On most days, it is a challenge to get students to seek out the "other." In an election season, that task feels downright monumental, like a salmon weaving its way up Niagra Falls.
If we taught school the way politicians seek seats these days--with finger-pointing vitriol, basted in barrels full of vinegar--I doubt our students would learn much at all about themselves, more or less anything substantive about the "other" who is on the receiving end of those diatribes.
Oh, I suppose that's not entirely true. They would learn, for instance, who's got the most bravado, the best marketing strategies, the snarkiest one-liners.
But I'd prefer working with mirrors that reflect rather than refract.
Color me crazy, but I love those moments when students suddenly see themselves--or, better yet, someone else-- as though for the first time. It is like morning sunlight fractured into a thousand diamonds on a single blade of grass--breathtaking and symphonic. And, invariably, in the aftermath of such experiences, these students are left looking over their shoulders, wondering if--hoping that--someone else saw what they just saw.
Even though today's journalists lack the reputation and luster of their muckraking, independent ancestors, there are still those who seek to do the job in that spirit--diligently finding and giving voice to the underrepresented. Certainly, the most magical experiences in my own classroom often seem to involve "the other"--an idea, a person, a perspective, a medium previously unexplored.
The key is to expect the students to move outside of their comfort zones, and to give them both the permission and the tools they'll need to muddle through these new things--even if failure or discomfort may follow. My role in that process is to provide the occasional Google Map and then stay out of the way.
Despite what the politicians may be shouting on TV these days, the means really does justify the end. It is the process--the journey, the hard work of showing up each day with our eyes and minds and hearts wide open and working through the discomfort of our own inexperience--that gives meaning to our lives and to the lives of others.
Life is messy. And there are good kinds of "messy" and bad kinds of it. It would serve us well to focus on the former, even if it makes for lousy sound bites.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Mission Impossible: The Dangers of Working in a School
I know that people often think of East High as a rather bland place, at least from a cultural perspective. And I suppose that, if a person is limited to strictly visual cues, such a judgment might seem reasonable. But, hey, I'm a librarian, so you shouldn't be surprised that I'm pulling out the "don't judge a book by its cover" adage here.
After all, as I consider the nearly 24 years I've spent as a teacher at East, I find myself looking at a surprisingly diverse pool of students who've crossed my path. And, while I haven't always had a lot in common with those students, like most educators, I've worked darned hard to find a personal connection I could make with each one of them.
Whatever the outsider may think, it is not the subject matter that keeps me teaching. Nor the curriculum, the standardized testing, the continual evolutionary tweaks and reinventions of my profession that keep me showing up each day. Heck, it's not even my peers--whom I love deeply--that keep me at it.
No, it is the students, that rag-tagged bunch of hooligans and geniuses (sometimes one and the same) that pull me out of my warm bed on a cold, dark winter morning. Even--sometimes especially--those with whom I seem to have nothing in common, besides the fact that we are both called "Spartans."
As a teacher, I am expected--mandated, really--to be a Democrat who respects and helps educate Republicans. A Protestant compassionately connecting with Catholics. A woman reaching out to young men. A white person making connections to brown people. A middle-class person building relationships with students who call the City Mission "home."
The great balancing act of being a teacher is to somehow find a way to be both authentic to who I am and also remain distant from the parts of myself that might close me off from others. My classroom should not be a forum for my personal agendas any more than it should be an antiseptic stage of regurgitation for someone else's ideas.
Somewhere between those ranges of experience is what it means to be human--that messy interaction of fact and fiction, love and hate, fear and courage.
It ain't an easy balancing act, folks. If I were solely focused on the delivery of FDA-approved curriculum and EPA-approved testing measures, it still wouldn't be an easy schtick. Throw in the desire to figure out how to bring in some humanity, to recognize and respect the myriad secret lives that each of us haul along each morning, and it can be either downright discouraging or incredibly invigorating to do the job each day. But it's always a bit exhausting.
So maybe you'll understand if I sigh deeply and roll my eyes a bit when I hear the latest vitriol and clucking tongues hissed in my general direction, all in response to the impossible job that faces every educator every single day--building meaningful bridges across a human landscape that is wild and beautiful, varied and complex.
Believe me when I say that no school is as bland--or as scary or as broken or as perfect or as rotten--as the one painted by those who reside outside of it.
After all, as I consider the nearly 24 years I've spent as a teacher at East, I find myself looking at a surprisingly diverse pool of students who've crossed my path. And, while I haven't always had a lot in common with those students, like most educators, I've worked darned hard to find a personal connection I could make with each one of them.
Whatever the outsider may think, it is not the subject matter that keeps me teaching. Nor the curriculum, the standardized testing, the continual evolutionary tweaks and reinventions of my profession that keep me showing up each day. Heck, it's not even my peers--whom I love deeply--that keep me at it.
No, it is the students, that rag-tagged bunch of hooligans and geniuses (sometimes one and the same) that pull me out of my warm bed on a cold, dark winter morning. Even--sometimes especially--those with whom I seem to have nothing in common, besides the fact that we are both called "Spartans."
As a teacher, I am expected--mandated, really--to be a Democrat who respects and helps educate Republicans. A Protestant compassionately connecting with Catholics. A woman reaching out to young men. A white person making connections to brown people. A middle-class person building relationships with students who call the City Mission "home."
The great balancing act of being a teacher is to somehow find a way to be both authentic to who I am and also remain distant from the parts of myself that might close me off from others. My classroom should not be a forum for my personal agendas any more than it should be an antiseptic stage of regurgitation for someone else's ideas.
Somewhere between those ranges of experience is what it means to be human--that messy interaction of fact and fiction, love and hate, fear and courage.
It ain't an easy balancing act, folks. If I were solely focused on the delivery of FDA-approved curriculum and EPA-approved testing measures, it still wouldn't be an easy schtick. Throw in the desire to figure out how to bring in some humanity, to recognize and respect the myriad secret lives that each of us haul along each morning, and it can be either downright discouraging or incredibly invigorating to do the job each day. But it's always a bit exhausting.
So maybe you'll understand if I sigh deeply and roll my eyes a bit when I hear the latest vitriol and clucking tongues hissed in my general direction, all in response to the impossible job that faces every educator every single day--building meaningful bridges across a human landscape that is wild and beautiful, varied and complex.
Believe me when I say that no school is as bland--or as scary or as broken or as perfect or as rotten--as the one painted by those who reside outside of it.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
They Say It's Your Birthday...Not That You'd Tell Anyone
But they are not Mark Holt.
No, Mark is one of those people who, if he happens to be in a photo, usually has his eyes half shut, or is tucked into the last row, content to blend in with the background. That's why it's amazing I found this photo of him, standing proudly by his man-room acquisition, an old mandolin that someone had forgotten about. Mark saw that thing and realized that it still had some sparkle and life left in it, so he bought it. Gave it a new life.
Quiet people are like that--patient and observant, forever able to see the potential in half-broken things that we noisier folks simply can't be bothered with. Thing is, they also have a great capacity to enjoy the sunshine-sucking people who draw their energy from the clangy fuel pumps of crowds and chatter.
If Mark were of the earth, he'd be the Oglala Aquifer, running deep and cool beneath the sandy soils of us shallower types, quietly nourishing us in our wilder pursuits, a seemingly endless source of support and encouragement.
I am no prima donna, nor do my tastes run towards the higher end of things. Still, I can think of no time in our 25-year marriage when Mark has said "no" to me. No time when he has thrown up a barrier between me and my dreams or ideas, even if those things mean we will be hosting a party with 50 tired teachers in need of dancing and cold beer.
They say opposites attract and, given the satisfying life that Mark and I have made for ourselves--one in which we still get a daily kick from each other--I'm apt to agree with them, whoever they are. I am steadier, happier, deeper and more content with Mark Holt in my life. Yes, I still occasionally pull up my overfilled wagon next to the "sunshine" pump and milk it for all it's worth, but I know now that the fuel that really sustains me is back home, sitting quietly in his man room, admiring his collection of once-orphaned items, made shiny and new in his steady presence.
Happy 50th, Mark. Mighty glad to have you in my life.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Stormy Weather
It is one a.m. and I have been awakened
--roused, really, for who can sleep when the sky has been falling since noon?--
roused, then, by paparazzi lightning and a drumline of rain,
relentlessly keeping beat upon my shelter.
As I shuffle across the hall,
my hand runs lovingly along the north wall
grateful for its vigilance against the storm.
And, where sleep should return, there is only an ache.
--A memory of Cardinals
tucked into the nest just outside our back room.
A not-so-distant storm, its long, wet fingers
forever rushing down the awning,
stopping finally--fatally--in the twiggy home just below it.
I wake the next morning to a yawning earth
burbling the remains of the night's long drink.
And silence, too. A nest of broken, quiet bodies
huddled against the odds.
That damned awning came down within days,
forever stained by the long, slow night of death it brought.
A Judas where a Noah was needed.
--roused, really, for who can sleep when the sky has been falling since noon?--
roused, then, by paparazzi lightning and a drumline of rain,
relentlessly keeping beat upon my shelter.
As I shuffle across the hall,
my hand runs lovingly along the north wall
grateful for its vigilance against the storm.
And, where sleep should return, there is only an ache.
--A memory of Cardinals
tucked into the nest just outside our back room.
A not-so-distant storm, its long, wet fingers
forever rushing down the awning,
stopping finally--fatally--in the twiggy home just below it.
I wake the next morning to a yawning earth
burbling the remains of the night's long drink.
And silence, too. A nest of broken, quiet bodies
huddled against the odds.
That damned awning came down within days,
forever stained by the long, slow night of death it brought.
A Judas where a Noah was needed.
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Fancy Schmancy, Know-it-all Nancy.
For someone who only knew how to make grilled cheese sandwiches and brownies for the first half of her life, I've developed a surprisingly intimate relationship with cooking magazines in the past decade or two. Granted, simply subscribing to a magazine does not guarantee that a person becomes a master chef--or even a passable one-- but I have certainly learned a thing or two from these publications over the years.
. . . although I've never quite figured out how to say the word "Savuer."
Which is probably why I let that subscription expire recently.
As though it wasn't bad enough that I once had to look up the words "haricot verts" (what us simple folk would call "green beans"), I don't even know how to properly reference the magazine that used that hoity toity term. Yeah, I'm a fickle subscriber who actually expects to understand most of the words tucked between the glossy covers.
Truth is, I have always been suspicious of fifty-cent words stapled to penny-candy items. And, really, who can blame me? I mean, I'm the daughter of a journalist, as well as a journalism teacher. That means I break out into an asthma attack simply glancing at a paragraph that includes more than 25 or 30 words.
All the more reason to pity me, considering that I swim in the professional sea of education, an ocean whose waters are gleefully stocked with polysyllabic poppycock.
Why say "work friends" when you can say "colleagues?" And who wants to tell people "what I did today" when you can enlighten them with an impromptu lecture about your "pedagogical philosophies?" Did I ever tell you how much I hate the word "pedagogy?" The mere sound of it sends proletarian paroxysms shivering through my body. (Yeah, I know. Those are big words. Never said I was a purist)
I have the same reaction when Alex Trebek--who has all of the answers typed out in front of him!--has the gaul to say "Gaugin" like he just walked out of a Parisian pastry shop.
I'd originally set out to blog about the joys of savoring things, the pleasure of taking the time to take our time. But nooooo, I had to find some clever "in," a lead that would catch and captivate. Thus, the reference to Savuer Magazine. And now look at me. I've gone and blathered about fancy words instead, wasting my time on the top-tiered fancy cats and their two-dollar terms.
Alex Trebek would be proud. But me? I'm feeling a bit queasy. Or "indisposed," if you will.
. . . although I've never quite figured out how to say the word "Savuer."
Which is probably why I let that subscription expire recently.
As though it wasn't bad enough that I once had to look up the words "haricot verts" (what us simple folk would call "green beans"), I don't even know how to properly reference the magazine that used that hoity toity term. Yeah, I'm a fickle subscriber who actually expects to understand most of the words tucked between the glossy covers.
Truth is, I have always been suspicious of fifty-cent words stapled to penny-candy items. And, really, who can blame me? I mean, I'm the daughter of a journalist, as well as a journalism teacher. That means I break out into an asthma attack simply glancing at a paragraph that includes more than 25 or 30 words.
All the more reason to pity me, considering that I swim in the professional sea of education, an ocean whose waters are gleefully stocked with polysyllabic poppycock.
Why say "work friends" when you can say "colleagues?" And who wants to tell people "what I did today" when you can enlighten them with an impromptu lecture about your "pedagogical philosophies?" Did I ever tell you how much I hate the word "pedagogy?" The mere sound of it sends proletarian paroxysms shivering through my body. (Yeah, I know. Those are big words. Never said I was a purist)
I have the same reaction when Alex Trebek--who has all of the answers typed out in front of him!--has the gaul to say "Gaugin" like he just walked out of a Parisian pastry shop.
I'd originally set out to blog about the joys of savoring things, the pleasure of taking the time to take our time. But nooooo, I had to find some clever "in," a lead that would catch and captivate. Thus, the reference to Savuer Magazine. And now look at me. I've gone and blathered about fancy words instead, wasting my time on the top-tiered fancy cats and their two-dollar terms.
Alex Trebek would be proud. But me? I'm feeling a bit queasy. Or "indisposed," if you will.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Meandering Through My Memory's Lane
Such was my experience last night as I eased off A Street and slowly wound my way up Twin Ridge Road towards Jill's house.
How is it that I can walk into the school office each afternoon, wondering what it is that I was supposed to do there, only to have a savant's gift for recollection three hours later, remembering names and faces, the sound of someone's long-ago cackling laughter?
. . . and when Duke-now-David looks up from his plate and calls Jill "Pill?" It is as though someone has cracked open my skull and blown off the dust of some ancient file cabinet whose sun-starved contents finally come to light.
I am lucky indeed to have these childhood friends among me. Like a favorite, thread-bare shirt, they are still so familiar, so comfortable against my skin. Mike, whose long, sun-bleached hair is now close cropped, his words--still warm--slightly bent from all those years out east. Duke-now-David, a heart hastily taped to his sleeve, unable to stave the flow of sweet memories played out in now-faded photos and notes scrawled in childish loops. Jill-once-Pill--hostess extraordinaire--who, despite acrid memories of my sweaty, young feet, opens her home with the graciousness that only a strong woman knows.
Joy, too, forever Jill's younger, more fashionable sister. Joy is there, too, now softened and warmed by a life that has not always been easy. And, finally, there is Jeannie--Mrs. Johnson--whose quiet laugh and loving kindness have warmed me for so many of my 52 years. That she, too, so readily shares the stories of our youth lived out on warm August nights on Sumner Street? Her stories assure me that I have not made up the whole thing. That these people, indeed, are real and my childhood was, indeed, that sparkly and that joyful.
Most friendships are tagged by the locations in which they were formed--we have our "school friends," our "college friends," our "work friends." Many of these friendships ebb and flow, anchored by a timeline determined by that location. My "childhood friends," though, should simply be called "my friends," for theirs is a love forged young yet strong, and set for life. They have endured too much to succumb to the whims of time and place.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Shopping the Apocalypse
We narrowly averted a personal-products crisis in the Holt household earlier this week, when I mistook paper towels for toilet paper. I have no idea what compelled Mark to buy an 8-pack of paper towels in the first place. That he stored them where the toilet paper usually goes? Well, now you're just talking crazy!
I don't believe I have bought 8 rolls of paper towels in my entire life of buying things. I don't use them. In fact, I'm always caught a bit off guard when I'm in a friend's kitchen and spy one of those wooden paper-towel holders on the counter It's as though I've spotted some exotic butterfly I'd only seen in books. My God! I think to myself, These people use paper towels!
So, given their bulk and odd location, a girl can be forgiven for assuming they were something else, right?
I sent Mark back to the store yesterday to rectify his earlier mistake. He came back with a 12-pack of Scott Single-Ply industrial toilet paper. (I can practically hear some of your lips sneering in derision, you persnickety, two-ply snobs, you). Twelve double rolls of toilet paper for a two-person household. The audacity! As though Mark is just tempting the future to quit coming.
I'm nuts about Mark, but his apocalyptic-buying tendencies befuddle me. It's as though he's finally hitched up the horses and is leaving the soddie for his quarterly trip into town for supplies. I wave from the porch, hoping neither blizzard nor rattler will take him down before he makes it back home again with his 12-packs of soap, his industrial-sized detergent, his 8 rolls of paper towels.
He says seeing such bulk brings him some measure of comfort. I guess I can sort of see what he's saying. It's the same tenuous argument I occasionally make in defense of purchasing insurance. It's just good to know we have it, in case we ever need it.
For now, the Holt household is back in order, all things in their proper place. And we face our future with the confidence that can only come from an abundance of single-ply prosperity, knowing we have what it takes to survive, until pa once again loads up the cart and heads into town.
I don't believe I have bought 8 rolls of paper towels in my entire life of buying things. I don't use them. In fact, I'm always caught a bit off guard when I'm in a friend's kitchen and spy one of those wooden paper-towel holders on the counter It's as though I've spotted some exotic butterfly I'd only seen in books. My God! I think to myself, These people use paper towels!
So, given their bulk and odd location, a girl can be forgiven for assuming they were something else, right?
I sent Mark back to the store yesterday to rectify his earlier mistake. He came back with a 12-pack of Scott Single-Ply industrial toilet paper. (I can practically hear some of your lips sneering in derision, you persnickety, two-ply snobs, you). Twelve double rolls of toilet paper for a two-person household. The audacity! As though Mark is just tempting the future to quit coming.
I'm nuts about Mark, but his apocalyptic-buying tendencies befuddle me. It's as though he's finally hitched up the horses and is leaving the soddie for his quarterly trip into town for supplies. I wave from the porch, hoping neither blizzard nor rattler will take him down before he makes it back home again with his 12-packs of soap, his industrial-sized detergent, his 8 rolls of paper towels.
He says seeing such bulk brings him some measure of comfort. I guess I can sort of see what he's saying. It's the same tenuous argument I occasionally make in defense of purchasing insurance. It's just good to know we have it, in case we ever need it.
For now, the Holt household is back in order, all things in their proper place. And we face our future with the confidence that can only come from an abundance of single-ply prosperity, knowing we have what it takes to survive, until pa once again loads up the cart and heads into town.
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