BOO!

They Didn't Give Me a Stick

Here's something I wrote yesterday; it almost made me late for the Peace Walk (again). "They" say you have found your passion when time slips away while you're doing it.

Isn't this image a hoot? The perfectly groomed, fashionably suited, model teacher in her heels smiles radiantly. I'd buy a ticket to see the looks on my kids' faces when she walked in with that pointy stick- ha!




Teaching English 9

Warm up for handstands and somersaults,
Peruse the roll call rows of too-tall and not quite
Broken hearts, urgent news, hollow eyes, big drama,
Asking, no, pleading, “Who will come along?”
Hands flail and pages fly, looking for a sign.

Life is here, in its lovely and misbegotten forms,
I’ll take the one who sits in a sacred slump
Of hungry bedhead and yesterday’s clothes or
The earnestly fresh, breathless, breakfasted.
This is no place for the particular.


Misplaced modifiers and Tybalt’s temper,
Right now, Ms. C., there are bigger fish to fry,
Let’s at least make something,
Pots or end tables or computer programs.
Why love, death, and grammar?

And now, for something totally different

Because it seems like I complain all too often here, I thought I'd take the opportunity to say this:
This was a good week at school! We are studying Romeo and Juliet in English 9, and I loooooove teaching Shakespeare to kids who are new to it. The creative writers are, well, this term's creative writers just are. Some classes are more into it than others, and I've learned not to take it personally. Also, I'm in the midst of planning a big Link Crew event, and that's moving along without major glitches.
Having just come off last week's three-day week, I thought this one might feel like a crawl, but it didn't. The kids are learning, I'm caught up (relatively speaking), and there are no big crises at hand.
It has been a good work week :-)

Who, Me???

This is the poem from The Writer's Almanac today. There was something about it that rang true- ha! I thought I would share it.

Poem: "I.D. Photo" by Rachel Hadas, from The River of Forgetfulness. © David Robert Books, 2006. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

I.D. Photo

Since I can feel my radiant nature shine
Out of my face as unmistakably
As sunlight, it comes as a shock to see
The features that apparently are mine.

Mirrors are not a lot of fun to pass,
And snapshots are much worse. Take the I.D.
Picture taken only yesterday
(Take it-I don't want it): sallow face

Pear-shaped from smiling-lumpy anyway,
Droopy, squinty. General discouragement.
I'd blame the painter, if this were in paint,
But can't avoid acknowledging it's me,

No likeness by an artist I could blame
For being bad at matching in with out.
What I see, alas, is what I get.
Victim and culprit are myself and time—

Having seen which, it's time to turn aside;
Look out from, not in at, an aging face
That happens to be mine. No more disgrace
Lies in having lived then having died.

Am I Preachin' to the Choir?

Thomas Friedman's Op-ed column today ends with this:
"So if you want to be a green college kid or a green adult, don’t fool yourself: You can change lights. You can change cars. But if you don’t change leaders, your actions are nothing more than an expression of, as Dick Cheney would say, “personal virtue.”

It drives me nuts when people tell me they don't really follow politics, or worse, that they don't vote because "Politicians are all alike" or "It doesn't make a difference who wins an election; it's all just politics, and we are powerless." ARRRRRRRGH! No they ain't and and yes it does!!!!

Read Friedman's column to understand why:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/opinion/21friedman.html?th&emc=th

I Love Fall

This is a lonesome song, but so beautifully done by Eva Cassidy. I wanted to share it.

Sunday Fun

Warning: If you care to follow this post all the way through, there's a lot of cutting and pasting, due to my inept blogging skills. Sorry about that.

I know I've said it before, but Stephen Colbert has to be one of the funniest people on the planet. I am in love with him. If anyone knows what I have to do to make him my boyfriend in the next life, let me know.

I will do ANYTHING.

A Colbert quote:

“Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream is driving a bulldozer into The New York Times while drinking crude oil out of Keith Olbermann’s skull.”

I didn't actually hear him say this, but Maureen Dowd did, and that's good enough for me. In her column she challenges him to come in and write a guest op-ed. Of course he accepted the challenge. Read about it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14dowd.html?em&ex=1192507200&en=20f45a4743acfc14&ei=5087%0A

If you want to be astonished by his bravery and amazed by one of the funniest productions of political satire imaginable, watch his May 1, 2006 speech at the White House correspondents dinner. His words are genius; the look of fury on Dubyah's face as he sits RIGHT THERE makes life worth living. Colbert is brave, honest and so utterly sexy I could eat him alive- ha!



It takes awhile to load, and all of it isn't there because he went on, and on, and on... with his truthiness. You can find a transcript of it here:
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/stephencolbert/a/colbertbush.htm

If you want to be thorougly entertained every night, watch his show on The Comedy Channel. I rarely miss it.

For Alex

How is it that we
Humans straddle the fences
Of joy and sorrow?

His mother’s delight,
A longed-for, cherished newborn
Looks on with wise eyes

While her aching heart
Sinks into the memory
Of the world-weary.

They're Meanies

Here I go again, going all political on you. But this op-ed from today's NYT is too good not to post, and since it so perfectly expresses what I fear (and I do mean fear, as in that creepy feeling one gets when stumbling upon a terrible truth) is the right wing's thing, I'm doing it. They can dress it up in religious rhetoric, appropriate taxation, or patriotism, but the truth is, they're Meanies.
Thank you, Mr. Krugman



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

October 5, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Conservatives Are Such Jokers
By PAUL KRUGMAN
In 1960, John F. Kennedy, who had been shocked by the hunger he saw in West Virginia, made the fight against hunger a theme of his presidential campaign. After his election he created the modern food stamp program, which today helps millions of Americans get enough to eat.

But Ronald Reagan thought the issue of hunger in the world’s richest nation was nothing but a big joke. Here’s what Reagan said in his famous 1964 speech “A Time for Choosing,” which made him a national political figure: “We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet.”

Today’s leading conservatives are Reagan’s heirs. If you’re poor, if you don’t have health insurance, if you’re sick — well, they don’t think it’s a serious issue. In fact, they think it’s funny.

On Wednesday, President Bush vetoed legislation that would have expanded S-chip, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, providing health insurance to an estimated 3.8 million children who would otherwise lack coverage.

In anticipation of the veto, William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, had this to say: “First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the president’s willing to do something bad for the kids.” Heh-heh-heh.

Most conservatives are more careful than Mr. Kristol. They try to preserve the appearance that they really do care about those less fortunate than themselves. But the truth is that they aren’t bothered by the fact that almost nine million children in America lack health insurance. They don’t think it’s a problem.

“I mean, people have access to health care in America,” said Mr. Bush in July. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

And on the day of the veto, Mr. Bush dismissed the whole issue of uninsured children as a media myth. Referring to Medicaid spending — which fails to reach many children — he declared that “when they say, well, poor children aren’t being covered in America, if that’s what you’re hearing on your TV screens, I’m telling you there’s $35.5 billion worth of reasons not to believe that.”

It’s not just the poor who find their travails belittled and mocked. The sick receive the same treatment.

Before the last election, the actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson’s and has become an advocate for stem cell research that might lead to a cure, made an ad in support of Claire McCaskill, the Democratic candidate for Senator in Missouri. It was an effective ad, in part because Mr. Fox’s affliction was obvious.

And Rush Limbaugh — displaying the same style he exhibited in his recent claim that members of the military who oppose the Iraq war are “phony soldiers” and his later comparison of a wounded vet who criticized him for that remark to a suicide bomber — immediately accused Mr. Fox of faking it. “In this commercial, he is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He is moving all around and shaking. And it’s purely an act.” Heh-heh-heh.

Of course, minimizing and mocking the suffering of others is a natural strategy for political figures who advocate lower taxes on the rich and less help for the poor and unlucky. But I believe that the lack of empathy shown by Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Kristol, and, yes, Mr. Bush is genuine, not feigned.

Mark Crispin Miller, the author of “The Bush Dyslexicon,” once made a striking observation: all of the famous Bush malapropisms — “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family,” and so on — have involved occasions when Mr. Bush was trying to sound caring and compassionate.

By contrast, Mr. Bush is articulate and even grammatical when he talks about punishing people; that’s when he’s speaking from the heart. The only animation Mr. Bush showed during the flooding of New Orleans was when he declared “zero tolerance of people breaking the law,” even those breaking into abandoned stores in search of the food and water they weren’t getting from his administration.

What’s happening, presumably, is that modern movement conservatism attracts a certain personality type. If you identify with the downtrodden, even a little, you don’t belong. If you think ridicule is an appropriate response to other peoples’ woes, you fit right in.

And Republican disillusionment with Mr. Bush does not appear to signal any change in that regard. On the contrary, the leading candidates for the Republican nomination have gone out of their way to condemn “socialism,” which is G.O.P.-speak for any attempt to help the less fortunate.

So once again, if you’re poor or you’re sick or you don’t have health insurance, remember this: these people think your problems are funny.

Here's Looking at Us, Kids

It's Tuesday, and the following people have been in my classroom, observing my teaching THIS WEEK:

A principal was in for a "walk-through" observation; these are new this year. Actually, she didn't walk through, she sat down for about ten minutes after coming into the classroom unannounced and tapped away at her pda-- recording how the classroom is arranged, what teaching activity is occurring at that moment, whether the "essential question" for that piece of curriculum is posted, how the kids are responding, etc.

A speech-language specialist was in, to sit with a student who gets her services. She helps the student, and makes suggestions for modifying the curriculum for her needs.

A para comes in daily with a special ed student to help him.

A visiting teacher from Germany came to Creative Writing, as she was curious about how it's taught in the US.

I have friendly relationships with all of these people, they say nice things to me about my teaching, the classroom, the kids, and their attentiveness and responses. I have nothing to hide, I feel fairly secure about my teaching skills, and I've been at it long enough now to know that some days are diamonds and some days are stones, that those who don't actually DO my job really don't have much of a clue about what it actually takes to do it. But geeze. If I was a first-year teacher and all these people who are not my students were WATCHING, I'd be a wreck.

The evaluating, observing, testing, coaching, mentoring, and managing of teachers seems to be the thing in education these days. There is actually an adage teachers used to repeat back in the day that goes something like "shut the door and do your thing"- boy is THAT a thing of the past.

Oh, and did I mention that Monday was a 13-hour day? After a day of school, there were parent-teacher conferences from 4-8. I teach two sections of freshmen, and there was a freshman parent meeting that night, so business was booming at conferences. I can't complain about parents who care enough to come in and check on their kids, now can I? So I won't, but 13 solid hours of being "on", in addition to all the observing is, for an introvert like me, a bit, um,.........taxing.

I have a group of actors coming into each of my freshman English classes Thursday to conduct a discussion of a play the kids will see that morning. Am I the hostess with the mostess or WHAT?

Thank heavens I love my job. But it's the KIDS I love about my job. Anyone remember the kids???

NYT Excitement

The most exciting thing that's happened to me lately is that the NYT has decided to scrap their genious plan of allowing only paid subscribers to access certain columnists and has opened the entire online paper to cheap-os like me. Since I'm lame and can't seem to come up with anything original to post these days, here's a goodie from Thomas Friedman:


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/opinion/30friedman.html?ex=1191902400&en=336cfbe0723157c7&ei=5070

Sorry I still can't seem to get a link right. You'll have to copy and paste this to your browser.

Here I Am in all my Whinyness

Don't like to complain, but I'm pooped. I'm in the thick of the first term with the creative writers; their first piece has come in and I need to finish grading it before the next one rolls in. Crunch time. The freshman are writing too, and that always adds more work to an already busy assessment routine for them. It will let up, though, as the creative writers turn to poetry and script writing.

The byproduct of this is that my creativity dipstick reads about two quarts low. I'm burning the candle at both ends and my brain's a bit on the mushy side. Also, school is a very social place, and to be honest, socializing takes a lot out of me.

Introvert, thy name is Roxanne.

I miss feeling good at blogging. I don't like posting just to post, but I do it because I want to continue blogging.

I'm tired. I'm whiny. I think I'll stop now.

Conquered the Crud

The crud I was afflicted with is nearly gone, and school rolls on. The freshmen are settling in. They are a good bunch, typically energetic, at times completely off the wall, and mostly working hard at trying to keep up and fit in.

The creative writers are a bit quiet and don't seem to be as tuned in to the artsy-fartsyness of it all as the classes I've worked with in the past, but the year is new. I think it's important to give them a feeling of having a place to let go and rev up their creative engines, but this group seems a bit reticent. I'm waiting for something to happen that gives them the push they need to get comfortable and allow their individual natures to shine in their writing. Sometimes there's magic in a class like creative writing; I guess it won't always be there, and instead of doing somersaults to make it happen, perhaps I need to work on my own acceptance.

I'm taking a class in Tai Chi Chih, which is a simplified version of the traditional Tai Chi. I've always been curious about those groups of people I've seen practicing their slow, dance-like meditations in an outdoor setting. I'm in the early stages, but the form seems to be a good fit for me. I'm a walker, not a runner, and I'm hoping the ease and grace of this provides a good foundation for physical meditation. A whirling dervish I ain't.

A-choo!

We're one week into the school yaer, and I have a cold. Yuk. Usually, it takes at least three weeks for the germs to spread themselves around. I slept so much this weekend one would think I'm headed for the depression ward. Nothing like that snotted-up, groggy feeling when one is trying to inspire a class of sleepy ninth graders to want to understand parts of speech or do a "close reading" of short story on a Monday morning.
Oh well, I'm usually good for one cold per school year; I'm getting it out of the way early this time.

When the Posting is Easy

School's on. The freshmen are in honeymoon phase and the creative writers are quiet and confused. I'm up early to enjoy the summer feeling of days with nowhere to go, nothing in particular to do, but it's fake now; it's Saturday during the school year. It's early in the year, the caught-up time when there's no ungraded homework in my bag and lesson plans are (for this moment) making perfect sense and firmly in place.

It feels good to get back to the rhythm of Saturday peace walking, grocery shopping, and laundry, with a Netflix movie waiting for the end of the day.

Ahhhhhh, the simple life.

Here's a poem for this morning:





Just at dawn
Minnesota pines
Mimic the silhouette portraits
We made of each other
In third grade.

They inhale,
Pausing and posing
As their dark splendor
Presses cut-out shapes
Against a water color sky.

Skoo Pome

My students
I shouldn’t call them “my”
They don’t belong to me
I only borrow them for a short time
And life is long.

The ones who sit in the back,
The ones who ask me why why why
do we have to learn this STUFF?
The shy smile
Never raising a hand and
Ducking slightly, looking at the desktop
when I’m looking for an answer,
Or sitting in the very front
And hating it.

Chatterboxes
Jocks and techies
Fashionistas
Intellectuals
Geeks and Goths
Drama queens and emos
Sick dudes
Good kids
The Popular People.


The one who talks with her hands,
The one who sleeps in class,
The one who saw me in Target
the day I looked like I just crawled out
from under a rock and said,
“You look different when you’re not in school.”
The one who keeps secrets of the secret war,
The one who called me a bitch to my face,
Almost.

BST
MCA
SAT
ACT
NHS
NWEA
NCLB
AYP
EBD
ADHD
ODD
ESL
BFD
WTF
TMI

Cell phone
iPod
IM
Email
P.ersonal D.igital A.ssistant
Blue Tooth
WiFi
Laptop
Log in
Password
Copy code
Lunch PIN
Smartboard
Google
Moodle
Turnitin

FAQ

Here’s a book,
where’s my chalk?

Just Made It

Sometimes I write a poem when I'm supposed to be doing something else. This morning, I almost missed the peace walk because of it. I got there in time, but I looked pretty ratty. I barely got a chance to run a comb through my hair (my mother used to say that, "At least run a comb through your hair!") before I grabbed my sign and rushed out the door to pick up my friend Heidi. Good thing I wasn't headed to a beauty contest- ha!

Here's the poem:

Forgetting

I look out the window to see the petunias
bob their heads in agreement with the rain.
There’s a birdfeeder under that morning glory vine,
but you’d never know it. In the winter,
when snow piles halfway up to the top,
I remember the vine, and think,
“Nah, that doesn’t happen.”
It’s five-thirty, and I remember the summer
light staying until almost ten.
“That doesn’t happen either,” I tell myself,
“maybe nine, but certainly not ten.”

Not Bad Apples

Workshop has begun, and I can feel my school head settling in. I already miss my carefree summer head. Just get me into the classroom with kids, and I'll be fine.

I know it's "that time of the year" when I approach the back door and smell the crabapples that have dropped beneath the tree. Their rich scent ushers me into fall evey year.

Sunday Morning Silliness

These quizzes are everywhere on blogs. I took this and liked the result, so I'm posting it- ha! Although I don't like to admit it, the time out part is probably true. I think that means I can be a stickler for nice behavior. Hmmmmm. I've been told I'm "Teacher-y." That's probably the nicest way to say it.

A Wikipedia character study reports this about Kanga: "Piglet says she 'isn't clever'" and also that she can write her name, but "there's no other indication that she can read or write." This, for an English teacher. Yikes.

So Kanga's not the brightest bulb in the box. But she's "caring" and "kind-hearted." I'll take it.

Try the quiz yourself, and see who you are, in the 100 Acre Wood of Pooh.


Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!

And then there are the rewards...

I've spent the last several days working on a freshman orientation program we will begin this school year. The best part of it was being with the kids. Doing this kind of work can be frustrating in many ways, but the kids always save me from throwing up my hands and running out the door in a fit of drama. Imagine what it's like to be greeted with hugs and sheer delight in seeing your face, after a couple of months of vacation. That's the kids. Gotta love 'em. And I gotta remember this, oh, say about next March.

Since vacation is ending, I thought I'd post this piece I wrote a couple of years ago, after helping with a move in another of the district's schools. It explains how I became a teacher, why I still am one, and how I'll change my life if I win the lottery, even though I don't play.

I Love School

Recently, we high school teachers helped those at other schools in the district get ready for construction work that will take place this summer. I worked for several hours moving boxes and furniture and wrangling garbage. It's the kind of work that erases all bitterness about having to make student loan payments at age 50.

My journey to college is a long, complicated story of missed opportunities and poor decisions, the result of which is a splendid, now 30-year-old daughter, and a lot of experience checking groceries, framing art, and performing office tasks. I spent 10 years as a medical office manager, for which I was paid a ridiculously low wage and, get this, was offered no medical insurance. Hence, by the time I got to the university at 41, I really wanted to be there. I agonized over whether to begin my studies at the local community college, where tuition and expenses would be considerably cheaper, or go for the complete university education I longed for. Here's how my decision-making process functioned in this instance:

A slip of junk fluttered from my car insurance bill, offering back-to-school scholarships of $5,000, $2,500, and $1,000 to hopefuls who could explain, in a limited number of words, why they wanted college. I wrote my essay and decided that if I got any of the three offerings, it was a "sign" that I was to follow my dream and shoot for the university. I got the $2500. So I loaded up the truck and moved to university. Bigger school, junky car.

The University of Iowa offered me a full-tuition scholarship based a 23-year-old ACT score, no money in the bank, and my promise to maintain a 3.5 gpa. I was given decent PELL grants (remember decent PELL grants?) and a part-time job in the university payroll office, thanks to a dear friend whose uncle ran the place. She liked me and also wanted the office job I would be leaving (thank you, thank you, sweet Michelle).

Despite my good fortune, being a "nontraditional" student (wtf kind of label is that?) has its financial disadvantages, even compared to kids whose families can't afford to help much. No riding the coattails of parents' health insurance, or car insurance, nothing to do but stay and spend summer earnings on high u-town rent. No free laundry or going home for long periods of freeloading in general. As a result, I'm now a 50-year-old teacher with six years of experience and a student loan to outdo many of my 25-year-old colleagues. Not pretty.

But I'm not complaining, I can't begin to express what my time at the university did for me. Not here, not in a thousand words, probably not in a War and Peace-length tome. Besides, I learned that if I die before I finish repayment, the loan is cancelled, freeing my daughter from the burden of an encumbered estate. This discovery is making grad school more and more attractive.

If I win the lottery, I'm going to pay off my student loan and spend the rest of my life weaseling my way into the great universities across the country, starting with UC Berkeley in the West, moving on to Boulder and Ann Arbor, and finishing up in the east coast institutions of the Ivy League, probably crouched under a desk. Because I'm certain I wouldn't meet their admission standards, and I'm not legacy anything, even with a gazillion lottery bucks in my bank account. When I get too old to army-crawl in and find my seat on the floor, I'll play the age card, feeding on the pity and authority complexes of liberal professors who wouldn't dare to damage their reputations by ejecting an elderly, earnest, note-taking grandma for her refusal to conform to the restrictive policies of the man. For insurance, I'll use my lottery windfall to slip each of them a bribe; maybe a lifetime of weekly meals at the best restaurant in town. But I digress...

Last May, when I was doing the exhausting work of the decent people who were my supervisors for the three measly hours I spent doing their jobs, I wondered how my life might have turned out, had I not taken the chance to further my education. Instead, I'm a grateful teacher with student loan angst and a lottery dream. Cuz I love school.