Meh

Nights like this after days like this make me think that I accomplish nothing in my work.

One of the paper editors wants to teach a dozen kids at school the software to lay out the paper. That would be good if we needed a dozen layout artists. It would also be good if the writing in the last issue wasn’t so terrible.  I said that we should have writing workshops first. She said we know how to write. Not that I’ve seen. Meh.

My students are sweet.  Let them be kids for a minute longer.

I’ve caught a cold.

Almost every student that I wrote recommendations for is looking at Early Decision. I guess they should call the regular deadlines Late Decision instead.

It’s rained non-stop for weeks it seems like.

I’ve got homework that I HAVE to do. No motivation. Meh.

Some of my seventh graders have learned how to be helpless. They whine. There is NO WHINING in English class.

I should take my own advice.  But I’m feeling rather hollow right now.

Image by flickr member Amanda M Hatfield

Halloween Memories

Today in class we were writing memoir pieces about Halloween.  I started with reading two chapters of Knucklehead, the memoir of Jon Scieszka author of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and then we started writing our own memories of Halloween. Like the crazy lady who lived down the block from us in Belfry, Montana who was a witch because she ate shoe polish and could take out her teeth. True story. Really. I was three. I would know.

Here is what I wrote this afternoon as my class worked:

Halloween in Chicago has usually been warm. With the exception of the year that it rained so hard we discovered that the siding on the north side of the house had failed, it has been shirt sleeve weather.  My children have not had to worry about wearing their heavy coat over their costume. Haven’t needed a coat in 10 years. In fact, when they were little I made their costumes out of polar fleece, but we haven’t needed to worry in so long.

When trick-or-treating in South Dakota,  the possibility for snow was always extremely high.  You wanted to design a costume that let you wear a coat under it or had a coat integrated into it. I learned about this the hard way the year I had THE CUTEST nurse’s costume.  Little white cap and cape with the lovingly appliqued red cross on the cap and upper left hand side of the cape. I was going to carry my very favorite doll, Black Hair, ironically named as she had NO hair.

Too bad so sad – it was snowing out. That meant boots and a coat that did NOT fit under the cape. So, the cape was on under the coat, and no one saw my adorableness.

The next year we went as ghosts.  Old fashioned bed sheet ghosts. Matt was pretty small, so he was actually a pillowcase ghost.  We had our coats on under the sheets – we were warm and toasty and there was no loss of costume integrity.  It was even a bonus because Mrs. Cole, a woman in the neighborhood who had a huge house with a seriously fenced in yard took one look at us and stopped her reach toward her mini-sized candy.

“Look at you three. I love these ghosts.  This is what a ghost is supposed to look like, not those plastic mask ghosts.  Wait here.”

We had no idea what we were waiting for.  She disappeared and returned with full sized Hershey Bars for the three of us. Major score! No Bit-o-Honey!

We will be hosting the 13th annual Halloween Potluck on Saturday with the Halloween party for the cast of the circus adaption of Tim Burton’s film, Nightmare Before Christmas – called Nightmare - after the potluck.  My daughter’s circus ensemble is doing a workshop performance – Oogie Boogie does an amazing lyra routine, and the final aerial is a double silks routine with Jack and Sally.

When the official trick-or-trick hours are over, everyone comes to our house. We share food, beverages, and just catch up.  The rule is, once you are invited to the potluck, you never have to be invited again. You are invited in perpetuity.  The menu never varies: chili (beef, but also the best vegan chili ever) and amendments should you want spice or dairy, cornbread, salad, and whatever shows up!  It may not be the great candy grab of 1965, but it is fun.

Photo by flickr member euart

Many Voices

October continues treating us with passion and gentleness as befits this time of year.

There are few people that I know (outside of my classical musician neighbors) who might totally geek out with me about this piece of music. But I’m going to share it with you and the tiny little glimmer of hope that it gives me. (And the shiver down my spine that it gives me when I listen to it and a longing to perform it that I can barely understand.)

Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, sung here by the Tallis Scholars

It is a motet for 8 five-part choirs.

That is 40 separate voices.

It should be chaos. It isn’t. And that is a extended metaphor that works for me.

The Latin text is from the Book of Judith. (in translation)

I have never put my hope in any other but in you,
O God of Israel
who can show both anger and graciousness,
and who absolves all the sins of suffering man
Lord God, Creator of Heaven and Earth
be mindful of our lowliness.

For me the text is less important that the lesson of the poliphony.  We don’t have to speak or sing the same song to make something beautiful together.

This Makes Me Cranky

Both of my 12-year-olds were in a 6th grade level math class last year (one was bored, I’ll allow, and both were one of just a few girls in their respective classes). This year on the basis of a test only one was moved up not to the grade level class but to Freshman Algebra Honors.  That’s a skip of two years of math instruction, and I was worried that it was a leap to light speed, but as she was SO BORED and they really gave her few options.  She’s been really interested in the class but wrestling with negative numbers, ratios, and the distributive property (whatever that is).  Today I get this email from her teacher. Names have been redacted:

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to inform you that NAME scored a 68% on her Chapter 2 Honors Algebra Test.  This raises a concern about her being able to keep up in this class.  If I don’t see a significant improvement in her performance in chapter 3, I plan to switch her into regular Algebra.  Feel free to email me or call if you would like to discuss the matter further.

-Regards,

Teacher’s Name
Mathematics Teacher
Suburban Middle School

Okay  – back away from the Cranky Mother!

To Whom It May Concern?  This is not a form letter you are sending me.  This is a flippin’ email to tell me that my child is almost failing your class.

Hold on here, buddy.  I know that there are 31 (yeppers) kids in this class, but she didn’t ask to be put with you, and do you think that you might respond with a “we should look and see what she’s having trouble with” or “She can come in for extra help” or “I know she just skipped two years of math and may have some gaps”? Apparently not.

So IF she doesn’t improve her performance (how about your performance, Bud?) he will unilaterally move her to a class I was told was not an option at the beginning of the year. To quote my favorite vampire slayer, ” I think I speak for everyone when I say… huh?”

Now, I’m not saying that she might not be happier in 8th grade algebra. She might be, and that’s oh, so okay by me, but this guy’s tone is seriously messed up. Just sayin’.

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

Banned (not Band) Books

I am happy to say that in my twelve years of teaching I have taught a number of books that have been challenged in other communities.  I have even taught that explicit book Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.  I once went to a seminar where the topic of the seminar became whether or not to teach Section 5 of “Song of Myself” and the explicit passages.

So, of the ALA’s list of  challenged classics I have taught or I have on the shelves in my room for students to check out the following:

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Native Son by Richard Wright
Go Tell it on the Mountanin by James Baldwin
The World According to Garp by John Irving
The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
My Antonia by Willa Cather
A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

But I also have these additional challenged  books for students to read on the shelves in my room-

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
Alice (Series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
A Day No Pigs Would Die, by Robert Newton Peck
The Witches, by Roald Dahl
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle
Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
The Goats, by Brock Cole
Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George
Kaffir Boy, by Mark Mathabane
Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers
The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton (I actually have them all read this.)
The Pigman, by Paul Zindel
Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes
Harry Potter (Series), by J.K. Rowling
James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl
A Light in the Attic, by Shel Silverstein
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume
Athletic Shorts, by Chris Crutcher
Killing Mr. Griffin, by Lois Duncan
On My Honor, by Marion Dane Bauer
Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo A. Anaya
The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline Cooney
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
Tiger Eyes, by Judy Blume
Running Loose, by Chris Crutcher
That Was Then, This is Now, by S.E. Hinton
Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher
His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman
TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle
Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler

So, I’m happy to say that the community that I teach in is open to ideas that challenge our world – racism, racial language, sex and sexuality, violence, rape, hazing, loss of a parent, religion, fantasy worlds. Here’s to the first amendment. Here’s to courageous publishers and writers. Here’s to those of us not afraid to read about something different than what we know and think for ourselves!