Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Old

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man. ~Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein), Diary in Exile, 1935

Tonight I went out with the remnants of our supper club. We've lost quite a few members to moving away for school or work and babies.

As I was paying for my food, I became acutely aware of how much older I am than most of the others in that group. The cashier offered them tickets about a college promotion, but I must look "too mature" for that now. As we talked, one of our group is headed for college, and conversation turned to tales of dorm days long past.

It struck me how on the brink of all those crazy memory-building experiences he is and how far past them I am now. I could feel every one of the gray hairs on the top of my head as though they had transmuted to stainless steel threads.

I am approaching 30 at light speed. I have never been too worried about my age. It's just a number, after all, and I've been blessed with a lot of wonderful things and people and it's all been crammed into these 29 short years. I can't complain.

It's just that lately, ever since I got home from Japan, I have felt things slowing down. I wonder if maybe they're supposed to.

I miss going to Wal-Mart in the middle of the night because my roommate and I needed a break from school. I miss sitting on the porch at the Wesley and talking to my friends, speaking with passion about everything and nothing. I miss getting together to do things.

I know life changes, and maybe, just maybe someday my life will change in this way, too, but right now, I hate these changes. Everyone I know, all the friends I used to have have been consumed by family and work and we never see each other. We never do anything. I guess everybody has broken off into self-contained units, and I don't have a unit of my own.

Maybe that's the problem. I just feel like the transmission on my life has been thrown into neutral and I don't know how to get it back in gear. I worry that I'm going to turn into the stereotypical "old maid" school teacher living alone except for cats. I'm almost there already. I haven't met anybody in a LONG time who interested me at all. Why is that? Why can't I do all my other friends did years ago and find somebody to spend my life with?

Age has snuck up on me. I don't mind the wrinkles (only a few...thank God and genetics for good bones), the aches in my hands and knees, or the gray streaks. However, I really, really do mind the being alone. That's the one thing that growing older hasn't taught me how to deal with gracefully.

Monday, May 30, 2005

Returning to Normal

No quote tonight. I just don't want to go look one up. Summer laziness.

The year ended well. I finally got all my kids done and all my grades in. I totally rearranged my classroom. I love it. It looks, for no readily apparent reason, about four times as large.

I also had some great news. I am going to get to teach AP English next year! I was so shocked. I had wanted AP, and was planning to take the training for the course this summer, but I never expected to be able to teach it for years and years. I am proud to have been chosen, and a little nervous, too.

It's exciting to be able to teach a class at the "college" level, or as close as you can get with HS students, again. But it's also kind of nervewracking. Am I good enough to do this? I think I can. I'll do my best. Gambate, ne?

In other trivia from my world, I just broke my DELL SUCKS rule and ordered a Dell DJ from them. I needed it for the upcoming summer trip, and I think it will work better with my computer than an IPod would. I paid with my regular bank account, so no more of the every month hassle with Dell. I hope this thing is going to be as spiffy as I think it is....

On Sunday, I had a chance to use my Spanish more. A man from Guatemala came to our church, and since I"m the only one who has any Spanish, they called me at 9: 30 to come down and talk to him. He was looking for a Spanish-speaking church, and I had to tell him there's only one, and it's not in our tiny town. A larger city, the city where I teach, has a church with Spanish services. We had a good discussion. He was the neatest guy.

As I was talking to him, I kept thinking about how little effort most of this state has put into creating services for the growing Spanish-speaking population. It's almost a sullen refusal. It's like they're saying, "If we don't make it easy, they won't come," and indeed, I've often heard sentiments of this kind expressed. There's plenty of, "Why don't they learn English if they're going to come here?" around.

If these people had ever had the experience of being a minority, of not being able to ask for toilet tissue in the store, or not being able to go to a doctor by yourself, then I think they would get off their prejudicial high horses a little. I have long stated that everybody ought to have to go spend two or three months in a foreign country, and one in which they don't speak the language. I think so much of people's blase callousness to the problems immigrants are having in our area stems from the fact that they've 1) stopped seeing the basic humanity of their fellow man, and 2) never had to scratch and survive themselves.

One of the most embarrassing things I've ever had to do was explain my menstrual cycle to my boss so he could document it on a Japanese medical form. At that point, I was really sick and running a fever, almost deaf in one ear from an infection that had gone on too long, and on top of all of that was heaped the shame of illiteracy. He was embarrassed to have to ask, I was mortified to have to answer, but thank God and the Japanese sense of saving face, we were able to move past that.

I came home from Japan with a keen sense of what it's like to be helpless because of language. I was a trained, educated professional, but so often, I know the people I was encountering though me of subnormal intelligence. It's a natural reaction, maybe, to think that the person who doesn't speak the language you've been babbling in since birth is somehow odd. I was frustrated and even when I took classes to learn, my progress was slow, and technical situations like the doctor were still beyond the grasp of my basic-greeting-color-number-directions Japanese.

It's wrong for there not to be more help for people in this area. I do what I can. I offer my little ESL classes, but I still feel it's too little. I hear stories from my students sometimes that make me aware that they're facing the same problems I faced in Japan, and I wish I knew how to do more to help them. I am hoping to find some like-minded people and get some serious help made available for them. God willing, we can cut off some of the hardship before it begins. Life in a new place when you've left family behind is hard enough without little things being stumbling blocks.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Oddness and Cheese

Not the kind of cheese that melts, either. No quote tonight.

Item One: I discovered today that my blog has been ruled "Tasteless/Obscene" by the internet filter that's on our school computers. I had to laugh. Me? Obscene? It's enough to make me feel like a stand-up comedian on Comedy Central. I think it was either the "run! bastard alert" or the "jackass" comment from earlier blogs. I just can't get over the fact that I now really do apparently have a PG-13 rating. How bizarre.

Item Two: In the flurry of crap that's come out for the new Star Wars movie, I found something I had to have. No, not the big Yoda that talks (creepy...creepy). Not the $400 lightsaber you can really kill your friends with (why? A walking stick does the job pretty well, right cuz?). I am the proud owner of Darth Tater, better known by his pre-Sith name, Mr. Potato Head. I love it. It's the perfect blending of sci-fi and tacky. He is now guarding my living room. It's great.

Item Three: The Burger King guy is back. Have you seen the latest commercial? He and Darth Vader are starting at each other. Both are breathing out of their big plastic masks. It was kind of cool. Now I'll probably have nightmares about that thing....

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

The Hands

"A sense of humor is a major defense against minor troubles. " -- Mignon McLaughlin

I am very bad with guys. Part of this is because of a basic disbelief in their sincerity. That's a long story that I won't go into here, but it's true. Additionally, I don't know how to flirt. Somehow, that part of southern girl upbringing missed me. I don't know how to handle it when a guy shows interest in me. I was always the least interesting of my friendship group. Guys always went for my friends, and I was always the tall, quiet one in the background. I've been lucky to have some really tremendous guy friends, but my romantic batting average is pitiful.

After an odd, but trauma-free day of school, I was looking forward to seeing my friends in our biweekly dinner club. We were going to my favorite Mexican restaurant and I always feel better when I know a cheese-laden plate is going to be laid before me at some point in the evening. Nothing is as nice as cheese. :)

Anyway, there is a guy at my favorite restaurant who always flirts with me. I don't know what to think about that. I get so embarrassed that I think I'm going to burst into flame. He's actually told me on more than one occasion how much he likes tall, pretty girls. (I suppose that's me...) He's asked at least two of my guyfriends I've been in the restaurant with if I'm their wife/girlfriend, etc., etc.

The thing is, he's not bad looking. I don't get the "RUN!! BASTARD ALERT!!" vibe off him. I just can't believe that his complements are personal toward me. I wonder how many other girls he says stuff like that to daily, and I flash back to the jerk from grad school who loved all women and told them so. If I thought his complements were related to some aspect of me other than the fact that have anatomical aspects opposite to his own, then I might feel differently about the guy.

Tonight, he came up behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders while he asked my cousin "who the pretty lady was." I, like most other modern American women, have a thing about that. I couldn't believe it! He just walked up and put his hands on me without permission. As I once told the guy from grad school, unless you'd like to lose those hands, don't put them on me without me saying it's okay.

I did the Southern Lady thing and just waited until he took his hands away. He wasn't trying to cop a feel. It was just strange. I don't know what to think about it. I don't know why I didn't break him into a half dozen small writhing pieces. I responded in the only way that seemed appropriate: I threw back my head and I laughed.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Walking on the Rooftop of Hell

There's a quote somewhere, I can't remember if it's Rumi or Basho, that says, "We're all walking on the roof of hell gazing at flowers." Today, I put a foot through the roof and shattered the illusion.

It didn't happen to me. It happened to one of my students. She came in early to ask about makeup work. She'd been out for four days, something that was out of character for her. She's one of my most diligent students. Her family background is, like so many of my kids lives, littered with the unimaginable. Although she's not yet seventeen, she's seen a close family member slain in cold blood by a former lover, members of her immediate family put in prison, and other members of her family following paths that will probably lead them to one of those two same destinations.

She's very strong. She's very steady. She has dreams and goals, and she works hard to get to them. She didn't do well in English last year, but has been very pleasantly surprised that she can do well in my class if she tries. I have been so proud of her this year, and so happy to be able to mark solid, strong B's for her almost every grading period.

This morning, after a brief discussion about makeup work, she told me that she'd probably be out again tomorrow. I never want to pry. Life is a personal thing, and it's full of crap that most people don't really want to have to explain over and over again. I could tell that something was wrong, though, and I gently asked her if there was anything I could do.

She started crying. My steady, strong student had silent tears running down her face, and my heart almost broke. I knew it had to be something terrible. I just went to her and hugged her. I didn't know what else to do. I got her some Kleenex, sat her down in a desk, and asked her what was wrong.

She had a baby three days ago, and her baby is dead. My sixteen-year old student miscarried, and the baby, premature by three months, wasn't strong enough to survive. She told me her story with tears streaming.

What do you even say? There are no words for grief that deep. There is no response. Anything that is said is too pale, too weak, too trite, too much a cliche to ever begin to be a response. What I wanted to say was that although I don't know what it's like to hold life inside me and lose it, my heart hurt for her. I wanted to rock back and forth and scream with her at the loss. These are not the done things, though.

So many people would just shut it out as a sad moment and go on. Too often, I've heard people insinuate that such things are either a punishment or somehow deserved because the girls are poor, or black, or too young to be having a baby, anyway. I'm sure some self-righteous jackass might even say it was better all the way around that the baby didn't make it. How anybody could look at another human being in pain and be that...un-human...is beyond my ability to comprehend. She is my student. She is a person. She is a girl child. Her heart was just cut out of her. How could anyone turn away from that?

This is the second time this year I've had a student face the unbearable. Another of my girls had a baby and lost her own mother in the space of 5 months. She, like my other one, is not yet seventeen years old. From mother to orphan in less than half a year. Again, there are no words.

I remember the day she came to tell me her mother was gone. She came to ask me for any work she'd need for the next few days. I figured something had happened and she'd gotten suspended, so I asked what happened. Her eyes couldn't focus. I will never forget. The day was so sunny. She looked out past me at the huge oaks that can be seen from the end of the hall windows and she said, "My mother just died. I have to go home." I almost fell down. Again, I grabbed her and hugged her. What else is there to do?

I wish I had the power to give these girls back their girlhood. I wish I had the power to give them a chance to be a teenager before they have to be adults. So many of my kids come from places where home is not a refuge, but another level of hell. So many of them have darkness chasing them.

I feel so useless to them. What good is pronoun/antecedent agreement when you've been up with a colicky baby all night? Is there anything other than prayer and a sympathetic ear I can give them? It rips my heart out to see them so young and in so much pain.

Tomorrow, my steady, solid student will go to bury the tiny body that is all that remains of the baby she'd looked forward to with such happiness. I'll be working on To Kill a Mockingbird with my classes. We'll all go on walking on the roof of hell and trying to focus on the flowers while avoiding the gaps and thin spots that will send us right back down again.

Thursday, May 05, 2005


The Dancing Fool Posted by Hello

The Future

"And in today already walks tomorrow." ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Today two future possibilities presented themselves that made the thought of more years of teaching tolerable. The first was a suggestion about teaching AP English. Our wonderful AP teacher is starting to think about retirement, and it has been suggested that I might possibly be considered for that position when he goes. The more I think of it, the happier I am. AP is more like college than any other course I'd teach. Theoretically, although the actuality is frequently different, I'd also be teaching the most motivated of students in an AP course. I am going to start looking into what's necessary to get ready for that.

The other possibility comes through the retirement of another colleague. We will need a creative writing teacher next year, and possibly an oral communication teacher as well. Both those options sound wonderful. I just need something different to break up my day. If I had a class that wasn't the equivalent of a 4WD expedition into a bottomless mud pit, then I think I could endure some of the other better. Right now, I'm teaching the same thing 6 periods a day. Everybody needs a break. Maybe one of these options will be mine.

I'm especially excited by the possibility of teaching creative writing. I have always wanted to do that. I don't know if I'd be any good at it or not, but I think it will be so much fun to try. I think working like that would also inspire me to do more of my own writing.

We'll have to wait and see, ultimately. Things are changing very fast right now, so who knows?

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Why We Do This

"In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years." ~Jacques Barzun

The end of school is the toughest time for teachers. It's harder than the first day when every teacher walks in to the great unknown with hopes, expectations, and a lesson plan to carry them. It's harder than the panic right before Christmas when high spirits and grading deadlines play havoc with holiday happiness. It's harder than testing season when adrenaline carries you through the big day twitching like a caffeine junkie in a bad overdose and you feel like a rubber band stretched right to the point of breakage.

It's hard because, in so many cases, there's no hope left. No hope that student X is going to wake up and try to make something out of this opportunity to learn. No hope for student Y that he will pass. No hope that seventh period is going to turn out to be anything other than silly and hyper.

After school, it's not uncommon for us to gather in the halls after the kids go to the buses. We blow off steam about the day. It's sort of a safety valve that helps us pick up the pieces and go on. Today, though, our conversation was more bitter than it's been at any other time so far.

All of us, 30-plus year veterans, teachers in mid-career, and rookie me, were asking why we bother to do this anymore. It's so discouraging to come into a class and face blatant disrespect and disobedience every day. Despite the fact that all of us would bend over backwards and do on a regular basis to help out a student in need, we're a caste of something less than human beings. The kids are selfish and rude. They put forth no effort and expect to "reap what they didn't sow," to borrow Biblical metaphors.

As I'm typing this, I feel 500 years old. I feel like a caricature of a teacher, the type of person I never thought I'd be. My friends and I always swore we'd be never be like this, and yet now, all my conversations with my teacher friends, no matter what school they're at, no matter what stage of their career they're in, sound the same. Same complaints, same frustrations, same worries.

So this is my question: Why the hell are we still doing this? (Oops...there goes the PG rating again...shame, shame) Additionally, all of us are teachers by nature as well as by vocation. What do we do when the thing that makes our hearts move and sing becomes a source of agony? Is this a "thorn in the flesh" we have to endure? Is this an age, a generation that will pass? Where do we go if we don't stay where we are? And the one that keeps me up at night...does all this heartsblood I pour into my work matter at all? Do I touch a life or make a difference at all?

Supposedly, teaching is one of those professions that requires a basically optimistic outlook. As the quote says, you do the best you can, sketch the sign of the cross over them, and send them out into the world. I feel like I'm folding origami boats and setting them adrift on the current. I don't know how seaworthy these little crafts are. My fingers feel less and less nimble as I make the folds. I don't know if I'm doing it right anymore.

Maybe this is just a part of the natural cycle of the school year. I don't know. All I know is the idea of 24 more years of this seems unimaginable. Who will I be after 24 more years of this? Will I be a twisted-up old maid school teacher who comes home to only cats for company? Will be be able to feel compassion for my students anymore, or will they all just be "idiots in the hall"?

Where did the joy go? I used to love going to school. Even earlier this year, I loved it. Right now, though, I just want to take a personal day or five and disappear.

Tomorrow, I'll rise and put on my professional face. I'll focus on the positive, look for the silver lining, and call the glass half full. Tonight, though, I'm an old maid school teacher who wants to escape.

Monday, May 02, 2005

Back again

"A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book. " ~Irish Proverb

After the testing was over, the week just flew by. I was so tired that I went to sleep early almost every night last week, and this week, I'm feeling slightly less like a dead teacher and slightly more like a real person.

Payday also helps. There is no day so precious in the paid once a month world as payday. I bought several books by Carolyn Haines. They're light mystery set in the Mississippi Delta. I'm on a Mississippi kick again right now, and I guess I'll probably write more about that in a forthcoming post.

There's nothing earthshattering to report, but as with so many things, I felt myself falling out of the habit of writing. This is sort of a blog space filler. Tomorrow, perhaps, real sentiment will be seen.