Pointless, Uninteresting and Incoherent, but Maybe Salvagable

In trying to find something to write about today, I went back through some of the unpublished drafts of things I'd written before thinking maybe I could let myself off easy.   I pushed the words around a bit, added some, took things out and....nothing.  The essays just lay there on the screen, either pointless or uninteresting or incoherent or all three.  Just.  Bad.  I should probably delete them but I can't quite bring myself to do that.  Maybe I need to keep them there, these little failed attempts, to remind me of something.  What, exactly, I'm not sure, but I'm sure theres a lesson in them somewhere.  Or maybe I'm hoping they will age well.  When I was a kid, my best friend once told me that "art ages."  If she'd made something she didn't like all that much she would tuck it away for awhile.  When she brought it back out, it would usually be better than she remembered.  I've tried that.  It sometimes works.  I also remember a time in 8th grade art class when I was working on a still life.  It was terrible.  The art teacher, bless him, would let me come in during lunch to work on it.  I did, nearly every day, for ages.  I kept pounding away at this doomed sketch of some jumbled crap on a table and then one day, suddenly, it changed.  I can recall looking at it at the end of lunch period and going "Huh! That actually looks...good."  I can recall even better the my art teacher's look of astonishment, and his comment along the lines of  "I'd lost hope on that...but now it looks right.  Wow."  It's something to get your teacher to admit that he'd given up on you but you'd managed to redeem yourself anyways.
I've pretty much given up hope on these old posts that I will never publish, but I'm still not deleting them.  Not yet.  I never know when I might be able to redeem myself.

Look at All the Helpers

I had a parent volunteer today.

I'm pretty sure she isn't the first parent volunteer I've ever had, but I'm not positive.  I've had scores of parents volunteer for field trips, and a few who have come in to help out during an intensive hands-on kind of day, but this mom came in to just do...whatever.  Copying.  Cutting things out.  Sorting things into little baggies to make kits for math or thinking skills lessons or whatever.  Stapling.  Those things which take a fair amount of time to do, and tend to pile up as I'm usually busy teaching or lesson planning or meeting or searching for any number of the thousand things I'm always trying to find.  My filing system is less than optimal.  Even when I have everything saved into the server, I don't always remember what I called it whenever I created it originally, and often it's less time-consuming to just re-create it rather than try to find it in our jungle of a server.*

She came in, with her pre-school aged daughter and took a vast pile of copying and went and did it for me.  She's the mom of one of my gifted kids, and is a smart woman herself.  I don't know her story.  Maybe she's taking time off from a career so she can be home with her kids.  Maybe she works from home but does this in her spare time because she enjoys a few hours of somewhat mindless work, and knowing that she's giving something back.  Maybe she works 2nd shift but likes to get out of the house with her young daughter during the day just for the change of scenery.  I don't know.  Maybe I should ask, but I don't want to pry, really, or have it look like I'm devaluing any choice she's made to be doing this, and sometimes even asking can seem like judging.

She, or another parent of my students have said they'll volunteer for me again.  And the 5th grade teachers always offer to share the volunteer who comes in for them since they sometimes don't have things organized enough to give to her.  That's the rub, really.  I have to be prepped in advance to have the thing I need to have copied, or the stuff I need put together set out with instructions.  I like that it compels me to be more organized and prepared.  I've been flying by the seat of my pants for most of this year (and I'm not the only one by a long shot.  It's been a very, very hard year all across the district.)  That's not the point, though.

The point, which I keep wandering away from, is that she volunteered.

She is helping.

Like Mr. Rogers said, "Look at the helpers."

This whole year has felt like we are in crisis mode and it's all I can do not to melt down regularly.  I am angry.  A lot.  I am outraged.  A lot.  I feel helpless in the face of a corporate steamroller, coming to destroy the institution I love with the assistance of elected officials they are paying a lot more money to than I ever could.

But I'm not helpless!  I have a helper.  And she doesn't ask for anything in return.  There are lots of parents, every day, trying to take a little of the load off.

So maybe I'll focus on that for a bit, instead of all the rest, and see if it helps.  If it does, then what she does for me is worth even more than just the photocoyping.**


*It's happened more than once that I've totally re-created something I made two years ago and then found the original.  They will look like near-exact replicas.  It's a little spooky.

**Which is worth a lot.  Don't get me wrong.

What Do You Do When You Can't Find the Funny or a Good Recipe

It's Holidailies time again and I'm only two days late!

I've been working on the first post for this December for about 30 minutes now.  I started a nice little piece about surprises, but about 2/3 of the way through I stopped.   The post was supposed to be just sort of light and pithy, but wound up lumbering along, getting far too heavy for itself as I had a bit of a self- revelation* with regards to me and surprises that frankly makes me kinda look like an ass, so we'll just let that be for awhile.  See what happens with it.

As you can tell, I'm not quite into the swing of writing yet.

Holidailies very kindly gave me a prompt-- something about holiday recipes -- but it didn't do much for me so I was winging it.  Maybe I should go back and think about recipes for a bit.

I haven't posted a whole lot since the beginning of the school year, and if you go back a few posts you'll probably see why.  It's been a challenging year.  I thought it might be best if I didn't make every December post a rant about what is happening to public education, though.  Unfortunately, that's what is taking up the majority of my brain space at the moment and it's been hard to find the light and pithy lately.

There's a cat trying to sit on the computer now, and I think I've had all the useful thoughts I'm going to have for today.  Perhaps tomorrow I will find the funny and create a post of wry observations on the nature of life or children or cats.

Or maybe I'll just post my favorite holiday recipe.

*The revelation was that I kinda like to be in control of things and have difficulty when I'm not in charge, which, honestly, isn't much of a revelation for anyone who's known me for more than half an hour.

I was going through this blog and found this unpublished bit.
DS is a 1st grader now.
He made it out of Kindergarten with flying colors.
I'm thinking his teacher might feel we need to repeat it, especially given the level of forgetfulness and procrastination that putting a blog post out a year late implies.


We are failing Kindergarten.

Oh, don't worry, DS is just fine.  He got a good progress report, and the most negative thing his teacher could say about how he's doing is that he needs to work on putting more detail into his journal at writing time.

Really.

I think my teacher's main concern in kindergarten was to try to get me to quit eating paste, so I'm thinking that he's probably okay.

What we're failing at is being parents of a Kindergartner.  Each day, a very nice, organized folder comes home with one side filled with "things to stay at home" and the other with "things to be returned."  For the first several weeks of school I was dimly aware that this folder was in there, but I somehow figured that DS would let us know if there was something that needed our attention.

Um....No.

We also got a very nice notice about the other folder, his spelling folder, which contained his 10 spelling words for the week. I remember looking at it, admiring the organizational style of this teacher, and then sort of neglecting it.  Come Thursday I read it for real and realized that DS was supposed to be doing spelling homework every night.  We'd maybe done homework, oh...once.  So Friday morning before school you can guess what we had him doing.  If you've ever been around our house early in the morning, you can guess this was not the optimal time.  We are not morning people.

I'm not going to go into the "Reading Bag."  I'm just going to say that it was November before I realized that a) DS was supposed to read from it every night,*  b)he was supposed to write or color in the included calendar (even at this point I'm not sure if the title is supposed to be there or just some sort of marking to indicate he read to us.)

So, yeah.  He has a great teacher.  He's doing fine.  But if we get a report card, too, I really don't want to show it to my parents.

Demoralized

           Lately I've seen a lot of my colleagues looking downcast, and more demoralized than ever.  I am, too.  It's been hard to articulate why, though, without people's eyes glazing over.  It just doesn't connect to something they really know.
           So, if you're a teacher, and you'd like to explain it a little better, share this.
           And if you're not a teacher, but you'd like to understand a little better--whether you love the teacher or have a gripe with her, or both, read this:

The Builder

Once upon a time there was a builder.  He built houses, and he was good at it.  He could look at plans and know, from experience, which plans would work well, which needed tweaking, and which ones should be sent back for revisions.  He knew his materials.  He understood wood and cement, nails and steel.  Knew how to check for flaws, how to shape and refine the materials he used to make them exactly fit what he needed for each home.  He loved his work, loved his team, loved seeing his fine homes, standing tall and beautiful, and knowing he’d done something of worth.

Then one day, the elected head of the local building council appeared, and handed him a set of plans.   They were rather different than other plans, but workable.  They called for things to be done in a different order than the builder thought was wise, but the client was insistent that these were the finest and best plans, designed from new understandings of the principles of building.

“Very well,” said the builder.  “I will study these, and work with them.  When should I expect my supplies to arrive?”

“Supplies?” asked the surprised councilman,  “Why, you have all the supplies you need!  They are everywhere!”

Raising an eyebrow, the builder looked about at the empty landscape and asked again, “Where?  What would you like me to use?  These plans call for all new kinds of materials, and I do have lots of bit and pieces in my truck, but the house they would build certainly wouldn’t match these plans.”

Exasperated, the official gestured widely to the environs.  “Why, there are supplies everywhere!  There’s a forest right there!  It has all the wood you could need!  There is clay beneath our feet that can make fine bricks!  There is a river of water just over that rise with a slate bed!  Good grief, man, you have all you could ask for! All you have to do is look.”

The builder raised his other eyebrow and replied, “Well, I suppose I could use them, but who is to ensure the quality -- I know nothing of the kind of wood or shale or clay that is out there.  And creating these materials will take a great deal of time.  I am very good at evaluating and using materials provided, but creating them whole is another matter entirely.  What extra staff and budget is there for this, for it will far exceed the costs of just building, which is the job for which I originally bid.”

Now infuriated, the councilman exploded, “What are you, lazy?  You tell me you’re an expert builder, yet you can’t make your own materials?  Who would be better qualified?  What, you want someone else to make things for you?   Time?  Why should I give you extra time?  You have plenty of time since you only 'work' 7 hours out of the day, and often spend weeks off at a time between jobs.  Staff?  We hired YOU, the ‘expert’, to build this home, and now you’re saying you want extra help to do what anyone could do easily in a mere moment?  I suppose you could use volunteers, but you’ll have to find them on your own time. I can’t even understand why you didn’t come prepared with all your materials in the first place.  Isn’t that what we pay you for?  To be prepared?”

The official stomped away, muttering “Skilled builder.  HA.  Lazy complainer is what he is.”  Then he turned and yelled, “If you DON’T do the job, NOW, to MY SPECIFICATIONS, I’ll let everyone know what a terrible job you do, how you are incompetent at even the most basic levels and you will never work in this field again!  Send me updates twice a day on your progress, with exact data and examples to show what you’ve done.”

“But….” began the builder, but the client was gone.  Shoulders drooping and head bent, the builder picked up his wheelbarrow and tools and trudged toward the rise, to begin work.  It would be a very, very long day.

A Poem

Body Image

Her index finger

mutely traces a path

along the jagged U of a

varicose vein

that decorates my thigh.

She practices counting

and connecting

the infinite beauty spots --

moles, really

not “beauty spots” --

that dot and freckle

every inch of aging skin.

She pokes and jiggles

the soft flesh

beneath my arms,

giggling as it moves

and quivers as she

molds it with her fingers.

She delights in this body

that is painted, and soft

and unpredictable

with scars and stretch marks

undulating and never smooth.

But to her it is wondrous

and perfect

and exactly the way

her mother should be.

She is too young yet

to have learned to fear

and loathe those

imperfections.

The world will teach her.

Soon. So soon.

But for now

perhaps I am old enough

for her to teach me

that I am beautiful.

A letter I sent this evening to my State Senator and State Representative:


Dear Representative Kunze,

As you know, schools across Ohio are preparing for the challenge of the "3rd Grade Reading Guarantee" that will force retention of any 3rd grader who cannot pass a standardized reading test.  While I question the validity of using such a method to assess a child, I would leave that issue for another time.  What I would to ask you is why is Ohio choosing to do this when it has been demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that grade retention does not work any better than promotion to the next grade?
There is ample evidence both online and in scholarly publications (Please see here for guidance, should you not have read any of it.)
The money wasted on a strategy that has been proven ineffective could be much, much better spent on other solutions.  For example, why not insist that schools spend the money on extended school-day programs for struggling readers, intensive summer school programs, smaller class sizes or hiring more reading specialists to work in the classrooms?
The idea that we will flunk children who cannot read well *sounds* good.  It sounds like a logical course of action and satisfies our need to hold children and teachers accountable.  Yes, the 3rd Grade Guarantee sounds very good.  But it isn't, and you should know that.
Please, be a leader and insist that our state choose a course of action that actually IS good, and stands a chance at working, rather than one that flushes precious dollars down the drain for the sake of "sounding" good.
Sincerely,

Educator