Posts by Ashley:
Sexism in High School Sports
June 19th, 2014I’m over at Teaching Tolerance talking about “Defeating Sexism in High School Sports”:
Any one of these stereotypes could prevent a girl from becoming involved in sports in the first place. Some girls who love sports and have competed their whole lives refuse to try out once they get to high school because, in high school, reputation is everything and they don’t want to pigeonhole themselves as jocks.
Athletic girls who do pursue sports must also grapple with the sexism that is pervasive in almost all aspects of sports culture, despite the strides that have been made since Title IX was passed in 1972. In the same day, we might see a story about a girl who is denied the right to play a sport because of her gender and a story like the one we saw in Steubenville, Ohio, where members of the high school football team raped a girl at a party and were then defended by their teammates and coaches.
Read the whole thing here!
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An Open Letter to My Pregnancy: Early Second Trimester
May 29th, 2014Dear Pregnancy,
You are now in the early second trimester – 17 weeks, to be exact. It is supposed to be this mythical land of loveliness during which I am supposed to have a cute little bump that isn’t yet big enough to look like I swallowed a watermelon. I’m supposed to glow, and my acne is supposed to have subsided. I’m supposed to feel great and have a lot of energy. I’m supposed to be able to sleep through the night for just about the last time in my life, or at least for the foreseeable future. I’m supposed to enjoy my favorite foods again. In short, this is supposed to be the “honeymoon trimester” before this thing gets really tough (and really real).
I thought you should know because it doesn’t seem like you got the memo. While I no longer feel like I want to puke 24/7 nor do I want to (though I never actually did) put my head down on my desk during my prep hour because I literally could not do anything else, I’m not feeling all that great. The smell of Tim’s coffee and toast in the morning is enough to keep me in bed all day and, while part of me blames his disgusting coffee that smells like rotting wood, I could handle it before you came along. I opened the dishwasher the other day to put in some dishes like a responsible adult and had to turn around and dry heave because the normally innocuous smell of dirty dishes was too much for me to take. Eating is still a chore, and I still can’t stand the sight or smell of most meat unless it’s cold. This makes packing lunches really easy because I take whatever I couldn’t eat for dinner the night before, but leaves me with few options besides cereal to nourish this little fetus at night. I’m still exhausted, probably because I can only sleep for about 4 hours per night before I’m wrenched awake by my bladder or my aching muscles or my crippling anxiety about one parenting thing or another. I don’t have dreams, either. My father-in-law gets to have cute dreams about our beautiful baby; I just get darkness and then wakefulness.
And don’t even get me started on the glow. I am not glowing. Any glow people perceive from me is either makeup or a trick of the light. Or sweat. I am constantly sweating. That acne that I thought I avoided by not having any during my first trimester is back with a vengeance. Those three, swollen, red zits on my chin that have been there for two and a half weeks? Thanks for those. I suppose you can share blame for those with the intense humidity and the fact that I cannot yet eat any of the healthy foods that I believe cleared up my acne in the first place, but, considering they are right on my chin – ground zero for hormonal acne – you get part of it, too. I’m just hoping upon hope that it doesn’t spread to the entire rest of my face like it did last year.
I just wanted to let you know all of this, Pregnancy, just in case you forgot to be wonderful this trimester. I’m trying to have as much fun with this as I can with cute clothes (and lots of selfies), gender reveal parties, and really adorable baby shoes (because, BABY SHOES!), but I could use a little help. I know you cannot possibly comply with all of my requests, but if you could throw me just a few bones, I’d be eternally grateful. Really, just one. Just the acne. I dealt with this before and I really don’t want to go through it again. The rest of it, I can probably handle, though if you wanted to throw a few other great things my way, I’d definitely take them.
Oh! And I’m supposed to be feeling my daughter move any day now, as you know. I think I already have, but I’m not really sure. It was really weird; it kind of just felt like someone lightly tapping me from the inside. Maybe it was something else. And even though I think it’s a little weird to feel a living being poking me from inside, it is a bit reassuring. If you could make that more distinct so I know what I’m feeling, that would definitely help this feel a bit more magical.
With Love,
The Samsanator
It’s a….. gender reveal!
May 28th, 2014I like to know things.
I’m not sure if it’s because I value knowledge over ignorance in general, or if it’s because I’m a type A personality and I want to be able to plan and control things, but I want to know all the things. When we were faced with the option to do early genetic screening even though we had no risk factors for any genetic abnormalities, I was unsure at first because of the anxiety it created, but eventually ended up deciding to do it because I like to know things. (I’m so glad we did, by the way. Our risk factors ended up being super low and the piece of mind was well worth a few weeks of anxiety.)
So when people asked us if we were going to find out the sex of the baby, the answer was a resounding YES. Knowing you could know, how could you go a whole nine months without knowing?! And I’m not even talking about planning for nursery colors here, I’m talking about just the sheer curiosity.
In fact, when I found out that there were 3D ultrasound places that could tell you the sex of your baby for $60 at 15 weeks – a full 5 weeks before the 20-week diagnostic ultrasound, I plunked down my credit card and all but put the goo on my belly myself. (Well, I asked my doctor if those places were safe first, and then I scheduled the appointment. Whatever.)
People don’t like to admit they have a preference when it comes to the sex of their baby, but I think almost everyone does. Of course, having a healthy baby of any sex is top priority, and we would have been happy with either outcome. But we really wanted a girl.
No one has a hard time believing that I wanted a girl. Feminist,women’s rights activist, girly-girl; of course I wanted a little fearless female to wear those darling hair bows and crush gender norms. But some people have a hard time believing that Tim wanted a girl. All men want sons, right? Something about patriarchal lineage and carrying on the family name and tossing a ball around the back yard. I don’t really understand it, not being a man and all, but apparently it’s a thing. Tim, though, was excited about the possibility of women’s sports, daddy-daughter dances, and fighting the good feminist fight. And lineage? Not an issue and never was. It was Tim who insisted on our child – girl or boy – having a hyphenated name. I suggested it, but quickly decided I really didn’t care; Tim was the one who argued for Baby Samberts to officially be Baby Samsa-Roberts.
So, we found out a week ago the sex of the baby, and we wanted it to be a girl. I honestly expected it to be a boy, but I wanted a girl. When the ultrasound tech finally got a good picture and told us, I cried. I was so incredibly happy and excited and relieved that I cried. And then I felt this immense pressure to be a good mother, to raise this kid right, because life is hard enough, but when you’re born as a member of this gender, you’re at a disadvantage from day one (arguably from the womb based on some of the things I’ve been told lately, but that’s another post for another time). Because….
IT’S A GIRL! Future fearless female comin’ atcha, November 2014.
The very first decision I made as the parent of a girl was to show all of our friends and family exactly how excited we are with a gender reveal party. I always thought these things were stupid, but now I see how fun they can be. We had pink and blue utensils, plates, and punch. I made cupcakes with pink frosting concealed in the middle. I cut out a banner (from Pinterest, obviously). And we wrapped a box in pink and blue paper and stuffed pink balloons in the middle to release as the “reveal.” It was so much fun having everyone together and having them share in our joy. It felt like our personal joy was also political, too, as we talked about all of our hopes and dreams and ideas for raising this little girl into a wonderful woman.
More later on how weird some people are when we tell them we’re having a girl. For now, happiness.
Fearless Females: Don’t Be the Wrinkle
May 13th, 2014We did two really enlightening activities in Fearless Females yesterday, both of which left the girls and me feeling really great about ourselves and our place in the world.
Wrinkled Heart
This was an activity I picked up at a conference on relational aggression, “mean girls,” and cyberbullying. It was a great conference and I’ve used a lot of the activities I learned from there before. I held off on this one, though, because it seemed a little young for my high school girls. However, it ended up being a great activity and working really well with the activity that followed.
For this one, I asked the girls to each take a piece of paper and some markers. I told them to draw a heart that takes up the entire piece of paper and decorate it with things that made them happy. When that was finished, I told them that this heart represents their hearts (or their emotional centers) I asked them to call out things that either they did to themselves or others did to them that made them sad. They called out things like being called names, not feeling pretty, feeling like a failure, and being told they look bad in some way. For each thing they called out, we folded our hearts.
When we couldn’t fold it anymore, I asked them to open their hearts up and notice how many wrinkles their hearts had. Each wrinkle represented one piece of self-talk or bullying they had experienced that crinkled their emotions. Then, I asked them to try to get the wrinkles out. Of course, they couldn’t. This was symbolic of the fact that, once you feel bad about something, it’s always with you.
Compliments Behind Your Back
I couldn’t leave them on that note, so we moved on to a more positive activity. I put a chair in front of the whiteboard and each girl took turns sitting in the chair. Behind them, the other girls wrote compliments for the girl sitting in the chair. I took their pictures with the compliments behind them to send to them, and then they could look.
A few of the girls were near tears at the nice things their peers wrote about them. You can see mine above, and I felt the same. I was touched at the things they noticed and appreciated, not only about me, but about the other girls as well. Even when they didn’t know someone very well, each girl was able to write four or five compliments. It’s a huge testament to their positive attitudes and to the love they have for each other.
Wrap Up
When asked if they liked the second activity, every girl said they did, but that they liked writing the compliments even better than receiving them. I loved hearing that, and reminded them how much it hurt to think of having wrinkles on their hearts – or putting wrinkles on others’ hearts – and how good it felt to compliment others. I told them that, at the end of the school year, we often get frazzled and frustrated with those around us. We just want summer to be here and the stress of school to be over. But we can’t forget that our words matter, at the end of the year more than ever, and we should make ourselves and others feel good by spreading compliments rather than wrinkles.
For more ideas about activities and discussions for the teen girls in your life, click here. For resources for starting your own group for girls, click here.
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Bump Ahead: An Announcement and 5 Things I’ve Learned in the Last 15 Weeks
May 12th, 2014If you know me on a personal level, you have probably already heard the news: I’m pregnant!
This is, of course, the other reason I took a break from social media that I alluded to earlier but couldn’t talk about. We hadn’t shared the information with everyone we love yet, so I couldn’t very well put it out here on this blog, now could I? But, the cat’s out of the bag now, so here we are. I’m 15 weeks pregnant and experiencing all of the emotions I feel like one should be experiencing in this moment: excitement, terror, being overwhelmed. Mostly excitement, but still a healthy dose of the rest, as well.
If you’ve been a follower of this little blog, you know that I’ve debated about whether or not to have kids for a long time. You also know that I’m a huge advocate for people who want to remain childfree. I, myself, went from never wanting kids to maybe wanting kids to wanting kids for sure but not right now to now being here. I feel that’s sort of a natural progression, and reflects more how I’ve grown as an individual and within my marriage rather than a direct change of mind. It was always in the back of my mind that I’d have at least one kid, but I wasn’t in a hurry and it irritated me to no end when people would pressure me to get on with it already. Now that I have “gotten on with it,” I will say it’s been an incredibly illuminating experience, and the past 15 weeks have taught me maybe more than any other 15 weeks of my life. Here are a few things I’ve learned in my first trimester (and I hope to update the list each trimester, so stay tuned).
1. Even when you’re ready, you’re never really ready.
I used to HATE it when I’d tell people I wasn’t ready to have a baby and they’d say, “You’re never ready.” Yea, I get it, you can never be prepared for everything that might happen, but there is a moment when you are more ready than you were. When we got pregnant, Tim and I were ready. We had good jobs, enough money, a house in the ‘burbs, supportive family who live close by, and lots of love to give. We were absolutely prepared and we wanted to create a new life together.
However, now I see what people were talking about. When I found out I was pregnant, my first thought was one of panic. Things were going to change, and I wasn’t ready for that. Even though we were ready, once it happened, I suddenly wasn’t anymore, and I think that’s what people really mean. That said, I still believe there are levels of ready, and once you feel ready, you should take the plunge. Just know that it’s OK if you’re not super excited until later because you’re too busy being panicked. It’s totally normal.
2. People say the strangest (and meanest) things.
I’ve been called “huge” or “big” 4 times already – and I just started noticeably showing about two weeks ago – and one lovely person even told me to get myself to the gym. I’ve been warned not to eat too much because I’ll end up diabetic, and I’ve been warned that I’m not eating enough to sustain my life and the baby’s. I’ve been mocked for wanting organic baby products and food and I’ve been shunned for my lack of enthusiasm about breast feeding (I’m going to try – don’t get on me about that. It’s just not the part I’m looking forward to the most.) I’ve been told my cup of green tea is too much caffeine, and I’ve been told that glass of red wine I had the day before I found out I was pregnant might give my baby Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
Keep in mind, we just started telling people we were pregnant at 8 weeks for family and close friends and 12 weeks for everyone else, so all of that has come in the past month and a half or so.
A word of advice: Unless one of these people is your doctor, don’t listen to anyone. And DO NOT GOOGLE to find out if they are right. You can find whatever you are looking for on Google, so it’s probably best just to listen to your own instincts and those of your healthcare professional. (I emphasize “your” there because you may have friends in the medical field. Just because they know things doesn’t mean they know your medical situation, so feel free not to listen to them, either.)
3. Your body truly isn’t your own anymore.
I’m not talking about unsolicited bump-touching (of which I’ve only had one so far) or backseat advice here. That’s an entirely different – and feminist – issue that I’m sure I’ll address later. Here, I’m talking about the sheer physicality of being pregnant. I’m saying that, if you are anything like me, you will have no control over your body anymore. You won’t want to eat things you’ve loved your whole life. The only things you’ll be able to stomach are cheese sticks and toast. The smell of your husband’s coffee – which you loved waking up to – will make you hurl. You’ll get splotches and acne. Things will grow and shrink. Your hair and nails will grow like weeds. You’ll be hot pretty much constantly. You’ll wake up at 2 AM and have to use the bathroom and then eat another meal before going back to bed. You’ll show early (like me) or not show until later.
Who knows if all of these things will happen or have happened to you, but some of them are bound to sound familiar. I had a hard time giving up control (what… me?!) of my body. I’m one that likes having a plan. I planned to manage my weight gain and go to the gym 3-4 times a week and then walk for 30 minutes on other days. I planned to eat Paleo throughout my entire pregnancy. And while I have done a lot of those things (my weight gain has not been huge, despite what people have said to me – see #2), the biggest lesson I’ve had to learn is to ditch the plan and listen to my body. I suppose this is also an important lesson to learn about babies too, since there’s just so much you can’t plan for.
I’m also going to add a 3B here: Buy maternity clothes whenever you want. People will tell you they waited until they were in their third trimester. They’ll tell you to buy bigger shirts and pants to get through as far as you can. I’m not really sure what’s up with people’s aversion to maternity clothes. They’re cut for pregnant ladies so they’re more flattering, and they are really comfortable. I’ve been using a belly band since week 6 and wearing maternity shirts since week 13 and I’m wearing my first pair of maternity pants today. I popped early and my pants and shirts just didn’t fit. Every pregnancy is different, so do what you need to do!
4. Learn to grow a tough skin early.
See #2. Smile and let it go. If it truly gets on your nerves, tell them. If they are your friends, they’ll understand. If they’re not, screw ’em.
5. Enjoy it while you can.
I’m not into the cutesy baby stuff. I’m just not. I really love baby shoes (see above pregnancy announcement), but that’s about it. On top of that, when people told me to enjoy my pregnancy in those first 8 weeks when I was bent over the toilet puking my guts out, I wanted to punch them in the face. But we announced our pregnancy with both of our families there at the same time by handing out mugs that said, “The best moms get promoted to grandma,” “the best dads get promoted to grandpa,” etc. and it was so much fun. We’re going to do a gender reveal with a pink or blue cake on my 30th birthday. I believe this is what people mean when they tell you to enjoy it. Sure, pregnancy pretty much sucks the life out of you – because you’re giving life to someone else – but it’s OK to have fun with it, too!
Social Media Burnout and Facebook
April 24th, 2014Yet again, it’s been a while since I’ve been on this little site of mine.
Eventually, I’ll get around to explaining all of the reasons why I’ve been absent – and there are a few – but let’s start with the biggest one.
Burnout.
As a teacher, my life doesn’t run on calendar years; it runs on school years. And this school year has been brutal in the best kind of way. I had three classes to prepare for each day – two of them upper level classes that require a lot of attention and planning. I had speech team. I had Fearless Females. I also decided to join pretty much every single committee I could join. Not to mention I’ve still been writing from time to time (just not necessarily here).
I loved it all.
OK, OK. I loved it all most of the time. There were certainly times when I hated everything and desperately needed a break, but those times were quickly overshadowed by the fun stuff, the kind of stuff that reminded me why I do what I do.
Overall, this year was one of those years that just made me want to throw myself into my job more and more. I have this weird thing where the busier I get, the more I want to add on my plate. As you can imagine, this leads to burnout pretty quickly, which is why I am prolific at my busiest and downright lazy during my downtime.
When speech season ended, it occurred to me that things had gotten a bit too intense. It’s not uncommon for me to feel that way after a big season or event ends, but this time was different. I felt a general feeling of malaise. I was angry. I was fed up. So, I had to take a step back to figure out what was making me feel this way and, in an effort to make a real change, I decided to try something new.
I decided to tune out.
You see, I wasn’t just angry at being busy. I was angry at the State of Things. And this wasn’t the usual, feminist righteousness I experience day-to-day. This was personal.
I was annoyed with the pressure of trying to keep up. Listen to the news every day, read all the books, don’t miss a Facebook post/Tweet/Instragram picture. Basically, know all the things, all the time.
It’s maddening to try to keep up with it, and eventually, it becomes not worth the effort.
So I gave up.
I stopped listening to the news and to books on tape during my commute. Instead, I listened to music. I checked my RSS feed reader once or twice a week instead of every day and skipped the stuff I didn’t find interesting. I turned my phone off more than I turned it on. And I completely quit my personal Facebook.
I think that last one was the toughest decisions to make. Being who I am, I have friends and family scattered all around the globe, and keeping in touch with them is difficult without the convenience of Facebook. I didn’t want to miss all that. But something needed to change.
The reason I chose to disengage from Facebook instead of other social media is because, for me, Facebook is the most difficult to ignore and the most likely to raise my blood pressure on a daily basis. It seems as if all of my friends are now more likely to share news on Facebook rather than via text, email, phone call, or face-to-face interactions. You miss a post, and you’re out of the loop and, often, you don’t get to share in your friends’ joy. Also, with Facebook’s newer sharing settings, you are privy to literally EVERYTHING your friends do – from what music they are enjoying to what places they visit and who their with to all of the pictures and public status updates they “like.” When, more often than not, those pictures are political memes that are unresearched, untrue, or otherwise discriminatory, it’s a lot to handle. Oh, and the babies. Seriously, I like babies as much as the next red-blooded woman, but I don’t need to see a video of your baby’s first fart. I wish I was kidding.
Facebook was successful because everyday people want a platform to share whatever they want to share. Now, you don’t need a blog or a reality tv show to tell the world the intricacies of your life or share your political and social opinions. All you need is Facebook.
So, I decided I didn’t like the way Facebook made me feel. And I quit, cold turkey. I stayed off of it for three months, too, and I have to say, they were some of the better three months I’ve had this year. I didn’t feel angry or pressured and, believe it or not, I actually felt more connected to the people I truly care about because I had to actually work to contact them, rather than “liking” a status and thinking that counted as human interaction. I liked people a lot better, too, when I wasn’t inundated with the minutiae of their lives.
Interestingly, I thought this would give me more incentive to blog, since I wouldn’t be on social media so much, but just the opposite happened. Since I didn’t have Facebook, I didn’t feel as compelled to share information about my life and my opinions with the public. It just didn’t seem to matter.
But, of course, I’m back on the good ol’ FB. The desire to keep in touch with those near and far outweighed the desire for solitude. However, I’m going to use it much differently myself. No multiple updates a day, checking in only once or twice, and no engaging with controversy. I also went ahead and deleted people from my friends list that I didn’t know very well. I want my Facebook to be strictly personal and only for my close circle of friends.
And, being back on Facebook has enticed me to get back on here, too, though I can’t say I missed posting here very much. I’m working towards a different kind of balance in my life – one that focuses much more on family and self-care and much less on overextending myself in order to prove something – namely, that I can “do it all.” However, I’m open to doing some writing here that doesn’t have to go through an editor or be all that thought-out and professional. That, actually, feels pretty good.
Photo Credit: mkhmarketing
Review: Playing House: Notes of a Reluctant Mother
March 12th, 2014
Playing House: Notes of a Reluctant Mother by Lauren Slater
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
In Playing House: Notes of a Reluctant Mother, Lauren Slater tackles the tough stuff of life from deciding whether or not to have a kid – and then another kid – to dealing with depression to watching her husband catch fire. Her stories were entertaining and insightful while ringing true to anyone who has ever suffered from a mental illness, and anyone who has ever questioned whether or not “playing house” was the right choice for their lives.
However, while I would consider this an interesting read, it was by no means what I expected, nor was it particularly well-crafted. From the title, I expected Slater’s stories to center around her home life, especially her children. I expected some ridiculous and quippy stories about her children and her relationship to those children. As with most “mother” books, I expected some sort of moral or message to come out of it all – probably that becoming a mother was the right choice for her, despite her misgivings.
While some of that was present in the book, most of the chapters dealt with her depression and how she dealt with it. While I understand that her depression made her choice to be a mother, and her subsequent filling of her motherhood role, a difficult one, her domestic life did not grace even half of the pages of the book. I don’t think this is bad, per se, but I would want the book to be more aptly titled, then, so the reader could know what he or she was getting.
Furthermore, I do not believe the book was particularly well-crafted. Her prose, at times, felt forced. Her metaphors were over-extended. In one breath, she says she despises cliches, yet they rear their ugly heads in almost every chapter of the book. It seems as if she is trying to take her reader on a journey with flowing, poetic writing, but that only serves to pull the reader out of her world and into a world of figurative language. Like most English teachers, I enjoy figurative language when tastefully done, but this seemed to be overkill.
On top of that, Slater referenced much of her past life without giving her reader any back story. She mentions leaving her home for a foster home, several lawsuits brought against her, a friend who completely abandons her, and many other events that would be ripe for a good story, but then just leaves them there in lonely sentences, never to be explained or expanded. Because of this, I was always left wanting more, and left feeling as if I should have been reading other books of hers or her blog (if she has one) first. Or, I felt as if she felt she was famous enough that everyone should know all of her back stories. I have no idea who she is, so that assumption seemed egotistical at best, and bad form at worst. Furthermore, each chapter of this book read like a separate blog post, some occurring in real time, some in the past; some referencing “now,” and others referencing posts written earlier that we should have read. I’m a purist when it comes to books: Unless books exist in a clearly defined series (and even then, back story should be explained), each book an author writes should be able to stand on its own. I shouldn’t be expected to research or read outside of the book to get the whole picture of what the author is talking about. And if a book is based on someone’s blog, which this one appeared to be, it’s the duty of the author to edit those posts into book-worthy writing that is cohesive and understandable.
All in all, I would probably not recommend this book to many people unless you’re looking for a quick memoir or you’re familiar with her writing.
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Laughter, Love, and Losing Gracefully: Lessons Learned this Speech Season
February 11th, 2014Last year, our school was slated to host the Conference speech tournament. It was the head coach’s first year in the position, and I was becoming known at our school for being insanely organized and really good at running tournaments. So, I volunteered to (read: was paid to) put on the tournament so the head coach could focus on growing the team and winning some medals.
At the time, I thought I knew nothing about speech team, but as I started organizing the tournament, I realized I knew more than I thought I did. My freshman year of high school, I was on our speech team. My team was a state champion team for many, many years running, so winning was the only option. While I was happy to have that year under my belt and I believe it taught me a great deal about confidence and gave me lots of analytical skills, I left the team to pursue band, which I enjoyed far more. My sophomore year, one of the coaches and my freshman English teacher (and the reason I joined the team to begin with) passed away, and I just couldn’t go back to the team.
While I don’t regret quitting, I wish I had had more opportunities to develop public speaking and analytical skills in high school. If only I knew then what I do now – that I would end up teaching high school English – I might have stuck with it just for the learning opportunities.
At the end of the tournament last year, though, a new opportunity presented itself. Our head coach – a drama guy through and through – got it in his head that I’d be good at coaching the speech events, particularly the ones where students have to write their own speeches. (I can’t imagine where he got that idea. It’s not like I know how to write things….) Getting a taste of the fun from the tournament we hosted, I agreed to come on as the assistant coach this year.
At first, I spent a lot of nights crying to Tim that I was over-stressed and over-worked and had too much going on to continue coaching speech. The plan was to make it through the year and quit and never try to coach anything ever again. However, as the year progressed, I saw my students learning and growing and enjoying the process. Speech must be something special for these kids – many of whom would rather have rather died than speak publicly at the start of the season – to make it to school, dressed in their suits and dresses, at 6:00 every Saturday morning and not come home until 6:00 PM Saturday night, exhausted after speaking all day for the entirety of November-February. And they actually enjoyed it. Many of them who didn’t advance to Regionals this year came anyway, just to support their friends or see a few new events they might want to try out next year, and I expect the same from Sectionals this weekend.
Speech team is powerful. It was powerful for the students who showed up and gave it their all every week, and I know this because many of the kids I coached would sit in my room after a bad tournament and ask, “How can I get better?” or would burst into tears and hug me when they found out they advanced to a final round of a tournament, meaning they were in the top 8 of all the students competing that weekend.
But it was equally powerful for me. I can speak to what I think the students learned this season, but I probably couldn’t even scratch the surface. For me, starting the season wanting to quit, this season was a roller-coaster ride that taught me more about teaching, patience, and what it means to be part of the fabric of a school than anything I’ve ever done. Now, I wouldn’t give up this position for the world, and I’m already starting to think about next year. What follows is a reflection on my lessons learned this season.
Laughter
Our head coach is a funny guy. I’m not sure, but I think he prides himself in this fact. He spends a lot of time telling funny stories, and the kids hang on every word. In the classroom, I do this, too. It’s part of what makes our students enjoy our classes and gives them a reminder every once in a while that we’re human, too. I used to think that these stories we tell are just fun and sort of self-indulgent, but now I look at them differently. Life is full of stories, and telling them to students offers an example of how it’s done. This might go without saying, but indulge me: So much of speech – and life, for that matter – is the ability to tell stories. Even for the events that require students to memorize and perform script, or write a purely informational or persuasive speech, they still have to find the story there and tell it. Stories are full of cadences, levels, and pregnant pauses that you can only teach by example, and the ability to mesmerize an audience with a tale is a skill that can be learned. In his memoir, Teacher Man, Frank McCourt writes:
Instead of teaching, I told stories.
Anything to keep them quiet and in their seats.
They thought I was teaching.
I thought I was teaching.
I was learning.
I’d argue that he was teaching, too. He was teaching them to enjoy language and how to tell stories, an art that is dying in our go-go-go Google society. Tell a story, mesmerize an audience, and you’ll be able to land that deal or hold a really important meeting. It’s that simple.
Love
I love my students. I really do. But speech team is something different. Yesterday was the first day I didn’t have Tuesday practice because all of my students are done for the year, and I actually sat in my classroom feeling sort of lost and sad. I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but I was disappointed not to have practice after school.
You have so much downtime during those tournaments and so you spend a lot of your time coaching. When I say coaching, I don’t mean the typical yell-and-scream sports coaching we see on ESPN. I mean the build-you-up help-you-improve coaching that requires a bit more finesse and grace. One tournament, for example, I was sitting in the tab room so I knew what ranks my students got during their rounds. After first round, I found out one of my better students got a 6 in her event – 6 being the lowest you can get. It’s not impossible to advance to final round with a 6, but it’s darn hard, so I went out to find her and knock some sense into her. When I did find her, she was already crying her eyes out before I could say a word to her. My tactic had to immediately change. She was already beating herself up over her flubbed round one than I ever could, and so I spent a good deal of time helping her realize this was not the end of the world, and that she needed to regain her confidence, take the bull by the horns, and get back in there for her next two rounds. She didn’t advance to final round that tournament, but I think the lesson she learned was far more important: In life, you’ll fail. It’s inevitable. But you have to get up and move on. Which leads me to my next reflection…
Losing Gracefully
Regionals was last weekend. The top 3 in each event advance to Sectionals, which is coming up on Saturday. We didn’t expect to do super well at Regionals because our team is so young. You just can’t teach freshmen how to be confident seniors. However, 11 out of 12 of our students ended up advancing to final round, which is a win in and of itself. All of my students who advanced to final round were incredibly excited. I was excited for them. If, in my first year, I could have students I coached advance to Sectionals, this would be a majorly successful year.
As you already know, none of the students I coached advanced to Sectionals. Our team has several kids going, but all of them were coached by the head coach.
I didn’t understand it. I had a few kids who I thought really had a shot, but they didn’t do well in their final round. What was I doing wrong? How had I, as a coach, failed these kids?
I asked these questions of the head coach on the bus on the way home. I’m sure he could tell I was near tears, so he spent a lot of time coaching me and giving me a pep talk. But when we all got off the bus, I looked around. None of the kids were upset. They were all extremely exited to have made it to final round, and were already talking about what they were planning on doing next year. They were all laughing and hugging each other and excited for those who were advancing. I’m sure there was some disappointment, but not enough to show. And that, I think, is the best lesson of them all: Win gracefully, lose gracefully, show excitement for those who succeed, and find a way to do better in the future.
This is learning. This is winning.
Featured Image Credit: Brad Barth
Elsewhere I’ve Been: Teaching Tolerance – Telling the Story of Privilege
February 11th, 2014I’m over at the Teaching Tolerance blog today helping to publicize my magazine article, talking about privilege:
Once they had the language to talk about privilege, I decided to take it a step further. I asked them what other kinds of privilege exist. They were able to quickly name the big ones: gender, religion and sexual orientation. But after some thought, they started coming up with other really interesting ways privilege manifested itself in the school. Kids in honors classes got special treatment in the hallways; they were trusted kids, so they were never asked for their hall passes. Thin girls were cited for dress code violations less often than curvier girls. Kids with good grades were given extensions on papers more often than kids with lower grades. The list went on and on.
Read the whole post here!
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#NotBuyingIt : Out of Print Clothing Advertising Fail
February 8th, 2014Just to be clear, I LOVE Out of Print Clothing. Not only do they have awesome clothes and accessories that are well-made, reasonably priced, and fit well, each of their products features a unique book cover which helps spread the love of reading. Not only that, but for every product they sell, they donate a book to their partner, Books for Africa, doing their part to help increase literacy rates throughout the world. It truly is amazing.
But, of course, not every company can be perfect. Check out their Valentine’s Day email advertising, with gifts “for him” and “for her”:
According to them, books that guys like include Moby Dick, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Call of the Wild, Slaughterhouse Five, 1984, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Great Gatsby. Books that girls like include Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Romeo and Juliet, and Tropic of Cancer.
Gee. I guess I wasted a whole lot of time reading and enjoying books like Slaughterhouse Five, The Great Gatsby, and 1984 then, since us “little women” just want books about girls and marriage and star-crossed lovers, huh?
The thing about Out of Print Clothing is that they actually offer a huge range of book covers in women’s t-shirt sizes. In fact, all of the covers featured on their “for him” guide are available in women’s sizes. Not only that, but their men’s sizes aren’t overly bulky and fit like normal t-shirts, too, and the men’s sizes include many of the “for her” book covers as well.
I have no problem with Out of Print Clothing. I’m sporting one of their shirts right now, in fact, and I will continue to purchase items from them in the future. However, this Valentine’s Day gift guide is a fail. It reads like it was tailored for someone who wants to buy their significant other a gift and knows he or she likes books but doesn’t know a whole lot else about him or her. Books are personal, and if you’re going to wear one on your sleeve – or your chest, as it were – you want one you absolutely love (or, in my case, one you teach to your students so they can laugh at how much of a nerd you are to have a book t-shirt).
Here’s a Valentine’s Day hint: In order to give a proper book-related gift, spend some time talking with your significant other and actually find out what books they like. That way, you’ll buy a great, gender-free gift that your significant other will cherish AND you’ll have some great books to talk about for the rest of your lives.
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An Open Letter to Students Who Think They Are the Stars of Their Own Bildungsromans
January 27th, 2014To the aforementioned students:
You are, at this very moment, coming of age. It makes sense, then, why you would identify so much with the Holden Caulfields and Stephen Dedaluses of our literature class. You are mostly males between the ages of 16-18, and so identify with their confusion as they try to figure out how to be the type of men they want to be despite society’s rejection of the things they hold dear: innocence, art, beauty, love of all things pure. Society is too focused on mechanically pumping kids through school on an assembly line – add some physics here, a little grammar there, stick some math and physical education in there too, and top it off with a good dose of standardized testing. You are too creative and intelligent for this assembly-line mentality. Stephen and Holden were, too, which is what finally inspires them to break out on their own. At long last, you have a character who is just like you. At long last, you have a blueprint for how to come of age in this world.
I get it. I really do.
I, too, love Stephen Dedalus and Holden Caulfield. When I first read Catcher in the Rye in high school, I saw in him the malaise of my generation, even though he would have been born at least 40 years before my peers and I. When one of my favorite professors introduced me to Stephen Dedalus in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in college, I devoured every word, underlining most of the final chapter, marking huge stars next to passages that poked fun at Stephen’s poetic nature because I “got it” – I understood what these young men were going through.
I loved – and continue to love – these fictional men, to be sure. But I love them in a very different way than you do.
You see, as a woman, I was encouraged to love Stephen and Holden – and any other maladjusted male I met in real life, for that matter – just as I was encouraged to try to change them. You see, women who read these books are forced to filter their consciousness in a way you’ve never had to. We aren’t like Stephen and Holden. We are like their love interests while we are young, and like their mothers when we are older. In school, I could have been their Emma, their Jane, their pure-hearted, ivory-handed, unattainable love interest. Except I would actually talk to them, and they would love me even more. And then they could put their maladjusted ways behind them and live happily ever after; this is the end of most female-centered tales, after all, so it was the end of my understanding of how men and women relate to each other. Now, I re-read these pages and find myself wanting to make these young men a hot cup of tea or a bowl of chicken soup, put it down on the table, and listen as they pour their hearts out to me. I want to be their teacher or their mother (Isn’t there a little bit of each in the other?), to council them and help them find their way.
Because I had to filter my reading of these novels through my experience as a woman, I have some insight that you might never gain, and I think it’s important to share that insight with you before you meet the same end as these characters.
To begin, bildungsromans – or coming-of-age-novels – are not to be confused with epic tales, though they sometimes are. A bildungsroman ends not when our protagonists have it all figured out, not at the very end of their quests, but just on the cusp of their new understanding of adulthood. The rest of their lives are ahead of them and, though we hope that they are able to continue growing and changing long into their adult years, we are left only with that hope, and not a definitive answer. Just like women have to learn that relationships are not all sunshine and roses after the kiss that ends the Disney movies and rom-coms we devour through our teenage years, so, too, do you have to realize that growing does not end upon leaving school. In fact, it’s only just starting. As much as we want to think that Holden has it all figured out when he declares, “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody,” (because, let’s face it, that is such a beautiful sentiment on which to base the entirety of the rest of our lives) he doesn’t. We forget, in fact, that he is in a mental institution at the end of the book, having traipsed all round New York City by himself, all because he couldn’t admit he wasn’t over his brother’s death. This isn’t being grown up; it’s growth. That’s an important distinction. And, if he doesn’t continue to grow, how is he ever going to figure out where those ducks go in the winter?
Perhaps of equal importance is the fact that, though generations upon generations of people will easily declare their love for the Holdens and the Stephens of literature, even the most die-hard scholar/fan will tell you that, were these young men actual people, we wouldn’t like them very much. “How can you love someone but not like them?” you may very well ask. In literature, it’s easy. You love a character for his witticisms, his quotable lines, his grit, his honesty and integrity – or lack thereof – in the face of tough situations. You take inspiration from him or your heart goes out to him. He helps you understand some small part about life that you didn’t understand before. But, were you introduced to him, it would take you all of five seconds to roll your eyes and see right through his egotistical nature and decide he wasn’t the kind of guy you’d want to be friends with.
And, make no mistake about it, these young men are egotistical to the core. That’s part of what makes Salinger and Joyce so brilliant – something you probably can’t see yet because you are too close to it. They write self-centered post-pubescence with the mastery only granted to one who has gone through it himself. Stephen, come chapter 5, is the only person on that campus who understands beauty at all. He is, he thinks, even smarter than his professors as seen by the conversation he has with his dean of students. His dean could very well be egging him on by speaking literally while Stephen is speaking metaphorically but, since we see the episode through Stephen’s eyes, we can only assume Stephen is much smarter than his teacher. Holden, is similarly ego-centric, wanting to be the catcher in the rye and catch kids as they come through the rye, single-handedly saving them from going off the metaphorical cliff and thus preserving their innocence. He’s the only one who can do it, since he’s obviously the only one in the entire city who isn’t a phony, and who can identify phonies when he sees them. You, who are in the middle of the most self-centered point of your life, cannot see that in others. You can only see how much these characters relate to you, which is just a little bit self-centered in and of itself, don’t you think?
“But wait!” you protest. “Didn’t you just say that you wanted to be their unattainable love interest when you were younger? And their mother or teacher now that you’re older? Don’t women in all of these roles sort of have to like these guys?” Ah, this just further proves my point about your ego-centrism. I said these were the roles through which I had to filter my consciousness, not that these were the roles I wanted.
So what lesson is there here for you, if not the ones that the bildungsromans hold? The lesson, to my mind, is clear. See yourself in these characters, then grow past them. Understand that these characters are meant to represent a snapshot in time and, though you may be like them now, don’t strive for that as an end goal. Allow yourself a little bit of self-centeredness, as is natural for a teenager, and then use what you know from literature and from life to practice empathy. Don’t get so involved with yourself that you cannot see the bigger picture. Figure out how “to discover the mode of life or of art whereby your spirit could express itself in unfettered freedom.” Rub f-words off of public spaces and help kids keep their innocence for as long as they can. Then, grow further still. Learn from everyone and everything around you. Take it all in, and don’t be afraid to grow up. You have one great advantage that Holden and Stephen will never have: You are not stuck on the pages of a book. Your life doesn’t end when the chapter does. Your story is an epic journey, not a bildungsroman. Live accordingly.
Sincerely,
Your Literature Teacher
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Book Review: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
January 26th, 2014
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Many of you have asked for my review of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, so here it is. I hope to hear what you think in the comments!
As is often the case with me these days, I haven’t had a lot of time to read what I really want to read. I’ve had to read books for my AP Literature class, and when I’m done with that, I want to do something that doesn’t involve reading words, so I tend not to pick up another book. Enter: library audiobooks. These have been the best things for me this year, since I can listen to them in my car on my way to and from work. Not only does this allow me to catch up with reading some of the books I’ve always wanted to read, but it makes my commute feel much shorter.
So, a few weeks ago, I went on the library website and started browsing for audiobooks that were available. When I came upon The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, I jumped to download it. It had been on my to-read list for a long time, and almost every single one of my friends has given it rave reviews.
I listened. And listened. And listened. I tried so hard to get into it, but I just couldn’t. However, with every status update Goodreads pushed from the site to Facebook or Twitter, another friend commented about how much they loved this book, so I kept going, even though I really didn’t want to.
When I finally finished the book, I still wasn’t impressed, though I gave it a 4-star rating on Goodreads originally (which has sense been downgraded to 3 stars). I fully understand there were a few things going on with me that probably altered how I felt about it, so allow me to explain.
First, I was listening to the book. This seemed to be the type of book that A) requires the reader’s full attention; and B) begs to be flipped back through to get all of the details as you are reading it. I could do neither. Flipping back through pages is impossible with an audiobook, and while I am listening, my mind inevitably wanders, whether to traffic or to my day ahead (or past), and I’ll always miss something without even realizing it. Furthermore, I was not a huge fan of the reader himself. The majority of the book was narrated by a man with Lola’s parts being narrated by a woman. The man spoke impeccable English, something you would expect from a professional reader. However, the book is written in the gritty, realistic dialect of a macho, Dominican man (Junior), complete with slang and many Spanish words. When the narrator used slang, I just didn’t believe it. It was like listening to myself try to connect with my teenage students by trying to use their language; every time, they laugh at me and tell me not to even try. On top of that, I don’t speak Spanish, so I had a great deal of difficulty following along. Normally, I wouldn’t anticipate this to be a problem; I’ve read many books with words that aren’t even real (Clockwork Orange, for example), and I’ve been able to pick up the meaning using root words and context clues. I do speak a bit of French, too, so if I were reading the text, I probably would have been able to get a handle on the language pretty well. While listening, however, this was difficult.
Second, the machismo in the book – Oscar feeling pressured by pretty much everyone to be a man and sleep around, Junior not being able to keep it in his pants even though he clearly loved Lola (and everyone more or less accepting that because this is “just how Dominican men are”) really, really bothered me. I’m not an expert on Dominican culture, so I’ll have to take Diaz’s word for it and believe that this is a true representation of Dominican men. Diaz certainly didn’t glorify this characteristic – in fact, he spent a great deal of time showing how the effects of the machismo tore men down; however, true or not and glorified or not, it’s difficult to invest in a book where that is so much a central theme while it bothers you to the core. I do understand that this entire book was a commentary on machismo and its effect on Dominican men, and I appreciate that immensely, but if you are asking whether or not I enjoyed the book, the answer would be a resounding “no.”
This leads me to my rating. Originally I gave it 4 stars. This was partly because I felt like if I didn’t “like” it, my friends would look down on me because they clearly enjoyed it so much. Never before have I been updating my progress on a book and had so many comments about how much people loved it. It’s a bit daunting to stare that in the face and say, “Yea… I really didn’t.” However, the majority of my original rating came from the fact that I realize beyond the shadow of a doubt that this book is Important (with a capital “I”). It has all of the fantastic qualities of an epic journey backwards in time through a family that has been wrought with peril and tragedy in the midst of Trujillo’s dictatorship coupled with the struggle of immigration and finding one’s way while navigating two separate cultures. It also, as stated earlier, has an important commentary on machismo that, as a feminist, I wish more people would be able to dissect and internalize.
So why did I downgrade my rating upon writing this review? Well, this comes mostly from the fact that I use ratings to show whether or not I would recommend a book to others. 3 stars shows that I did not necessarily enjoy this book, even though others might, and also that I totally get why people really feel positively about the text as a whole. It is an Important text, and should be read, just maybe not for fun.
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The Gentle Catalyst: Education About Privilege
January 24th, 2014January has been a big month for me! I’m very excited to announce that my VERY FIRST print article has been officially published!
The article is titled “The Gentle Catalyst” and it appears in the winter edition of Teaching Tolerance magazine. You can see a screen shot of the beautiful layout above, but if you want the read the entire article, click here or go to Tolerance.org to download a PDF version of the magazine.
The piece profiles three amazing teachers who are tackling issues of privilege in their classrooms in very different and inspiring ways. If you are an educator, parent, or anyone who cares about privilege, this article is for you!
I hope you enjoy it, because I am VERY VERY EXCITED about it!!
Elsewhere I’ve Been: Bullying and Gun Control
January 23rd, 2014Exciting things are going on over here! I’ve been doing a lot more writing recently – just not so much on this particular site. But don’t worry; I have lots of ideas, and things at school are about to calm down significantly.
In the meantime, I’m over at Teaching Tolerance talking about relational aggression, girl bullying, and ways to reduce that bullying in your classroom.
I’m also at The Guardian talking about the 7 school shootings we’ve had in the 14 days since school started, and how Americans are becoming numb to gun violence, but how teachers don’t really have that luxury.
Enjoy!
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Ignorance Is Not Bliss; or What a Piece of Work is a Man
December 18th, 2013I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire – why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals – and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me, no, nor women neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so. (Hamlet, II.ii.318-334)
Today, one of my students told me that, since starting my class, he cannot look at the world the same way anymore. He said he cannot look at life without analyzing it and questioning it. He said he envies other people for their ignorance, because ignorance is bliss. The class laughed.
This student became an unwitting Hamlet in class today. “Man delights not me,” he was saying. Man, “noble in reason… infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable… and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” Man is great, and man is horrible, and knowing that, how can I ever be happy?
Had I been in a witty mood, I might have replied, “…’tis true; tis true ’tis pity,/And pity ’tis ’tis true” (II.ii.105-106), but I wasn’t in the mood to play at words, like Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. This was far too important to dismiss with the words of a wordy, old man.
“Oh no,” I replied instead. “Ignorance is not bliss. Those who go through life ignorant to the despair of others, to the absolute worst of human experience, of human nature, can never truly know happiness. You, well, you know happiness. You know what true happiness means. You know how hard it is to obtain it, and how hard you have to work to keep it. And, for that, you will be happier than anyone ignorant to the highs and lows of existence. Just by trying to reach the ultimate happiness, you’ll be happier than those who are not even aware of what that happiness is. This earthly life is not Dante’s descent into Hell, through Puragory, and into Paradise. This life is a constant struggle for happiness, and only those who truly know what happiness is can obtain it. That is literature. That is life.”
My class applauded this speech, and one remarked that it seemed I had been saving those words for quite some time. Maybe I have, though I’ve been unaware of it. More likely, this has been the affirmation of my existence that has been playing itself in my mind since I decided to devote my life to the teaching of literature. These students just happened to be in the right place at the right time to hear it – or the wrong place at the wrong time, depending on your perspective.
“To be or not to be?” (III.i.64); to exist or not to exist? This line is often taken as Hamlet’s noting of his own existential crisis. But I disagree. In that soliloquy, Hamlet decides to exist, and discovers why most people decide the same. He says we fear the afterlife, and he says we respect those who choose life but not those who choose death and, therefore, most people decide to stay on this Earth. This is not Hamlet’s existential crisis; it is once we make that decision to exist, despite the depths to which human nature can take us, that the true existential crisis begins. We ask ourselves, like Hamlet does, what is our purpose on this Earth? Knowing what we know, how can we ever truly be happy?
For this, we turn to literature. Where else can one live outside of his or her life for a little while, living as someone else, experiencing someone else’s happiness and despair? Where else can one discover what true happiness and true despair are?
Image Credit: Sebastian Dooris
I’d Rather Be Reading
December 11th, 2013“Miss. You really need to lay off on all of these essays. Writing is hard!”
Yes, a student actually said this to me the other day, and before we respond to the whining of this generation and how, when we were kids, we had to write essays uphill in the snow both ways, let’s take a second to admit that he was right.
Writing is hard.
Writing is so hard, in fact, that I haven’t done much of it this semester. I leave the house at 6:30 every morning (including Saturdays for speech tournaments – in fact, on Saturdays, I leave at 6:00) so I can get to school early to grade some papers. Every day after school I have something going on – speech practice, curriculum planning meetings, Fearless Females, yoga or Zumba, or various appointments I need to make on my only day off during the week. When I do have a few free moments, I either add another yoga class to try to re-center myself, or I read a book. Even with this busy schedule, I’ve read 5 books since September. That may not sound like a lot to you, but check out the list of all the things I’ve been doing. Keep in mind, also, that I teach three books at a time between my three different classes, so I’m skimming those along with the kids, too. What I haven’t been doing is writing.
When I agreed to be the assistant coach of the speech team this year, I knew exactly how busy I’d be. I made myself a strict schedule for which nights I could cook dinner and which I’d need to use the slow cooker or order in. I scheduled my workouts accordingly, too, vowing not to let myself fall asleep on the couch every night like I did last year. As you can see, between food and working out, health has been a top priority for me this year, and it has paid off. I have more energy, I’m happier, I’m less anxious, and my skin has cleared. I’ve also made sure to schedule time for mental health breaks. I’ve gotten really good at telling myself I’ve worked enough, and I put away the papers I’m grading or the assignment I’m working on and read or watch television or go to bed. Another top priority this year has been to make some new female friendships. I’m in two book clubs and a Meetup group just for that purpose alone (plus, to read some really good books!). My female friendships rejuvenate me in ways my relationship with Tim can’t, and I find it important to cultivate those relationships as well as to form new ones.
Even with all of this going on, I have a lot of time on my hands. It’s a necessity for me to keep a tight schedule, so I actually plan my entire day down to the minute. Sure, things happen and nothing goes as planned, but I know exactly when I will have time to grade, read, work out, and spend time with people. I easily could have scheduled some time for writing in there, but I didn’t.
Of course, I have been writing for Care2 every week – sometimes more. You just saw, too, that I’ve written something for Role/Reboot very recently. So, it’s not that I haven’t been writing. It’s that I haven’t been writing here. I haven’t made the time to make the kind of personal inquisitions into my life, relationship, and job that I have been so fond of doing in the past. I’ve had the time; I just haven’t made myself do it.
Now, I’m not trying to get all Maria Kang here by saying that, if you don’t find the time to write, you’re just making excuses. I’m talking purely personally; I have the time, but I haven’t been doing it. No excuses, just no writing. Yes, I’m busy, and yes I have a lot on my plate, but I could find the time to write. I just don’t want to.
You see, I haven’t really missed writing until now. I feel about writing this year the way I felt about working out last year. I just didn’t want to do it. So I didn’t. It wasn’t until much later that I noticed the deleterious effects of my workout slump. I’m sure the effects of my writing slump are about to rear their ugly heads, too.
But I just haven’t wanted to write. Writing is hard. Writing is like a workout for my brain. It’s loud and angry. It’s painfully slow and takes a great deal of effort. It’s putting myself out there in a way I haven’t practiced in a while. You don’t see the results right away, which can be frustrating at times. And, once you stop doing it and realize your world isn’t going to fall apart because you missed a session, you start missing more and more until getting back in the game is the hardest part of all.
I’d rather be reading. Reading is quiet and solitary. It gives me a sense of accomplishment with each page, chapter, or book I finish. My eyes gloss over pages, easily understanding everything I’ve read. It’s not only a turning into myself, but an escape; instead of worrying about my life, I can worry about this character’s for a while. When you spend your life being an extrovert – teaching, coaching, meeting new people – being an introvert for an hour a day feels like a really good idea.
I cannot, however, ignore my calling for too long. Writing keeps me grounded. It allows me to process the ideas I’m presented with and reflect on events that aren’t so clear-cut. It’s an important part of me, and I can’t stay away for too long. The hardest part has just been getting back in the game after being out for so long.
This is my attempt to do so. It’s shaky, but I’m here.
Featured Image Credit: Sami Keinänen
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Role/Reboot: Teens Today No Longer Ask Each Other Out In Person… So What?
December 10th, 2013I’m over at Role/Reboot this week talking about kids, social media, and dating practices. Basically, I think it’s nothing to worry about; kids are just finding new ways to rewrite an old story:
Teenagers have always found ways to distance themselves from the object of their affection. The tale is as old as time: Even Romeo hid under Juliet’s balcony to talk about her profound beauty and didn’t come out until she caught him there. And Cyrano de Bergerac pretends to write as the handsome Christian in order to gauge Roxane’s love for him. The game hasn’t changed in dramatic ways. Teens have just found new tools to rewrite an old story.
Technology is changing the world for today’s teenagers in many ways. Cyberbullying is on the rise, directly causing a suicide epidemic among today’s youth. Obesity rates are climbing, as well, as kids would rather sit on their computers than go outside and play. However, when it comes to dating, figuring out how to distance yourself from love so you can learn how to gracefully get your heart broken and get back out there has always been part of the game.
Read the rest of the post here!
In other news, I promise I will be back here soon. I have so many great ideas for posts that are tumbling around in my head; I just have to find the time to actually write them!
Image Credit: Role/Reboot
October = Disillusionment
November 11th, 2013Ever year, like clockwork, the end of September hits. Its cool breezes and shorter days are welcomed after a hot, long summer like a literal breath of fresh air. Feeling exhausted after a long day spent teaching, disciplining, grading, mothering, coaching feels exhilarating compared to the summer days that end with a simple question: What the hell did I even do today? It’s almost fun to transition from boredom to survival mode in the span of one short month.
This, in a nutshell, is why I love fall. A new school year, a new crop of students (and, if you’re lucky, a few of the old ones stop by, too), a new personae, new lessons, new books, a renewed sense of purpose. Things aren’t dying in the fall; they are becoming new again with each crisp breeze, with each fire-red leaf. It’s why I became a teacher, why I got married in the fall, why I pack every fall weekend full of something amazing and wonderful.
And then, the end of October follows the end of September. The air gets colder, the days get shorter, the teacher gets more and more exhausted. What used to feel like a sense of purpose now feels like an unsustainable amount of work, and there are never enough hours in the day. This is what we, in the world of education, call “Disillusionment.”
When I was first shown the first year teacher’s roller coaster pictured above (albeit unfortunately sans freaked-out roller coaster rider), I was a first year teacher in mid-October. I believe I was crying in the English department office with my mentor consoling me, but also knowingly smirking because she’d been there. They’d all been there. It’d eventually get better.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I realized that this roller coaster – taking teachers from anticipation, through survival, down to disillusionment, then up through rejuvenation, reflection, and back to anticipation – applied to all of the years of teaching. Or, at least to the first eight so far as I can tell. But we keep coming back; the power of anticipation is strong, and the pain of disillusionment eventually wears off. At some point in November, you crawl out of the hole you dug for yourself, dust yourself off, and remember what it is like to have a life, to really teach, and to enjoy whatever it is you’re doing.
This year, I’ve been stuck firmly in disillusionment. Right on schedule. And all of this is a way of explaining to you why I haven’t been keeping up here. In fact, I almost never write much in October. A few years ago, I even quit blogging in October. This is just the life of a teacher. Cyclical and eerily predictable, though almost comfortingly so.
As I looked outside today and it was snowing, I realized it has been almost two months since I’ve posted here, which is unacceptable in a way, but necessary in many others. I’ve missed it terribly. I’ve had so many things to say, but never enough time to say them. This is me trying to start carving out some time again. It’ll be a while before I really start to rejuvenate, provided I stay on schedule, but I hope to be back at it regularly before too long.
Featured Image Credit: Pinterest
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Creating Safe Spaces in the Classroom
September 20th, 2013Creating a safe space in your classroom is vital for class discussions. If students don’t feel as if they are accepted in the classroom, they probably won’t want to share their views and opinions with the class, either. After all, why would they want to share a moving and personal insight if they were risking ridicule from other students in the class or, worse, from the teacher herself? Without a safe space in the classroom, students miss out on valuable learning experiences; they miss the opportunity to share important insights and the others miss the opportunity to learn from their classmates.
Similarly, creating this same safe space in your classroom can have hugely positive effects on classroom management. When students act out, it is often because they feel threatened, not because they are bad kids. I’ve often seen students verbally lash out at teachers because they felt the teacher was attacking them or wasn’t listening to what they had to say. Of course, once a student does lash out, it is important to follow your school’s discipline procedures if you feel that is necessary. However, in a perfect world, we could all create safe spaces within our classrooms that prevent this from happening in the first place. Furthermore, creating a safe space in your classroom will make students more likely to report instances of bullying or threatening behavior to you because they will feel that you are a trusted adult. This can improve the overall culture of the school and your class by making it safe for everyone.
To begin creating a safe space in my classroom, the first thing I do every year is hang up posters around the room that espouse my beliefs of tolerance and equality. Some of the posters have to do with women’s rights, others have to do with racial equality. My favorite poster is one that has alternative words for “gay” when students say, “That’s so gay” to mean something is ridiculous or undesirable. I don’t often draw attention to these posters because I don’t have to. Within the first few days of class each year, students will ask me about these posters and what they mean. I’ll always take a minute or two to explain their importance and how they line up with my beliefs. More often than not, students appreciate this and begin to see me as someone they can talk to about matters of equality. I find that it also reduces bullying in my classroom because students know that I will not tolerate it.
Along with hanging these posters and talking about them, though, comes the really hard part: You have to be willing to discuss these sensitive topics with students. As the nation saw with the Tennessee legislation’s failed “don’t say gay” bill that was trying to make it illegal for anyone to say the word “gay” in schools, not talking about an issue doesn’t make it better; it makes it worse. It can be difficult to discuss these issues with students, especially if you fear pushback from your community. If that is the case, tread lightly but try to find some other way to set yourself up as an ally in your classroom. It will go a long way toward letting students know that they can trust you, which will improve your classroom management.
Talking to students can happen as a class, but it can also happen individually, as well. My school has a policy that teachers end class a few minutes before the bell rings. That gives the teacher a few minutes to talk to students who came in late or who missed the previous day. It also gives the teacher time to talk to students individually. My former mentor suggested to me that I take one student each day to speak with during this time. It doesn’t have to be an in-depth or long conversation, just enough to start to get to know the students and show you care. I tried it and it made a huge difference. My classroom management improved immensely because students no longer saw me as a threat, but as someone who was truly invested in their education.
Creating a safe space and fostering an atmosphere of mutual respect can go a long way toward improving classroom management, and it doesn’t take much work. Simply talking to students and sharing your views can establish trust and help students feel safe in your classroom. For many students, your classroom might be the only place they feel safe all day, so I believe this is definitely worth a try.
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Elsewhere I’ve Been: Questioning My Classroom Management
September 18th, 2013I’m over at Teaching Tolerance today talking about my own classroom management practices:
When Teaching Tolerance hit my desk in the spring of last year, then, I was looking for something—anything—to help me get back on track. The information on the school-to-prison pipeline was exactly the catalyst I needed to begin to step back and question my classroom management policies: Was I doing everything I could to keep students in my classroom? Was I dealing with discipline in my room rather than involving authorities and putting kids in the system? Was I fostering an atmosphere of mutual respect and recognition for my students? Was I offering positive reinforcement rather than negative feedback?
I had to be honest with myself: The answer to all of these questions most of the time was no.
This was a rude awakening for me. I’ve always prided myself on being a good teacher. I love teaching and I want my students to succeed. I’m genuinely interested in my students’ lives, and I want my classroom to be a positive place for my students rather than a negative one. Most importantly, I want to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem when it comes to issues of school push-out. Once I began reading about the school-to-prison pipeline, I realized I was becoming more a part of the problem.
Read the whole article here!
Featured Image Credit: knittymarie
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