School Starts

Tomorrow marks the beginning of this 2014-2015 school year.  I think that I am ready to go...

I have new school clothes and new school shoes.  The room is all clean and neat and organized (the ONLY time this year that it will be any of those things).  I have lesson plans and science labs all set and ready to go.

All that remains is to add kids.  They bring the whole business to life, create the questions, find the solutions, seek out the new ideas and share what they find.  In some ways, the work I do is about setting all of that in motion, and then trying to stay out of their way.  What I give them is the space and time to work and figure out what is out there waiting for them to find it.  I provide the assurance that they CAN do that, I encourage their efforts and cheer their attempts.  I help them mop up after failures, and I sit with them as they plan new ways of tackling problems that challenge them.  It is a mad, messy, chaotic, up and down endeavor, and I love it all.

I am in the remaining hours before we all come together to start a new year.  It is, for me, always a time of nervous, anxious, worried "what if-ing."  As long as I have done this work, I never seem to approach a new year without worrying about the beginning.  So, now I just need the kids to arrive.  I need us to start.  I need us to meet and smile and shake hands and turn together to walk into the new year together.

I just hate the waiting!

Employment Dilemmas

I've worked for a paycheck all my adult life.  Excepting for the months immediately following the births of my two children, I have always been in the employ of some organization or institution.  I've worked hard... for every single employer; done the best work I knew how to do in every position I have ever held.

I haven't always agreed with every policy or every political stance of every employer I ever worked for.  Some were anti-female, and chauvinistic in attitude and practice.  Some pushed political agendas with which I, personally, disagreed.  On more than one occasion, I pondered the ethics of accepting my paychecks from the coffers of those whose views were so diametrically opposed to my own.  The mental gymnastics required in those circumstances are, I imagine, of very little interest.

As a teacher, in a variety of schools over the last quarter of a century, I have lived from spring to spring -- the annual ritual of signing the contract that, each year, defines the work I will do in the next school year.  This year will be no different.  In May, there will be a day when I will be called upon to sign the contract for next year.  Most years, that day is a day of relief and some pleasure.

This year, however, the agreement that I am expected to sign, is more problematic ... and far more challenging personally.  Contrary to the assumptions that will be made on the part of some of my strongest critics, the concerns that I have with the document are really not about me.  I am way beyond the point where the "pelvic issues" that are featured most prominent in the document are really pertinent in my life.  Those who are far younger than I am; who are in the midst of their childbearing years, are confronted with prohibitions on the use of contraceptives, IVF, artificial insemination, surrogate mothers, and abortion.  For those who are not married, a pregnancy will spell the end of their careers.

Beyond all of that, there are severe and draconian limitations placed on what any of us can say or do that might give the appearance of sympathy or support for anything that is "counter to."  Perhaps the biggest single difficult area for me has to do with LGBTQ people.  I work for an institution that says one thing and does an other when it comes to people who are not heterosexual in their orientation.  The document that I am required to sign this spring will put me at risk if I stand up for a gay child who is bullied on the playground.  I will, likewise be fired if I am seen to attend the wedding of a gay friend.  I cannot publicly ally with any organization that holds views that are in conflict with the proclamations of the most dogmatically strict arm of the institution.

It is not an easy place to be.  I love the work.  I love the school.  It is not, for me, just a job -- or just any school.  I do not want to be anywhere else, and I do not want to do any other work.  I believe in the place, and I believe in the kids and families with whom I work.  I do not share the religious perspective that has set all of this misery and anxiety and fear in place, but I have, for nearly a quarter of a century, been a respectful partner in the mutual endeavor of providing an excellent and ethically based education in this place.  I have dear and treasured colleagues who will not return next year because they cannot bear to sign the document that is required.  There are families who are long-standing, integral members of the community, who will not be placing their children with us going forward; who will choose to find a place that is more fair and open-minded.

For the rest of us, we will sign the objectionable bit of paper, and keep our own counsel as to why.  For some, I am sure it is about money.  The need for a job is not a small thing.  None of us are independently wealthy.  Many of us believe in the mission and vision of the place.  Ours is not like any other school I've ever seen.  It is an unprepossessing place that creates remarkable transformation in the lives of students.  We work together, and we make amazing things happen in big and small ways.  Heady stuff.

It is a sad march through this slow, softly-blooming spring.  My heart is heavy, and my head is in a whirl from the unspoken questions that fly everywhere.  There is great pain and great fear in everyone I meet and see these days.

Six weeks, and it will be summertime.  Perhaps there will be a quiet space where the fear can subside.  The summer sun and heat will bake us all and we will rest.  Those who can will go back to school in late August, and begin again to lay foundations and build structures that will, we hope raise up good, decent citizens for the world.  Whatever the paper I sign next month declares, that is the work that I do.

Censorship

Censorship is a bad thing.  The right to speak freely; to think freely; to write freely; and to read/watch/listen as we choose is an essential part of living lives as we would choose.

For me, being against censorship is like being pregnant:  there is no such thing as "a little bit pregnant," and there is no such thing as being a little bit against censorship.  It really does end up being an all or nothing sort of stance.  If I say that I am not in favor of censorship, then I have to be "not in favor of censorship" for anyone; for any cause; for any set of  beliefs or opinions that any person might espouse.  And, honestly, that can put me in some pretty uncomfortable spots.  Sometimes.  Last week, I ran up against one of those spots.

I was preparing for my school day; running around making copies and checking in with my colleagues, making sure that I was on top of things before the first bell rang.  Cruising through one classroom where students were gathering for the morning, I overheard one of the girls from the 8th grade class talking to a group of friends.  They are an interesting bunch, full of life and fun, sweet and funny, ornery (some of them), and shy (others).  They are good to one another.  They work hard.  It is clear that they have parents who love them, care for them, and work hard to guide them along the path to adulthood.  They are all 14 years old, and just a few days from leaving us to head on to high school, and the life beyond that I desperately hope will be good and full and exciting and wonderful in all the ways they dream...  But, I digress.  Walking by, I overheard one of them say to her friends, "I just finished reading Fifty Shades of Gray."  I was, I admit it, a little shocked, but kept on walking (the trick of an experienced teacher -- don't hear what you do not want/need to deal with).  I heard, behind me, a chorus of "ewwwwws," from the others, and I imagine there was quite the discussion in my wake.

My immediate and visceral response was that 14-year-olds ought not be reading the notorious BDSM potboiler that so captivated adults during the last year.  My grandmotherly self came roaring to the front to insist that it just isn't right, and really, what could their parents be thinking.  Of course, to be fair, I have, over the years, been uncertain that popular series like the Twilight saga, and The Hunger Games, were necessarily good for kids either, although they were fanatic and voracious about them in their seasons.  I listed for myself, all sort of reasons why Fifty Shades of Gray ought to be on the banned books list for our young people below a certain age:  too explicit, too intense, too confusing, too pointed in its perspective, too...  Young people ought to be, no -- DESERVE to be, protected from the darker, seemier, more adult things of this world until they are grown and "ready" to handle all of that

Yeah.  That's the gist of the internal monologue I ran through, before I started asking the grandmother inside some tough questions:

• How young is too young for "such things," and who decides?
• What sorts of things ought children and adolescents be "protected from," and who decides?
• Who is going to do that protecting?
• Do I trust the ones who would set themselves up as "the protectors?"  Do you?
• At what age, exactly, would we consider that someone is "ready?"
• What, really, is the harm in knowing and understanding that there is something called "sex," and that people engage in all manner of sexual practices, and that there is nothing inherently bad about any of those practices when everyone is able to make judgments for themselves and consent to whatever activities they choose?
• What about violence?  
• What about "anything?"
• Is literature that deals with difficult or challenging themes, necessarily a bad thing for young teens?

Eventually, I settled in and owned up to the FACT that censorship is a bad thing for everybody, and that everybody deserves the right to choose what they will read, see, listen to, believe, write, sing, say, ... regardless of their age or any other factor we might point to as some kind of artificial barrier.  No censorship ought to mean just that -- NO Censorship.  As for my sweet 14-year-old students, they have all got parents who love them and care for them.  I am content to leave the decision making about what those young people should and should no be reading in the capable hands of their parents.  I don't envy them the job they have to do, but I trust them to make reasonable decisions for their own kids.  It isn't a decision that belongs to me, or to anyone else outside those households.  For us, these young people have the same right to freedom of speech as any one of us.

NO Censorship.  For anyone.  By anyone.

swan

Another Year Ends

School years, inevitably, end -- and once again, I am at the end of another passage of time spent teaching and learning with another group of young 11 and 12 year old people.  The lockers are empty, as are the desks.  All the battered and dilapidated notebooks have been tossed into the recycle bins.  The glue and the crayons and the markers and the rulers have been sorted out and assigned to their various tubs.  We've shared treats and memories; tears and hugs.

Ultimately, the last frenetic days come to an end in a flurry of cleaning and last assignments and our own unique version of  "field day."  We sing the school song one last time, and they are off with an over the shoulder wave and hardly a backward glance.  They carry with them bits of me -- my words but also my heart and my sweat and my tears and my midnight worrying -- woven into the very fiber of their beings.  They will go on from my little classroom kingdom to learn and grow and become the people they are destined to be.  What has been given and provided this year will grow in them as it will, and I will know very little of the outcomes of the work I've done.

They are off to the future, my little band of adventurers.  I wish them strength and joy and courage for their journeys.  For now, I am content to rest; put my feet up; unpack my boxes and begin the work of re-ordering all the "stuff" of teaching.  It is summer and I am beyond tired, but I am also well content with the year that was.

swan

Like a Kid at Christmas

One of the things that I teach is math.  I am a confirmed math geek, and I love opening up the language of mathematics to my kids.  Too often, by the time students get to me, they have come to be convinced that they cannot "do" math, don't like math, and are just no good at things having to do with numbers.  It is one of my deepest delights to take those "math phobic" students and show them ways to decode and unravel the mysteries of math, and learn to deal with it with confidence and, sometimes, even a sense of enjoyment.

Tomorrow I will join with my 52 sixth graders and a brave group of parent volunteers to take part in a day that we will forever more refer to as "Measure Mania."  I have a set of hands on explorations planned that are designed to allow my kids to explore a variety of topics related to the mathematical discipline of measurment.  Tomorrow, my students will analyze a "crime scene," make and fly frisbee-style flying saucers, measure the change in the mass of chewing gum as it is chewed, build scale models of traditional Chinese courtyard houses, make sand clocks and water clocks, and design boxes to hold choclate candies for the "Ooey-Gooey" Candy Company.  They will measure distance and time and mass and volume and surface area and circumference.  They will determine appropriate scales to make models and floor plans.  They will use what the numbers will tell them to come up with a theory about "who done it," just like a forensic scientist. 

I've worked for weeks to plan it and put it together and make all the arrangements.  I have everything poised to go first thing in the morning.  I am sooooo... excited.  I cannot wait.  I am just like a kid looking forward to Christmas.  I can't wait to share this day with my kids.  I am so anxious for them to enjoy and learn and feel interested and excited and intrigued by the things they will do tomorrow. 

I know.  It is a "teacher" thing.  It isn't anything that probably excites and interests most people, but I am just like this.  This is the other passion of my life -- and I cannot wait for it to happen.

swan

Our Children and War

I wrote this well over a year ago, on the occasion of the high school commencement exercises for Master's youngest child -- His son. I'm not sure why I didn't actually post it then, but I found it in my drafts, and was moved by the words I'd clearly felt so strongly about on that day. As this political season winds up, now even more than then, these are words my heart needs to speak --

Yesterday we attended the commencement ceremony for Master's youngest. Three-hundred-sixty-plus young people, launched from one of the largest local high schools, headed off into their futures: caps and gowns and dreadful speeches and pomp and circumstance and all the rest of it. Our young Mr. J is a wonder and a joy, and he looked fine. We had Master, grandpa, and T (in a rented wheelchair for the sake of mobility on that still tender knee), and "our ex wife," and the elder child and her boyfriend, and young Mr. J's maternal grandmother -- all in attendance. Afterwards we headed off to dinner together and enjoyed the occasion in good spirits.

I notice I am increasingly cynical about things as treacly as "graduation" ceremonies, but that is, I'm sure the fact that I'm of a certain age.

However, there was one point at which I was beyond "cynical." I was completely incensed...

The principal gave the expected "principal" speech during which she ran through all the great achievements of this group of young people -- an impressive list. Then she took a few moments at the very end of her speech to list the future plans for this class: so many headed off to universities, some headed to study at the community college level, some headed to trade schools, others to employment in the community, and eight joining the military while one had received and appointment to a military academy. She then had those eight students stand up to be recognized.

I wanted to shriek.

I understand that our government holds our public schools hostage -- that there is the threat of withheld federal education dollars unless military recruiters are given access to our young people in their schools. Still, I find it unconscionable. And there they were. Eight young, impressionable people, who had been nurtured and cherished and protected through all their years of schooling -- given up, in the end, to be fodder in a mindless, fruitless, endless war.

I suppose those eight are a small percentage -- about 2% of the whole group. And, with luck, they'll all survive these next few months and years whole and strong and well. Still, I think that our schools should never, ever surrender even one of them to the war machine. We take them from their parents' hands when they are so young and vulnerable. We open the doors to wonder and understanding and curiosity. We cannot protect them from everything. This we have learned, painfully over the years. But let them leave our halls unmolested. If they are to choose the meat-grinder of this wicked war, then let them choose it AFTER they have finished with us.

swan