Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Reverse Psychology -- The Ultimate Educational Tool

"The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind." -- Kahlil Gibran

I want to be this kind of teacher. I want my students to engage that mostly inactive lump of gray matter between their ears and figure out what they think about this world they live in. I'm afraid that if they don't, they will be herded like sheep for the rest of their lives: safe and warm in the pack, comfortably running in the general direction of the others until they are cut out of the flock by predators or until the entire flock plunges over the edge of the ravine.

Today, I started talking to my kids about banned books in preparation for teaching To Kill a Mockingbird (TKaM). TKaM is one of my all-time favorite books. The messages in it are so powerful and so relevant for any person who has ever walked this planet. It's not bound by time, race, gender, nationality, language, or culture. More than almost any other book I've read, it's a universal. We feel the struggles of the characters within ourselves because we have walked those paths ourselves.

I want my kids to engage this novel actively. I was really encouraged by how impassioned some of them became when we were talking about banning books. Most of them had no idea what sorts of books might become banned or why someone might want to ban a book. I forget how young they are. We listed several famous examples, Harry Potter, The Catcher in the Rye, Huckleberry Finn, and talked about what sorts of complaints groups have had about them over the years.

Then I told them TKaM is in that same list of commonly banned and challenged books. I knew they'd perk up for that. Controversy draws a teenager more quickly than roadkill draws buzzards (how's that for a gruesome, but apt, metaphor). We talked about why TKaM is on the list, and we'll finish that discussion up on Thursday. I'm interested to see if we can have a semi-involved conversation on the topic. I so want them to think! If I can get even a few of them to start thinking instead of just passively receiving or floating through life, maybe I'll have done something worthwhile this year.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Sock monkeys

Try as I might, I just cannot find a quote applicable to tonight's topic. I guess there's not a quote for everything, after all. That's okay. Tonight's post is short.

If you ever owned or liked the classic childhood toy, the sock monkey, check out this website. Make sure you go to the message board. I get a kick out of it. It makes me want to dig out my sewing supplies and make an army of them. Take a trip back to childhood (or sideways if you've never grown out of it) to the Red Heel Sock Monkey Shelter.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Storms

"The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain." -- H.W. Longfellow

"Weather forecast for tonight: dark." -- George Carlin

Tonight strong storms are sweeping through our area. I'm compulsively listening to a local radio station waiting for...I don't know. Maybe for doom to fall upon me out of the sky. I don't fully understand why I become transfixed by the weather reports when bad weather comes in. It's almost a snake/mongoose thing. I know it's getting late and church tomorrow will be early. I know that my listening to the reports doesn't change what's happening outside. It doesn't even really give that all-important illusion of control we humans cherish so dearly.

I keep telling myself that I will get up, take a shower, and go to bed, but every time I reach for the remote to cut the stereo down, the ever-vigilant djs cut in with another report. I start tracking with them on my mental map of the area. I wonder if This Person who lives in This Area is okay, and suddenly, there's a tornado in That Area where That Person lives. Suddenly, it seems like I know people everywhere, and all of them are beset by Nature.

If it weren't for the tornados, I wouldn't mind the rain. I've always rather enjoyed thunderstorms. I remember watching them every summer at the camp our church went to on the coast. There are few things as impressive as a summer thunderstorm coming in off the Gulf. A shimmering gray wall of water slid across the silt-tinged waves. Silver threads of lightening traced messages that disappeared too fast to for my mortal eyes to read them. The wind, always a presence there, bent the palms like dancers performing a dangerous tango. Standing on the balconies and landings of the camp complex, I always felt as though I could fly into it and be dissolved into the magic of it.

Even though I'm nowhere near the coast now, I still enjoy thunderstorms. Now, instead of palms, pines dance, taller, less frantic. Half of my old house (see a previous post for more about this) has a metal roof, and the sound of rain on the roof is incredibly comforting.

While I was in Japan, I missed the rumble of summer thunderstorms. Their summer storms are typhoons. Typhoons are another kind of magic altogether, and not a terribly enjoyable type. Add this to the fact that they usually took several days to move through us, and all my groceries had to be transported by bike with me in semi-effective raingear, and you can understand my lack of enthusiasm. I was very fortunate that we never had a big one come in directly on top of us while I was there. They always steered enough north that we didn't catch the most damaging portions.

Although I don't mind the thunderstorms, I do mind even a tiny whiff of tornado. Suddenly, weather that had been highly conducive to reading and snuggling down into quilts with cats becomes a bleary-eyed radio vigil. The fact that they are horrifyingly unpredictable, destructive, and sudden aside, the primary cause of my tornado worries can be traced to two sources.

The first is a story my mom told me. When I was little, we lived in a trailer. Not a mobile home. Not a triple-wide with porch and spa tub. A trailer. One night the weather was particularly bad and Mom went out to listen for the freight-train rumble of an impending tornado. We're always told to listen for that in this part of the country. The tornado tiptoed up to the house closest to ours (my parents lived and continue to live out in the woods on about 40 acres of their own), ripped it up, and bounced over us without making a sound. A car horn from their house would have been heard, but not the total destruction of a house by a tornado. So much for an auditory warning.

The second is something I saw with my own eyes. There is a research station within driving distance where I live, and we'd have to pass it to go visit my grandparents when I was a child. As this research station, they had a huge equipment barn made from metal. Unfortunately, this station also sits in what we call a "tornado alley", meaning, for those of you unfamiliar with the joys of these storms, a place to which tornados seem to be drawn for some unfathomable reason. I can remember at least two separate times when a tornado came through the "alley" in which the station sits and blew the barn into pieces. For miles around, the tall pines had streamers of silvery metal woven through their branches, tied around their trunks like misshapen bows, and littering the ground beneath them. (BTW, every time the barn got/gets destroyed, they put it right back up again. Maybe they think the tornados will get tired of it eventually. I personally think I'd at least try to move it elsewhere on the property or SOMETHING.)

Every area has some sort of natural disaster they have to deal with. The area of Japan in which I lived was awaiting a massive earthquake/tidal wave. I'll never forget watching the far-too cheery NHK news girl gesture to a cardboard model of Nagoya and showing how far inland the wave was going to sweep. I can't tell you how comforted I was about *that* when I found out. Some areas have mudslides, volcanoes, or floods. A friend of mine from Brazil always told a joke concerning the lack of these types of natural disasters in Brazil. Apparently, according to the joke, the government more than makes up for it. It was a very clever joke, I thought. I guess we all just make the best of it we can no matter where we are. After all, what other choice is there?

It's time to take the remote by the horns (mixing metaphors along the way), and get some rest. There's nothing I can do about it anyway.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Things I Want to Learn

"I am learning all the time. My tombstone will be my diploma." -- Eartha Kitt

There are so many things I want to learn to do. I thought I'd record a few of them for the amusement of the thronging thousands (or tens) who read me.

1. Throw pottery on a wheel -- I have some practice with molded pieces from working for a decorative ceramics studio. What I want now is to throw pots, especially bowls and pitchers. I tried to learn some in Japan, but the language barrier was too great.

2. Weld better -- I finally got to take a welding class, but I need more practice. A MIG welder and a plasma cutter couldn't hurt, either.

3. Play Mah Jong -- The pieces fascinate me. I have ordered a book and found a few people around here who know how to play, so this one may get checked off my list soon.

4. Play the banjo -- There's something about the sound that I love. Ever since a friend of mine introduced me to Bela Fleck, I've wanted to learn how to play the banjo.

5. Make Green Tea bread -- This one sounds odd, but there was a coffee shop in Toyohashi that made green tea bread and it was some of the best stuff I've ever tasted. I wish I had the recipe.

6. Crochet correctly -- I need more practice and somebody to watch for this.

7. Control my foil better -- Fencing. How I miss it. How much more terrible I probably am now since there is no fencing in this area.

Short entry tonight. Nothing deep or meaningful. The full moon prohibits solemnity.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Spring Break

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." -- Margaret Atwood

This week is Spring Break for my school system. I have been taking care of all sorts of little jobs that have been piling up around the house. Many of those have been outdoor jobs.

I have never been much of a yard person. I am much more likely to be found sitting under a tree reading a book than digging and planting. That being said, since I finally came back home, I have been much more interested in gardening.

I'm still not into formal landscapes and heavy-duty earth moving, but for the last two days, I've been cleaning out overgrown flowerbeds and pruning shrubs. I have been designing flower beds in my mind and hauling topsoil. I have enjoyed it. One of the beds I reclaimed contains heirloom daylilies my grandmother planted. It still needs some work, but I planted some new ones to mix in, and the grass that had choked everything is no longer there.

I want to add some colorful trees later on. I want to add cherries and gingko to remind me of Japan. If I can find them, I also want to add a couple of dogwoods. They are some of my favorite spring trees.

Other old-fashioned plants I'd like to have are camellias and a gardenia. I think they are beautiful, and the gardenias are so fragrant.

I guess I am turning into a yard person after all. I never thought I would. I guess now that I have a place that is my own, I can see the point of the hard work. I'll still be found with a book under a tree, but now it will be a tree I put in the ground myself. :) Happy thought, indeed.

Monday, March 21, 2005

Friends -- Not the show

I'm starting without a quote tonight. I know that's unusual for this blog, and I also know as a quote fiend that one can't throw the proverbial rock on a quotes site or in Bartlett's without hitting a score of friendship quotes. Maybe I'll go back and add one later.

My friends are the greatest group of people on earth. For one thing, they consistently put up with my crap. I am not now, nor have I ever been, an easy person to get along with. I am often moody and am quite frequently not fit company for man or beast. I worry. I am classic Type-A personality, and God help you if you ever have to work on any kind of project with me. Despite these things, they are always around to help pick me up when I run out of strength from trying to do everything on my own. They are always there to bandage the wounds and mend the tears when I fall flat on my face.

I have been thinking about how friendships change as one gets older. I have been blessed in my life with a group of true, long-time friends. My best friend and I have known each other since kindergarten. She toddled up to me as I was screaming my head off after my mother's departure on my first day away from her and my grandmother and asked, "Why are you crying?" We managed to overcome that inauspicious beginning, and she and I passed through the trials of high school and the giddy happinesses of college before she married a great guy and went off to better things.

Another of my friends and I have gone to church together for years. She's the piano player; I play the organ. She's as vivacious as I am shy. She just had her first baby, and seeing her with that precious gift is one of the catalysts that started this reflection.

I don't see any of my friends as much as I used to. I don't guess anybody our age does. Life intrudes. It's hard to get up at 5:30 to go to work and then come home to an active social life later on, especially since, oddly enough, most of my friends are either teachers or are married to teachers, so we all have lesson plans and grading in the evenings. I have never felt disconnected from my friends, though. Even though I only get to see some of them a couple of times during the year, and there are a couple whom I only get to catch up with via email or a phone call, I still feel that bond that connects.

Some people would argue that it's not possible to maintain a friendship this way. I wonder how else it's done? With a few exceptions, we live at least 90 min. away from each other. Actually, several of my friends are scattered across the US, and at least one of my friends is on a different continent. I love them not one tiny bit less, but the active keeping up with things is hard.

The other thing that triggered this meandering is the fact that two of my friends announced I won't get to see them as often because they are going to leave our church. I can understand their reasons...I've pondered doing it myself often enough, but I can't help but be sad. I wanted to say something when the announcement was made, but what was there to say? Now, I just wonder when I will I ever see them. The only time I ever get to see them is on Sunday or when we have a get-together. I feel like I'm losing them.

That sadness brought in memories of other friendships that did just end. Everybody has relationships they are glad to see fade. Mine involve a girl from high school who turned out to be crazy and a guy from grad school who turned out to be an ass. (Oops...violated the PG-13 rating...) There have been other friendships that I really mourn, though. One in particular comes to me when it's quiet and gnaws at me. This friend and I met in graduate school and got along famously. She came to teach at the same school I was working at in Japan, and we had a fabulous time. I thought our friendship was a true thing, but soon after I left, she totally cut ties with me.

It's been two years now, but I still can't figure out what happened. I guess I must have done something that she considered an insult or a betrayal. Maybe she had been waiting for me to leave. I just can't understand how something that seemed so true could have turned out to be so empty. I have tried to find out how she's doing through other friends we share, but, probably out of politeness, nobody knows anything.

I just wish I knew what it was that I had done. I never meant any insult, and I had thought she knew me well enough to at least ask if she thought I'd done something offensive or wrong. I turn the problem over again and again, but I never find any closure on it. If I had an email from her saying, "I hate you. Die, b****, die!" then I could probably move on. I will never know if she's having a good life, if something happened and she is having a hard time, if I offended or was just oblivious when I thought our friendship was true, or anything else. And, I have to live with that. There is no other choice.

The last two days have been a real rollercoaster as I watch life change around me. I am so happy on one hand for the joy of a long-awaited new life. On the other, I'm sad because two more of my friends seem to be slipping away. Bitter and sweet together. I guess that's the nature of life.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Jane Austen

"Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery." -- Jane Austen

I am the perfect cliche of a high school English teacher. One of my favorite books of all time is Pride and Prejudice. I love, love, love it. I have read it more times than I can count. Everytime I come back to it, it's fresh and new. It's totally charming. I always want to be Elizabeth and find my Darcy, my foil.

I have two pieces of jewelry with JA quotes on them. I wear them almost every day. They say words you wear next to your skin have "special powers." Funny...I don't feel like a super hero... :)

I have read several of the other Austen novels, although by no means all of them, but P and P is my favorite. Lately, I've been on an absolute binge of reading sequels, some of them well-done, some of them not, to the original story. The best ones I've found so far are Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife and the Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman series.

What is it about this story that draws hopeless romantics? I realized how many sisters I probably have in my Darcy worship when I saw You've Got Mail for the first time. If it's widespread enough to have made it into a semi-smarmy movie like that, there must be a lot of us.

I think the draw is watching those two perfectly matched characters square off. How rare is it to find a person who balances you? Although the two of them have some marked differences, the core elements are complementary.

I love the verbal fencing matches they have, but I would have to feel a very strong connection with somebody before I could be that forthright with my opinions. Once, a long, long time ago, I was told that I was judgmental. Even though the person who told me that was mad at the time, it's stuck with me. This has made me very hesitant to give strong opinions to any person I don't know well. Elizabeth Bennet I'm not.

Maybe some day I'll find my balance. It's a nice thought. I don't know if there will be a "merry chase" like the novel, but I look forward to finding someone who will walk beside me, not be dominated by my own strength or try to crush it with his own.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Salsa...not the dance

"Only real friends will tell you when your face is dirty." -- Sicilian Proverb

Last night after church I went out with some of my friends. We went to our favorite Mexican restaurant and were laughing, talking, and carrying on.

Then something that has never happened to me before in any restaurant happened. The waiter was bringing us a fresh bowl of salsa, and suddenly, I was liberally anointed with it from the shoulder to the waist. Never in any place I've ever been have I had food spilled on me by a person other than myself, especially by a person who puts food on tables for a living.

I just started laughing. I had no idea what else to do. I couldn't get angry. The poor little guy didn't do it on purpose. The guy I was sitting with also caught part of the salsa flood, and all four of us were about to fall over we were laughing so hard. I think the waitstaff thought we were going to make a huge scene, but why do that? If it wasn't deliberate and it wasn't on-fire-hot, why fuss at somebody who was already upset over it?

It was the perfect ending to a long day of being rained on and hailed on while hunting for my insane cat outside. After we swabbed ourselves off with towels, we moved to a new table. Every thing the guy brought a dish to the table, we all flinched and looked at each other, then burst out laughing. It was a good memory, I think.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

T Day Cometh

"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater." -- Gail Godwin

Tomorrow my kids will take the English II writing test. I have mixed emotions about it. Part of me, a very big part of me, is just so glad that the stupid thing is finally here. It has been ruling all our lives for the last two weeks. Another part of me is nervous for the kids. I have done the best I can for them, and all I can do now is sit back and wait for the results.

For the most part, I think they're ready. I just hope they don't get in to the testing room and freak out.

I can't believe how important these stupid tests are. Every facet of high school has been tarnished and sullied by the almighty testing agenda. I suppose there are arguments to be made in their favor. They have increased "accountability", whatever that is. I just hate seeing my kids shaking in their desks when they're told that they can't graduate without them.

There's a whole focus in education that "more is always better," and only the PTB's opinion of what "more" should be is valid. For the most part, I think education "experts" (my, there are so many quotation marks tonight) have been in their ivory towers too long. I wonder how many of them could last a full week in a real classroom. In theory, in the perfect environment, their ideas might be workable. When you've got kids who, for the most part, have never been taught the value of education and who are struggling with monumental survival issues as a matter of daily routine, some of the gilding gets knocked off those shiny golden dreams.

Tomorrow is another day of "theater" and education. I guess I need some sleep to prepare. I hope my kids are resting, too. Too much has to ride on tomorrow's essays.