Sunday, April 30, 2006

The Joys of Teaching

Payday has come at last. It's always such a novelty to walk to the refridgerator, open the door, and see it full.

I feel like I am provisioning myself for a great artic voyage when I do my payday shopping. My cart is always overflowing with dog food, milk, cheese, toilet tissue, and the other day-to-day necessities. I see other people staring at the cart in sort of perplexed wonder as I struggle to maneuver it, and I want to tell them, "If you had to buy everything you need for the month in one fell swoop, you'd shop like this, too."

This is teacher life. We live from once-a-month payday to once-a-month payday for a pittance. No other profession would do this. I can't for the life of me figure out why we do, either. Oh, there's the great argument that "we love what we do, so money shouldn't be the issue." There's something to be said for that, I suppose, but I grew up in a teacher household, and I am now a teacher household myself, and I am all too familiar with the problems money could ease. After all, no amount of love for one's job can put a new roof on one's house.

The crappiest part of it is that every year, the legislature plays a coy game with funding for education. They pretend they are going to fully fund us, but then they put it off, take bits of the budget for other things, give themselves payraises, and tell us to make do. It doesn't really matter who gets elected, either. Every election year is filled with the propaganda of education reform and funding. Every following term is filled with fattened off-shore accounts and personal purses for the legislators and tighter belts and more sacrifices on the part of the teachers.

I received less than two hundred dollars of classroom monies this year. I use my own money to provide Kleenex, pencils, cleaning supplies, paper for my printer, ink cartridges, and other "luxuries." I'm not the only teacher who does this by a long shot. Our already meager income is further reduced by trying to fill in the gaps for our funding. Why not spend the $200? Well, I have spent some of it. I used part of it to purchase some new instructional materials and to get supplies from our district warehouse. I'm hoarding the last $50 to try to have a chance to purchase some textbooks next year. To try to make you understand if you don't, last year I had to decide between buying whiteboard markers and having a filing cabinet that wasn't broken and useless. I chose the markers. After all, it was only my empty purse and a VCR I'd purchased with my own money that I put in the filing cabinet each day and hoped were safe.

I think that teachers are a people of hope. I don't know where it comes from. I think that deep down, we truly believe that one day the scales are going to fall from the political machine's eyes and somebody will say, "Hey! Did you know that teachers are molding the next generation. Maybe we'd better make sure they have enough food to do that with. Maybe we should give them something besides sticks and dirt to teach with!"

I don't know why I'm on this tangent tonight, or why the sight of two jugs of Red Diamond tea should have launched me into this, but it felt like the right thing to discuss. If you are a teacher, I know you understand. If you are not a teacher and you have the chance to kick one of our esteemed legislators down a steep flight of stairs, do if for all of us who wish we had the chance. In the meanwhile, we, the "few, the proud" will continue to do what we can.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Silence

During seventh period today, my printer inexplicably stopped working. No, that's inaccurate. It works, but the printer carriage moves back and forth across the page only about every minute or so. I tried everything I knew to do to fix it. I went so far as to uninstall and reinstall the printer. I rebooted endlessly. The stinking thing is still messed up.

The only thing I know of that might have caused it, and for the life of me, I don't see how, is that I changed to a new print cartridge. To test that theory, I put the almost used up one back in, and, voila, happy but inkless printer. How is it possible for a cartridge to SNAFU a printer? I'll know for sure tomorrow when I put in the new "new" cartridge I purchased at Podunk's office supply store. I hope that's all it is. I really can't take another day of fighting with it.

I got so upset with it that I almost hurled it out the window. I don't respond well to inanimate defiance even when I'm well-rested and full of patience. I'm neither right now, so I am sure you can imagine.

When I walked out to the car, the silence was like aloe on a sunburn. I turned off the stereo and rode home. I could barely even tolerate the quiet sound of my car engine. Everything, every sound was like someone touching a bruised area. In fact, I still feel bruised.

It wasn't the printer, or at least, not mainly the printer. This week has been long and stressful. Even though the state test is over, it's going to take me some time to recover from the buildup to it. As you know, once the adrenaline stops pumping, the body truly reveals its weariness. I need some time to just sit under a tree or lay in the sun until this feeling passes. I know I won't be able to get it anytime soon. I just hope that I can continue to keep going on whatever tattered reserves I have left. I have a feeling that I'll need lots of afternoons of silence.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

State Test

It's over! I don't know if the kids feel as much relief as I do, but I am sure happy. As soon as we handed in the test materials, it felt as if a huge stone was lifted. I hope everyone did their best on it. Even though I know I'll have a few who won't make it through, I can say that I felt confident going in this year. That was new.

This will be very brief. I'll try to get back to regular blogging soon. One more poetry mention before I go. I rediscovered Blake's "Poison Tree". Very good. I especially love the art he did to go with it. Check it out if you have the time.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

John Donne. Holy Sonnet 14.

John Donne. Holy Sonnet 14.

I am teaching metaphysical poetry right now in my mad dash toward getting the seniors ready for the impending AP test. I don't know that they are getting very into it, but I am rediscovering the beauty and power of John Donne.

I always liked Donne, but it's been quite some time since I read him. As I've come back to Meditation 17, Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, and Death Be Not Proud, there has been real joy for me. His poems are what I hope mine will grow to be. There is a personal nature to all his poems. They are slices of his heart laid before God, and now before us as well.

The poem that has moved me most is the one linked above, "Batter My Heart, Three-person'd God". The imagery and the diction are stunning. The violence of the language is not what you'd expect from a prayer, but it fits. I have felt like Donne, helpless, besieged by my own sinful nature, unable to help myself.

I particularly love the totality of his request. He holds nothing back because he knows that only if God possesses him, breaks him, reforms him can he be whole. Not necessarily a comforting poem, but one that is honest to the bone.

If you haven't read any of Donne's stuff, check the poem above, and then find "Death, Be Not Proud". Let me know what you think of them.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Once a Week

Well, we're back to the once a week postings. There's not much to tell. I had a peaceful Easter break, discovered the joy of electric hedge trimmers, and generally tidied up around.

This week is going to be rough. As of today, we are officially 7 days away from the state test. All else has pretty much ceased until that's over. Thursday is the awards ceremony for the poetry contest, and I'm scheduled to read. We also have an all day, off campus review session for all our 10th graders Thursday. Thursday night is Senior Awards night, and I don't think I'm going to be able to get to all those things. I love my seniors, but I might have to skip the awards ceremony.

I tried to use my Rollei this weekend. I think I managed to ruin a roll of film and possibly get one photo. It took me forever to figure out how to load it, and I discovered my counter must not work. I'm sure the people at our local "photo shoppe" (the pretentious e is deliberate) will charge me an arm and a leg to develop that one image and laugh at my ineptitude. Oh well.... we live, we learn.

I promise to get the winning poem up soon. I haven't forgotten. All other life has just gone away for the time being. I was doing really good to get this together. Don't give up. There will be more later. It just may have to wait until after the 25th.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Lazy Saturday

Saturday night is your big night. Everybody used to fry up fish and have one hell of a time. Find me playing till sunrise for 50 cents and a sandwich. And be glad of it. And they really liked the low-down blues.
Muddy Waters

This quote doesn't really have all that much to do with my post, so don't get too excited. I just love Muddy Waters, and I'm in a bluesy mood, so I picked it from the quote site.

Today was about as low key as it's possible to get. I got up, did laundry, put away some, cleaned up the kitchen, and mowed the yard. I played with my dogs, stripped and remade the bed, and read on the couch. It was wonderful.

There were numerous things I should have gotten done today, but they'll keep. It was nice just to do what appealed to me when it moved me.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Verdant

There is no other place that fills my heart like Mississippi in the spring. There is a quality to the light here always, a dusting of gold that coats everything in the late afternoon. In the spring, that quality expands and the simple act of driving home becomes a moment of epiphany.

The trees are becoming green again. It's so subtle at first that you can't be sure if it is real, a breath on a cold window pane. When it strengthens, there are a million shades of green among the trees. Sturdy pines mix with the delicate paleness of new dogwood leaves. The live oaks tassel and drop last year's leaves. Even the sluggish pecan has started to show the knobby buds that will eventually unfurl to clothe them.

Yesterday, the day was perfect. The sky was a blue that was right out of a Crayon box. Rising to the top of a highway hill outside of Podunk, I could feel my heart swell, and I felt a little like the Grinch when his heart grows so suddenly and breaks the bonds that had held it.

I came home, loosed Missy (whose nickname has become Roux), and sat in the chair in my shaggy backyard with a book. I read for awhile, but I also found myself just staring up into the live oak watching the shifting greens as the wind dragged its fingers through the canopy, opening and closing windows to the sky. I pity those who don't have a similar place of peace.

My yard won't ever win any awards for horticulture, and admittedly, my grass needs cutting more often than I am able to get to it, but there may never be a sweeter or prettier spot than that plastic Adirondack under the lush verdancy of the live oak in my back yard.