Voyeurism

I live a life of voyeurism. It's helpful that I'm curious and quite snoopy to begin with, but my career path has only amplified my natural tendencies. As a teacher, it is pretty much my job to shock and astound students by saying, "Tommy - language. Suzy - talk about your weekend later, okay? We don't want to hear it. Billy - stop talking about how you cheated on that vocab quiz. Yes, we'll be calling your parents later." I am supposed to have eyes and ears all over the room at all times. My husband accuses me of giving poor, unsuspecting teenagers in the mall the hairy eyeball.

"How do you do that?"

"What?"

"You just made those kids stop yelling."

"...It's a gift. Few are blessed."

It's starting to bleed into my real life, though. As I drive to work, I find myself gaging how I'm doing on time by the things I see around me. As I'm driving out of my subdivision, I see the two old ladies who walk together. If they're almost back to the houses, then I'm running late. They should be about at the corner. Then I'm on time. Now, I don't know why the ladies who walk around in the morning are more regularly "on time" than me, but I'm sure they are. When you're 75, I bet you're either the walk around in the morning and be punctual type or you're still snoozing. I'm still undecided on which type I'd like to be. I'll probably just be grateful to be 75.

Once I start driving, there's a man and his dog who walk out to a tiny airfield by the road. I am sure they're just doing their morning routine and doggy's gots to pee. However, whenever I drive by, the man is outlined by a beautiful sunrise with a dutiful dog seated next to him, both watching the small planes. It's beautiful. I love that both dog and man know enough to appreciate the sights in their morning walk. If they're already trudging back to their house, I know I'm running behind.

Once I'm almost to school, I drive by one of my favorite houses by the lake. This one is the most creepy, I suppose, because I feel like I know these poor people. It's an older (but not old) couple who have coffee while reading the paper together each morning. They have a cute little breakfast nook and apparently don't want a ton of curtains between them and the lake. Unfortunately for them, the road (and a stop sign) are between them and their lake. Occasionally, I'll see one or the other (fully robed; it's not that creepy) deciding between two outfits to wear. Sometimes, if I am driving back particularly late, I'll see them hosting small dinner parties. They seem super fun. I'm glad I get to participate, even marginally and slightly creepily, in their lovely lives.

But summer is almost here. I really hope that come next September, I still get to see my old lady friends trotting around in their adorable scarves. I hope that man and dog still enjoy their air show every morning. I hope my idyllic couple still sits together and drinks coffee while chatting about the news in the mornings.

I can only hope someone is looking forward to seeing that teacher drive to school.

Or, maybe they'll just buy curtains. Whatever.

Teacher does not equal Coach

My high school students are being rewarded for completing their essays early by getting to watch a movie in class. Some of my students picked the movie, Miracle. For those not in the know, I'll quote imdb.com:

The inspiring story of the team that transcended its sport and united a nation with a new feeling of hope. Based on the true story of one of the greatest moments in sports history, the tale captures a time and place where differences could be settled by games and a cold war could be put on ice. In 1980, the United States Ice Hockey team's coach, Herb Brooks, took a ragtag squad of college kids up against the legendary juggernaut from the Soviet Union at the Olympic Games. Despite the long odds, Team USA carried the pride of a nation yearning from a distraction from world events. With the world watching the team rose to the occasion, prompting broadcaster Al Michaels' now famous question, to the millions viewing at home: Do you believe in miracles? Yes!

My kids were rapt with round, unblinking eyes during the beginning scenes where this coach is essentially breaking the team down physically in order to build them back up physically and emotionally. My students murmured comments about the coach, their hero, reminding each other how amazing his coaching abilities were. "That guy could make anyone an Olympian!"

As per usual, I immediately was irritated by the comment. I saw these kids yearning to be yelled at and pushed to their physical limitations by a coach. They trusted completely that the coach would put them through an exhaustive, but eventually purifying, experience that would eventually make them better than their peers. The key is that they players weren't necessarily better than their peers to begin with, but they were willing to find a strong enough guide who would push them past their peers to make them more than competitive.

I then remembered being sworn at and yelled at by my coaches in my private, religious grade school. I remembered being embarrassed at sitting too close to the bench at various schools I've taught at; I would blush at the words that would come out of my peers' mouths. And it was all for the sake of some final score, some trophy, some bragging rights.

Then I also remembered countless emails I've gotten from parents about my strict deadlines (full credit the day it's due, half credit the next day, no credit after that). "They're just kids!" I mean, aren't teachers supposed to be nice? I'm supposed to have chosen my career because I have some special place in my heart for the youth of the nation.

I have news for you: I don't have that special place in my heart.

Mostly, I think kids are just like the rest of humanity. Some are incredible and awe-inspiring, some are the absolute dregs, and most of them are just average. Hence, the term average. I have a passion for education, for learning. I want to be an academic coach.

This does not mean that I want to swear at my kids, kick desks, and make vulgar analogies to motivate my kids. It doesn't mean that when the class average crests an 80%, I want a cooler of Gatorade dumped on me. What it means is that I want the respect and trust of my students and parents to allow me to push my little students. Sometimes, it's going to hurt and it's not going to be a sunny, rose-filled journey. At the end, however, these kids will be able to be proud not only of their effort and their progress, but of their ability to rise above the masses by pure passion and dedication.

Instead of shiny statues, I want my students to have engaging careers that make them happy, and also have the potential to improve this little old world we live in. At the very least, I want them to be able to choose among countless of options for their life because they have metaphorically paid for the privilege.

That's not really how the priorities of my students or parents work though. And, to be fair, not everyone wants to be the quarterback of the football team. But maybe, given enough years, kids will know that seeing my name on their schedules means that they're in for an intense, but edifying year. I just wish that was expected out of school as a whole.

Irony

So bear with me. I'm reading To Kill a Mockingbird with my students for the first time since high school. It's fun. However, we just got to this part:

The remainder of my schooldays were no more auspicious than the first. Indeed, they were an endless Project that slowly evolved into a Unit, in which miles of construction paper and wax crayon were expended by the State of Alabama in its well-meaning but fruitless efforts to teach me Group Dynamics. What Jem called the Dewey Decimal System was school-wide by the end of my first year, so I had no chance to compare it with other teaching techniques. I could only look around me: Atticus and my uncle, who went to school at home, knew everything- at least, what one didn't know the other did. Furthermore, I couldn't help noticing that my father had served for years in the state legislature, elected each time without opposition, innocent of the adjustments my teachers thought essential to the development of Good Citizenship. Jem, educated on a half-Dewey half-Duncecap basis, seemed to function effectively alone or in a group, but Jem was a poor example: no tutorial system devised by man could have stopped him from getting at books. As for me, I knew nothing except what I gathered from Time magazine and reading everything I could lay hands on at home, but as I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County shcool system, I could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of what I knew not, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what the state had in mind for me.

Okay, seriously. How ironic is this? I should back up. TKaM is a "must read" by the district. All students who pass through my class must read this book. Yesterday, for class, we made construction paper tombstones for "dead words" that we were no longer going to use in our formal writing ("I think", "you", etc.). Oh yeah, we did this in pairs. I felt Harper Lee's pitying gaze when we read this part out loud in class.

Truth be told, I feel like I'm a worthless tool in an ineffectual system. My students are struggling with reading this book and they're sophomores. I feel like lots of ninth graders round the country are enjoying this same rite of passage. My students tell me this book is unrealistic because no kid would know the words she's using. I have kids telling me it's not realistic because no likes to read.

How difficult can I make my class? We do vocab, grammar, reading, writing... I have enough kids acing and failing my class, but I struggle. Scout, God bless her, is right. The 12 years of babysitting does not produce the results that I would like an education to allow.

It's the same frustration generations of teachers have felt, but I don't have enough time to expose them to all the things that I want to. There's just too much to teach. And, let's be honest, they're pretty apathetic about it. I have mountains of things to expose them to, to expect them to memorize, to be familiar with and I have to make sure they also don't come out of my class jerks. It's a hard balance.

I guess not much has changed in education since the late 50s. Maybe that's the problem.

Excess

I remember, when I was little, downing Pixie Stix like there was no tomorrow. My friend and I were having a Pixie Stix race at a sleepover at her house. As I gulped one last one, I had a sinking realization that I had consumed one Pixie Stix too many. Before it happened, I knew I was going to be sick. I felt foolish and nearsighted, but mostly I felt pukey. I looked at my friend ashamed, and we both ran for the bathroom to try to hide the consequences of our bad choices from her parents.

We like to think that we grow out of those behaviors. Then I went to college. We've all been there; you drink one last sip, down one last shot, finish off the last of your beer... and you know. "Aw crap, I'm about to be way too drunk." You think you might be able to quell the drunkenness, or the vomit, before it comes. "Three, two.... what a nice, cool floor!"

Again, we think, we grow out of such foolish behavior. I just grabbed a coffee before heading to tutor. It was blustery; I thought my mere survival of another snowy Minnesota day should validate a medium mocha. As I walked up to my table full of eager students, I gulped the last of my coffee and tossed away the cup. "Aw, crap. That was too much caffeine! In about an hour, I'm going to be vibrating." You would think I've learned.

It's not just the substances. I am better than blaming Pixie Stix, alcohol, and coffee. Mostly, what I love doing is walking that line. I love being just this side of too much. It's why I'm working two jobs. I don't need to. I just like being almost too busy. Almost too tired. It's almost too much. I feel successful because I am able to ride that line. And then I fall off.

I'm pretty sure I'll be in the retirement home, yelling at the staff: "Don't tell me when I've had too much prune juice! I know how much prune juice I can handl... Aw, crap." Only then, it'll be a pun.

Lights

I've been thinking a lot lately about lights. That sounds like it's all metaphorical, and I'm sure it is. Primarily though, I've just been thinking about how I don't have any.

My classroom is on the interior of the school. I lovingly call my room a cave. I have a window that opens into the hallway, usually an almost tangible mass of teenage cacophony full of profanity and even more offensive perfumes and colognes. Needless to say, I've covered that window with brightly colored paper. Eventually I'm sure my prayers will be answered and that magical paper will block sounds and smells too. My classroom then depends on the fluorescent lights which are magnified by the walls, floor, and ceiling all being the same shade of off-white. Because of the seasons, I get to school well before the lazy sun sees fit to rise. When I walk outside after school, I have to resist the urge to run away hissing while covering my eyes and face with my scarf.

Then I go to my tutoring gig, where I have been frequenting the interior classroom. Anyone see a trend? By the time I leave for home, the lazy sun has already called it a day. I think I'm going to have to start going to the tanning salon again. Seriously. I was pale before I started abstaining from natural light. I'm becoming translucent.

Then, as I was driving to work last week (you know, in the dark), I noticed that the nicer the houses got, the darker they were at 6.15 in the morning. There must be a correlation. The more money you make, the later you can sleep in? I'm sure that can't be quite right, but I do know that people making bank aren't driving to a natural-lightless cubicle at 6 in the morning.

I have decided to start measuring my success by the natural light I have the opportunity to enjoy. And since my school would probably frown on me busting out the ceiling in the cave to make way for natural light, I'm just going to make a point to hang out near windows and outside.

Baby steps.

New Snow

I've had another fresh start. I'm at a new place in a new town with a couple new jobs. I've got to tell you: Life is good.

I worry sometimes that I'm addicted to that "new life" smell. You can start over fresh and clean, with a blank slate. It seems that the past few years have had several slates come and go. Still, there's something nice about unlimited possibilities and it always feels that way at the beginning.

While I outfit a new classroom (which is looking quite cave-like at the moment), I get to see people lugging school supplies into the schools, putting books on shelves, brightly colored posters on walls. I've got to say, we're eager for the little rugrats to come in those doors. Ah, the bliss of September. Remind me of this moment mid April. At the stores, kids are buying new clothes, new shoes, new binders and pencils. I love it.

When I first started telling people that I was moving back North, I was scolded, "Why? They have snow there!" It's true. A whole lot from what I hear, too. Though my summer has been much, much, much cooler than it would have been down in the desert, I still think it's too hot. I am itching for fall. Pumpkins, hot cider, scarves, rain boots crunching on leaves... it's enough to make me tear up a bit. And then, there's winter! Snow falling at night on quiet streets, lit up by street lights and Christmas lights and starlight... Bundling up against the wind, trying not to fall on icy slopes (no more broken elbows!), and having the cold steal your breath for just a second the first moment you step outside. Then, and only then, is spring a fantastic respite from what you've just endured.

And then I got it. I need my seaons to change, figuratively and literally. I like progress, movement, notable distances travelled. I like deadlines to approach steadily, and noticeably pass. I am happy and content because I've had another season pass and I'm newly excited for things I've known before. It's another town, another school year, another fall. Hopefully, I will need fewer new cities. :) It's an expensive business, all that moving. But I hope I can enjoy first days - of school, of fall, of winter, of the state fair, of summer - for the rest of my life.