On my absence from blogging and my love for 6th graders...

Friday I hosted the Middle School Writing Conference at MU.  I was surrounded by words and passionate drafting all day.  The next day a friend, and parent of a participant, messaged me wondering what writing she has been missing from me lately.  The sad truth was absolutely nothing.  I haven't been writing at all. It made me think of one of my favorite lines from the Prophet, "We speak when our minds cease to be at ease."  Maybe the same is partially true of writing.  This year I have had a contentedness in teaching and therefore parenting and marriage that has been absent for some time.  No one wants to read about how great someone's life is (and the parts that aren't great are the mundane we all experience).  All good stories require a good conflict.  Anything I wrote about teaching would just feel like bragging.  I have felt compelled to draft but the well has been dry content wise. After my friend's message, I told myself I would not go to bed Sunday until I had written something.  It seemed only fitting to force myself to engage in the writing activity I asked the writing conference kids to complete on Friday.  Likewise, it only seemed fitting to make them the subject.  This lesson is inspired by Ellen Wilson who was inspired by Ian Frazier's Crazy Horse which can be found below my original writing:

6^th Graders

Personally, I love 6^th graders, because they want more than anything to be seen and be loved; because even after being told countless times that life isn’t fair, they still have the audacity to believe that it should be; because it makes them happy to bring you chocolate covered strawberries, cookies made by their grandmas, and sea turtle pens from the Grand Cayman Islands; because they still lose their baby teeth, because when they lose these teeth in class or at camp they sometimes collect them in little treasure boxes and bring them home to show mom or dad; because it’s really hard to be mad at someone who is young enough to loose baby teeth; because even though they want to giggle and gossip about boyfriends and girlfriends they also sometimes bring bath toys to school and ask to play miniature basketball in your class before school in the morning, because when you accidentally refer to their future as ‘real life’ they look at you with the perfect blend of sarcasm and wisdom and say, “Oh – and I thought this was real life.”; because when you lose your patience with one of the tougher boys in one of your tougher classes they are willing to raise their hand and say, “You are always telling us to be kind, but what you just said wasn’t really kind”;  because they love their parents and families fiercely and want you to know everything you can about them; because they sometimes come to you frustrated with their parents and want you to coach them through how to have a hard grown up conversation when they get home; because ultimately they are often too scared to have those hard grown up conversations, but they can recognize why things would be better if they could; because if they can tell you genuinely know them and care about them, they will do just about anything for you; because if you find a book that speaks to their soul they will start to trust you with their heart;  because they can clean your room faster than the entire crew of Hoarders for the promise of a Jolly Rancher; because even the boys still cry at school sometimes; because when you say some of your mantras in passing like, “if you own who you are others will accept you too” or “we have to love people because they are flawed not in spite of their flaws” you notice some of them scribbling these words of wisdom in the margins of notebooks; because they make you feel important; because they still find life beautiful and exciting and shocking and scary and full of promise; because they have only walked this Earth for eleven or twelve years; because they survive daily among all of us who forget what it is like to have only walked this Earth for eleven or twelve years.  Sixth graders are delightful, exhausting, expectant, and impressionable preteens in the throes of the one of most accelerated developmental stages of their life.  If you pause you can make a mark, and in turn, be forever changed by them. 

Inspired by Crazy Horse by Ian Frazier

Personally, I love Crazy Horse because even the most basic outline of his life shows how great he was; because he remained himself from the moment of his birth to the moment he died; because he knew exactly where he wanted to live, and never left; because he may have surrendered, but he was never defeated in battle; because, although he was killed, even the Army admitted he was never captured; because he was so free that he didn't know what a jail looked like; because at the most desperate moment of his life he only cut Little Big Man on the hand; because, unlike many people all over the world, when he met white men he was not diminished by the encounter; because his dislike of the oncoming civilization was prophetic; because the idea of becoming a farmer apparently never crossed his mind; because he didn't end up in the Dry Tortugas; because he never met the President; because he never rode on a train, slept in a boardinghouse, ate at a table; because he never wore a medal or a top hat or any other thing that white men gave him; because he made sure that his wife was safe before going to where he expected to die; because although Indian agents, among themselves, sometimes referred to Red Cloud as "red" and Spotted Tail as "spot," they never used a diminutive for him; because, deprived of freedom, power, occupation, culture, trapped in a situation where bravery was invisible, he was still brave; because he fought in self-defense, and took no one with him when he died; because, like the rings of Saturn, the carbon atom, and the underwater reef, he belonged to a category of phenomena which our technology had not then advanced far enough to photograph; because no photograph or painting or even sketch of him exists; because he is not the Indian on the nickel, the tobacco pouch, or the apple crate. Crazy Horse was a slim man of medium height with brown hair hanging below his waist and a scar above his lip. Now, in the mind of each person who imagines him, he looks different.

From In Short: A Collection of Brief Creative Nonfiction edited by Mary Paumier and Judith Kitchen Jones

 

On the ultimate high of success - reflecting as one year gives way to another...

          Recently while scrolling through Facebook I saw a family being celebrated for dropping all mainstream American notions about living well to travel the world in a van turned home.  Praise was abundant for this family.  How brave!  How bold!  How non-conformist!  The implication on some level was that the rest of us got it wrong and that we should be reflective and maybe even regretful at our own complacency.  But as I read the article, though proud of any family who can truly live out their values, all I could think about was all the people who had to be okay with a more mundane life in order for their dream to be achieved -  In the most obvious sense, the guy (or gal) who fills the gas tanks that run underground so they could pump the fuel needed for their sense of adventure… in less obvious ways the people who built the roads they drove on or sold the food they consumed on their nomadic trek.  We can’t all toss caution to the wind.  Our lives are too carefully intertwined for this to happen.

            This story seems a fitting way to start off a blog I have been contemplating since early October after watching Scholastic’s Ambassador of Librarians, John Schumacher, speak to local teachers at the annual TAWL conference.  As I sat listening to this dynamic man wax poetic about the joy of books and his job, I was filled with this overwhelming sense of comfort and satisfaction realizing for the first time in years that I had no desire to do what he does.  While becoming a professional PD expert had been my passion for quite some time, this year filled me with such pride and fulfillment that I had no desire to do anything other than what I am doing – teaching 6^th graders to read, write, and speak better than they did before our time together.  I was no longer looking for any escape from teaching.  I was no longer counting down the days to the weekend. 

            So what makes this year different?  Quite simply it is that I have experienced ongoing tangible success for the first time in a long time.  While my job as an intervention teacher surrounded me with signs of failure – kids who felt trapped in a program that wasn’t working for them, stagnant test scores, and faces I loved seeing but whose presence alone told them and me that we hadn’t accomplished our goals - this year has been marked with signs of success in the form of kids leaping from book to book, emails from parents thanking me for helping their child fall in love with reading, and beaming faces as students saw charts of their reading growth after years of being told too often of their deficits.  The reasons for this year’s successes probably deserve their own post and might only be interesting to teachers, but let it suffice to say that I didn’t realize how much I didn’t like my job until I started loving it.  I didn’t know work could feel so good. I didn't know how beaten down I had felt by failure.  

            As I sat there listening to the librarian ambassador it occurred to me how very important success is to happiness.  When I am unhappy at work it is because I feel like I am failing at my job.  When I am overwhelmed with parenting, it is because I feel like I am not what my children need.  When I feel worst as a spouse, it is when I have disappointed my husband and not when he has disappointed me.  Success makes me happy.  Success makes me feel good.  Success gives me the energy it takes to get up and keep going. 

            I had two very important aha’s that morning.  The first was about how crucial it is that we create opportunities for those we care about to feel and note success.  There has been a lot said about the power of failure.  I would argue that this is only true if is sandwiched in lots of opportunities for success.  I realized that my biggest fear for my children (both my own and of the student kind) is not that they won’t get to grow up to do something that they love.  It is that they won’t get to grow up and do something that they are good at.  Failure is demeaning.  Pride in work makes you hold your head high with your shoulders back as you stride in confidence.  You could replace work with any number of endeavors we take on.  There is simply no high like the buzz of success.  

            My other aha came in the realization that the most revered jobs are not possible without the hard work done in less appreciated or esteemed jobs.  Mr. Schu told us that warm, safe and loved starts in the office.  I couldn’t help but think of how incredibly true that is of the women whose smiling faces fill our school office.  These successful women run our school.  It’s unfortunate that we see jobs in a hierarchy tied to pay when a spider web of interconnectedness and equal importance would be a better metaphor.  No one can be successful alone.  Whereas I used to crave a position as a teacher educator, I realized that without teachers in classrooms teaching rooms full of kids, the need for a PD expert falls completely flat.  Every job matters.  Success at any point in system leads to greater success in the whole system. 

So, my wish for you this New Year is not that you live your adventure as much as it is that you find or recognize your very important place in this web.  That you spin and hold your line well.   That you feel successful more often than you don't in your relationships, commitments, and industry.  And that you go home at night and crawl into bed with a smile on your face and the sense of pride that can only come with feeling that you matter and that you are good enough no matter how big or small your adventure is.  

On Parenting Oldest Children - an apology and devotion to my daughter on the morning of her 10th birthday

There is a running joke among veteran teachers about finding the students you taught your first year and apologizing to all of them.  We all did our best, but we really had no idea what we were doing.   Eventually we grew.  Things like classroom management became second nature.  We had more strategies to meet the struggling learners.  This joke helped me realize it’s normal to wish I had a second chance with that first memorable group.  At the very least, I hope they are no worse of the wear. 

I have been thinking of that running joke more and more in the days leading up to my oldest daughter’s tenth birthday.  I realized that she is perpetually that first class.  She will never reap the benefits of my confidence in parenting.  Each new stage that we stumble through together I am experiencing for the first time.  Even though I get better at parenting, I never will feel like I know what I am doing with her.

When she was an infant, and my mom drove off and left us after 8 days of live in help, I was convinced my child’s ability to breathe was intricately connected to my mother’s proximity.  I sat there nearing a panic attack watching her little chest go up and down and fearing her fragileness alongside my inadequacy.  I didn’t think I had the skills to keep this delicate thing alive – this person whose wellbeing had become the only thing that could possibly matter in this world. 

            As she grew I read her books every day and homemade all her baby food and worked like mad to make sure the first time she tasted processed sugar was via her birthday cake the day she turned one.  When her Parents as Teachers facilitator came to our house to make sure she was developing appropriately she asked me how well she did with feeding herself cookies, I felt like a failure.  I had never given her a cookie so now she lacked cookie-eating skills!  What kind of repercussions might this hold for her future?

            When she was a toddler I carefully planned her transition into her new room and big girl bed two months before her sister was born petrified that she might view this family transition as an assault on her relationship with us.  When it was time to start dance classes I called and toured every dance school in town to make the best choice.  When we had to make the decision about which school to send her to I sobbed and stressed overwhelmed by the power each decision I made had in shaping her life. 

            I could tell stories like this for each stage of parenting she has ushered us into.  As school age parents, I worried about the balance between advocate and helicopter parent so I failed to speak up for her and her learning needs.  As we entered the angsty stage I didn’t realize that leave me alone means I need you more than ever so I took the wrong step of giving her space and hurting her feelings.  I have zero ability to help her navigate the friendship drama of upper elementary school. 

            Simply put, all the things I get better at through experience are benefits only her sisters will reap.  I will never really know what I am doing with my oldest.  While I can take a relaxed, almost flippant, “they’ll be fine” approach to her sisters, rooted in the belief that kids are resilient, with my oldest I have never quite shaken the fear that plagued me as my mom drove off almost ten years ago – that fear that I am messing up.  When I snap at her, I feel like it is often really out of frustration with myself and my incompetence.  Our oldest children are our first chance to show the world we know what we are doing.  We want them to be perfect so we can hide our insecurity from the world, and then maybe from ourselves.    

            Because I can’t change any of this, and because it is surely to only get worst as my oldest becomes our first high school student, our first driver, our first to apply to college...  I am trying to take comfort in the same thing I tell new teachers to take comfort in.  You will never be less prepared than you are for your very first class, but you will never care more.   No class will ever reap the passion and excitement you have for teaching like the one that made you a teacher. 

            Ten years into this parenting gig I am trying to fixate as much on the right steps as the missteps.  Yes I would stare at Avery as an infant petrified she would stop breathing; but also, I stared at her as an infant.  By baby number two there was a toddler to potty train and two sets of children’s clothes to wash.  We would sit in our clean house (though we didn’t appreciate it as clean at the time) and just stare at this perfect little human.  During our first summer together I would dress her in her little swimsuit and take her to the pool with no other distractions and just splash and play feeling a contentment I never knew was possible.  When she first learned to sing a song off the radio I forced my brother to let my precious four year old on stage at his high school as part of his student talent show.  I knew how special she was, and I committed my life to making sure others see just how special she is as well.  I love all my children, but there is a special adoration for someone whom you get to enter each fascinating, challenging and enamoring stage with.  Your first child brings a new love, first crush giddiness to parenting that makes it all bearable. Though I surely owe her many apologies, I hope that like my first set of students, she isn’t really any worse for the wear.   

On Civility

            I want to tell you three stories.  I know many of you have heard them in some form or another – even somewhere on this blog if I remember correctly, but I can’t get them out of my head as of late.

            When I was sixteen years old, and blessed with the newfound freedom of friends who had both licenses and access to cars, I hopped in my best friend’s mom’s mini-van to drive up to our local McDonald’s.  We felt liberated by our ability to choose what we ate for dinner, to pay for it ourselves and to travel there unaccompanied by the tyranny of our parents.  For some reason we got our food to go, and as we headed back to our car another vehicle full of older teenage boys started cat-calling and pulled up to us in the parking lot.  It wasn’t that strange for my best friend to turn the heads of all males around us, but this time, for some reason they began flirting with me.  I clutched my brown sack of cheeseburger and fries and happily joined in their banter.  It went back and forth for a bit until one of them said, “Hey!  We have a question for you.”

 “Yes,” I giggled. 

The driver’s eyes traveled down to the bag of grease in my hand and said, “We were just wondering if YOU really need to be eating that.” 

They peeled out in a fit of laughter, and my friend and I drove home in silence, neither of us sure how to break the shame of the moment.

            When I was eighteen years old I spent the last days of summer getting back together with my boyfriend of freshman year.  At a house party in his neck of the woods one late August evening, we officially committed to giving it a try again despite the distance when I would head back to MU.  I was on cloud nine.  On the way back from his house my friends and I stopped at the Steak’n’Shake where he and I met.  It was too late at night to eat, but we all worked there and loved popping in on our days off.  When it was time to leave I headed out to the parking lot and sat on the curb alone waiting for everyone else to say their goodbyes.  I was just happy and felt so alive to be sitting outside in the middle of the night in the peak of summer.  Out of nowhere a car with two boys in it sped past me and yelled out the window, “Why don’t you try Slim-fast?”  Just like before, an instant buzzkill, but at least without witness this time.

            When I was 23 years old, and had just started dating my would-be husband, we strolled through downtown one evening. We were leaving one social event and headed to another. We were holding hands and high on new love.  I was so happy to be a part of a couple and have a full social calendar because of the amazing friends I had made during the first year of my first real job.  Once again, I was totally “in the moment” happy.  Once again, a car full of guys who were complete strangers took it upon themselves to wreck this moment by speeding past me and shouting out their window, “Look!  It’s Big and Bigger!” 

            In the wake of the election many news sites have reported acts of blatant racism and sexism that I want to believe could not be happening in 2016 in America.  As I scrolled through pictures of vandalism on the truck of someone who is gay, news articles saying kids at a prestigious high school in St. Louis yelled at black kids to get to the back of the bus, shouts of deportation, etc., my instinct was to not want to believe them.  I thought, “how could the election of someone lead to this.  Surely these things are not really happening.  People know better than to so blatantly show their hostility…”  And then I remembered the hate I felt from those strangers each of those times and realized I should never be surprised by cruelty.  True evil can exist in someone.  The pain of being reduced to one characteristic is a reality for so many.  The need to harass someone just for being different is real.  Stereotypes are truly about seeing one thing about someone and assuming you know who they are.  Yes, I am fat – and yes, it is an integral part of who I am, but it is only one part of who I am. 

            I couldn’t stop thinking about the feeling I got from these moments, and I realized I had to share them with a call to action for both sides.  My initial instinct was that some Trump supporters needed to hear my personal stories of hate and discrimination in hopes that they would believe these news stories about what is happening around them.  Hate is real whether it exists in us or not.  I know so many of you, and I know these stories and belief systems don’t represent you.  I know many of you were voting for policies outside the realm of immigration, race or women’s rights.  I beg you to show that through your actions.  I beg you to do whatever you can to stop these moments in their tracks so people know this is not representative of you or your belief system.  Trump asked for the same on CNN yesterday.  “Just stop it.”  Nobody wants to be called racist, misogynistic, etc.  Let your actions make it impossible to attach those descriptions to who you are.  Be brave.  Work to help people see the multitude of reasons for your belief in someone.  Help people see the political issues that mean so much to you that you were willing to give a pass – remember the pass in future elections when a Democratic candidate might need one.  I believe in civil discourse.  I believe information is power.  I commit to hearing you. 

            There is an equally important message here for some liberals.  It is never okay to name-call to get your point across.  It is never okay to reduce someone to one characteristic or to assume you know everything about someone because of one action.  Please don’t instantly write off a person because of one part of who they are.  Please work to uncover and understand the hurt, fear and living conditions that led to belief systems so different than your own.  If you want to change opinions and actions, you have to dig deeply into the root of belief systems.  You have to listen to understand.  You have to influence reason with logic, evidence and testimony and not by attacking a person.  Attack a belief – not a person.  I’m not saying this because I lack conviction, I am saying this because my convictions matter so much I want them to grow in persuasion. Similarly, don’t judge someone because their activism looks different than yours.  Push people.  Disrupt thinking.  Question.  But don’t dismiss someone without dialogue. 

            Another story…  I went to my high school reunion recently, and I was immediately transported to my identity and emotional-state as a high school student.   I was that person who got along with everyone, but didn’t totally fit in anywhere.  I was just nice, and nice sometimes gets in the way of embracing total affiliation.  I asked Sephus if he thought I would be happier if I had just picked a group and went with it.  Always the wise one, he said, “It’s who you are.  It doesn’t matter which way of being is better.  You can’t be any other way.”  I am sure this post stands to just ostracize both groups of people I surround myself with, but it represents who I am – complex, caring, a humanitarian, compassionate, empathetic to a fault…  I decided I would just go ahead and put these ideas out there anyway.  Bring on the abuse.  I can take it.  I developed a thick skin a long time ago.  I guess I have carloads of young men to thank for that.                

On Why I Will Never Complain About Participation Medals...

            Today marked the end of an exhausting softball season.  It was exhausting because the girls collectively played four games a week. Dinner was a constant act of eating what we could when we could and we tag teamed more often than we wanted so that we often felt like ships passing in the night.  That wasn’t the exhausting part though; the exhaustion for me was the heavy emotional attachment I had to this season.  Both girls play rec ball, but Avery had played on the same team for three seasons in a row.  For some reason, she was not kept on that team this season  - instead they kept a handful of their best girls and joined together with another team’s handful of best girls.  Avery’s new team became a collection of softball misfits - girls who had not played much before and never together with a head coach that had to be recruited out of volunteer assistants.  The week practices started they still didn’t even have a team sponsor.  At least one girl was able to switch off the team after her parents called the league and asked  for replacement on a new team and another three or so never showed up.  Avery’s team was lucky to field 8 players a night and were often severely outmatched. 

            This team lost EVERY single game – often in a series of innings that were called only due to the five run mercy rule.  Too often their team saw three up three down.  Avery got to bat about one time a night as a result.  As someone who thrives on success, it was painful for me to watch. 

            The freshness of the players meant Avery got to pitch almost every single game.  She threw roughly two strikes total.  I am pretty sure she never got someone out through pitching unless the coach that had to relieve her happened to throw two strikes in a row. 

            And the picture above is what she looked like tonight as this miserable season ended...

As the night came to a close I found myself on the brink of tears.  It made me so sad to see the David and Goliath moment these children and kind coaches were placed into every game with no David win to finish it all off and make it worth it.  It made me angry that rejection placed my child in this situation.  It made me angry that a rec league had no system to prevent this situation. 

            But those tears were a waste of my energy.  Tonight I realized that this deplorable season made Avery fall in love with the game again.  She was smiling and cheering the whole game.  She was a leader for the other girls helping shape the positive tone that was so characteristic of these players and their parents.  The fans cheered more supportively than any I had ever seen before.  Never has a group of girls been kinder to each other, and never have I seen such small successes treated like home run moments every time.  The team was so proud to gather around to receive medals and pose as a team.  Avery yelled, “Mom!  Take a picture of us!”  At the end of her season last spring she was the one in tears the whole way home from what was supposed to be a team celebration because she was so fed up with the negative bench talk.  

            The whole thing left me questioning the notion of success.  More specifically, it left me questioning society’s recent total disdain for participation trophies.  The stance has always annoyed me as a mediocre athlete who took home many a soccer and softball trophy just for playing… I still somehow turned out okay.  Tonight it especially bothered me because it made me realize what a dichotomous opinionated society we live in.  Our beliefs make us hypocrites.  We say we embrace growth mindset which preaches acceptance of failure - What better embracing of failure than a child getting up to pitch game after game and batter after batter only to be defeated each and every time?  Why isn’t that worthy of celebration?  We say we want children to be more active and claim technology will be the downfall of society (while also lamenting the lack of STEM interest in kids) yet we get angry when kids are rewarded just for showing up for a physical activity night after night.  We want kids to be good sports and remember the love of the game often admonishing parents who take little league too seriously while only wanting trophies for winners. 

            It’s a wonder anyone can grow up in this world not full of self-loathing, confusion and doubt.   For every belief system there is an equally strong opposing belief system tearing down all our actions.   I guess the only way we can live with ourselves despite being told our traditions suck is because somewhere in each of us lives the spirit of the little kid who crawls into bed still wearing the medal that says, “You showed up, you stuck it out, and I am proud of you for that.”  Isn’t showing up half of life anyway?