Five Happy Thoughts

Boy, what a week.  It began with, literally, hundreds of essays to grade; having lost so many days from the beginning of the year, I had no choice but to push everything to the last day possible (and even asked for an extension so I could finish marking them over the weekend and still get a little sleep.)  A deep breath and then we launched right into the second quarter: new lesson plans, new texts, new questions.

I laid down the law about absences and trips out of the classroom, both of which students have more control over than they’d like to admit.  (One student asked me first thing if she could use the bathroom; I asked her to wait. Once I’d outlined the new policy limiting everyone to four trips per quarter, it turned out she didn’t have to go after all.)  Discussing these things is awfully tedious for everyone, but when they’re not addressed, loads of tiny interruptions add up to a vaguely chaotic feeling in the classroom, and ultimately it distracts everyone from our real goal: teaching and learning about English and life.

But there were so many bits of happiness sprinkled throughout all this drudgery.  Here are the highlights:

• ONE father called to thank me for tutoring his daughter, who has several rather severe learning disabilities. We’d been studying techniques for test-taking on the SAT, and when her newest scores came in, the guidance counselors were simply shocked she had done so well.  She was accepted to her school of choice within a day, where she’ll be able to play field hockey (her sport of choice) and get an education with the supports she needs.  “I have two more kids,” he said at the end of the conversation, “so you’ll be hearing from me soon.”
• TWO former students flew at me for hugs and gushing greetings.  “Mrs. LOWE!  How ARE you?  I haven’t seen you in so long!”  A third thanked me for all my help preparing her for the SAT; it was even more of a gift to see how much she’d matured in the intervening years, from an awkward and slightly-sullen teenager into a glowing, self-possessed young woman.
• THREE students who were struggling took the time to complete an extra-credit assignment (seeing a play and comparing it with the written work we’d studied in class.)  They enjoyed the experience and their grades rose along with their confidence.  
• FOUR pianists are progressing by leaps and bounds because they get to work together.  It’s amazing to see how much more they learn from each other than from me.
• FIVE minutes after the bell rang, I dashed into class (my first tardiness of the year; I was blindsided by a schedule change and sabotaged by an uncooperative copier.)  When I entered the classroom, breathless and on edge, every student was sitting in her desk with her book open.  “Oh, hello, Mrs. Lowe,” one called out.  “We’ve just been discussing what we think of Hester Prynne.”

So, you see, it wasn’t all bad.  It rarely is.

A Different Way of Thinking

So my first-period students are handing in their essays, and one doesn’t have hers.  Only she doesn’t say that; she speaks the words I dread most. “Did you get my dad’s e-mail?”

I didn’t, because her dad e-mailed me around midnight the day before.  I log on after class and it’s seven or eight paragraphs, articulately detailing his daughter’s new diagnosis of ADHD.  She didn’t finish the paper because she left part of it at school, and she tried to restart it at home but ran out of steam and worked herself into a frenzy. He finally told her to go to bed and he would talk to me about it.

I don’t even think about writing back.  I pick up the phone and call him at work.

The thing about parents is that most of the time, they just want to talk.  I hardly said a word during what turned out to be a 20-minute conversation.  When I did speak, I affirmed his feelings: I, too, want his daughter to be successful in spite of her disability.  I agreed that there was nothing wrong with his daughter, and mentioned that girls often receive a later diagnosis than boys because they tend to lack the hyperactivity that’s a telltale sign of the condition.  I pointed to the online syllabi that spelled out every single assignment for the quarter.  I explained that late work would receive a 10% penalty each day unless the student had requested an extension before the due date.

And then I told him that, just this once, I would accept the paper late with no penalty.  Because I could already see that his daughter was a special person, one who wanted to do the right thing and needed some extra help to be able to do so.  I offered to meet with her during lunch one day to discuss how I could help her best.  I didn’t rush him off the phone, even when the late bell informed me my class was waiting.  

This is what happens when teachers are educated: last year, I would have rolled my eyes at what I viewed as indulgence and coddling.  Now I know something now about ADHD and the stigma that comes with it, about the struggles families have to keep their kids afloat with a diagnosis they don’t fully understand.  

Yes, school’s been underway for less than two weeks.  But even so, this is an extraordinary amount of patience for me, the world’s biggest blowhard.  I suppose it comes from understanding the father’s point of view: he loves his daughter and wants her to succeed.  That means that sometimes he doesn’t know when to stop talking.  Other times, as Ron Clark pointed out yesterday, it may lead to uglier actions, more offensive words, barriers that are hard to break down.  But last week, it was harmless.  My class was glad for the two extra minutes of study time.  They had a quiz to take.

The Longest Day

It’s the longest day of the year, I remember suddenly, and boy, does it feel like it.

I am driving home from class; Stevie Nicks is wailing away on the stereo.  I am bawling, though I am not quite sure why.

For some aggravatingly unknown reason, I work much better under pressure than without it.  Thus the lazy shopping trip this morning, the e-mail exchange with my faraway sister, the heartwarming chat with the school principal when I dropped by with an early dinner for the staff… and then the frenzied consumption of 67 pages of textbook reading in hurried snatches between lessons for the remainder of the afternoon.  Sigh.

I’d read the chapter on ADHD (the shortest of the three, and it took me the longest – just reading about distractibility is enough to distract me!) and so launched into the one about emotional and behavioral disorders.  These are some of the most challenging students to teach, and they have some of the lowest rates of success in school, work and life.  They tend to run into trouble with law enforcement, teen pregnancy and substance abuse.  Absorb.  Absorb.  Highlight. Memorize.  Prepare for the quiz.

It wasn’t too hard, and afterward the instructor presented a [well-organized, thorough and informative] PowerPoint lecture about the chapter we’d just read. Then she started telling stories.  Like:

• A child tattles on his friend: “So-and-so just pimp-slapped me!” The teacher responds: “That’s not appropriate; we don’t say ‘pimp’ at school.” Child is puzzled. “Pimp’s not a bad man; pimp’s a rich man!”
• Teacher gives an assignment: write a letter to your parents. In it, try to persuade them to do something: anything you want. The child asks his family to please clean the house.
• Child is showing signs of emotional disturbance; in a conference, teacher finds out parents have been taking child to a strip bar.
• Staff remove a child who is throwing a tantrum from the classroom and place him in the “quiet room,” where he can calm down without hurting himself. He proceeds to run around the room yelling “gangbang!” and then demonstrate precisely what he means by that term.
• When physically restrained by her teacher, a child does what she has learned to do to escape such situations: urinate on both of them.

Somehow, I remained clinically detached from these harrowing stories. I asked questions, took notes, commented when appropriate.

I didn’t even feel sad, really, until my friend Rebecca exploded with: “Can’t we just start a boarding school somewhere and take these children there and give them what their parents can’t?  Feed them, clothe them, discipline them, show them affection, help them succeed?  They can have their kids back on the weekends.  I think it’s important for them to be with their parents.  But… someone has to do something!”

“Do it.  I’ll work for you,” I said.  I meant it more than anything I’d said in at least a month.

And then, after watching this extremely disturbing promo for a documentary on eating disorders (an internalized form of emotional disability,) another friend mused: “It seems so sad, so extreme, and yet we are so much closer to those girls than we realize.  Life is hard, and people have to deal with it somehow; we all have different coping mechanisms.  Mine might not be as unhealthy as starving myself to death, but just a little change in the way my brain was wired, and –” she couldn’t finish her sentence.

We finish our wrap-up activity, walk to the parking lot, smelling the rain and chattering about the next day.  I start the car, turn on the radio for some reason. Then Stevie.  Then the tears.  I think, over and over: it’s not fair.

None of it is fair.  Nor has it ever been.

Through Another's Eyes

My summer grad course picked up the week school let out, so I went from preparing and grading tests to studying for them.

(Aside: While studying one afternoon, between ice cream trucks, barking dogs and a chanteur husband, I discovered this wonderful site, which boasts three different “shades” of noise designed to block out other noise. Blissful concentration!)

This course, which studies special education law, implementation and categories, is one I thought I’d find hard to swallow.  For one thing, it’s simply not practical for my current job; at a private school, we have very little funding and few resources, and thus very few students with special needs even apply.  For another, I’ve seen a lot of abuse of the system over the years; virtually anyone who is willing to fork over a few grand to an independent testing center can get his daughter diagnosed with a learning disability, entitling her to all sorts of special accommodations she may or may not need.  So I really expected to grit my teeth and eyeroll my way through the textbook.

I’ve been surprised, though.  I think, as I’ve said before, that a lot has to do with the instructor; she is the most organized and well-prepared of any I’ve had in this program.  She’s also very articulate and knows her content area well enough to be able to admirably defend current trends in the field, even if I don’t always agree with the rationale behind them. (More on that later.)  And she paces the class well; though it’s long (nearly three hours) she breaks it up with PowerPoint lectures, group activities, discussion and case studies.

Another strong point is the dynamic of the class.  Unlike most of my previous classes, there isn’t that select few students who dominate discussions unchecked.  Almost everyone contributes and no one monopolizes the floor for too long.  Again, much of the credit for that goes to the professor.

Last week the professor passed out copies of a journal article from American Anthropologist journal, June 1956.  We were instructed to list some adjectives that describe the Nacirema, a tribe under observation by an anthropological expert:

Beneath the charm-box is a small font. Each day every member of the family, in succession, enters the shrine room, bows his head before the charm-box, mingles different sorts of holy water in the font, and proceeds with a brief rite of ablution. The holy waters are secured from the Water Temple of the community, where the priests conduct elaborate ceremonies to make the liquid ritually pure.

In the hierarchy of magical practitioners, and below the medicine men in prestige, are specialists whose designation is best translated as “holy-mouth-men.” The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of and fascination with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to have a supernatural influence on all social relationships. Were it not for the rituals of the mouth, they believe that their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed, their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers reject them. They also believe that a strong relationship exists between oral and moral characteristics. For example, there is a ritual ablution of the mouth for children which is supposed to improve their moral fiber.

The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite. Despite the fact that these people are so punctilious about care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting. It was reported to me that the ritual consists of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures.

Think about it for a minute, or read the rest if you want.

Gradually, it became clear that the objective of this exercise was to see ourselves with the horrified disgust that another “tribe” might express when encountering cold medicine, a toothbrush or a mother punishing her impertinent child by washing his mouth out with soap.

So, if I’ve learned anything so far in the class, it’s that I shouldn’t be so quick to make assumptions about a student with a disability.  He might lead an existence that’s foreign to me, but were he to return the analytical favor, I’m sure there’s plenty in my own set of rituals and values that doesn’t make much sense.  And I think, like the Nacirema, I’ve had it pretty easy so far.

Gmail: Saving Me From Myself

I just wrote an e-mail to a new client and mentioned I was attaching something.  When I hit "send," a dialog popped up:

"You wrote 'Attached is' in your message, but no files are attached.  Send anyway?"

Translation: "Hey, moron, try to get with the program!  Do you want this guy's business or not?!"

Gmail, I love you.  More than is probably healthy.