NAACP was founded in 1906.
Then I look at him and let him know I will also be his teacher next year, for English 4. Is it worth it? Yes. Can I go back to roots and move forward at the same time? Absolutely. I think the supreme court justices teach us that on a daily basis . . . at least they teach some very impressionable students.
Will I be able to endure another child coming to school with a black eye and broken spirit? Change, as we all know, is inevitable. Lately I wonder how much change I am able to support. Does it really matter that we no longer have an AP and out superintendant is an intern? Can it get any worse than this?
After many sleepless nights the answer to all of these questions is YES. I can endure, and things can get much worse, especially for my students. I have a student who can barely read and his handwriting looks more like a first graders than an eleventh. He has been mine for the past two years, first in English 2, now in English 3. As we were finishing our last novel, Barbara Kingsovler's The Bean Trees, I realized he would not be able to do the group readings I had scheduled for the last 5 chapters. In fact, he had barely followed along for the entire book, so what good would it be now to have him struggle with the ending? I asked him to get a computer, to look some things up for me. Although his reading and writing skills are very low, his moral and comprehensive skills are higher than most of his classmates. "K, would you please look up the backgound information of all the presidential candidates? I am curious to see what you find out." K's eyes light up immediately. His passion is history, and can recite all of the supreme court justices in our history. He has said to me before, as we read TKAM, that he thinks it's a shame when so many people focus on the "evil" white people during segregation, that people need to know more about Atticus Finch than the KKK. This student happens to be black. He wants to know if I agree, then wants to know if I think Obama's campaign will turn into a race against black and white. He has the most faith in the people of this country, and those figures who made it so great in the first place. Then he asks me how to get into law school, and if I think it's easier to get a PhD. or a degree in law. I shake my head in disbelief at my colleagues who toss him into the "retarded holding pen". I tell him to make his own decision based on the information he's found, but not before he lets me know the NAACP was founded in 1906.
Then I look at him and let him know I will also be his teacher next year, for English 4. Is it worth it? Yes. Can I go back to roots and move forward at the same time? Absolutely. I think the supreme court justices teach us that on a daily basis . . . at least they teach some very impressionable students.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
What Would Frost Do?
It is with much sorrow that I have to accept my denial to study at Oxford this summer. The news came by post and fell into my hands like the scorching letter 'A'. My initial reaction was one of embarrassment, as I had configured a fantastical tour of London and the Abbey's with my closest friends and family. I still have not informed them of this defeat. My hope is they will forgive my premature planning and move on as if Oxford was never an option. The next stage was one of introspective reasoning. Where has my desire to write among pioneers of such a luxurious language led me? Am I to be relinquished among the doubts and insecurities, which plague English teachers, for the rest of my career? The apricot trees in Santa Fe mesmerized my imagination and I have been longing for the Tudor ceiling beams in desperate hopes of rekindling my love affair with words. The question that I am struggling with is the very same question I asked my sister only a couple of weeks ago: "What defines you?" I have to swallow my own response and say that this decision cannot define me. The things which define me are around me on a daily basis, and a passport will not add to that definition. I will be spending my summer in Vermont, at the flagship campus on which Robert Frost professed his admiration for the students. The golden buildings that rise out of the sparkling snow in February will be my home. Though I have yet to see them among the spouting grass in summer, I cannot think my father was wrong when he detoured our drive to Burlington to let me know what future could be awaiting me. Tudors will have to wait, for now, as I begin this new affair with the history of Bread Loaf among the whispers of Seamus Heany and the camaraderie of Frost enthusiasts. Each semester I begin my classes with a reading of "The Road Not Taken"; this poem has sentimental meaning to many readers, yet mine comes from my own father's recitation of it during my bleakest moment. "Honor" is not what I feel as I accept my post among the brilliant landscape in Vermont, which is only accessible from the back roads. I am humbled and ecstatic, with the knowledge that my father would never steer me in the wrong direction.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Amtrak Romance
I am in need of a good romance, and here is the best one I wrote. I am hungry for travel, can you tell?
Finally, you have shown your majesty! I have been waiting for you since last night, as I tried to appease my longing by playing childish games with the Prairies. My only solace was knowing that you had no choice but to come; it was only a question of daylight, as I prayed you would not be shrouded by the darkness that can be so cruel and unforgiving to your countenance.
I am shocked by the smoothness of your face up-close. Ha! And you have fooled us all! Hardly a blemish, though you must be guarding your past within the lines that run deep within your surface.
The snow is trying, desperately at times, to cover your amber rocks and prickly vegetation. But you know, it is too early just yet to allow these to slumber.
There’s a tiny, frozen pond, guarded by Spruce, that has sealed its surface with ice from the migrating birds for the season. Unlike the soil, it cannot wait any longer to sleep.
Your city is below us, so far that the skyscrapers look like toothpicks rising out of your base. The sky is clear, but it only gets bluer as we ascend.
A barbed wire fence warns of a ranch, but the only signs of life are the grey, bristly plants that have no interest in admiration.
Every so often we glide through a tunnel and your jagged, blasted walls make me thankful for your graciousness. You may threaten a collapse, but maybe only to those who are unworthy. The locomotive cracks and creaks around your curves, careful to respect your temperamental invitation. As I peer over your side I wonder how many you have thrown off before us in their vain attempts to speed. In all of our greed you have allowed us passage for a price that some think is too steep. You have forbidden us to travel through you, unnoticed. After all these years it is finally clear to me who is the Jester and who is the Queen.
As we bend through a tunnel my head begins to feel your massive height. Maybe my brain is going to explode out of my ears, or maybe that’s just how it feels. When we leave the darkness of this manmade womb, I am greeted by your pines and snow that have conquered the beautiful shades of orange and your scraggly shrubs. It is the only life form fit enough for your summit.
But wait!
Footprints in the snow uncover the sacred hiding place of the elusive cat!
What are you hiding up here?
A creature so misunderstood within our civilization that it can only find sanctuary on your highest peak. You are what myths are made of!
Where lines and cracks once were, the pines have revealed their unsurpassed omnipotence. They thrive on the absence of oxygen, their height towering above their cousins down below. They taunt the greedy consumer, though you have protected them with your impassible terrain.
Far ahead of us looms the snowy peaks of your siblings. They soar so far into the blue that I mistook them for clouds! What a fool I am to think a cloud would dare blemish this scene!
There is a foreign rumbling coming from the earth, and at first I mistake it as a grumbling coming from you.
Then it’s source sheepishly reveals itself; a freight muscles past us and for a moment I am shaken from this romance. But it doesn’t take me long to realize that the slow, lumbering cars filled with coal have a way with seduction, and the passion continues.
They told me of the Bald Eagles and coyotes. They said you hid them well but often exposed them as a reminder of your glory. You must have outsmarted me this time, as I press my head against the glass, eager to see my kindred spirit, but your trees are guarding them well. You have this way of taunting me, but I will be back.
I see you have finally allowed the water to flow from your peak! After years of turmoil between you and the river, it looks like you have given into your ego and allowed her to cleave smoothness into your roughness. She allows you to have life and as she carves her way deeper into your core she exposes more and more of your guarded wisdom. I can see that it has taken you years to cooperate, and with all due respect, I think she is more powerful than you.
Sadly, I see our affair is coming to an amicable end. Pavement is visible and residents are threatening our privacy. Power lines are beginning to bully their way into our secret and I think some are becoming suspicious of us. As the pines start welcoming the leafless tress back to their neighborhood, and the rocks become slippery with moss, our time is quickly running out. So I bid you farewell, but find comfort in the fact that we will meet again. Not to worry, your beauty will not be marred by disrespect or greed; you have proven yourself stronger than that. As the light creeps further west, your face resigns itself to youth and I will bow out gracefully, thankful that the desert is on its way.
Finally, you have shown your majesty! I have been waiting for you since last night, as I tried to appease my longing by playing childish games with the Prairies. My only solace was knowing that you had no choice but to come; it was only a question of daylight, as I prayed you would not be shrouded by the darkness that can be so cruel and unforgiving to your countenance.
I am shocked by the smoothness of your face up-close. Ha! And you have fooled us all! Hardly a blemish, though you must be guarding your past within the lines that run deep within your surface.
The snow is trying, desperately at times, to cover your amber rocks and prickly vegetation. But you know, it is too early just yet to allow these to slumber.
There’s a tiny, frozen pond, guarded by Spruce, that has sealed its surface with ice from the migrating birds for the season. Unlike the soil, it cannot wait any longer to sleep.
Your city is below us, so far that the skyscrapers look like toothpicks rising out of your base. The sky is clear, but it only gets bluer as we ascend.
A barbed wire fence warns of a ranch, but the only signs of life are the grey, bristly plants that have no interest in admiration.
Every so often we glide through a tunnel and your jagged, blasted walls make me thankful for your graciousness. You may threaten a collapse, but maybe only to those who are unworthy. The locomotive cracks and creaks around your curves, careful to respect your temperamental invitation. As I peer over your side I wonder how many you have thrown off before us in their vain attempts to speed. In all of our greed you have allowed us passage for a price that some think is too steep. You have forbidden us to travel through you, unnoticed. After all these years it is finally clear to me who is the Jester and who is the Queen.
As we bend through a tunnel my head begins to feel your massive height. Maybe my brain is going to explode out of my ears, or maybe that’s just how it feels. When we leave the darkness of this manmade womb, I am greeted by your pines and snow that have conquered the beautiful shades of orange and your scraggly shrubs. It is the only life form fit enough for your summit.
But wait!
Footprints in the snow uncover the sacred hiding place of the elusive cat!
What are you hiding up here?
A creature so misunderstood within our civilization that it can only find sanctuary on your highest peak. You are what myths are made of!
Where lines and cracks once were, the pines have revealed their unsurpassed omnipotence. They thrive on the absence of oxygen, their height towering above their cousins down below. They taunt the greedy consumer, though you have protected them with your impassible terrain.
Far ahead of us looms the snowy peaks of your siblings. They soar so far into the blue that I mistook them for clouds! What a fool I am to think a cloud would dare blemish this scene!
There is a foreign rumbling coming from the earth, and at first I mistake it as a grumbling coming from you.
Then it’s source sheepishly reveals itself; a freight muscles past us and for a moment I am shaken from this romance. But it doesn’t take me long to realize that the slow, lumbering cars filled with coal have a way with seduction, and the passion continues.
They told me of the Bald Eagles and coyotes. They said you hid them well but often exposed them as a reminder of your glory. You must have outsmarted me this time, as I press my head against the glass, eager to see my kindred spirit, but your trees are guarding them well. You have this way of taunting me, but I will be back.
I see you have finally allowed the water to flow from your peak! After years of turmoil between you and the river, it looks like you have given into your ego and allowed her to cleave smoothness into your roughness. She allows you to have life and as she carves her way deeper into your core she exposes more and more of your guarded wisdom. I can see that it has taken you years to cooperate, and with all due respect, I think she is more powerful than you.
Sadly, I see our affair is coming to an amicable end. Pavement is visible and residents are threatening our privacy. Power lines are beginning to bully their way into our secret and I think some are becoming suspicious of us. As the pines start welcoming the leafless tress back to their neighborhood, and the rocks become slippery with moss, our time is quickly running out. So I bid you farewell, but find comfort in the fact that we will meet again. Not to worry, your beauty will not be marred by disrespect or greed; you have proven yourself stronger than that. As the light creeps further west, your face resigns itself to youth and I will bow out gracefully, thankful that the desert is on its way.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Long Live the Headmaster
There are three things I hate arguing about: politics, religion and sexuality. These are personal, fiercely personal, yet somehow people think it's alright to tell others what is right and wrong. We have all been there and experienced ignorant busy bodies. That's why this might come as a shock to most of you when I tell you how sad I am about Ms. Rowling's outing of her dear headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. When I saw it on the front page of The Post this morning, I thought I was reading a page out of The Enquirer. As all of you know me, I am a staunch supporter of equality across the board, especially when it comes to sexual preferences. I am not upset that Dubledore is gay, I am upset that Rowling outed him. Absolutely against his wishes. Dear J.K., even though the ink has dried on this epic masterpiece, the magic of Hogwarts and it's inhabitants is still very real to us loyalists. You awakened more than just imaginations and belief in pixie dust; it was hope for a more accepting and equal world. I am dreading reading the backlash of this mistake. For once, I might agree with some of the critics, but not because I am a bigot or a closed minded bible thumper. I need to ask why this was even an issue, and how it will affect the most real gay community. In a world that can be so permeated with hatred it was refreshing to literally become lost within the pages of this fantasy for the past seven years. I fear for the legacy of Hogwarts, especially for Dumbledore. I now agree with my sister, who thought that Rowling's portrayal in book seven of the wizard was pathetic. By the end, he was a sniveling excuse of a soul, who took his lifelong accomplishments and used them as excuses for self pity. She was right. And if Rowling intended this outing all along, then shame on her. His final moments should have been filled with triumph and personal acceptance. The backlash of this realization is going to be devastating for many of us. Our biggest fears are yet to be realized, but thanks to Rowling, our enemies are again, armed with ignorant shrapnel. For my part, I am going to petition to Time Magazine, and offer Dumbledore a chance at the Man of the Year title. There are no wizards who can fix this, not even with the most powerful Patronus. The only ones who have the power to change this are the muggles, and I, for one, definitely need a refresher in the Defense Against the Dark Arts. Who's with me? I will begin in Parliament this summer . . . .
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Formative Observations-Final Chapter
I went back to my classroom after walking in the rain (it hasn't rained here in about 3 weeks) and sat at my desk in the back of my room. The students were watching the movie, thankfully unable to see my frizzy hair and red hot face. I watched the sillouettes of 27 students; each one was fixated in the 1982 version of George and Lennie and not one head was on the desk. Maybe you remember what Friday afternoons were like 15 minutes before the release bell, and if you don't I can only tell you that I began to cry, again, at this sight. I relieved my wonderful E.C. inclusion teacher, who had so graciously let me take a soggy walk. I dismissed my students with little words, and the lights still dimmed, shut my door and prepared to call the AP postponing our standard observation debriefing until Monday. When there was no answer in his office I decided to just take my things and leave him a note, hoping he would understand my need for a two day debriefing of my own. Unfortunately, when I opened my door, he was standing there talking to the music man so I would have to tell him in person. He is a tough nut to crack, to say the very least. In the year I have worked with him I have had little contact with him. Mostly, this is from my own intimidation of people who do not show emotion. It brings me back to a phrase my brother coined when we were young, looking at our father and trying to figure out if he was going to get spanked or laughed at. "Are your eyes smiling, daddy?" When I am in a situation where I cannot read a person's body language or facial expressions, I often repeat that phrase in my head until I leave the room. Unfortunately, there are rarely times when said person erupts in laughter, as my father did.
Looking at AP I could only hope that his "eyes were smiling" and he understood my emotional outburst in his office leading to my abrupt departure. "You cannot take anything personally". I do believe this is the slogan HR uses to hire fresh meat. I walked up to AP and immediately apologized for leaving his office during confrontation with student. He stared at me for about 2 seconds before saying, "Ok, let's go up and discuss your observation." I had a very long walk ahead of me and I did the only thing I really know how to do well: I started talking. Walking next to him as students pressured the drink machines and cheerleaders warmed up, I told him how I felt. This is roughly how it went: I love this job and the students and I know I shouldn't take things personally but sometimes, when you bend over backwards and put your life into seven hours, five days a week, and sacrifice family and friends and money and you watch your defeats and cheer your victories and live and breathe these hallways and their goals and affinity for Lennie and then you have the ones who you put even more into, if that is possible, and they come around and sock you so hard in the gut, where your heart is always, and I wonder what on earth am I doing?
It was now my position on his couch and as I waited and took lots of breaths he looked at me and nodded, then smiled, and told me it was all a part of this twisted life of teaching. Betrayals and passions and failures and, of course, those victories. I wondered how he had channeled my parents as I sat there feeling like I was looking at Bread Loaf for the first time. Or listening to "The Boxer" as my sister sat on the other end of the line. And before I knew it I was signing my Formative Observation Data Analysis thanking him for a wonderful beginning to my weekend.
Sometimes the formal observations are most telling in the informality of our lives and our weaknesses. Or strengths, depending on how you look at things.
Looking at AP I could only hope that his "eyes were smiling" and he understood my emotional outburst in his office leading to my abrupt departure. "You cannot take anything personally". I do believe this is the slogan HR uses to hire fresh meat. I walked up to AP and immediately apologized for leaving his office during confrontation with student. He stared at me for about 2 seconds before saying, "Ok, let's go up and discuss your observation." I had a very long walk ahead of me and I did the only thing I really know how to do well: I started talking. Walking next to him as students pressured the drink machines and cheerleaders warmed up, I told him how I felt. This is roughly how it went: I love this job and the students and I know I shouldn't take things personally but sometimes, when you bend over backwards and put your life into seven hours, five days a week, and sacrifice family and friends and money and you watch your defeats and cheer your victories and live and breathe these hallways and their goals and affinity for Lennie and then you have the ones who you put even more into, if that is possible, and they come around and sock you so hard in the gut, where your heart is always, and I wonder what on earth am I doing?
It was now my position on his couch and as I waited and took lots of breaths he looked at me and nodded, then smiled, and told me it was all a part of this twisted life of teaching. Betrayals and passions and failures and, of course, those victories. I wondered how he had channeled my parents as I sat there feeling like I was looking at Bread Loaf for the first time. Or listening to "The Boxer" as my sister sat on the other end of the line. And before I knew it I was signing my Formative Observation Data Analysis thanking him for a wonderful beginning to my weekend.
Sometimes the formal observations are most telling in the informality of our lives and our weaknesses. Or strengths, depending on how you look at things.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Standard Observations
Today I was observed. For the first time this year. At this point last year I had video taped myself twice and been observed three times. My ego was stroked. This time it was a total sneak attack. Observation during yearbook where there is no essential question and very few, if any, lesson plans. Observation was a success . . . how can anything go wrong when you have the most motivated students in school working on the annual publication of pictures and catchy captions? I was rest assured the observation was now over with, barely missing my read-aloud unit of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Though morally I refused to read the "n" word, I was asked by my students how I could read G.D. (it is peppered in most conversations between Lennie and George). The unit was a huge success. The students enjoyed the story with much enthusiasm and their affinity to Lennie was genuine. Frankly, I told them I would not, nor could not, read the last two chapters aloud. My emotions take over and I end up sobbing like a 6th grader reading Where the Red Fern Grows. There is a point to this, I promise. Stay with me. I had a fantastic day. Too bad the day doesn't end at 2pm. I decided to show my students the movie; although my one-woman show of the book was up for an Oscar, Randy Quaid and Robert Blake portray the different hairstyles.
Cell phones have a way of ruining everything. This is not off topic. A student asked me to use the bathroom just as Quaid was professing his love for ketchup and beans. Feeling exhilerated, I let her go, even though I was disappointed she would miss the first appearance of Curley's wife. After ten minutes I began to worry that she had gotten flushed down the toilet, so I sent a trustworthy student to check up on her. She was not in the bathroom, she was on her cell phone. In my hallway. While Lennie was offering to go live in a cave. And Candy was debating on shooting his most loved and trusted companion. Wicked bad timing, my friend. She reamed me up and down, lied to me and to her savior and then told me where I could stick it. Fine. Let's go to the office. She proceeded to the AP's comfy couch, where she yelled and cried and called me lots of names . . . but she called me a liar and a really "bad teacher". Friday afternoons are not good for this. I lost it. And my face was red and I could not listen to anymore. I put my hand up, shakily, and informed the audience I could not, or would not, listen to this anymore. Somehow I managed to keep the convulsions at bay until I got down the hallway; tears down my face and a class to teach. Defeat. I had been observed in my utmost weakness. By a student who got my goat.
Never, never, never let them know where your goat lives. She just broke into the house, unchained the goat and fed it the best brambles on the east coast.
To Be Continued . . . . .
Cell phones have a way of ruining everything. This is not off topic. A student asked me to use the bathroom just as Quaid was professing his love for ketchup and beans. Feeling exhilerated, I let her go, even though I was disappointed she would miss the first appearance of Curley's wife. After ten minutes I began to worry that she had gotten flushed down the toilet, so I sent a trustworthy student to check up on her. She was not in the bathroom, she was on her cell phone. In my hallway. While Lennie was offering to go live in a cave. And Candy was debating on shooting his most loved and trusted companion. Wicked bad timing, my friend. She reamed me up and down, lied to me and to her savior and then told me where I could stick it. Fine. Let's go to the office. She proceeded to the AP's comfy couch, where she yelled and cried and called me lots of names . . . but she called me a liar and a really "bad teacher". Friday afternoons are not good for this. I lost it. And my face was red and I could not listen to anymore. I put my hand up, shakily, and informed the audience I could not, or would not, listen to this anymore. Somehow I managed to keep the convulsions at bay until I got down the hallway; tears down my face and a class to teach. Defeat. I had been observed in my utmost weakness. By a student who got my goat.
Never, never, never let them know where your goat lives. She just broke into the house, unchained the goat and fed it the best brambles on the east coast.
To Be Continued . . . . .
Monday, September 03, 2007
Searching for Santa Fe
Feeling a bit nostalgic, maybe even a little misplaced here in the dripping humidity. Trying to keep my memories of it more than a sillouetted chalk drawing, I found this email I sent to friends and family back east during my last week there. I do not know if I will ever get to spend more than a few weeks there, or if I will ever go back. But there is nothing like knowing there is still a piece of me there, among the dusty sunsets and bristled sagebrush. This is my account from my last day--I hope you all get to find your own Santa Fe--I hope I get to go back.
So my time in this mystical city has come to an end. I spend
one final night atop this little mountain before being shuttled off to
Albuquerque tomorrow morning. It is bittersweet, as I look forward to
reuniting with Aaron and Lola, but am sad to bid farewell to this
spectacular place that has given me a home for the past six weeks. The
sunsets are the most majestic I have ever seen, and will miss watching
the sky turn from blues, to magentas and ambers and finally violet
across the San de Cristo mountain range. The weather has even begun to
change and our nights are filled with the cool breezes that they
promised at the start of summer. The apricot tree outside my window
has dropped all its fruit and the bunnies are having a feast! Of all
the places I have spent time, Santa Fe has truly been one of the most
inspiring for my writer bug. Between the adobe facades and the Native
American cultures I cannot help wondering how so much of this country
has lost its roots. (the only Bush bumper stickers are those that say,
"BUSH- CHENEY 1984) The borders between
countries seem lost or nonexistent in many places here. It's humbling
to walk down the street as a white person and be a minority. So as I
prepare to fly back east I hope that I have been able to capture the
essence of this place in my pixels and words. I'm aware that no matter
what is said or seen in glossy light will be the shadows of this
accidental oasis. So I hope you all have the privilege to visit Santa
Fe, and if you already have, come back. I look forward to seeing you
all and telling you more stories of this adventure when I get home.
So my time in this mystical city has come to an end. I spend
one final night atop this little mountain before being shuttled off to
Albuquerque tomorrow morning. It is bittersweet, as I look forward to
reuniting with Aaron and Lola, but am sad to bid farewell to this
spectacular place that has given me a home for the past six weeks. The
sunsets are the most majestic I have ever seen, and will miss watching
the sky turn from blues, to magentas and ambers and finally violet
across the San de Cristo mountain range. The weather has even begun to
change and our nights are filled with the cool breezes that they
promised at the start of summer. The apricot tree outside my window
has dropped all its fruit and the bunnies are having a feast! Of all
the places I have spent time, Santa Fe has truly been one of the most
inspiring for my writer bug. Between the adobe facades and the Native
American cultures I cannot help wondering how so much of this country
has lost its roots. (the only Bush bumper stickers are those that say,
"BUSH- CHENEY 1984) The borders between
countries seem lost or nonexistent in many places here. It's humbling
to walk down the street as a white person and be a minority. So as I
prepare to fly back east I hope that I have been able to capture the
essence of this place in my pixels and words. I'm aware that no matter
what is said or seen in glossy light will be the shadows of this
accidental oasis. So I hope you all have the privilege to visit Santa
Fe, and if you already have, come back. I look forward to seeing you
all and telling you more stories of this adventure when I get home.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Friday Night Lights Meet the Dead Poets
I can only begin at the beginning. I thought my recent name change would be a personal struggle as I try and slip into this new identity. I am humbled, once again, as I find myself on this journey with not only my nuclear family, but also my students who seem to have adopted themselves into my soul. My words are only adequate to describe this phenomenon, so let me share the words of some students. Faithful student of yearbook, cresting on her senior year . With tears in her eyes running into my room: Thank goodness it is really you! she grabbed my hand and wiped her eyes: I saw this name, Kinsey (the office misspelled it anyway) and thought you had abandoned us! I was prepared never to forgive you!
Star QB and track star with unidentified learning disabilities and a very macho facade: Hey Ms. Dakin! Hope to see you at the game on Friday! Me: Actually, I will see you this afternoon, for English. Macho QB: Jumps in the air, looks at his schedule, looks at me, back at his schedule: For REAL!? You my English teacher!? Jumps again: Oh sweet! I thought this was a new teacher! You change your name? SWEET! Oh man, I will see you after lunch! Left hook with fist: You gonna make me read so much this year? It's cool!
Although I can tend to be a bit dramatic, I promise you I have not embellished on these interactions. As I write this I need to remember to say this is not a boost for my morale; rather a realization on my part that I am making a difference in the lives of these teenagers. This may have been one of the most difficult transitions for me to make, as I left the warm embraces and security of fabulous friends and family. Again I find myself humbled by the constant reminder that wherever I go, there I am. I was fortunate to have 90% of my students from English 2 back in my class of English 3. My body trembled as I welcomed them into my room, my world of American Literature, my mouth moving with rote tics escorting them to their new seating assignments. The uncertainty of these changes blasted to shards as my primal introduction was interrupted with applause at the matrimonial explanation for my name change. Overcrowding and moldy carpet take a righteous back seat to the wide eyes and nervous expectations. As I outline the course and procedures we all take a deep breath and relax--just a little--enough to connect to examine the difference between realistic people and the idealists. The definition of idealism raises the eyebrows of all of us, silently and knowingly challenging each other to this ultimate task.
Star QB and track star with unidentified learning disabilities and a very macho facade: Hey Ms. Dakin! Hope to see you at the game on Friday! Me: Actually, I will see you this afternoon, for English. Macho QB: Jumps in the air, looks at his schedule, looks at me, back at his schedule: For REAL!? You my English teacher!? Jumps again: Oh sweet! I thought this was a new teacher! You change your name? SWEET! Oh man, I will see you after lunch! Left hook with fist: You gonna make me read so much this year? It's cool!
Although I can tend to be a bit dramatic, I promise you I have not embellished on these interactions. As I write this I need to remember to say this is not a boost for my morale; rather a realization on my part that I am making a difference in the lives of these teenagers. This may have been one of the most difficult transitions for me to make, as I left the warm embraces and security of fabulous friends and family. Again I find myself humbled by the constant reminder that wherever I go, there I am. I was fortunate to have 90% of my students from English 2 back in my class of English 3. My body trembled as I welcomed them into my room, my world of American Literature, my mouth moving with rote tics escorting them to their new seating assignments. The uncertainty of these changes blasted to shards as my primal introduction was interrupted with applause at the matrimonial explanation for my name change. Overcrowding and moldy carpet take a righteous back seat to the wide eyes and nervous expectations. As I outline the course and procedures we all take a deep breath and relax--just a little--enough to connect to examine the difference between realistic people and the idealists. The definition of idealism raises the eyebrows of all of us, silently and knowingly challenging each other to this ultimate task.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Essential Questions
How, exactly, did I manage to show my sophomores Hotel Rwanda in my English class today? Good question . . . my head is still reeling from three hours of pausing and explaining. Explanations that don't seem to roll off my tongue in a confident cadence. Each day we are required to have an essential question on the white board in our rooms. The question must address a component in the standard course of study and should be answered by the end of class. I left it blank today. I was also observed today. What can I define as essential? When it comes to one million slaughtered lives what constitutes an essential question? My questions, as a white female living in the free world, could never parallel the same vein in which this atrocity occurred. The only freedom I felt today was my ability to teach; an ability that often gets overlooked by the lobbyist scandals and bipartisanism, which seems to trickle down to the coffee we drink and the cars that we drive. Essential factors in our daily routine that could signify the difference between one choice finger or all five. (Vermont has 3 Starbucks in the entire state . . . ) I guess I should bring you all to the dawning of this project before I lose you.
One of the required texts for 10th grade North Carolinians is Elie Wiesel's memoir of the Holocaust, Night. Having come down from a particularly dry unit of Greek drama, I decided to jump start my students with the chilling memoir while I still had them in my good graces. I was excited for this unit, particularly becuase I was going to take a chance and expand the Holocaust to the present day massacres in Darfur. My sister just spent her summer working at a refugee camp in Kenya and told the most haunting stories of people who have escaped with little more than their souls, many of them from Rwanda and Somalia. My hope was to have her come to my classes and tell her story; I wanted my students to comprehend genocide as it is happening presently, not simply through a memoir that is six decades before their time. Since George Clooney is not available to come to Siler City, and law school is a total BITCH, I had to settle for my mediocre knowledge and Google skills. Darfur was not on their radar. Neither was Rwanda or Somalia . . . unless you mention Black Hawk Down. Thus, we enter my unit on genocide. My essential question on the first day of study was, How can literature combat violence in the world? Idealistic? Definitely. Do we have time to be realistic? Absolutely not. If bumper stickers and coffee cups are our only tools for identification, who's really the idealist? I sent the permission slips home to their parents and each one was signed. I gave them an overhead preojected timeline from Belgian colonialism through April 6, 1994 and the rest is history, so cliche. These are some of the questions posed to me today: "Is my skin too light to be a Hutu?" "Is my nose narrow enough?" "What does the UN do if they don't make peace?" "Why didn't the Tutsis fight back?" "What were your children if you were a Hutu and your wife was a Tutsi?" "Was that President Clinton on the news?" "Can that happen to us?" "Is there genocide really taking place in Darfur?" "How did this happen after they pleaded for help?" "Is it better to be a nigger or an African?"
Write down your answers to these questions and feel free to share them with the people you work with, carpool with, buy coffee from and your loved ones. My essential question tomorrow will be: What is your personal responsibility to help stop these daily atrocities? Will you be realistic or idealistic?
Essential Questions
How, exactly, did I manage to show my sophomores Hotel Rwanda in my English class today? Good question . . . my head is still reeling from three hours of pausing and explaining. Explanations that don't seem to roll off my tongue in a confident cadence. Each day we are required to have an essential question on the white board in our rooms. The question must address a component in the standard course of study and should be answered by the end of class. I left it blank today. I was also observed today. What can I define as essential? When it comes to one million slaughtered lives what constitutes an essential question? My questions, as a white female living in the free world, could never parallel the same vein in which this atrocity occurred. The only freedom I felt today was my ability to teach; an ability that often gets overlooked by the lobbyist scandals and bipartisanism, which seems to trickle down to the coffee we drink and the cars that we drive. Essential factors in our daily routine that could signify the difference between one choice finger or all five. (Vermont has 3 Starbucks in the entire state . . . ) I guess I should bring you all to the dawning of this project before I lose you.
One of the required texts for 10th grade North Carolinians is Elie Wiesel's memoir of the Holocaust, Night. Having come down from a particularly dry unit of Greek drama, I decided to jump start my students with the chilling memoir while I still had them in my good graces. I was excited for this unit, particularly becuase I was going to take a chance and expand the Holocaust to the present day massacres in Darfur. My sister just spent her summer working at a refugee camp in Kenya and told the most haunting stories of people who have escaped with little more than their souls, many of them from Rwanda and Somalia. My hope was to have her come to my classes and tell her story; I wanted my students to comprehend genocide as it is happening presently, not simply through a memoir that is six decades before their time. Since George Clooney is not available to come to Siler City, and law school is a total BITCH, I had to settle for my mediocre knowledge and Google skills. Darfur was not on their radar. Neither was Rwanda or Somalia . . . unless you mention Black Hawk Down. Thus, we enter my unit on genocide. My essential question on the first day of study was, How can literature combat violence in the world? Idealistic? Definitely. Do we have time to be realistic? Absolutely not. If bumper stickers and coffee cups are our only tools for identification, who's really the idealist? I sent the permission slips home to their parents and each one was signed. I gave them an overhead preojected timeline from Belgian colonialism through April 6, 1994 and the rest is history, so cliche. These are some of the questions posed to me today: "Is my skin too light to be a Hutu?" "Is my nose narrow enough?" "What does the UN do if they don't make peace?" "Why didn't the Tutsis fight back?" "What were your children if you were a Hutu and your wife was a Tutsi?" "Was that President Clinton on the news?" "Can that happen to us?" "Is there genocide really taking place in Darfur?" "How did this happen after they pleaded for help?" "Is it better to be a nigger or an African?"
Write down your answers to these questions and feel free to share them with the people you work with, carpool with, buy coffee from and your loved ones. My essential question tomorrow will be: What is your personal responsibility to help stop these daily atrocities? Will you be realistic or idealistic?
One of the required texts for 10th grade North Carolinians is Elie Wiesel's memoir of the Holocaust, Night. Having come down from a particularly dry unit of Greek drama, I decided to jump start my students with the chilling memoir while I still had them in my good graces. I was excited for this unit, particularly becuase I was going to take a chance and expand the Holocaust to the present day massacres in Darfur. My sister just spent her summer working at a refugee camp in Kenya and told the most haunting stories of people who have escaped with little more than their souls, many of them from Rwanda and Somalia. My hope was to have her come to my classes and tell her story; I wanted my students to comprehend genocide as it is happening presently, not simply through a memoir that is six decades before their time. Since George Clooney is not available to come to Siler City, and law school is a total BITCH, I had to settle for my mediocre knowledge and Google skills. Darfur was not on their radar. Neither was Rwanda or Somalia . . . unless you mention Black Hawk Down. Thus, we enter my unit on genocide. My essential question on the first day of study was, How can literature combat violence in the world? Idealistic? Definitely. Do we have time to be realistic? Absolutely not. If bumper stickers and coffee cups are our only tools for identification, who's really the idealist? I sent the permission slips home to their parents and each one was signed. I gave them an overhead preojected timeline from Belgian colonialism through April 6, 1994 and the rest is history, so cliche. These are some of the questions posed to me today: "Is my skin too light to be a Hutu?" "Is my nose narrow enough?" "What does the UN do if they don't make peace?" "Why didn't the Tutsis fight back?" "What were your children if you were a Hutu and your wife was a Tutsi?" "Was that President Clinton on the news?" "Can that happen to us?" "Is there genocide really taking place in Darfur?" "How did this happen after they pleaded for help?" "Is it better to be a nigger or an African?"
Write down your answers to these questions and feel free to share them with the people you work with, carpool with, buy coffee from and your loved ones. My essential question tomorrow will be: What is your personal responsibility to help stop these daily atrocities? Will you be realistic or idealistic?
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Hitler Just May Have Been a Roman emperor . . .
As a brand new high school English teacher I have been humbled by the information passed along to me from my students. Although I was excited, apprehensive and somewhat devastated to begin this new role, I have simplified my feelings into one word: Awe. It's been one week since entering the classroom and I have learned a few things that Harry Wong never bothered to cover. First thing: high school is a completely different beast than middle and elementary, BUT--I think I love it . . .
My school happens to be very diverse but they don't know that. We are made up of 1/3 Latino, 1/3 black and 1/3 white. Socioeconomics range from poverty to fully-loaded-SUV-driving sophomores. Many students are not documented and they are eager for you to know that. There is a chicken factory down the road that lures any kid 16 and older to come to work full time. I'm not quite sure what this factory produces but if I were you, I wouldn't be eating chicken McNuggets ever again. Ever. Siler City (the location of my school) is not really a city. It consists mostly of a fast food strip that has bullied its way between thousands of acres of farmland. Super Wal-Mart is also there. Enough said.
I have learned that having students write me a letter in the 3rd person (Seinfeld episode: Jimmy) is one of the most non-threatening ways to get them to tell me everything. When a student draws a Star of David on their notebook, homework, body etc. They are not professing their devotion to Judaism: they are a Crip. (as in the Bloods and Crips) The super-hero Spiderman spider web, also not a testimony to their animated superhero obsession . . . I have learned that these gangs in Siler City are physically harmless. The kids who get dumped by their fathers reach out for male bonding and role models, since they won't find them at the Super Wal-Mart.
I have learned that my teacher's desk can be a safe haven for an ADD student to do his best work. (Just make sure there is nothing personal written on the desk calendar . . .) If you ask the students to read quotes from literary figures posted around the room, and then have them write what they think might come next, you will find wisdom that is usually reserved for Ivy league graduates. If you set the bar high some students will jump; if it's too low they will stumble and trip.
If a student insists of being called "Bubba", that's OK. Call him that, even if you fake a southern drawl. Be idealistic, if you are not then they won't be either. It's OK to let them know when you are disappointed; it's also OK to let them know how fabulous you think they are.
When you promise to give an "energetic" reading of the Iliad, make sure you practice beforehand at home. Those Greeks had a bad habit of using big words that don't exist anymore.
And finally, when you ask students to research specific time periods on the internet DO NOT LAUGH when they come to you excitedly and tell you that Hitler was ruling Rome in 400 B.C.E. Bite you lip, take a deep breath and make a mental note to switch the syllabus so Night comes next and Julius Caesar is last.
My school happens to be very diverse but they don't know that. We are made up of 1/3 Latino, 1/3 black and 1/3 white. Socioeconomics range from poverty to fully-loaded-SUV-driving sophomores. Many students are not documented and they are eager for you to know that. There is a chicken factory down the road that lures any kid 16 and older to come to work full time. I'm not quite sure what this factory produces but if I were you, I wouldn't be eating chicken McNuggets ever again. Ever. Siler City (the location of my school) is not really a city. It consists mostly of a fast food strip that has bullied its way between thousands of acres of farmland. Super Wal-Mart is also there. Enough said.
I have learned that having students write me a letter in the 3rd person (Seinfeld episode: Jimmy) is one of the most non-threatening ways to get them to tell me everything. When a student draws a Star of David on their notebook, homework, body etc. They are not professing their devotion to Judaism: they are a Crip. (as in the Bloods and Crips) The super-hero Spiderman spider web, also not a testimony to their animated superhero obsession . . . I have learned that these gangs in Siler City are physically harmless. The kids who get dumped by their fathers reach out for male bonding and role models, since they won't find them at the Super Wal-Mart.
I have learned that my teacher's desk can be a safe haven for an ADD student to do his best work. (Just make sure there is nothing personal written on the desk calendar . . .) If you ask the students to read quotes from literary figures posted around the room, and then have them write what they think might come next, you will find wisdom that is usually reserved for Ivy league graduates. If you set the bar high some students will jump; if it's too low they will stumble and trip.
If a student insists of being called "Bubba", that's OK. Call him that, even if you fake a southern drawl. Be idealistic, if you are not then they won't be either. It's OK to let them know when you are disappointed; it's also OK to let them know how fabulous you think they are.
When you promise to give an "energetic" reading of the Iliad, make sure you practice beforehand at home. Those Greeks had a bad habit of using big words that don't exist anymore.
And finally, when you ask students to research specific time periods on the internet DO NOT LAUGH when they come to you excitedly and tell you that Hitler was ruling Rome in 400 B.C.E. Bite you lip, take a deep breath and make a mental note to switch the syllabus so Night comes next and Julius Caesar is last.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Cop Out
I have lost myself again--accepted into a teacher licensure program as a potential high school English teacher. A writers cop out on every level, right? Does a law school student accept a job as a fast food cashier? I know, I know--teachers are necessary and the job itself is anything BUT a cop out. But what does it mean for a person who was adament about making a living as a writer, no matter what it takes, to bow out so easily? Lack of self-confidence, I think. Thesauras or none, I have not allowed myself to sit with a notebook for hours on end since I left Santa Fe this summer. "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" Not deciphering hip-hop tunes and comapring them to Frost.....in my own space with warm paint and comfortable furniture--but just enough for myself and maybe a guest who is proof reading--a typewriter and a computer and lots of fabulous pens (no ball points allowed). Then to have time and peacefulness to spend with my own family.
But now benefits and social security plague those dreams
Repaying loans and movie tickets take precedent
Can I be more excited when I tell them?
Bread Loaf was far better than this.
Life sentence--until you retire.
But I will still get to teach Native American history,
well at least I can tell them the true story of Navajo,
okay, maybe I will settle for a Yellow Raft in Blue Water
Let's be realistic about administrations
No child left behind without a deficit.
But now benefits and social security plague those dreams
Repaying loans and movie tickets take precedent
Can I be more excited when I tell them?
Bread Loaf was far better than this.
Life sentence--until you retire.
But I will still get to teach Native American history,
well at least I can tell them the true story of Navajo,
okay, maybe I will settle for a Yellow Raft in Blue Water
Let's be realistic about administrations
No child left behind without a deficit.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Moments of Being
What are the moments called right before we fall asleep, as we realize our best story lines, or the perfect words to quit that job and maybe the lyrics that will make us famous? Answers to questions and absolute clarity--and then it melts away into subconscious. Waking at dawn wondering how those things seemed possible--maybe it was just a dream--feeling your muscles contract and becoming aware of the weight that you have to lose and the dog to walk and the loans to repay. I should have gotten out of bed and written things down last night--tonight I will--but what if the burbur on my soles ruins it? I will keep a notebook at the bedside table--but what if the lamp wakes him up? I will have a flashlight to see my manic scribbles--but what if I sit up and the moments disappear? I can't take those risks--I will be thankful that I have moments at all--moments a pen or tongue could never replicate--moments of being that can only be.
As I write this I think about my father, who will be turning 61 in 11 days, and the gift I hope to give to him. Moments of his being that changed my life in accidental ways--moments he may be unaware of and those which he rarely gets credit for. Moments are just those--but memories are forever.
As I write this I think about my father, who will be turning 61 in 11 days, and the gift I hope to give to him. Moments of his being that changed my life in accidental ways--moments he may be unaware of and those which he rarely gets credit for. Moments are just those--but memories are forever.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Fonts Matter
Seemingly perfect choice for the first entry-- Arial--though spelled slightly differently from Ariel I think the point is made.
I have been told that Sylvia sat at her desk with a thesauras on her lap--constantly searching for the word that would have more imapct than its dead-weighted parent--or maybe a cousin? She was afraid of dead weight--as we all should be--and now is disected with scholarly scalpels that were sharpened in the Ivy libraries. The thrill of a Cut, followed by promises of Tulips, make for smoke filled screenplays and abstinence from trust funds.
Bitter? yes. Jealous? maybe so.
Not having material to write about makes dwelling on the past seem productive. Read someone elses story and come up with your own "Live with like-minded people in a setting that supports total immersion in your work. Food and lodging included free for those who qualify. Gamble a small fraction of your life on the chance to create a new future as a professional poet, novelist, screenwriter" (Haunted)
Will I qualify? The "small fraction" will be worth it in the end, won't it? Five summers of travelling the globe in search of the most refined English will most definitely bring me to the other side--but who will know the difference except for me?
Most importantly I will learn that fonts matter.
I have been told that Sylvia sat at her desk with a thesauras on her lap--constantly searching for the word that would have more imapct than its dead-weighted parent--or maybe a cousin? She was afraid of dead weight--as we all should be--and now is disected with scholarly scalpels that were sharpened in the Ivy libraries. The thrill of a Cut, followed by promises of Tulips, make for smoke filled screenplays and abstinence from trust funds.
Bitter? yes. Jealous? maybe so.
Not having material to write about makes dwelling on the past seem productive. Read someone elses story and come up with your own "Live with like-minded people in a setting that supports total immersion in your work. Food and lodging included free for those who qualify. Gamble a small fraction of your life on the chance to create a new future as a professional poet, novelist, screenwriter" (Haunted)
Will I qualify? The "small fraction" will be worth it in the end, won't it? Five summers of travelling the globe in search of the most refined English will most definitely bring me to the other side--but who will know the difference except for me?
Most importantly I will learn that fonts matter.
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