Some Unsolicited Advice

What Not to do When Teaching.

1) Do NOT write an acrostic to help students memorize the thirteen colonies if you do not have in your hand the list of the actual thirteen colonies.

I thought, "I'm the teacher. I know this." I wrote, "Vicious Mice Navigate Mazes..." You get the idea. I then wrote, "Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine..." After I had finished writing them all, and still had Maryland left. I realized quickly that one of two things had happened. Either we had been counting wrong all these years, and would have to get Miss Betsy Ross to add another white stripe to the flag, and I would be a hero, or I had screwed up. Again, remember the fourteen eyes boring into the back of my head. I stepped back, I sighed, and asked for help. Where to put Maryland? It took five minutes for me to remember that Maine was not a colony. I cursed the book for mentioning it at all (silently, in my head), told myself I had made a career mistake but had to at least finish the period, and erased Maine. I will never, ever forget, and I will unfortunately probably not like Maine as much for awhile.. oh sneaky Maine.

2) Do NOT say things out loud for the very first time in front of students.

I constantly "make up" proper nouns in my head without knowing the actual pronunciation, and today I changed Guinevere's father, Leodogran to LeoDRAGON. Yes, I added a dragon to our Arthurian legend discussion. Ugh.

What to do when you do all of the above (or customize your own version of seemingly "epic" failure).

1) Tell your students you made a mistake. If nothing else, they deserve to know the truth about Maine.

2) Get around people who can guide you away from a ledge jump to the pit of self-loathing, and into laughter. If these people happen to invite you over for dinner and to spend the night, and then happen to give you a build-a-bear, and a plastic crown, you're all the better for it. (Thank you, thank you, thank you Dunham family).

3) Eat cake, but just a little.

4) Go to bed. I'm going now. It's 9:21.

Goodnight, blog world. Tomorrow is a new day.

Marina

My neighbor, with peach fuzz hair (growing back slowly after chemotherapy), and framed pictures of Obama all over her house. She loves President Obama, and sent him a birthday card from our apartment complex. I signed it gladly. Right now the floor of my apartment is shaking because she is playing hip hop with a ridiculous base. She is about seventy, and frequently she turns on base heavy rap at apartment-shaking volume, and then goes outside to go swimming. Then I go outside and get her out of the pool to turn down her music which no one can hear but me.  This is one of those moments, and I'm too tired to go get her.

For my first day of school she brought me Kleenex and soap and told me that students are germy. I wrote her a thank you card and she wrote me a thank you card back for my thank you card. When she came over for dinner last week she asked if I were seeing anyone and if I believed in God, and she told me she was Jewish and Catholic and "okay with gays."

"Love your neighbors," He said. Don't mind if I do. :)

Is This My Life?

My life is small now. I am no longer swallowing oceans and climbing up trees and in and out of planes. I walk through the cemetery. I put a pot of coffee on. I read.

I look into the eyes of students and talk to them about the Transatlantic Slave Trade. I talk to them about basketball and I talk to them about grammar. They look at me and write down things that I say. All of the sudden I can't spell to save my life. Spelling with fourteen pairs of eyes waiting for you to step aside so they can say, "What is THAT?!," is a whole new world.

One class at a time. One story at a time. One gerund, one French lord, one American gothic short story at a time. Can I help them to see? I know I can't make them see, but can I help? Them to see their place, their lives, their world? Could I help them to see the man outside asking for a dollar? Could I help them believe that it might be better sometimes just to give him a dollar or two rather than offering him advice, even if they money will just go to booze? I can't say it directly. I have to say it through SAT prep and vocabulary checks. I'll say it through loving them, by God's grace.

My life is small now... eyes and neighbors and bookshelves and homework to be graded. And students. Precious and young students, who might give themselves to something great.

My Saint Bernard Sweater

By divine providence, I came into possession of an over-sized cashmere sweater with a giant Saint Bernard head on the front. It came to me during a fairly reflective, transitional time of life and I wore it for about a week continuously when I first inherited it. I wore it with jeans, shorts, tights, dresses. I would usually start the day in something relatively put together, make it to about 10am and then on would come the sweater.

I took a loonnnng road trip to Dallas when I left Massachusetts this spring and every time I felt nervous about coming back I would bend over, shake out my hair until it was twice the size of my head and dig out the Saint Bernard sweater. It was May, but somehow I managed to be on a mountain or in the middle of a cold front when I really needed that sweater. It's like a cashmere hug. It goes down to my thighs and presents a fierce Saint Bernard to anyone who might try to mess with me. I actually feel protected.

Tomorrow I start teaching. I am going to assign projects on American Historical Figures and the like. I am going to grade things. Don't get me wrong: this is absolutely where I am supposed to be and I don't think I could be happier. But it is a Saint Bernard sweater kind of day... nerves and needing hugs and also kind of ready to fight. Oh Lord, help.

A Leap of Faith

I have wanted to write for so long. I have had stories, lessons, exultations building up in me for months and months, but have sat with them. Today I told my roommate about it. About having experiences that are so precious they shake me, and being torn between wanting to share them and fearing exploiting them. I want to write it all, to tap my fingers and say "THIS, This is what I see." But isn't that selfish? Don't people have better things to think of? And Kate said, "Abby, how much better would the world be if everyone gave each other what they had to give?" She is right, and well, it might not be great, but this is what I have to give. I am taking a leap of faith and returning to my blog to share a bit of my life with whoever might want to read it.