Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni: NOT gossiping school girls

"OMG"? Seriously, Time?

nerd alert

I'm super excited about reading Othello with my students and about how they're responding to it. Super excited.

a funny thing happened on the way to the suburbs

Yesterday when I was on the El on the way to my parents' from the city, a person who I think was homeless thought that I was homeless.

I came up from Champaign Friday night and stayed with Didi, so I had my ratty old duffel bag full of clothes for the weekend. I also had a shopping bag with a pair of shoes I'd picked up near the station and my purse/handbag, which is rather large. I was wearing jeans, a blouse, and a cardigan, and I hadn't taken a shower.

The man had a black garbage bag full of stuff and a bike. He was wearing jeans with a cowboy-style vest and no shirt.

I was sort of day-dreaming when I made eye contact with him, so I smiled. He looked at me with concern and asked me if I needed help finding a place to stay. Confused, I said, "No, thanks. I'm good." Then he asked me if I needed any fare money. "No, thanks. I'm good." Then he asked me if I needed any coffee. Again, I told him I was good. Before he got off he checked again that I had someplace to stay, and then he gave me a slip of paper with his name and phone number on it "in case [I] need anything."

This was altogether a very strange experience.

bad marketing

Here's the logo for the conference I'm attending in a couple weeks with three other new teachers from my school. I'm super psyched about it; don't get me wrong. But I think Lisa Frank designed the logo. Mine is not a butterflies and rainbows kinda classroom.

I love my profession.

I really do. I like feeling as though my work is important. Today, for example, one of my students, who's typically a little all over the place, brought in this final product for his research project on universal design and accessible playgrounds. I was so proud of him. His research was thorough and innovative, and he seemed pretty pleased with himself as he explained to his classmates how the playground that he'd designed would be a place where anybody could play, regardless of their physical capabilities. How fun to get to watch teens figure out that they can do something to positively change this fucked up world.


But I ended my day sitting at my desk, writing a discipline referral, and sobbing. About another student, one who I really believe is convinced he can't. Just in general, can't. I'm genuinely heartbroken that, at this point, he's probably going to fail the class, and I don't know what else I can do to convince him to do what it takes to pass. Johnny told me yesterday that I should come to terms with the fact that sometimes you have to stop trying. I know I have to. But I don't know how to stop caring.



(By the way, the anti-sentimentality in me is cringing at that last sentence.)

"I'm thinkin-a tryin out for a scholarSHIYAP."

A student of mine has four hour-long detentions he needs to serve with me for wasting four days of class last week. And today, he was on the time-wasting track again. So I said, "Wasting this hour will get you another detention. That will be five. Is that what you want?"

And then, in my head, I said, "You mess with the bull, young man, you'll get the horns!"


(And thinking of that movie, and how alarmingly similar I had sounded to Richard Vernon, was really the only thing that could've helped me out of this funk I'm in over my students' not-up-to-par work -- and clearly my not-up-to-par teaching -- on these research projects. Ungh.)

good friendth

Here's a reason why Kasey's great. When I was telling her today how disappointed I was with myself for getting impatient -- extremely impatient -- with a student today, she got as irate about the student's behavior during my telling as I had gotten in the moment. I told her what happened, and when I to the part in the story at which in the moment I wanted to put my fist through the computer screen, she got super angry for/with me. It's not that her reaction made me feel justified, just human.

Here's a reason why Jessica is great. When I told her that I had to write my first discipline referral of the semester, and that one of the things that I had to write on the form was that the student went into the adjoining computer lab, raised his arms high in the air and yelled at all of the students in that class, "You are all idiots!" she about died laughing. And while in the moment part of me knew it was hilarious, the part of me that's striving for a rigorous learning environment did not. Laughing -- especially laughing that hard -- at my own failures is super useful, seriously. Laughing at funny shit like a student yelling at a bunch of people he doesn't know, "You are all idiots!" is also very fun.

half a sick-day

I took the morning off to try to get over this bear of a cold. I woke up to this in my inbox from Sydney. Which was very nice.



This makes me think of Cassie. And I hope on our summer roadtrip we can make something like this happen. Yes?

Mom's a little peeved

that I would suggest that I like sensible women because of how many times I watched Mary Poppins and read Malory Towers and not because I grew up with a sensible, shit-getting-done woman for a Mom. This lady right here:


Okay, probably a combination of both. After all, it was Mom who introduced me to Enid Blyton.

always been a fan of boring

With Jess and Kasey and Alex out of town this weekend, I've taken some time, predictably, to get some work done. I met with a student to catch her up on missing classwork, did some grading and planning, read a book on language and grammar instruction, cleaned the apartment, did some laundry, contemplated working out but didn't, went to church for the first time in a while, and watched some really crappy movies.

Right now, I'm watching Mona Lisa Smile. I've never seen it, but I read the book. The book that's based on the movie. It's craptastic, but I can't get enough of Julia Stiles application to Yale law school despite the pressure put on her to "just get married." Earlier this weekend I watched In Her Shoes, and totally identified with the lawyer sister with the poor dating skills. When the fun sister opened her closet and tried on all her shoes, despite the lawyer sister's notes telling her not to do so, my blood boiled.

The thing is, I'm a sucker for a story with a sensible woman at its center. As a little kid, my favorite movies were Mary Poppins and Sleeping With the Enemy. Though seemingly unrelated, both movies feature a woman who assesses a problematic situation, and then does something about it. They get shit done, if you will. My favorite books were those in Enid Blyton's Malory Towers series. These books, set in a girls' boarding school in England, tell the stories of all kinds of silly girls, but its protagonist is Darrell, one with a good head on her shoulders who makes mistakes but learns from them.

I love Natalie Portman, except for the her silliness in Closer, before the ending when you find out she's actually incredibly complicated and thoughtful. I'm absolutely convinced that Philip Seymour Hoffman is guilty in Doubt, but I could have told you that from watching the previews. Whatever you say, Meryl Streep. Don't get me started on Emma Thompson in Love Actually and Laura Linney in that and everything else, but especially Kinsey. Miranda Hobbes? Yes, please. I feel emotionally torn at the end of Grease because even though I love the "We Go Together" thang, it annoys me that Sandy changes everything for Danny. No backbone, and no good, sensible friends to speak of.

The other day in a meeting with some English teachers, one of them told us about a short-story unit she does using Kohlberg's theory of moral development. They learn the stages and then apply them to the decisions made in the stories they read. Finally, they write about the degree to which literature shapes our morals. Sort of interesting. It made me think about to what extent I am drawn to these characters because of who I am and what I bring to a book I read or movie I watch. Or maybe my repetitive reading and watching of these stories, set up to make the reader or watcher identify with the protagonist, shaped the way I understand what a "good" woman is. I don't know.

whoopsie-doozie

Johnny called me this morning, and when I picked up said, "I need you to find something funny so that I don't end up killing Eoin." Luckily for my nephew, I think the fact that he tried to give his sister "a haircut just like mine" is hilarious.

According to the photo Johnny sent me, it's sort of a faux-mullet, but Nola thinks she looks "so pretty." Maybe I should preemptively nominate her for What Not to Wear, so that when she get to the buying-her-own-clothes stage, we don't have any problems. This young woman needs some Stacy and Clinton up in her life.


UPDATE: Now she and I have the same haircut!

wise beyond their years

No school today, so I've been running some errands this morning. As I was walking through my neighborhood, I heard a few sevenish-year-olds chatting as they rode bikes.

"Did you just say something mean about my teacher?"
"He said 'expectations.'"
"Yeah, and actually that's a good thing. Teachers should have expectations."
"It makes us want to obey them."

ha I don't know about that "obey" stuff.

two songs I can't stop listening to these days:

I take it back.

Because I liked meeting with Kasey and Rachael and Gia today about the not-activist conference we're planning. It was exciting and productive, and those three are oh-so thoughtful. I think I can narrow my displeasure down to meetings that are not productive. Or purposeful.

I used to love meetings,

but I don't anymore.

What?

seeking inspiration

The last two speakers I've seen on campus, Bill Ayres and Cornel West, both spoke in part about how defeated Dr. King was in the months before his assassination. His approval rate, they both cited, was as low as George W. Bush's was when he left office last year, largely due to his stance on the Vietnam War (anti-). The way West put it, (from my notes, so not completely verbatim,) "King knew that historically Black people were born amidst a stream of urine and feces, born amidst some serious funk. We were born in the funk of James Brown, George Clinton, and Lil Wayne. That there was slavery in that funk, and Jim Crow, and dilapidated housing, and despicable school systems, and love, and hope, and dignity. He knew that Black people would never be able to find their dignity in that funk if mainstream society insisted on deodorizing and denying the funk. He knew that his funk would be deodorized by mainstream society which doesn't want to deal with the nightside." The public misconception, West explained, about what exactly King's dream was, really got to him.

I try to remember this at times like yesterday, when in the hallway during a passing period, I took a post-it off a student's back that said, "I'm gay really gay." And one of my students who is homeless showed up for the fourth time this semester on Tuesday, promised he'd be back, and wasn't for the rest of the week. And this week when I was told that two of my students have dropped out. And when I had to deal with the return from suspension of a student who stole my wallet. And when a student in my AP prep class made fun of his brother in our co-taught class and who has a learning disablity for being "dumb." And when I had to call a parent every night to tell her that her son, who plagiarized a paper he recently turned in, was repeatedly lying to her about giving me a revised essay. It really sucks. And it's really hard not to feel ineffective.

I voiced this concern to one of the experienced teachers in the building, who compassionately told me that I was wrong, and that I was making a difference. When I talked about it with my boss, and he asked me what I was going to do about it. I really appreciated that I was able to have an honest conversation with him about it; it was definitely more productive than just acting like my inadequacies as an educator are non-existent.

Sydney, my good friend and colleague, asked me the other day if I thought that we, as teachers, would ever not have to constantly remind students that homophobic, racist, sexist, classist, etc.-ist, remarks are not allowed in our classrooms. Probably not. I went into teaching knowing that I'd probably never achieve this. I certainly didn't plan to save the world. And that's all good to know in theory. I guess I just wish I had the humility to know it in practice, and to not feel so depressingly defeated when all of my work towards that goal is not successful. It would certainly make it a lot easier to not want to cry through my lunch hour.

prepping for a good night

Getting this Facebook message from tonight's MC really got me pumped:

Ellen,

Are you attending tonight's Y Auction? If so, prepare yourself for a spectacle. Let's just say I've been thoroughly studying Hugh Jackman's opening monologue from the Academy Awards. Also, expect some slam poetry, a few Barack Obama jokes, several Jay Z references (for the older donors), and a Michael Good quote.

-Kevin

thoughtlessness

I did two really thoughtless potentially hurtful things this week, and it sucks. In neither case did I mean to be a dumbass jerk, but in both cases, I'm pretty sure I was. I'm too embarrassed to explain either situation here. Uggghh.