I knew this fall would be a huge undertaking in terms of scheduling and manufacturing time (as if it's some ore you can mine, polish and keep forever). I signed up to coach my son's baseball team, my daughter's soccer team, teaching a Wednesday night Bible study, work of course and perhaps making a day trip to see my daughter play softball at Malone. I must have been thinking there were extra days on the calendar for Christians.
School has been a litany of meetings and proposals, plans and imperfect management. I have 35 students this year, the most I've ever had and 5 over contract. I keep telling people the number as if miraculously it would diminish into something like they show on tv. Didn't Mr. Kotter have like 6 students?
The kids from last year who have looped with me are comfortable in their surroundings. They want to eat lunch with me, have no shame in asking and know I hate to say no. Testing all of them has taken weeks. The district finally decided to join the digital age and bought iPods. Awesome, except they are used for testing purposes only. The kids reads three passages, they retell what they've read in broken phrases and run-ons, and some computer database assesses colors, levels and kids who need intervention. One of the kids thought the "pitcher and the crow" was the "pitcher and the cow."
My mood has gone from positive to exhausted melancholy to frustration, and that could be all before lunch. I attributed much of my bad attitude to my lack of Bible reading and devotions. This week they picked back up and I've felt more relaxed. By the end of the day, I'm talked out. No wonder my voice has trembled into a quiver this week. Hoarse and broken.
The last time my numbers were high and my attitude low was about 6 years ago. I had 31 to start the year, and the year before I had requested to leave but was denied by my principal. My teaching partner went to fifth grade and I felt working with a veteran who was moving up into 4th was beneath me. By the end of the year, I remember her telling me we could have done so much more for the kids. She forgave me, I felt, with those words. She loved me the only way she could after an unsuccessful campaign. I felt young and inexperienced.
And that's what it really boils down to, the kids. My wife was in the stands for Cruz's baseball game the other day when the frustrations of a Dad were unleashed upon her ears. I was playing favoritism, mocked for not knowing the kids' names on the team (I had two very similar names), other verbal taunts. They questioned my parenting after Cruz threw a royal meltdown at a practice and was still able to play a few days later.
I responded the only way I typically do, I killed him with eloquent words of an email. The end result was a "sorry", and, "it would be awkward for me to help" when I called for him to act instead of talk. Of all the teams, I am stuck with one assistant. Every team has 4. I'm leading a men's Bible study, trying to dangle rewards in front of church-going men to find something more significant in their lives and secular men can't even come and throw ball with their boys.
I make phone calls when I can to parents. They want homework explained, why their son was sent to PEAK explanations, why their son isn't getting tutoring explanations. I always want to ask, "Does your kid ever get punished at home," or, "does your child sleep enough or have some bed time?" and "did you know your child needs supplies?" The common excuse for their children is medication, apathy and boredom. I think, not enough (medication), "you think you have apathy" and "they must have been too bored to finish their work." I pepper kids with calm-downs and redirections.
The GT teacher comes to speak with me at the end of the day. We talk strategies and way she can help. Seems their directive is different from the past pf pulling kids out for one on one time. I like talking about my best practices, the books and lessons that have favorably showcased my skills. It's not so much the implementation of tools and strategies, it's having the time to reflect and track their learning somehow. I told the kids that I will hound them all year for their very best. I hound myself.
And at the end of the day when the looks on my colleagues faces mimic a series of sarcastic, defeatist mimes, I wonder if I've lost some perspective. My wife got a new kid today. Poor girl slept in class. Imagine her first day. Or the girl who is moving today to a new city. Completing her homework must be the last thing on her mind. She's already left.
I think I know how she feels.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
The Sigh of Pauses
Communication has always been my greatest strength, and my biggest nemesis. When I was younger, I could pen stories of adventure and daring, labyrinthine plots and dastardly villains. I could wax poetic about most subjects given the right audience. I would have gladly placed an article posted in the high school newspaper in anyone's hands in high school.
And then came college. My first semester in community college, we had the simply assignment to introduce the person sitting in front of us. Easy. Except the pressure to be funny, to be unique, to speak eloquently about the lineage of the stranger before me. And then I bombed. And I never went back to the class.
The warning signs had been there. The girls who I never spoke to and asked out. The times when I was sarcastic with a teacher, stubborn and adolescent. Even as a child, the way I communicated with the arrival of my step-dad was noteworthy. I asked my mom who was the man eating all of our food. I banged on their door at night refusing to sleep. I'm pretty sure I told him I hated him in the looks I gave him, even if I did say it in words.
And I let myself stumble through the relationship with my father. I ask questions without any confidence, feeling that the answer I get must be filtered through some bitter-Mexican man translator. Even today, we talk about surface issues. There's an emptiness at times. The sigh of pauses.
And then there's home. Early in my relationship with Delcina I probably should not have spoken at all. I don't want kids. Yeah, that one worked out. Or the times I tried to break up with her when all I really wanted to do was tell her I was scared of my future. Women know when our communication needs professional development.
Work communication is cyclical. When I was a young teacher, I spoke loudly to the kids. I used my size to win the proximity wars. My crazy stares had been well trained driving the streets of Houston where even the snow cone vendor in the suburbs gave you dirty looks. I didn't ever want to be a mexican until I moved away from Texas, and then the lowrider was all I used to assert authority. Do your work, holmes.
In staff meetings I was bored and twitchy. I made jokes and undermined the authority. The attitude of a room of teachers after a long day with kids is not one that would be likened to nurturing. We were wolves.
My spiritual communication was void of substance. I didn't pray. I lashed out at others. I mocked and rarely apologized.
There then becomes a conversion period in a man that either kills him, narrows his path or ignites the fire. The narrow path is narrow for a reason. I don't think there's a line for the sarcastic belly-scratchers in heaven. The ones who play with fire eventually lose. And the ones that die? Maybe they are the unlucky ones who failed to choose a side before it was too late.
And I tiptoe around a room of children. How many aren't used to hearing the voice of man with conviction and sternness on his voice? How many look upon disdain upon their own fathers, the step-fathers who bark from their x-box-but indented couch from blocking the television as they walk past? The principal who awaits my misstep lurks behind the door. There is no safety net. I walk around as if someone is following me with one of those annoying interview mini-recorders I used to carry as a budding freshman journalist. I would rewind it and listen back, edit the questions and answers like I was some big shot. Somehow, that tape could capture the essence of speaking to someone live, when in reality you can't catch the looks, the pauses, the sighs.
Today was voice was hoarse. I struggled to communicate. I stuttered too much in class like some robot that needed more oil. In my first Bible study class I didn't have enough eye contact. I feel like a young, inexperienced man in a room full of gentleman.
Son, you have no idea.
And then came college. My first semester in community college, we had the simply assignment to introduce the person sitting in front of us. Easy. Except the pressure to be funny, to be unique, to speak eloquently about the lineage of the stranger before me. And then I bombed. And I never went back to the class.
The warning signs had been there. The girls who I never spoke to and asked out. The times when I was sarcastic with a teacher, stubborn and adolescent. Even as a child, the way I communicated with the arrival of my step-dad was noteworthy. I asked my mom who was the man eating all of our food. I banged on their door at night refusing to sleep. I'm pretty sure I told him I hated him in the looks I gave him, even if I did say it in words.
And I let myself stumble through the relationship with my father. I ask questions without any confidence, feeling that the answer I get must be filtered through some bitter-Mexican man translator. Even today, we talk about surface issues. There's an emptiness at times. The sigh of pauses.
And then there's home. Early in my relationship with Delcina I probably should not have spoken at all. I don't want kids. Yeah, that one worked out. Or the times I tried to break up with her when all I really wanted to do was tell her I was scared of my future. Women know when our communication needs professional development.
Work communication is cyclical. When I was a young teacher, I spoke loudly to the kids. I used my size to win the proximity wars. My crazy stares had been well trained driving the streets of Houston where even the snow cone vendor in the suburbs gave you dirty looks. I didn't ever want to be a mexican until I moved away from Texas, and then the lowrider was all I used to assert authority. Do your work, holmes.
In staff meetings I was bored and twitchy. I made jokes and undermined the authority. The attitude of a room of teachers after a long day with kids is not one that would be likened to nurturing. We were wolves.
My spiritual communication was void of substance. I didn't pray. I lashed out at others. I mocked and rarely apologized.
There then becomes a conversion period in a man that either kills him, narrows his path or ignites the fire. The narrow path is narrow for a reason. I don't think there's a line for the sarcastic belly-scratchers in heaven. The ones who play with fire eventually lose. And the ones that die? Maybe they are the unlucky ones who failed to choose a side before it was too late.
And I tiptoe around a room of children. How many aren't used to hearing the voice of man with conviction and sternness on his voice? How many look upon disdain upon their own fathers, the step-fathers who bark from their x-box-but indented couch from blocking the television as they walk past? The principal who awaits my misstep lurks behind the door. There is no safety net. I walk around as if someone is following me with one of those annoying interview mini-recorders I used to carry as a budding freshman journalist. I would rewind it and listen back, edit the questions and answers like I was some big shot. Somehow, that tape could capture the essence of speaking to someone live, when in reality you can't catch the looks, the pauses, the sighs.
Today was voice was hoarse. I struggled to communicate. I stuttered too much in class like some robot that needed more oil. In my first Bible study class I didn't have enough eye contact. I feel like a young, inexperienced man in a room full of gentleman.
Son, you have no idea.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Squandering the Gift
Motivation.
When I was in high school, my step-dad would pop the leather belt he wore to hold him his work pants on the route and say, "When you think about doing something other than school, remember this." So motivation to succeed was felt upon the lashes of a belt and the worrisome notion that the most sensitive skin was found on your behind. It kept me straight most of the time. I still hung around idiot jocks, laughed to impress and searched for meaning in poems, action-hero short stories and the in the eyes of pretty girls.
In college, it canyoned during stress and cascaded with specific professors. My freshman year in college, the professor who assigned Babylon AD and Ethan Fromm will forever be remembered as the year I realized I could back out of something and momentarily feel no consequences, rebuke or shame. Backing out of college the way I did after my first year was a work of art. Waking every morning, driving to an undisclosed parking lot, park or abandoned road, reading the paper, daydreaming, people watching. Spending money on lunch, then driving back home in a rush as if I had homework to do. Eventually I think I wanted someone to notice I wasn't in class. Community college registrars don't call when you're absent. It was a friend of mine who eventually turned me in, albeit he was an unwitting accomplice in my demise. He called looking for me after weeks of ditching class. At least someone was worried.
The summer I met my wife I dedicated myself back to studies. It's not like I had another choice. When you have a proficiency for laziness and your hands are too soft for work, going to school is the next best thing. Getting a degree was always ingrained in my life. My parents spoke of it often, it's just that I hadn't quite seen it being worked out in the lives that were closest to me. The struggles didn't hit home, the speeches about being more than your parents. The struggles I saw around me were from people's own abuses, addictions and fear. What failures did I really have at 20? A bad break up with a girlfriend? Being fired at Target for throwing away merchandise I refused to bag and tag for returns? A flat tire on a broken down Delta 88?
Even being in college was different in every form. Culturally, there weren't many people of color. I held college at bay like some preppy white-boy fantasy Hispanics could only see in movies. I thought toting the books across the quad would make me better. Get me laid. Get me appreciated. I failed to realize the hard work that went into it.
So that summer I had a lady who read over our compositions with a fine tooth comb for erroneous colons and wayward apostrophes. I worked hard, I read Faulkner, I turned in 12-paper essays when the assignment called for 10. By the time I moved to Ohio, I again found myself in familiar territory. The people who looked like me were not here to remind me the struggle it took to get me there. I felt at home actually. No one pressured me into spanish guilt (on the contrary, it was cool to be different. To be brown. To be unique), no one wondered why I wasn't hanging with the chucos and vatos.
When I entered the teaching field, the motivation to do well stemmed from the fear of failing. I was thrown into a rough class with 2 new teachers and one veteran. I only knew what the guides and books told me about teaching. The management and frustration of kids whose basic needs were not being met had not been taught. I screamed, I yelled, I erased so many mistakes on the chalk board my hands became ashy and gray. 9/11 happened my first year, too. I remember being on lockdown on a gorgeous September afternoon and ranting at a student who was pissed we didn't go outside to play. Like he understood anything I told him was beyond the moment. It was anything I could do to explain walking the halls with kids watching cartoons for recess juxtaposed with the rest of us watching the news. Ashes, paper, bodies. The things that fell that day were more than memories.
Four years later I was looking for reasons to give extra recess. I stalked the parking lot for the administrators SUV, and seeing none, knew that doing the minimal would suffice. There was no motivation. I took it for granted. I wasn't thankful.
Moving schools. Again, a change of venue leads me back to the beginning. New face, new opportunities. Fear motivates. Then God stepped in because He had enough of my ways. The fear.
And the blogs I have written since then have been a part of that transformation. Still new, still learning under the authority of the grand professor who goes through the compositions of my life with a fine toothed comb. I felt inspired not because I was scared for failing, but in letting Him down. In doing the minimal, I was inherently squandering the gifts.
And now this year. 34 kids. New curriculum. A desk of papers that need homes. Kids that need a home too. Last night, one of my students may have slept on a tile floor. I'm sleeping under a fan with a shitzu dog at my feet. And I'm the one that needs motivated.
Good conversations today. Sarcastic frustration. Eye rolling. There seems to be such a vast distance between the people who make educational decisions with the ones who do the grunt work. Do they know of the third grader who barely can write his name and leaves at 2 in the afternoon every other day? Where is the book about the helpless look of a girl whose mom could die any day from cancer? Or the kid from a tough city with something to prove? The girl who gets bullied?
This morning, the computers didn't work. My student teacher comes in, smiles and energy. The kids are eating mini-pancakes. Not one kid asked me to help open packages. Pancakes was the only motivation they needed.
And they didn't even have any syrup.
When I was in high school, my step-dad would pop the leather belt he wore to hold him his work pants on the route and say, "When you think about doing something other than school, remember this." So motivation to succeed was felt upon the lashes of a belt and the worrisome notion that the most sensitive skin was found on your behind. It kept me straight most of the time. I still hung around idiot jocks, laughed to impress and searched for meaning in poems, action-hero short stories and the in the eyes of pretty girls.
In college, it canyoned during stress and cascaded with specific professors. My freshman year in college, the professor who assigned Babylon AD and Ethan Fromm will forever be remembered as the year I realized I could back out of something and momentarily feel no consequences, rebuke or shame. Backing out of college the way I did after my first year was a work of art. Waking every morning, driving to an undisclosed parking lot, park or abandoned road, reading the paper, daydreaming, people watching. Spending money on lunch, then driving back home in a rush as if I had homework to do. Eventually I think I wanted someone to notice I wasn't in class. Community college registrars don't call when you're absent. It was a friend of mine who eventually turned me in, albeit he was an unwitting accomplice in my demise. He called looking for me after weeks of ditching class. At least someone was worried.
The summer I met my wife I dedicated myself back to studies. It's not like I had another choice. When you have a proficiency for laziness and your hands are too soft for work, going to school is the next best thing. Getting a degree was always ingrained in my life. My parents spoke of it often, it's just that I hadn't quite seen it being worked out in the lives that were closest to me. The struggles didn't hit home, the speeches about being more than your parents. The struggles I saw around me were from people's own abuses, addictions and fear. What failures did I really have at 20? A bad break up with a girlfriend? Being fired at Target for throwing away merchandise I refused to bag and tag for returns? A flat tire on a broken down Delta 88?
Even being in college was different in every form. Culturally, there weren't many people of color. I held college at bay like some preppy white-boy fantasy Hispanics could only see in movies. I thought toting the books across the quad would make me better. Get me laid. Get me appreciated. I failed to realize the hard work that went into it.
So that summer I had a lady who read over our compositions with a fine tooth comb for erroneous colons and wayward apostrophes. I worked hard, I read Faulkner, I turned in 12-paper essays when the assignment called for 10. By the time I moved to Ohio, I again found myself in familiar territory. The people who looked like me were not here to remind me the struggle it took to get me there. I felt at home actually. No one pressured me into spanish guilt (on the contrary, it was cool to be different. To be brown. To be unique), no one wondered why I wasn't hanging with the chucos and vatos.
When I entered the teaching field, the motivation to do well stemmed from the fear of failing. I was thrown into a rough class with 2 new teachers and one veteran. I only knew what the guides and books told me about teaching. The management and frustration of kids whose basic needs were not being met had not been taught. I screamed, I yelled, I erased so many mistakes on the chalk board my hands became ashy and gray. 9/11 happened my first year, too. I remember being on lockdown on a gorgeous September afternoon and ranting at a student who was pissed we didn't go outside to play. Like he understood anything I told him was beyond the moment. It was anything I could do to explain walking the halls with kids watching cartoons for recess juxtaposed with the rest of us watching the news. Ashes, paper, bodies. The things that fell that day were more than memories.
Four years later I was looking for reasons to give extra recess. I stalked the parking lot for the administrators SUV, and seeing none, knew that doing the minimal would suffice. There was no motivation. I took it for granted. I wasn't thankful.
Moving schools. Again, a change of venue leads me back to the beginning. New face, new opportunities. Fear motivates. Then God stepped in because He had enough of my ways. The fear.
And the blogs I have written since then have been a part of that transformation. Still new, still learning under the authority of the grand professor who goes through the compositions of my life with a fine toothed comb. I felt inspired not because I was scared for failing, but in letting Him down. In doing the minimal, I was inherently squandering the gifts.
And now this year. 34 kids. New curriculum. A desk of papers that need homes. Kids that need a home too. Last night, one of my students may have slept on a tile floor. I'm sleeping under a fan with a shitzu dog at my feet. And I'm the one that needs motivated.
Good conversations today. Sarcastic frustration. Eye rolling. There seems to be such a vast distance between the people who make educational decisions with the ones who do the grunt work. Do they know of the third grader who barely can write his name and leaves at 2 in the afternoon every other day? Where is the book about the helpless look of a girl whose mom could die any day from cancer? Or the kid from a tough city with something to prove? The girl who gets bullied?
This morning, the computers didn't work. My student teacher comes in, smiles and energy. The kids are eating mini-pancakes. Not one kid asked me to help open packages. Pancakes was the only motivation they needed.
And they didn't even have any syrup.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Snake Mazes
My biggest complaint of late has been the most regrettable. And like all complaints, there's enough of a glaring, piercing light on the deficiency that you carry that complaining about it only means you basically don't like yourself. And like all complaints, we shake our fists at God as if to say, thanks for nothing." It's as if we don't like our jobs, the days of the week, the food at a restaurant, our kids or the amount of time we squander everyday. We shake our fists and lament the traffic, the wasted time, the glitches in the system that keeps you from enjoying some selfish "me" time.
But we complain anyway, don't we?
This is the first year of teaching in many years that I can ever remember that could easily be May. Education has always been a rather fluid profession. I have never had the same management system or incentive program. What works for one group may not work with another. If you don't tweak something, you get labeled that teacher who everyone thinks they get from movies like "Waiting for Superman". Curriculum changes on a whim. New books get purchased, old ideas are given new names. I still have old files on disks of great tests questions for a basal reader kids use in Borneo now.
The numbers are always the enemy. Not enough of a percentage have passed a test--probation for you. You have a very high number of free lunch candidates--you get funding! Not enough kids in a classroom--you get staff reduced and sent to the place no teacher in the district even wanted to interview for. Too many kids in the classroom?--not a problem, we'll get back to you in a month.
I have 33 kids from my last count. One kid returned from being on vacation, missed the first 8 days of school, and has joined an already packed room. Getting to the front of the room requires a few stretches, some snake-mazing, a pole vault and some belly tucks. We're a jovial group. I have a combined fourth and fifth grade class, generally called a "split" among the people who work in Columbus. I say that word elsewhere to teachers in other districts and I get 200 tweets about calling my union. I'm trying a new management system, teaching math for the first time in 5 years and trying to implement a virtual bevy of materials and strategies to give them the best that they deserve.
Motivation comes in many forms, now that I've found ways to harness it. My wife, the pictures of old students on the walls, the looks of my future students who want to hi-five and hug me as I pass them in the halls. God should be my initial source of information. I want him to be. At times He is. At times, I'm just a fan (from a great book by Kyle Idleman). I have brushed past my newly purchased "Jesus shirts" in the closet during the weekends. I'm ho-hum. Lukewarm. While God is still close to me, I keep turning, asking Him, "Are you sure you want me?" I'm fickle.
And in the middle of a complaint, God spoke (again).
Recess duty is always interesting. I get to watch kindergartners shoot airballs, fifth graders double-dribble and girls who attempt to jump into a double dutch rope only to see it tangle in their braids. Some kids follow me like I carry bacon. Some come and want me to watch them run across the pavement in mach speed. Some dance and others even sing. The stories they tell are sometimes tragic, funny, fantastical and gruesome. They tattle too. They hate getting kickballs snatched from their grasps and they don't mind snitching on a fellow classmate if the degrading of moms break the rules of decency. Poor moms always get degraded on blacktop playgrounds.
So it is inevitable that kids become rogue investigative reporters. Crickets get thrown in kids, girls scream and fingers get pointed, water break. In the course of rounding up a suspect, I notice a group of about 10 girls seated around one of the tables. Their heads are down, holding hands, eyes closed.
Are they praying?
So I join in like the kid I am. And sure enough of the the girls says a prayer.
Dear Lord we're thankful for bibles and our friends and school. We're sorry for the bad things we have done and hope you forgive us.
That was a the short version.
In my quest to find my suspect, I rejoined the hands I was holding and left. (now, that story will have to be told another time. I'm not sure how lesbians, truth or dare, and spin the bottle relate to a group of praying girls, but there's no logic to blacktop freedom)
Coming back later, I see the same prayer girls crying. Like sobbing. I go over and they tell me they are thinking about all the bad things they have done and it made them sad. So here's the door I'm always praying about. Lord, I'm not always faithful. Show me a door, open an opportunity to show my faith.
Girls, there's no need to be sad. That's what prayers are for. We lift those concerns to Him. That's why He died for us, so we wouldn't be sad anymore.
I think they cried more.
One of my sidekicks begins talking again. I think they need their sins washed away.
Yeah, don't we all.
But we complain anyway, don't we?
This is the first year of teaching in many years that I can ever remember that could easily be May. Education has always been a rather fluid profession. I have never had the same management system or incentive program. What works for one group may not work with another. If you don't tweak something, you get labeled that teacher who everyone thinks they get from movies like "Waiting for Superman". Curriculum changes on a whim. New books get purchased, old ideas are given new names. I still have old files on disks of great tests questions for a basal reader kids use in Borneo now.
The numbers are always the enemy. Not enough of a percentage have passed a test--probation for you. You have a very high number of free lunch candidates--you get funding! Not enough kids in a classroom--you get staff reduced and sent to the place no teacher in the district even wanted to interview for. Too many kids in the classroom?--not a problem, we'll get back to you in a month.
I have 33 kids from my last count. One kid returned from being on vacation, missed the first 8 days of school, and has joined an already packed room. Getting to the front of the room requires a few stretches, some snake-mazing, a pole vault and some belly tucks. We're a jovial group. I have a combined fourth and fifth grade class, generally called a "split" among the people who work in Columbus. I say that word elsewhere to teachers in other districts and I get 200 tweets about calling my union. I'm trying a new management system, teaching math for the first time in 5 years and trying to implement a virtual bevy of materials and strategies to give them the best that they deserve.
Motivation comes in many forms, now that I've found ways to harness it. My wife, the pictures of old students on the walls, the looks of my future students who want to hi-five and hug me as I pass them in the halls. God should be my initial source of information. I want him to be. At times He is. At times, I'm just a fan (from a great book by Kyle Idleman). I have brushed past my newly purchased "Jesus shirts" in the closet during the weekends. I'm ho-hum. Lukewarm. While God is still close to me, I keep turning, asking Him, "Are you sure you want me?" I'm fickle.
And in the middle of a complaint, God spoke (again).
Recess duty is always interesting. I get to watch kindergartners shoot airballs, fifth graders double-dribble and girls who attempt to jump into a double dutch rope only to see it tangle in their braids. Some kids follow me like I carry bacon. Some come and want me to watch them run across the pavement in mach speed. Some dance and others even sing. The stories they tell are sometimes tragic, funny, fantastical and gruesome. They tattle too. They hate getting kickballs snatched from their grasps and they don't mind snitching on a fellow classmate if the degrading of moms break the rules of decency. Poor moms always get degraded on blacktop playgrounds.
So it is inevitable that kids become rogue investigative reporters. Crickets get thrown in kids, girls scream and fingers get pointed, water break. In the course of rounding up a suspect, I notice a group of about 10 girls seated around one of the tables. Their heads are down, holding hands, eyes closed.
Are they praying?
So I join in like the kid I am. And sure enough of the the girls says a prayer.
Dear Lord we're thankful for bibles and our friends and school. We're sorry for the bad things we have done and hope you forgive us.
That was a the short version.
In my quest to find my suspect, I rejoined the hands I was holding and left. (now, that story will have to be told another time. I'm not sure how lesbians, truth or dare, and spin the bottle relate to a group of praying girls, but there's no logic to blacktop freedom)
Coming back later, I see the same prayer girls crying. Like sobbing. I go over and they tell me they are thinking about all the bad things they have done and it made them sad. So here's the door I'm always praying about. Lord, I'm not always faithful. Show me a door, open an opportunity to show my faith.
Girls, there's no need to be sad. That's what prayers are for. We lift those concerns to Him. That's why He died for us, so we wouldn't be sad anymore.
I think they cried more.
One of my sidekicks begins talking again. I think they need their sins washed away.
Yeah, don't we all.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Pushing Play
I don't think there would have been many tears throughout the last few days leading up to taking my daughter to college. The night before was stymied by exhaustion from getting my room ready (of course freshman move-in day was the first day back for my fourth and fifth grade students). As the night came to a close it was frustration from Lisa's last minute bye-bye-a-thons and instagram pictures before she left. I doubt she slept much that night. Once the morning came the tears were thwarted by the speed of the moment. I think Lisa had the keys in the can ignition before I was even out of the shower. We stopped for coffee at our local Tim Horton's, where the normal wait was an unbearable knife in the expectation of the trip.
The road trip. Kids asking to turn movie volume up, start them over. Parents asking kids to stop kicking the back of the seats, to be nice, to finish their breakfast. We drove through fog that slowed us by 10 mph. I think Lisa slept some. I wanted to pull through Amish country (exit 83!) and pick up some wine. No time.
Arrival was one event after another. I felt like my younger daughter's van-swept hair. Nametags and tables of bananas. Mom, I need my social security number. Cruz complaining to take his medication with orange juice instead of milk. Pretty college girls. Reycina almost tipping over her orange juice. Playing juggle master with folders, water bottles and complimentary coffee mugs.
Move in to a legion of helpers who unpacked the van with smiles. Lisa went into a unpacking and interior design zone. Her roomate's dad and i arranged loft beds, raised them, lowered them. We pushed cabinets into closets and lifted totes. The moms made suggestion-decisions for their daughters then retracted them with the I-really-meant-you-should-take-my-advice, "Whatever you want to do," statement. More pretty college girls.
We drove over to Target to get towels, and a few things mom's always find they need once they ever arrive at a destination. Kids were hungry. Milly's hair looked as if someone rubbed a balloon on her head. Cruz ran into the crosswalk to raise the percentage of his death by stupidity. Their snack ended up being freezer-burned fries I carried through the store like a man wearing one of those side man-bags.
Back to college for lunch. Burgers, pizza and italian subs. We met another player. Cruz at one point grabs the brownie tongs and bites from it. Contamination. Did I mention he had not yet taken his medication? The parents and I talked about the drunks at Walsh College, how God had set the girls' paths in a unique way, softball and boys.
By the time we went back to the dorm, Cruz had began a game on the Wii, Milly had lost her flip slops and Lisa had rearranged the items on her desk several times. When I checked my phone I read a text that told me my school was on lockdown from a shooting that took place on school grounds. The perps even ran through our playground. I'm sure someone tried to blow a whistle at them to stop running or forfeit their recess.
The kids did cry. I took pictures of them hugging her. And then we said goodbye. No speeches. Not that it mattered at that point. And not that I would have had anything profound to say that wouldn't end up sounding like a complaint, or a cautionary warning from a parent who didn't really know any better.
I didn't know much when we brought her into our home at age 10 (I have not previously mentioned that we adopted our daughter until now. She's all my kids ever know of a big sister. She's certainly more than I could have ever asked from my own genetics.). At age 12, we dropped her off at a birthday party without getting a phone number. My wife and I ruined our anniversary dinner fretting about her whereabouts. She ended up being safe and sound at the parent's home she was originally entrusted with. We've always had to share her--with her friends because we wanted her to have the life of a typical white, suburban girl. Sleepovers and hangouts. We shared her with softball. After the games were over, Lisa always went on her way. Even when she made the commitment to college we were not there. There are 100 other stories about her independence. All of them were training for the time when she would mature and grow and leave to live on her own. She's halfway there.
She's always been that gift I never asked for. Who knows what they get themselves into when they become a parent? I surely didn't deserve her presence. What a kid.
And by the time we started the van and headed out of the parking lot, my little one reminds me there's still more work to be done.
Daddy, will you start it all over?
And I push play everyday.
The road trip. Kids asking to turn movie volume up, start them over. Parents asking kids to stop kicking the back of the seats, to be nice, to finish their breakfast. We drove through fog that slowed us by 10 mph. I think Lisa slept some. I wanted to pull through Amish country (exit 83!) and pick up some wine. No time.
Arrival was one event after another. I felt like my younger daughter's van-swept hair. Nametags and tables of bananas. Mom, I need my social security number. Cruz complaining to take his medication with orange juice instead of milk. Pretty college girls. Reycina almost tipping over her orange juice. Playing juggle master with folders, water bottles and complimentary coffee mugs.
Move in to a legion of helpers who unpacked the van with smiles. Lisa went into a unpacking and interior design zone. Her roomate's dad and i arranged loft beds, raised them, lowered them. We pushed cabinets into closets and lifted totes. The moms made suggestion-decisions for their daughters then retracted them with the I-really-meant-you-should-take-my-advice, "Whatever you want to do," statement. More pretty college girls.
We drove over to Target to get towels, and a few things mom's always find they need once they ever arrive at a destination. Kids were hungry. Milly's hair looked as if someone rubbed a balloon on her head. Cruz ran into the crosswalk to raise the percentage of his death by stupidity. Their snack ended up being freezer-burned fries I carried through the store like a man wearing one of those side man-bags.
Back to college for lunch. Burgers, pizza and italian subs. We met another player. Cruz at one point grabs the brownie tongs and bites from it. Contamination. Did I mention he had not yet taken his medication? The parents and I talked about the drunks at Walsh College, how God had set the girls' paths in a unique way, softball and boys.
By the time we went back to the dorm, Cruz had began a game on the Wii, Milly had lost her flip slops and Lisa had rearranged the items on her desk several times. When I checked my phone I read a text that told me my school was on lockdown from a shooting that took place on school grounds. The perps even ran through our playground. I'm sure someone tried to blow a whistle at them to stop running or forfeit their recess.
The kids did cry. I took pictures of them hugging her. And then we said goodbye. No speeches. Not that it mattered at that point. And not that I would have had anything profound to say that wouldn't end up sounding like a complaint, or a cautionary warning from a parent who didn't really know any better.
I didn't know much when we brought her into our home at age 10 (I have not previously mentioned that we adopted our daughter until now. She's all my kids ever know of a big sister. She's certainly more than I could have ever asked from my own genetics.). At age 12, we dropped her off at a birthday party without getting a phone number. My wife and I ruined our anniversary dinner fretting about her whereabouts. She ended up being safe and sound at the parent's home she was originally entrusted with. We've always had to share her--with her friends because we wanted her to have the life of a typical white, suburban girl. Sleepovers and hangouts. We shared her with softball. After the games were over, Lisa always went on her way. Even when she made the commitment to college we were not there. There are 100 other stories about her independence. All of them were training for the time when she would mature and grow and leave to live on her own. She's halfway there.
She's always been that gift I never asked for. Who knows what they get themselves into when they become a parent? I surely didn't deserve her presence. What a kid.
And by the time we started the van and headed out of the parking lot, my little one reminds me there's still more work to be done.
Daddy, will you start it all over?
And I push play everyday.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Honoring the Moment
I've been trying to express the feeling of complete wholeness I've felt in recent days being back in my hometown of Houston. I can easily go the movie route--the final scene in Titanic when DiCaprio triumphantly applauds Kate as she descends the spiral, decadent staircase. Everyone is applauding. If life were as simple as the relationships we strive to fulfill, the "heaven" scene just about hits that pinnacle. But it's also a bit self-serving. Why am I surrounded by my family and friends as they applaud me? Am I that self centered? Is this indicative of how I treat others?
I can go the way of the existentialism, the thought that the individual creates their own consciousness. Humans, therefore, in our infinite wisdom (was that sarcastic?) determine their own meaning for themselves. Sounds so great. When I was jet skiing on Lake Houston I will admit a sliver of this conceitedness awoke within me. There was a moment when the sun hid behind the clouds and the ripples of the lake turned a grayish blue. In that pinnacle of self-contentment, my thoughts went back to God. Wow. That's all I could muster--a wow. Of all my classes in descriptive language, fiction writing and poetry, the one word I share with God and the world is a "wow." So much for being some great human being.
In the midst of these descriptions, the best way to acknowledge the feeling I had was to simply express them the way I always have--in sharing the experiences. Some of the people you may not know. The in jokes you might not get. But I share these moments as if you were there sitting next to me. That's the best way to honor the moment.
Grandma's kitchen. The setting has changed somewhat. The oil painting Jesus does not remind me of the guilt of tortillas filling my belly. The table feels smaller but more intimate to. Close enough to pass the bowls of vegetables back and forth. Recipes remembered and practiced over years of dinners and occasions. There's something about fried chicken that transcends memories, the sense of my grandmother's hands. Working the breading into the meat, the delicacy of hands that have been worn from labor, love and age.
Old viejita lying in bed, simply because their legs aren't strong enough to hold up their frames any longer. Her skin was the texture of silk, unlike skin is supposed to feel--rugged and tight. Nails glisten with purple polish that remind me of cascarones eggs.
Ninfa's house. The traditional colors of spanish culture--the reds, the yellows, burnt browns and parrot-feather green--adorn the several rooms. Catholic reminders hang in crucifix, the family portraits capture her children in their best poses. One of the patients in the house/nursing home is a woman suffering from spina biffida, perhaps worse. The patient's mom has permanently removed her teeth from biting her caregivers. It's probably the only motion she can muster. Her arms sit curled above her chest as if she's awaiting to be tickled--frozen. Her feet twisted and tiny, and I'm thankful they are covered in kid-sized white socks. I want to at least say "Hi" but whould she even know it? Otherwise just seems rude. Talking as if she weren't in the room.
Road trips. The short ones in Houston where conversation takes the place of talk radio and top 40 hits. There's a flip side to being in town you're familiar with. You notice the new storefronts, the expressways widened for traffic. But you also remember the old as well. Like dates, awkward memories and the laughter you once had when you had no direction. Street signs road map my sins.
And eventually the road trip ends. We were chased out of Arkansas with lightning storms. Tennessee awakened us with a sunset that flirted with the mountain top fog. There was a moment when I felt we were driving into a cloud. I could have. It's that easy.
I can go the way of the existentialism, the thought that the individual creates their own consciousness. Humans, therefore, in our infinite wisdom (was that sarcastic?) determine their own meaning for themselves. Sounds so great. When I was jet skiing on Lake Houston I will admit a sliver of this conceitedness awoke within me. There was a moment when the sun hid behind the clouds and the ripples of the lake turned a grayish blue. In that pinnacle of self-contentment, my thoughts went back to God. Wow. That's all I could muster--a wow. Of all my classes in descriptive language, fiction writing and poetry, the one word I share with God and the world is a "wow." So much for being some great human being.
In the midst of these descriptions, the best way to acknowledge the feeling I had was to simply express them the way I always have--in sharing the experiences. Some of the people you may not know. The in jokes you might not get. But I share these moments as if you were there sitting next to me. That's the best way to honor the moment.
Grandma's kitchen. The setting has changed somewhat. The oil painting Jesus does not remind me of the guilt of tortillas filling my belly. The table feels smaller but more intimate to. Close enough to pass the bowls of vegetables back and forth. Recipes remembered and practiced over years of dinners and occasions. There's something about fried chicken that transcends memories, the sense of my grandmother's hands. Working the breading into the meat, the delicacy of hands that have been worn from labor, love and age.
Old viejita lying in bed, simply because their legs aren't strong enough to hold up their frames any longer. Her skin was the texture of silk, unlike skin is supposed to feel--rugged and tight. Nails glisten with purple polish that remind me of cascarones eggs.
Ninfa's house. The traditional colors of spanish culture--the reds, the yellows, burnt browns and parrot-feather green--adorn the several rooms. Catholic reminders hang in crucifix, the family portraits capture her children in their best poses. One of the patients in the house/nursing home is a woman suffering from spina biffida, perhaps worse. The patient's mom has permanently removed her teeth from biting her caregivers. It's probably the only motion she can muster. Her arms sit curled above her chest as if she's awaiting to be tickled--frozen. Her feet twisted and tiny, and I'm thankful they are covered in kid-sized white socks. I want to at least say "Hi" but whould she even know it? Otherwise just seems rude. Talking as if she weren't in the room.
Road trips. The short ones in Houston where conversation takes the place of talk radio and top 40 hits. There's a flip side to being in town you're familiar with. You notice the new storefronts, the expressways widened for traffic. But you also remember the old as well. Like dates, awkward memories and the laughter you once had when you had no direction. Street signs road map my sins.
And eventually the road trip ends. We were chased out of Arkansas with lightning storms. Tennessee awakened us with a sunset that flirted with the mountain top fog. There was a moment when I felt we were driving into a cloud. I could have. It's that easy.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
My So Called Education
I'm watching the first season of "My So Called Life." Perhaps when the show had come out in '94, I was not ready to relive certain parts of my high school experience. Maybe I was so into the lives of Brandon Walsh and Kelly Taylor to immerse myself in anything remotely angst-ridden. About as far as I got into grunge at that time was jamming to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and trying to decipher the lyrics when singing in the car.
I was 2 years out of high school in '94. I was a borderline wreck. Pretty much a wreck. Failed relationship with a girlfriend, recent community college dropout. Failed writer of poetry. There was absolutely no reason to traverse the hallways of teenage problems. Age 19 had its share.
In the first and only season of the show, episode 6, amply called "The Substitute" details how a mysterious sub amps up the safe lives of the literature magazine crowd. It's very Dead Poet-esque. In one of those great montage scenes that all educational movies have, the teacher walks through the throng of students whose attention he holds for the first time in their lives. Desk arrangements change from rigid rows to concentric circles of creativity. Kids are walking through the hallway actually interested in school. Inevitable, the courage to write thoughts on paper becomes troublesome to the powers that be--namely the school principal, the dogged administrator who lives simply to squash independent thought at every turn.
I'm blogging as I watch the turn of events. Students publish "radical" lit magazine, principal denounces such thoughts, bans magazine. Out heroine takes it upon herself to print her own version. These kind of episodes, even as scripted as they are (ironic considering the freedom of not playing it safe is exactly what their conceit is), get me fired up. I've cried at enough versions of these movies and episodes you'd think I had seen them and their plots for the first time. I'm a writer at heart, torn between the lure of writing the Great American Novel for fame, and the obscure sweater-porn beatnik who chills boothside in a coffee shop hoping to share his words for the "moment" and nothing else.
In college I was part of a literature group that met weekly in a local Chinese restaurant to hash out story ideas, critique on another and provide feedback for becoming published. It was the kind of group any lit teacher would hang their hat on as an essential of kids learning and working beyond what happens in the classroom. Since I know I have written about this topic before, I won't go much further into detail, but these are the times when I'm so in love with writing, education and the process of creativity that I could see myself teaching one of those standard-tv-issue lit classes and firing up a group of high school kids who never realized their true potential.
Much of this thought goes into my normal, everyday process for teaching my elementary students. I've tried several classroom management and self-directed behavioral strategies over the years to warrant my own screenplays. However, I don't typically have those, "captain, my captain" moments. I doubt many teachers actually do. The best I get are the picture captions I display on cork board every year behind my computer.
Mr. C is the best.
You're the best teacher ever.
We love Mr. C.
Lately there's been frustration on my part of my own performance. The nagging perfectionism debates, the Mr. Hand episodes of lecture v. rant (I chuckled at watching "Fast Times" the other night when Mr. Hand shows up at Spicolli's house to "square the account" of wasted time in his room. Oh, my kids are lucky I am married and not readily available during the summer). The pressure of late for many in my profession is raising test scores (or, "why are my kids failing?"), motivating kids (especially boys) school funding. Any of these 3 topics can dispel a month-long professional development training to cynicism. Outside of a teacher's lounge, you're liable to hear even more. Teachers are being asked to do more, with less parental support, with less administrative support than ever before. Many studies claim that teacher performance is the number one determination of a child's ability to succeed, even when other studies claim outside factors like poverty or support at home rank higher. There are magnet schools, charter schools, voucher programs and on-line schools. Sometimes I wonder if parents were involved in their own neighborhood schools, and consequently, the admins and teachers invited the community in (besides sending flyers home for Open House--any monkey can do this), that there wouldn't be a need for the schools that seem to help drain public schools dry.
We're testing kids more than ever. One reason is to assess a child's growth, true, but this has manifested itself into a new culture of number crunching addicts. America loves the scores so much, they've added more and more it seems each season. Online tests are coming soon. Why? Saving paper and paying test graders can be mighty expensive when a computer database can do it for you. I'm not terrified of the new online testing coming to Ohio in a few years, but I can't say I'm thrilled either. You know what my kids do when they take a test online? They don't read the passage, they click to be done fastest, and generally bomb the test more than they would on paper. In some states, the new tests are crashing servers. In others, they don't have the computers in place to administer them.
Back to before. I can't see the same episode of "My So Called Life" focusing on testing, much less movie about it (although "Stand and Deliver" comes close, albeit the test was designed to prove to the world that Latino students in impoverished LA could outshine their suburban counterparts). Perhaps one day, a student of mine will leap upon a desk and cry out, "Captain, My Captain." More than likely, they are going to throw their test down in disgust and scurry from the room in search for their own creative outlets (in a charter school, no less). Will I clap or ask the kid to sit back down?
I was 2 years out of high school in '94. I was a borderline wreck. Pretty much a wreck. Failed relationship with a girlfriend, recent community college dropout. Failed writer of poetry. There was absolutely no reason to traverse the hallways of teenage problems. Age 19 had its share.
In the first and only season of the show, episode 6, amply called "The Substitute" details how a mysterious sub amps up the safe lives of the literature magazine crowd. It's very Dead Poet-esque. In one of those great montage scenes that all educational movies have, the teacher walks through the throng of students whose attention he holds for the first time in their lives. Desk arrangements change from rigid rows to concentric circles of creativity. Kids are walking through the hallway actually interested in school. Inevitable, the courage to write thoughts on paper becomes troublesome to the powers that be--namely the school principal, the dogged administrator who lives simply to squash independent thought at every turn.
I'm blogging as I watch the turn of events. Students publish "radical" lit magazine, principal denounces such thoughts, bans magazine. Out heroine takes it upon herself to print her own version. These kind of episodes, even as scripted as they are (ironic considering the freedom of not playing it safe is exactly what their conceit is), get me fired up. I've cried at enough versions of these movies and episodes you'd think I had seen them and their plots for the first time. I'm a writer at heart, torn between the lure of writing the Great American Novel for fame, and the obscure sweater-porn beatnik who chills boothside in a coffee shop hoping to share his words for the "moment" and nothing else.
In college I was part of a literature group that met weekly in a local Chinese restaurant to hash out story ideas, critique on another and provide feedback for becoming published. It was the kind of group any lit teacher would hang their hat on as an essential of kids learning and working beyond what happens in the classroom. Since I know I have written about this topic before, I won't go much further into detail, but these are the times when I'm so in love with writing, education and the process of creativity that I could see myself teaching one of those standard-tv-issue lit classes and firing up a group of high school kids who never realized their true potential.
Much of this thought goes into my normal, everyday process for teaching my elementary students. I've tried several classroom management and self-directed behavioral strategies over the years to warrant my own screenplays. However, I don't typically have those, "captain, my captain" moments. I doubt many teachers actually do. The best I get are the picture captions I display on cork board every year behind my computer.
Mr. C is the best.
You're the best teacher ever.
We love Mr. C.
Lately there's been frustration on my part of my own performance. The nagging perfectionism debates, the Mr. Hand episodes of lecture v. rant (I chuckled at watching "Fast Times" the other night when Mr. Hand shows up at Spicolli's house to "square the account" of wasted time in his room. Oh, my kids are lucky I am married and not readily available during the summer). The pressure of late for many in my profession is raising test scores (or, "why are my kids failing?"), motivating kids (especially boys) school funding. Any of these 3 topics can dispel a month-long professional development training to cynicism. Outside of a teacher's lounge, you're liable to hear even more. Teachers are being asked to do more, with less parental support, with less administrative support than ever before. Many studies claim that teacher performance is the number one determination of a child's ability to succeed, even when other studies claim outside factors like poverty or support at home rank higher. There are magnet schools, charter schools, voucher programs and on-line schools. Sometimes I wonder if parents were involved in their own neighborhood schools, and consequently, the admins and teachers invited the community in (besides sending flyers home for Open House--any monkey can do this), that there wouldn't be a need for the schools that seem to help drain public schools dry.
We're testing kids more than ever. One reason is to assess a child's growth, true, but this has manifested itself into a new culture of number crunching addicts. America loves the scores so much, they've added more and more it seems each season. Online tests are coming soon. Why? Saving paper and paying test graders can be mighty expensive when a computer database can do it for you. I'm not terrified of the new online testing coming to Ohio in a few years, but I can't say I'm thrilled either. You know what my kids do when they take a test online? They don't read the passage, they click to be done fastest, and generally bomb the test more than they would on paper. In some states, the new tests are crashing servers. In others, they don't have the computers in place to administer them.
Back to before. I can't see the same episode of "My So Called Life" focusing on testing, much less movie about it (although "Stand and Deliver" comes close, albeit the test was designed to prove to the world that Latino students in impoverished LA could outshine their suburban counterparts). Perhaps one day, a student of mine will leap upon a desk and cry out, "Captain, My Captain." More than likely, they are going to throw their test down in disgust and scurry from the room in search for their own creative outlets (in a charter school, no less). Will I clap or ask the kid to sit back down?
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