One Pi$$ed Off Teacher

The more I think about it, the more ticked and frustrated I become.  If I hate school these days, how to my students feel?  I know how they feel.  They either hate school more than me, about as much as me, or they love school because they would love it no matter what - regardless of how relentlessly we pound them for THE TEST and bleed everything interesting and the least bit curiosity piquing out of the school day.  And believe me, we have!

From 8:03 to 2:04, Monday through Friday I teach nothing but English Language Arts and Math.  AD NASEUM!  I do it the same way, everyday, every hour, every minute because I have been instructed to use the "adopted curriculum" and forbidden to deviate from it.  I must pound the Key Standards into my students' heads and ensure they have mastery.

We do nothing new, nothing novel, nothing inspiring.

No assemblies (except to "motivate" them for THE TEST)!

No field trips!

No art!

No science!

No history!

No music! (Save for a handful who choose to play instruments.)

No drama!

No outside speakers!

No silent reading with books of their own choosing!

My students can predict each day, down to the second what we will be doing because it has been scheduled and dictated.

Are my scores on THE TEST improving?  Yes.

I teach them daily how to "beat the test" with test-taking strategies.

Can't divide?  Multiply all the possible answers by the smallest number in the problem.  When you get the largest number in the problem, you have found the answer.

Don't know whether to add, subtract, multiply or divide in a word problem?  Look at the multiple choice answers.  If they are larger than the numbers in the problem, you either add or multiply - now do both with all the possible combinations till you find the answer.  If they are smaller, you either subtract or divide.

Are my students equipped to contribute to a democratic society?  No.

They haven't the slightest idea about democracy - no one is teaching them.

Are my students better learners?  No.

I don't teach them HOW to learn; I teach them WHAT to learn.

Are my students more curious than they were before?  No.

Are they less curious and less interested in learning because school is so dreadfully boring and tedious?  Yes.

Would I be willing to work harder and longer for the same pay if I could inspire kids to become curious and fall in love with the wonder of learning?  If I had the chance to fall in love with school again?

YES!

Freed

Last weekend, I returned to Northern California for my father’s memorial service.  Taking a train, a bus and a car, I arrived once again in my hometown wondering how I would be received.  I needn’t have worried.  AGAIN, my Daddy went before me, preparing the way as only He can.

It could have been awkward, oh so VERY awkward.  You see, the folks in attendance fell into one of three categories. 

1.  My family members and a few (very few) friends of my father who knew about me and know me personally.

2.    Friends of my father who knew I existed and knew of the circumstances but also knew some things just weren’t talked about.  Awkward.

3.    Friends of my father and brothers who had no earthly idea who I was, let alone that there was such a thing as my father’s daughter.  AWKWARDLY AWKWARD!

I lost count of how many times his oldest and dearest friends shook my hand with the words, “I didn’t know Dave had a daughter.”  There was the man who was my father’s boyhood cohort in crime.  There was the man for whom my father served as best man.  There was the man who worked for my father for years and years.  But amazingly, I didn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable.  God gave me the grace to simply smile and greet each person warmly without ever feeling the slightest unease.  That, in itself, is a miracle because meeting new people in the best of circumstances is not the easiest endeavor for me.  I just fake it very well.

And then God gave even more.  He gave insight into my father’s feelings for me through the words of the lovely women who lived next door to him for more than 20 years.  She affirmed through recollections of my father’s confidences in her that he thought of me often, regretted the past and truly loved me.  She put voice to my assumption that, after so many years, he simply didn’t know how to redeem the past from his choices and misdeeds.  They simply overwhelmed him.

Then there was this lady, a dear friend of my grandparents.  One of the old guard from when the little berg where my father grew up was known more for dinner parties than drug raids.  When the Ladies’ Study Club boasted more members than the Medical Marijuana Cooperative.  She falls squarely into Category Number Two.  Her warm greeting and kind words carried symbolism I didn’t know I needed.  It was as if I was being ushered into my father’s world.  Out of respect for him, they had waited all these years to acknowledge me, and now was my time.  I bear the stigma no more.

The death of my father has freed me.  Not from anything.  My Savior has done that.  It has freed me for something.

To be continued…  

What the Locusts Have Eaten

I'm not sure how to organize my thoughts about the last couple of weeks.  They are still a jumble of ahas and impressions and blessings.  Forgive me if I ramble or jump around from thought to thought, but I want so much to share before the wonder flies away.

In January my sister-in-law called to say my father had come to live with them for health reasons, and there were no guarantees about how long he would be with us.  Because of my own health issues, Mama Mia and I had to postpone any visits until my Spring Break.  However, when my sister-in-law called again a couple of weeks ago with the news that my father was failing, Mama Mia, the Boxer Babes and I loaded ourselves into the SUV and drove 500 miles to the Northern California Coast.

In order for you to understand the potential for awkwardness and difficulties that surrounded this visit, you must know some of my history.  I don't share this to illicit sympathy, for God long ago healed the hurts and revealed time and time again how he has made something beautiful out of the ugliness of my childhood.

When I was not much more than a year old, my father, who already had one broken marriage and two small sons behind him, chose alcohol and infidelity over my mom and his infant daughter.  Hurting terribly, I imagine, he made the decision, when the judge awarded full physical and legal custody to Mama Mia, as judges were wont to do in the late 60's, not to have a relationship with me at all even thought we lived in the same small town.  During my elementary school years, he would park his company truck in front of my house and walk to the neighborhood bar on the corner.  Now through my adult lens, I imagine he ached for just a glimpse of me, but through the eyes of a child, it was salt in a gaping wound.  During my high school years, he lived a block and half away, only reaching out to me – through his third wife – when I was graduating amidst scholarships and awards.  I saw this as too little, to late and chose not to reconnect at that time.  Three or four years later, during college, I contacted him and we became acquaintances of a sort, seeing each other every few years, usually in a bar over coke for me and vodka for him.

Given my beginnings, I am incredibly grateful that God redeems what the locusts have eaten.  I am able to live without bitterness and anger and walk in forgiveness even though at times, I still ache for the little girl who never knew what a daddy's arms felt like or what affection looked like shining in his eyes.  Several years ago, I challenged God to prove what he says in his Word.  “I will be a father to the fatherless.”  I call HIM my daddy now, even addressing him as Daddy in prayer and in my journal.  I am no longer fatherless or even daddyless.  I haven't been for a long time.

I was more than a little anxious about what Mama Mia and I would encounter when we arrived in my hometown.  How would we, a long ago ex-wife and a daughter/sister who had not been “part of the family” be received?  Again, as he loves to do, my DADDY, paved the way.  My brother and his wife welcomed us warmly, made us feel comfortable and blessed us with the overwhelming care, love and compassion they lavished on my father as he lay slipping away, unable to care for even his most basic of needs.  My sister-in-law, whom this man belittled for years, spoke words of affection and love, combed his hair gently and coated his drying lips with Burt's Bees even as he lay unable to speak and respond save for small squeezes of a hand or the barest whisper of movement from his limbs.  My brother, the firstborn and namesake who, I suspect, never felt like he “measured up”, smoothed grey, wispy hair from my our father's thin, pale face, choking up as he listened to the “death rattles” portending a soon coming passage.

Over the next couple of days, Mama Mia and I spent hours with my brother and his wife over meals, sharing conversation and meals and snatching little bits of time with my father here and there.  Our visit ended with Mama Mia and I both content that we had said goodbye and could look back with no regrets.  Five hours into our journey home, my father passed.

To be continued...

Agindo Eu Quem Impedira?

"If I decide to act, who can stop me?"

We sang this song often during school chapels and staff devotions in Brazil.  Even now, the idea that God is unstoppable whispers through my mind in Portuguese rather than English...agindo Eu...
Agindo Eu has proved a good reminder that I am not on my own, all is not lost, and even in the midst of illness, budget cuts and the pressures of state testing, God is not hobbled, hogtied or even halted by litigation. And that goes for the classroom as well.

Every week, our language arts curriculum follows a new theme.  This last week our daily discussions centered around the question What does it take to be a hero?  Each day we we spend 15 or so minutes building this concept, adding vocabulary, broadening our understanding of the theme.

Monday
Me:  Who is your hero?
Kids:  Incredibles!  Halo!  The Army!
Me:  Why?
Kids:  They shoot people!  The run fast!  They can fly!

Tuesday
Me:  Let's think about people who are heros.  What makes them heros?  No super heros, video games or people with guns allowed.
Kids:  *crickets*

Wednesday
Me:  Think about someone you want to be like.  Someone who is famous for being brave and helping others.
Kids:  Martin Luther King Jr?
Me:  I agree.  Why was he a hero?
Kids:  *crickets*
Kids:  Who is your hero?
Me:  One is Mother Teresa? Do you know who she was?
Kids:  *crickets*
(Insert short, sanitized discussion about Mother Teresa and why she was a hero.)
*Note:  Most of my students are Hispanic, so going to mass is a part of their worlds.)
Me:  So, now think about your heroes. Tell me.
Kids:  God!
Me:  Why?
Kids:  He takes care of us.  He made the world.  He made us.
Me:  (under my breath) Agindo Eu!

No public school rules were harmed in the making of this moment!  It all came from the kids.

Do you think skies help property values? They should.

I love our new neighborhood. Not only are the people wonderful, but we have amazing skies.

There are mornings like this.


Evenings like this.


Reminders like this.


And then there are cool phenomena like this outside. Right. This. Very. Minute.











Apparently they are called gravity waves and are a sign of very high winds somewhere really high in the air up there.

Whatever they are, they are pretty much the coolest clouds I've ever seen. Waves and waves of parallel bands of clouds so low you're sure you could jump up and grab a handful of fluff.

What are the skies like in your neighborhood?

Care for a cocktail?

"You have until that glass of water is gone to that pill down, young lady!"

Picture me, tears streaming down my face, hiccuping and trying pitifully to swallow a horse pill the size of a pea all because I had some childhood something or other. I eventually got it down, but that little scene simply represents my ongoing difficulties with meds as a child.

It's a darn good thing I eventually outgrew my overzealous gag reflexes because this little cocktail awaits me every morning, and it's only getting bigger.

Bottoms up!

Cross posted-Rainy Day Diamonds & The Lupatic Fringe

Aware

Ever feel like you are moving in slow motion at light speed? That's been me for the last several months. Time still ticks by in its ever constant rhythm, but my limbs are immersed in a great pool of honey against which they push and pull, fighting to keep up with each day's wants and needs.

Ironically though, I am ever more aware.

For more, visit The Lupatic Fringe, a blog dedicated to learning to live my life with Lupus.