Imaginary Friends

Laura Ingalls was my imaginary friend.  I had lots of invisible literary playmates, but she was the main one.  She just had such a childlike sense of wonder, you know?  No matter how boring my daily activities, Laura found them amazing.  “This is a lamp, Laura!  Look; I just flip a switch and it comes on!”  “See, Laura, no horses!  The car goes all by itself!”  Laura brought her homespun prairie wisdom to the most mundane events.  Plus she always took my side when my big sister was mean to me, because let’s face it - Mary Ingalls was sort of a sanctimonious bitch.  Laura understood.

The weirdest part about this?  It’s actually not all that weird.  A friend of mine (and a mutual Friend of Laura) even gave me a book about this; apparently it’s a thing for a lot of people.  Tons of little girls are out there demonstrating to Laura the finer points of flush toilets and hair dryers.  Turns out, I’m not the only one who stole the plug-in Christmas candles and hung out in my closet, pretending to lack electricity so Laura wouldn’t be too overwhelmed.  Well, actually I may be the only one who took it to that extreme.

My childhood was a constant attempt to live in the world of my favorite books.  (A precursor to my grown-up fantasies of escaping into a musical in which everyone magically knows all the lyrics and choreography.)  I was perpetually on the lookout for portals to Narnia.  I took careful note of how my toys were positioned when I went to bed, convinced they’d have moved by morning like the Indian in the cupboard.  I attempted to create a Secret Garden, only to be thwarted by my lifelong black thumb.

Reading was my major source of fun and magic and, often, morality.  That’s why I became an English teacher.  But my students feel differently.  Some of them adore books; some of them try to climb into their favorite novels and live there just like I did.  But for many of them, reading is a chore at best.  It’s just another homework assignment standing in their way.  Luckily for me, I think I’ve found the solution.

“When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind; Paul Newman and a ride home.”  That’s the answer.  The first line of The Outsiders.  Because somehow, from the minute I read - well, recite - those words, my seventh graders are gone.  They beg to read the second they walk into class.  They dress up as Greasers for Halloween (even YEARS later!).  They talk about Sodapop and Johnny like they were old friends.  We finished that book a month and a half ago, but a few kids have already checked it out from the library because they can’t stay away.

Some English teachers love to teach writing.  Probably there’s one or two out there who love teaching grammar.  I love finding the right book for the right kid.  You know those old ladies who insist on telling the gay nephew, “Oh, sweetie, you just haven’t found the right girl yet!”?  That’s terrible; don’t get me wrong.  But I’m the same way with kids who hate reading.  I refuse to accept it.  I set them up on blind dates with Margaret Peterson Haddix and Sherman Alexie and Chris Crutcher until they finally cave and admit they love reading.  And then I quietly fade into the distance, like a bibliophilic Mary Poppins, to help another struggling reader.  Haha, just kidding.  Then I say, “What was that?  What?  We can’t hear you!” and make them say it louder while doing a victory dance around the classroom.  It’s what Laura Ingalls would have wanted.

The Sweet Spot

Finally, I think I’ve found it.  That point in the semester where teaching becomes infinitely easier.  When I stop losing sleep over our lack of progress in The House on Mango Street, when I realize that nope, they just won’t be ready for final exams.  That’s right.  I’ve given up.  And it’s beautiful.

We have two and a half weeks of school remaining.  Less, really, between the science fair and the end of semester dance and activities.  My third period is less than halfway through To Kill a Mockingbird, and as of Monday, I was reading as fast as I could and assigning twenty pages for homework to try to push them through it.  But now I’ve given up.  We’re not going to finish.  And those essays on Syrian refugees?  Also not happening.

I teach the same kids all year.  They’ll be a little dumber (and, somehow, a LOT taller) when they come back from winter break, but a day of review and we’ll pick it up where we left off.  Boo Radley will not sneak out of his house while we’re away.  The Logans won’t lose the farm.  Jordan’s not going to climb Everest while we’re not looking.  I had this epiphany yesterday, and I’m suddenly breathing easier. 

So are the kids.  When I stopped in the middle of a paragraph to discuss and ask some questions yesterday, I heard an audible sigh of relief.  No more racing through great books on an arbitrary timeline.  We’re slowing it down.  We’re going to actually enjoy it.  (Or at least I will.  And, like, five of the kids will.  And that’s good enough for me.)  Their final will be a text dependent essay on the first half of the book, which probably meets some standards or something, right?  For the next two weeks, we’re going to take breaks and discuss and tell stories and watch the occasional YouTube video.  Will it be related to the book?  Possibly.  I bet there’s something out there involving Harper Lee reenacted by kittens.

The Meeting

Our kids took a new standardized test last year, theoretically based on Common Core standards.  (Actually based on Standards of Excellence, which are literally - in my subject at least - the Common Core with one word changed.)  The test itself is arguably better than the old one, because the kids have to actually write some of their answers rather than simply bubbling multiple choice answers.  There’s even an essay, which is a great leap forward in my opinion.  However, it’s a new test, and it’s not a particularly well-written test.  Their scores were terrible.

So yesterday before handing out scores, my administration gathered three hundred sixth through eighth graders in the cafeteria and proceeded to tell them how bad their scores were.  They said things like, “Other schools might tell you a two is passing.  A two is not passing.  If you got a two, you failed.”  And “You’ve got to stop playing.  We don’t have time to play here.”  And my personal favorite, “You all just need to work harder.”

I happen to know from firsthand experience just how soul crushing this is.  At a faculty meeting week before last, they told us about the kids’ scores and told us we had to try harder this year.  It’s funny…I actually try pretty hard every year.  It’s not like I had an epiphany: Oh, I have to try?  Sounds crazy, but I guess I’ll give it a shot next year.  No more coloring sheets for us!  The fact is, my kids are, for the most part, trying their damnedest.  And they’re still struggling.  Because they come in with huge deficits.  Because the test is poorly written.  Because we had no way to prepare them without knowing what to expect from the test.  Because they’re coming from traumatic home situations filled with abuse and uncertainty.  Because they still have trouble reading and writing English.  Very rarely is it because of a lack of effort.

My school, like all schools, is big on research-based strategies.  Anything we do with the kids, they want to see a study proving that it works.  And yet, like every school I’ve ever seen, they also try to use fear to motivate the kids to achieve on standardized tests…despite the fact that every bit of research I’ve seen tells us that’s pointless.  There are countless studies telling us that kids learn through play…so let’s tell them “playtime is over” and give them more testing drills!

I’m angry, in case you couldn’t tell.  The hallways were full of crying kids after we passed out scores.  Kids who now believe that there’s no point in trying, because they worked as hard as they possibly could and were still lectured about failure and told to “try harder.”  A couple of these crying kids had to be taken to the office during testing last year for panic attacks brought on by stress.  How much of that can they take before they give up entirely?

None of my kids were crying.  In fact, only a third of them got their scores yesterday.  That’s because I sat down with every kid to go over scores in every subject.  Our conversation went something like this.  “Okay, you did get a two in math, and that’s not great.  But look, you also did better than 74% of the kids who took the test!  It looks like you had trouble with ratios, equations, and geometry. So I’ll tell you what.  This year, let’s focus on fractions.  I bet if you get really great at fractions - don’t even worry about the rest of it - it’ll make all the other stuff easy enough that you’ll get at least a three.  So that’s the one thing I want you to put a little extra work into this year in math.  Ooh, look, a four in social studies!  Yay!”

Over the next few days, I’ll be meeting with every seventh grader at the school to discuss scores.  Every kid will have an action plan of three or fewer things to improve on.  Every kid will know the areas in which he or she did better than the state or the system average.  Every kid will have some cause for pride.  But I’ll be doing all this behind closed doors, because apparently the only message I’m supposed to give the kids is “You’re failing.  Try harder.”

A Teacher’s Prayer the Day Before Thanksgiving Break

God, You know I need this.  We haven’t had a break since Columbus Day and, no matter how we try to lie to ourselves, teacher workdays do not count.  I need a few days.  There are dust bunnies under my couch that are becoming sentient.  The dog has forgotten what walks are.  My own kid has started shaking hands, introducing himself, and asking, “Have we met?” when I pick him up from preschool.  

So today is the day.  I’ll wander around school humming “One Day More” from Les Mis from homeroom until study hall; it’s all very exciting.  But I have a few requests before my day begins.

Please don’t let the teacher in the class before me give out candy.  Or, You-forbid, cupcakes.  Why would anyone do that?  Are they secret agents of Satan?  You can tell me; I won’t tell.

Please don’t let administration come over the intercom and say, “Teachers, we will have a brief five-minute meeting after bus call today.”  They think it’s cute to get us all together and tell us to have a happy Thanksgiving and not work too hard over the break.  Or to get us all together and yell at us because the kids haven’t been tucking in their shirts.  It’s not cute.  Not even a little bit.

God, I love the kids and I want to help them, I really do.  But please, just this once, could I just not find out one hour before the end of the day that one of my kids is suicidal/homeless/being abused?  Because seriously, every break for the past million years, that’s exactly what has happened.  Can we maybe dodge that bullet this time?

Please keep the weather pretty so we can have outdoor recess.  I can’t keep them in my room again, God, I just can’t.

Mostly, please help me to remember it’s only one more day.  Please help me to watch my language and my general demeanor.  Please don’t let me do anything that makes the news.

Amen

No, Baby, It’s Not Your Fault

I’ve had a lot of conversations with the kids lately about teaching as a career.  I’m not just going in and complaining about it, I promise.  (Although there was that one day I asked if anyone’s parent’s construction crew would hire me on.)  The kids keep bringing up articles they read, or asking if I’d want my son to be a teacher, or telling me they’re thinking about teaching when they grow up.  I love teaching.  I’d never do anything else.  But, I admitted to the kids, I’m not sure I’d want my boy to be a teacher someday.  

Why not? they ask.  Kids are too annoying?

At that point - and I suspect they know this - class is derailed for the period.  Because I can’t let an idea like that stand.

No, baby, I tell them.  No no no no no.  You are not the problem.  You are never the problem.  Well, yesterday, when you kept standing on the computer table and you almost broke the monitor?  Then you were the problem.  But usually, no.  It’s not you.

Sometimes administrators are the problem, when they undermine or humiliate me in front of you guys.  It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I want to walk straight out the front door.  I hold it together because I know you’re watching me, to see how I’ll handle the situation.  That’s the only thing that enables e to show a modicum of grace.

Sometimes it’s the county office that’s the problem, when they order us to differentiate while requiring us to standardize.  They make me feel like you guys come at the bottom of a miles-long to-do list, topped by meetings and paperwork and red tape.  Some days I find myself thinking, If these kids weren’t here, I could get so much done!  Those are the days I don’t want to be a teacher.

Usually it’s the tests that are the problem.  It’s seeing your reactions to your scores - you haven’t even gotten last year’s scores back yet, but they are low, and you’e going to be crushed - on tests that were never fair in the first place.  It’s trying to balance teaching what you need in order to pass the test with teaching what you need in order to be successful and love learning.  Those things are almost always two completely different skill sets.  It’s when you complain about missing a day of reading To Kill a Mockingbird because the school says we have to take another practice test all morning.  That’s what breaks my heart.

But it’s almost never you.  You are one of the greatest joys in my life.  You make it worth coming here every day and wading through the bullshit; I do it for the privilege of getting to know you.  Every single day you bring me joy and laughter and frustration and wonder.  Teaching you is an honor, and you are not the problem.

Why I Teach: A Few Words on Tamales

I’m in it for the food.  Molding young talent, inspiring minds, what the hell ever.  The kids feed me.  Regularly.  Momentarily, I’ll be heating up some Guatemalan cornbread to have with my coffee.  Just to make it look like “this complete breakfast” on the cereal commercials, I’ll top it off with a couple of prickly pears that a student brought me (and showed me how to peel).  I really ought to eat the pan de los muertos before it gets stale, but I’ve had it every morning this week.

Not every week is like this, admittedly.  My kids just did a project on their culture, for which they had to bring an artifact.  I may have suggested - strongly - that food would be an awesome artifact to share with the class.  But even non-project weeks are pretty lucrative when it comes to deliciousness.  A couple of weeks ago, a former student brought me a cheesecake.  Not some cheesecake.  A cheesecake.  An entire cheesecake.  Along with a dozen or so still-warm tamales.

Here’s the thing about tamales.  They’re a pain in the ass to make.  I’ve never made them…basic white girl, you know.  But they’re one of those foods you have to love somebody to prepare.  I think it’s like when I bake zucchini bread.  All that grating; if you’re not doing it for someone you love, it’s not worth doing.  Tamales are like that.  So admittedly, some are better than others.  The sweet kind, dyed a creepy Pepto-Bismol pink?  No, thanks.  But if someone makes you tamales, it’s an affirmation of your worth as a person.  Somebody loved you enough to make dough and fill it with something delicious and wrestle it into corn husks for you because you are valued.  Wow.  

My school’s kind of like the olden times on the prairie, back when all the families in town fed the teacher regularly.  When the kids’ moms make tamales, they send an extra in for me.  When I moved into my new house, a kid rode his bike over while carrying a homemade flan, a feat that was downright acrobatic.  For Christmas, I get 4,000 types of cookies and candy.  Every now and then I’ll randomly get a few rolls of injera with whatever that incredible spicy stuff is.  It’s pretty amazing.

Not to read too much into a tamale, but when you work at a school like mine, it’s easy to get a savior complex.  To see yourself as the Great White Hope, come to uplift the poor immigrant children.  I will accept their food gratefully, partly because it is awesome, but partly because it counteracts that tendency.  It reminds me that we belong to each other, and we learn from each other, and we serve each other.  Love comes in long notes in response to journal entries, in a couple of extra uniform shirts anonymously left in a kids locker.  It also comes wrapped in banana leaves or smothered in caramel sauce.  And I’m grateful to be loved.

What Now?

Friday was a great day.  All my classes went relatively well.  That one kid turned in the project that’s over a week late.  My mother-in-law had my son over to spend the night, so my husband and I planned a date night.  And then the world went crazy.  Now we find ourselves on the brink of World War III (is that melodramatic?  Quite possibly.  More frighteningly, maybe not.).  My Facebook newsfeed - my way of keeping tabs on both extremes, since my friends are crazy as hell - is blowing up.  It’s Monday morning now, and I’m trying to determine whether and how I should address it with my kids.

When shit hits the fan like this, I see a couple of basic reactions.  One is the impulse to go kick some terrorist ass.  I was eighteen when 9-11 happened, and a lot of the boys from my town enlisted in the weeks following the attacks.  The other impulse is to go rescue some downtrodden; write a check, protest in support of refugees, find an actual refugee camp to volunteer, go to a mosque to show support.  This is my first impulse, almost always.  And I think both these reactions have value, and maybe both are necessary, given the way our society is structured.

But I also think there’s a third way that doesn’t get a lot of press.  And I’ll admit, it’s a little counterintuitive.  There’s a Jewish belief that all our actions contribute to the net quantity of good or evil in the world.  Say something nice to someone?  Congratulations!  You’ve officially made the world a better place, albeit in a small way.  Accidentally leave the dog food at the bottom of the cart, then fail to pay for it when you notice in the parking lot?  Whoops, you’re part of the problem.  

This idea is helpful to me at times like this, when the evil in the world all seems incredibly overwhelming and I don’t know whom to try to help.  Everyone seems to want to prioritize tragedies right now, and it’s a math (like most math) that I just can’t figure out.  Paris?  Kenya?  Lebanon?  The refugees?  There’s too much pain to process right now, and I don’t know who to help or how to do it.  

Except that I do know.  Who am I supposed to be helping?  My students.  My family.  My coworkers.  Rather than freezing up in the face of tragedy, as I am always tempted to do, we need to settle in and work to increase that net amount of good in the world however we can.  This week, I’ll be fighting terrorism by planning a field trip, helping buy Thanksgiving dinner for a couple of families at the school, and making sure all my kids - but especially the Muslim kids - have a chance to talk about their fears and concerns for the world.

I realize it’s not enough, and I’ll eventually try to figure out ways that I can help the world beyond my own social circle.  But I think it’s worth acknowledging that our first impulse isn’t always our best, and that sometimes we need to sit and learn before we leap up and act.  The fact is, the world is broken everywhere.  There is not a single corner of our planet that doesn’t need healing.  In the fear and heartbreak and anger that follow devastation like this, that healing has to begin where we are.

Suck It, Finland!

I started this new thing in my class this year.  I kept reading about how Finland (or Switzerland or Sweden or the Netherlands or one of those other cold places) has a better education system than us, and how they have more recess and less testing and shorter school days.  Like every media outlet ever, I decided to ignore the fact that Finland also has a fairly homogeneous population with very little poverty.  Because, you know, it probably doesn’t matter if the students have a consistent source of nutrition and a safe place to do their homework.  Quit whining, American teachers!  Instead, I decided to focus on what I could do to replicate this wonder-system.

Shorter school days?  Let’s face it; I already leave work right at 3:52 every day.  If I start leaving before the kids, administration’s not going to be thrilled about it.  Less testing?  Ha!  If I encourage my kids to opt out, my job will be gone faster than you can say “College and Career Readiness Performance Indicator!”  More recess?  Now that, I can sort of do.

Last year, I observed a day at a high school for a professional development class I was taking.  I spent all day attending classes with the kids, sitting at the back of the room and trying to remember how to graph functions (with no success).  This was a good high school, a private school for low-income kids, the kind of place we try to send our students when they leave us.  The classes were engaging and the kids were motivated and focused.  But what struck me most was how much sitting was involved in attending high school.  By the end of the day, my Fitbit was in negative numbers.  This was very stressful for me as, like a less-hilarious David Sedaris, a huge part of my well-being was tied to my step count.  

Okay.  So be more like Finland and get the kids up and moving more.  Challenge accepted.  We started off small.  Right after reading or journals and before grammar (because grammar is obviously the most boring part of class), we’d close the door and hope the administrators would stay out and I’d cue up a YouTube workout video.  This consisted mostly of me running frantically around the room doing “high knees” and yelling a constant harangue along the lines of, “Really?  You gonna let an old lady beat you like this?”  That was fun, at least for me.  I couldn’t really tell if it was helping the kids’ focus or not, but I was starting to get the much-coveted thigh gap, so I figured we’d keep going.

It got boring, though, after a while, once we had done all the videos that didn’t involve women in sports bras.  (I teach seventh grade, y’all.  I just can’t.)  So we branched out a little.  We did yoga for a while, but all the Jehovah’s Witness kids just stood in the back and looked at us disapprovingly, and after a while the judgment got to be too much for me.  Then I created the Cards of Death, a handful of index cards with instructions like “10 Burpees” and “30-second dance party.”  It works well, except that the kids keep stealing the real cards and replacing them with things like “Give Jose candy.”

Once the weather cooled off a little, we expanded to Five Minute Freeze Tag, which has resulted in multiple trips to the clinic.  What can I say?  We play to win.  There’s also the Endurance Challenge every Friday, where the last three kids standing get a reward.  I find it both positive and problematic that the Endurance Challenge keeps getting longer as my kids get in better shape.  I used to make fun of them for being weaklings, but now it’s like, “Okay, we’ve been doing pushups for eight minutes now…we kind of have to learn what verbs are…”

But my new favorite activity is playing improv games with the kids.  One day a week, we circle up and play Statues in the Garden or World’s Worst or I Love You Baby (which is oh, so awkward) for five or ten minutes before we get down to business.  And the kids love it.  A few of them hang back and don’t really participate.  And one girl glares at me the entire time we do anything, like the evil monkey in Chris Griffin’s closet.  But mostly, even the shy, awkward ones get into it.  And now that I’ve been walked in on by administrators a few times and my pre grammar workout hasn’t been shut down yet, I’m feeling pretty good about it.

Here’s the thing.  We hear a lot about rigor these days, and accountability.  Both those tend to be pretty closely tied to standardized testing, at least in the way they’re measured.  And I don’t think rigor and accountability are a bad thing, except that after eleven years in the classroom, those words immediately conjure up the buzz of faulty fluorescent lights and the smell of the stuff they use to get puke out of the carpet.  But the not-very-well-concealed hippie in me wants to ask, what about joy?  Where are we finding joy in the classroom?  Because that’s a damn worthwhile pursuit as well, and one that’s often neglected.  

We find it in a lot of places in my class, at least on a good day.  In books.  In honest, uncomfortable conversation about beliefs and race and vulnerability.  In review games and writing stories and the occasional Frozen singalong.  And now, in YouTube workout videos and improv games.  Granted, those kids in Finland could probably still beat us on a test…but not in arm wrestling.